PNTV: The Path of Least Resistance by Robert Fritz (#92)

Hey, this is Brian. Welcome to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today we've got an episode on the path of least resistance by Robert Fritz. The subtitle is Learning to become the creative force in your own life. Awesome book on the creative process, the things that can get in our way of fully manifesting our creative genius and how we can go about getting in line with it and rocking it. So first he's got this phrase in the book which is really the most important part of the book, which is, structure determines behavior. Structure determines behavior. What that means is, imagine going into a building. When you go into a building, there's a certain structure to that building that's going to determine your behavior. You're going to go in this way, then you're going to walk down this kind of hallway. You can turn right into this office and go into that little cubicle. But the structure is determining your behavior. Right? So he says. The same thing happens in our lives. We want to look at what structures we have set up creatively and see whether or not they're supporting us. And there's a couple of different structures. There's one where we have structural conflict. There's one where we have structural tension. Excuse me. We want to create structural tension and avoid structural conflict. So structural conflict goes something like this. You've got two walls in a room. Imagine you're standing in the middle. The room over here is what you want. It's your desires. The room of the wall over here, rather, is your belief about the fact that you can't have what you want. And then imagine you're in the middle. Middle. Right there with my jacket. You're in the middle, and there's a rubber band around you. One rubber band that's around you is connected to the wall of what you want. One rubber band is connected around you to the wall of your fear that you can't have it. So as you walk toward what you want, this rubber band gets tighter and tighter and tighter. And it pulls you back toward your fear that you can't have what you want. And you can never quite get to that wall because your doubts pull you back. But then when your doubts pull you back, you get further away from what you want. And that rubber band gets tight. And then you get pulled back and you oscillate. You go back and forth between what you want and your fear that you can't have what you want. He calls that structural conflict. Not good. Where you don't believe you can have what you want. You're not making the fundamental Choices and commitment of action to actually get it, and you just oscillate. So he proposes a different structure, one that supports our creative process. This is called structural tension. So in structural tension, imagine this. Imagine you have your ideal, what you want, right? And imagine you kind of like hook that onto a cloud or something like that, then pull all the way back to where you are right now and you have appropriate analysis of your current reality. But the tension is such that you're committed to what you want to get, right? And you take the action you need to go toward that goal and you get out of this whole structural tension. And the way we do that forms the basis of the book. The first thing we need to do to get out of the oscillating pattern into this pattern where we've got a rubber band kind of catapulting us toward our ideal, is we need to make a fundamental decision. We need to make a fundamental decision to be what he calls Fritz, calls the predominant creative force of our lives. The predominant creative force. Essentially, what that means is we need to be proactive. We need to decide what we're going to do with our lives and do it. Quit oscillating and quit being a victim and reacting to our circumstances. It's basically Stephen Covey's habit. Number one, the choice to be proactive. Step in between, stimulus, response. That's the fundamental choice. Now, when we make that fundamental choice, then we ask, well, what do I want? What do I want to create? That, he says, is your primary choice. Fundamental choice is I am going to be the predominant creative force in my life. Primary choice is this is what I want. So for me, My current number one goal is to finish these 100 Philosopher's Notes TV episodes. I've done got back. I did 10 on Monday, 10 on Tuesday, six yesterday. This is Thursday. When I'm recording this, this is number 10. In fact, I'm committed. I've created structures such that I'm going to get it resolved. I'm not checking email. I'm not doing anything until I get this done. I'm mixing in some meditation. I can't talk this much all day long. So I've got some oscillating, good oscillating patterns of intense pushes and then some rest. But this is my primary choice, is to complete these hundred Philosopher's Nerds TV episodes. This is number. I don't know. I've got seven more to go. I think we're almost there. So that's my primary choice then. My secondary choices are in line with my primary choice. Now, this is my commitment to get these done. So when I start my day, everything is about getting ready to get these done. I get up, I meditate, I train hard, I journal, I eat well, and then I create. I'm ready. You know, my saw is sharp, I'm ready to create, and then I do that. And then when I feel an urge to check email or whatever, I don't. Because this is my primary choice. I've made a fundamental commitment. And my secondary choices of what I do, moment to moment to moment are really easy. They're in integrity with this choice I've made. So there's this catapulting tension, and I'm not doubting whether or not I'm going to achieve it, just going to do it. And I don't spend a lot of time thinking about whether you're going to absolutely love it or whether I'm going to get a million viewers or anything like that. That's not my primary concern. I. I am committed to doing great work. I'm committed to doing what I can to serve you, to deepen my understanding of this wisdom. And I'll let the other stuff take care of itself. So then I don't have a lot of doubt. My doubt would creep in of, are enough people going to watch this fast enough? I really don't even think about that. I trust the whole process. I'm learning a lot. I hope you're learning a lot. If 10 people watch and 100 people watch it, 1,000 people watch it, fine. If more watch it, awesome. But I'm focused on what I can control, which is creating what I hope is awesome content that inspires you to go out and rock it. So anyway, we have fundamental primary, secondary choices. Really cool stuff. I go off on it in the note. You can check out more. But moving on, he's got a lot of other great ideas. I want to hit at least a couple more. He talks about the importance of knowing what you want. And that's the fundamental question here in the creative process, what do I want? And when you find yourself stressed out, you're probably thinking a little bit too much about how and you're confused as to how you're going to get what you want in those moments. He suggests, this has been huge for me to step back and get really clear on what do I want, Remind myself what do I want? And let the kind of tension of the fear of not figuring out how to get there go away for a second and just remind myself what I want it does amazing things for me. So next time you're stressed out, get clear again on what your goals are, what you really want to see come to fruition. Here's one way to think about it, too. I used to do this exercise in the morning called Tibetans, where I would do a series of five movements. One of them was I would spin around. Apparently, that's good for you. So I'd spin around 21 times. I think it was. I don't do this currently, but I'd spin around and, you know, when I first started doing it, spinning around a few times would make me kind of dizzy. But say you spin around 10 times when you're spun around, and if you look around, you're actually going to get nauseous. But what I learned to do was to focus on my fingertips. And if I did that after spinning around, I'd regain my balance immediately. Right. And I think this is a great metaphor for this kind of thing. When life spins us around and we're getting dizzy with stress, it's awesome to be able to find a focal point that we can really focus on, get clear on what we want. For me, it's my highest goal. I to want. I want to connect to the divine and consistently express it. That's my highest goal. So when I find myself stressed out, I can step back more and more often and see, okay, this is challenging. But how can I get in clarity with my highest goal? And how can I use this challenge as an opportunity to grow really cool stuff creatively? What we want to do when we find ourselves stressed out is to step back, remind ourselves what we want to create a really powerful process. So what do you really want? The other thing. There's a bunch of other stuff in the note that I think you dig, but the last thing we're going to look at is the fact that your soul will not invest itself in a compromise. He's really clear on that. You got to figure out what you want independent of whether or not you think it's possible to create it. Get clear on what you want before you start wondering whether or not it's possible. Because your soul will not invest itself in a compromise. And as we know, once you commit, amazing things happen. You're going to have challenges. Keep on going through those. Do these practices, and let's see what you can create. Pretty exciting stuff. So that's the path of least resistance. Hope you dug it. Look forward to sharing more with you soon. As always, have an awesome day. See you.