Jamie Smart And The Truth About Feelings: How To Reduce Worry, Overwhelm Or Stress

I'm dean jackson, he's joe polish, and.

This is the I love marketing podcast. Hello, this is Joe Polish, and I want to welcome you to part two of the episode we did with Jamie Smart. Now, if you've not heard part one, I recommend that you listen to the first part of this episode and then come back to this one. Enjoy. You know, you, Jamie, have a great analogy of the frozen lake and then it's the river still flowing underneath it. In the book, calming myself down is incredibly beneficial. And when I say calming myself down, that means, you know, that's the assumption that I'm really not. I just have a busy mind and, you know, that's how I perceive the world. And by doing tm, you know, what it has done for me has just made me feel better. I mean, more. I feel more capable, I feel more clear. It does help reduce stress. Now, there are times, though, where I have sat down to meditate and I.

Want to jump out of my skin.

By going through the process, though, and just letting those thoughts come into my mind and having, you know, those thoughts are already there. It's just they're already there. And instead of reacting to them like I typically would, I have learned to say, well, you know, feelings are not facts. You know, these thoughts are not going to kill you unless you let the thoughts cause you to kill yourself. I mean, because, you know, there is a person that I'd met, a sweet, you know, woman that I, you know, I didn't know her super well, but I had met her before that committed suicide, you know, last month. That on the outside surface had everything going for her, people thought, but she was incredibly depressed. And it's, you know, her thoughts got to the point where she committed suicide. And addiction and depression and all of these things are complicated matters. And one of the things that even started this conversation with all of us is that, you know, you knew Jamie, and Jamie had actually seen me, you know, on video speak at Peter Diamandis event where I got talked about my massive transformative purpose, which what I said was, you know, all the things that I want to focus on. People know me as this marketing guy and I have this high profile group and everything. But the thing that I really would want to make an impact in the world is I said the curing of addiction of all forms, behavior and chemical reliance is a way to soothe mental and physical pain and suffering. And as I said, it also said, currently, I don't believe there is a cure for addiction. And I don't know if addiction could be cured. But if I actually took that approach, what would I discover? What would I find?

What would I learn?

You know, that was. And then Jamie, he wrote back that to you. I got shivers up and down my spine as this aligns really close with his mtp, which Jamie's is the eradication of chronic psychological suffering. And so what we have in common is we want to help human beings not to experience suffering imagined or real, as much as humanly possible. So part of this whole conversation, I wanted to talk about business and building a business and all of that, but I think that has everything to do with, you know, your mental state. I mean, when I'm distraught and when I'm in an addictive thinking, you know, my life isn't working really well and in a state of clarity. There's happiness, there's joy, there's. There's those things.

So this is.

This is that sort of pursuit. I. I had an amazing experience with Homer McDonald, who I wrote a book called Stop youp Divorce With. And we recorded an audio program. Homer, in the first 10 minutes of this audio program, just completely set up exactly what you were saying, Jamie, about how we're. Our thoughts, create experiences. And so we started out with role playing. What would typically be happening when somebody calls Homer. They're calling because they're going through a divorce that they don't want, and that's upsetting to them. So we decided to. He said, well, let's role play a little bit. What's the situation? And I said, well, you know, I imagine that this would be something where, you know, my wife tells me that she doesn't love me anymore, she wants a divorce, and I don't want the divorce to happen. And he said, well, how is that making you feel? And I said, well, I'm upset about that. I don't want the divorce. It's preoccupying. And he says, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And then he said, now I want you to imagine that it's six weeks from now. And I'm guaranteeing you that in our work together that six weeks from now, your wife is going to be back in your arms, and divorce is going to be the furthest thing from her mind. And I'm guaranteeing you that we're going to be able to get there. And he says, can you imagine that? And he said, now, how do you feel? And I said, why? I feel great. He's, are you sure you feel great? And, like, setting the hook? I said, yeah, I feel great. He goes, well, that's interesting, because the situation hasn't changed. It's exactly the same situation right now, but it's how you're thinking about it. And he told the story of the. He says, you know, emotionally or in this regard, you're no different than the four year old in the country who wakes up in the morning and he hears the rooster crow and he sees the sun rise. And the next morning he hears the rooster crow and sees the sun rise. And after two or three days of this, he determines that the rooster crowing is making the sun rise. And. But you know, as we know that that's not true because we've had an insight about. That is probably what you would say, Jamie. We've had an insight that the sun rises. It's not the rooster making the sun rise. It's it happens every morning. And so it's kind of like those are really supportive kind of illustrations of what you were saying about how we create the experience. It's our interpretation of actually what's happening.

Well, there's a couple of things in what you and Joe have both said that I'd love to speak to Dean. See, here's the interesting thing. We all have times when we have uncomfortable feelings of one sort or another that's just part of the human experience. Just like if you live in the uk, getting rain sometimes is part of the experience experience. We all have times when we have uncomfortable feelings. And that's just like the speedometer reading 50 is a signal that your wheels are traveling at 50. Uncomfortable feelings are a signal that you're. The principle of thoughts taking an uncomfortable form in that moment. That's what it's signaling. That's not an issue. The issue is as soon as we believe that our feelings are coming from somewhere other than thought, that's where it turns into a problem. Because all of a sudden that means we're at the mercy of a world that can make us feel different ways, that has power over how we feel. Well, immediately that makes us believe we're a victim, that we're a victim of our circumstances, that we're a victim of how other people treat us, that we're a victim of our past or our future or our finances or our business or the marketplace or all these things. And as soon as we feel like that, as soon as have an uncomfortable feeling that we believe is coming from outside us, then it's the most innocent thing in the world that we look outside of ourselves for a solution. And that's where addiction comes from. The moment we believe that our feelings are letting us know about something other than our moment to moment thinking. We're going to look outside, we're going to. As soon as we believe our feelings are coming from the outside, we're going to look to the outside for a solution. And that's why so many people are addicted and to everything from alcohol and crack to shopping and chocolate and Internet and whatever. Because there's literally nothing that people can't turn into something to get addicted to. And it's just a way of escaping from a misunderstanding of where their feelings are coming from. So what I want to say to you, Joe, is that is the cause of addiction. The cause of addiction is a misunderstanding about where our feelings are coming from. And I gotta say, the. I am so glad. Like, I don't know if it took courage for you to stand up and speak your purpose at that workshop with Peter Diamandis, but I'm so glad you did because it literally, I was blown away and I just knew I had to reach out to you as soon as I heard you speak. So I think one of the big things that people struggle with when it comes to marketing, I've heard you say, Joe, that marketing is about storytelling. And people are often. They're scared to stand up and tell their story and to be authentic and to say what they're about and what they offer and what they stand for. And I think being willing to be visible despite the feelings of insecurity that sometimes come with that, seeing those feelings for what they are, they're just letting you know that you've got some insecure thinking. It's an incredibly powerful thing.

Yeah, no, thank you. I really appreciate that. What was interesting, when you kind of get out there and speak about things that many people are experiencing, but they're stigmatized and there's judgment that comes with.

It, people don't talk about it.

And I also believe that that which is most private or appears like it's most private is most public. When you think you're the only one going through something, there's probably, you know, many, many people, probably millions that are feeling the same things that you're feeling. Especially with all of my work on myself and with addiction and just really trying to bring knowledge and awareness to people in the world. And I've started to do it more.

And more and more.

And it really has dawned on me that this is one of my life purposes is to really put this sort of stuff out there. When I actually spoke about, you know, 40 people during two days, out of a group about 250 people I estimate around 40 came up to me and said thank you for saying that. How can I help you with this? Here's what I've experienced, here's what I'm going through and people that are running gigantic companies. You know that room, I mean there were some people, there were several people running billion dollar organizations that were in that room. I mean we're talking very successful people from how the world would deem successful from accomplishment, fame and money. However, having just family members or themselves littered with all of these psychological disorders, for me it's a really important thing because I think this is what stops us. One of my questions I was going to ask you is what's the best business or success secret you've ever discovered, been told or found out that could help everyone listening to I love marketing, get 10 times more productivity and results in their business. And, and that question many people would think of, well, what is the strategy? What's the opt in methodology? What's the marketing technique? Most likely your response to it would be, well, shit, what are your thoughts? I just want to put that out there that a lot of times what we do, when we do episodes like this with I love marketing, I'm of the belief of sell people what they want, which is typically money and strategies and all that sort of stuff, but give them what it is they need. And what it is they need is to learn how to be okay in their own skin. Learn how to make this incredible brain work for you, not against you. And that's why the whole subject of clarity is critically important.

I love that. Well, and I'd love to answer that question actually, because I'll give something that people can take away as a strategy as well. But you're right, the first thing I'd say, I think say is see if you can. I've got a model, a way of thinking about it, which is that see, we're designed, we've evolved over millions and millions of years. We've evolved for reality, we're built for reality, we do great in reality. Everything from, you know, the day to day, so many people I talk to, the things that they're most scared of happening, it suddenly happens and they do great, they're fine in it because we do great in reality. What we don't do so well in is a made up la la land of what I call the outside in misunderstanding. So when someone's worrying about some future meeting and they think their feelings are coming from that future event or whatever it is, that's not real, that's not possible. That's not how it works. And so the way I see it is we're. We actually have this incredible capacity for high performance, for clarity, for resilience, for peace of mind, for creativity, for coming up with the goods when we need to. We're actually amazing, amazing creatures with literally like, you reckon something like, I don't.

Know.

The Apple operating, the latest Apple operating system, which I guess is pretty good. It's been through thousands and thousands of iterations. Well, we've been through hundreds of millions of iterations. We're the leading edge of evolution. We're the spearhead of evolution. We have so much development time behind us, it's unbelievable. But our misunderstanding of how the mind works means that we've got this amazing technology that we're surrounded by in this day and age, but we're using a medieval misunderstanding of where our experience is coming from to try and navigate. So the way I put it is clarity equals capacity minus contamination. When I tell people that, they say, oh, how do I get rid of the contamination? I say, great question. But it's the wrong question. The right question is, what's causing the contamination in the first place? Like if you've got a sewage plant beside a river and the river's all polluted with sewage being pumped out of the sewage plant, you can spend millions of dollars and millions of hours trying to clean up the river, or you can just shut down the sewage plant. And the moment you shut down the sewage plant, the river's going to run clear because the river has the capacity to heal itself with fresh water flowing through and over a period of time. As long as the sewage plant gets shut down or reduces its output, the ecosystem is going to come back to life. Well, it's the same with our mines and the sewage plant is a simple misunderstand. And it's the stake and belief that we're feeling something other than thought in the moment. That misunderstanding, that mistaken belief is the sewage plant. So I'd say, look at that, because that's what's screwing everything up. That's what's making life more difficult than it needs to be. That's what's creating the overwhelm. That's what's creating the insecurity. You look at that, you start getting insights about that. That's going to 10 times. Not only your business, that's going to 10 times your life. Let me give you.

No, that's very powerful. I just wanted to point that out.

Awesome.

And then I do have a kind of a takeaway strategy, which was incredibly profound for me. Just so, so profound. And this has made a huge difference. And this is. I didn't used to like selling, and now I love selling. So this thing that you can try out for yourself turned me from someone who did everything he could to avoid selling to someone who, look, opportunities to sell to people. So I used to, as I said, I used to be an NLP guy. And so I was really good at picking up on people's language patterns and their eye movements and all that sort of stuff. I was very attentive to that. But when I first started learning about the principles behind clarity, one of my coaches, he said to me one day, he said, you know, your listening could leave a lot to be desired. You're not that good at listening. And I was like, oh, really? Tell me more about that. Because. Because as far as I was concerned, I could repeat back to someone. And I said this to him. I said I could repeat back to someone what they said, not just what they said, but I could repeat back the last 30 seconds with their hand gestures and their intonation patterns and everything. It was a perfect recording. He said, well, yeah, that sounds about right. He said, that's not listening, that's recording. He said, jamie, he said, it sounds as though. It seems as though when you're listening, you've got a lot on your mind, you're thinking hard about listening. And that was true. That was how I listened. And he said, you might want to listen kind of more like you listen to a piece of music that you enjoy or you listen to, I don't know, some show on the radio that's just funny or something like that, Listen without having to think about it. And so I tried listening to my coach like that. I tried listening without. Without having to even really pay much attention to trying to figure out what he was saying. And this speaks to what you were saying about comprehension. Joe. See, all of us were born listeners. We learned to speak and to understand language without even trying. It just happened because we have this natural capacity to listen. When you listen to someone with little on your mind, just listening to them and listening for where they're coming from, it's amazing because when you've got less on your mind, you feel closer to the other person. So I'll have things happen. Like, I'll go in. I went in to speak to a guy who's a director in a very, very large blue chip company, and I go in for an initial meeting. I've been brought in by someone in this organization. I go in for an initial meeting with him, and we're kind of 30, 40 minutes into the. And I'm just asking him questions and then listening. And my questions aren't even that great. They're like, so what do you want? What would be great? He'll say something. So they're very, very standard, kind of coachy questions I'm asking. What do you think of that? Well, we're about 40 minutes into the meeting, and he goes, well, I don't know what we're going to do together yet, but we're definitely going to do something I really want to work with. Well, the reason he didn't know what we were going to do together, I hadn't told him anything about what I do. I'd just been really listening to him and doing my best to get on the same page as him and understand how he ticked and understand what was important to him and kind of putting my needs and agendas and that sort of stuff to one side, just kind of clearing my mind of that. Just kind of saying, okay, well, I'll think about that later. I'm just going to put my attention on this guy and just listening to him in this kind of unusual way. Just listening. Like I was listening to music and listening to get a connection with him. Well, it worked great. And so when I first saw this, I thought, wow, I could listen to my clients like this. Oh, I could listen to my daughters like this. I could listen to my girlfriend like this. I could listen to strangers like this. Or I could listen to life like this. Well, all of a sudden I'm listening to people without thinking about what they're saying, and my business starts getting better. And people say, clients, like, sometimes, you know, because the stuff I teach is. Admittedly, it's kind of unusual to people. So sometimes someone would come. Like, I remember this guy, he joined one of my mastermind groups, came along to the first meeting of it, and he didn't enjoy it because it really challenged him. So. So we set up a call to talk about it, and he goes, well, what did you think of that then? How did you think that went? I thought, yeah, I really enjoyed it. But I'm more interested in hearing about how it went for you. So I'm just listening to him now. In the past, I would have been on the defensive with someone who is bothered. I would have been trying to change their mind and that sort of thing. But I'm just, like, quieted down, listening to him, asking good questions. Well, all of a sudden he's really excited about the program and can't wait for the next meeting. And I hardly even said anything or did anything. I just listened without an agenda. And it's amazing what can happen. Now, I'm not saying you shouldn't have a process in place. So for instance, if I'm talking to someone who's a potential coaching client and we're having an initial conversation, I'll say, okay, now this is how it's going to work. We'll have a convers conversation for the next 45 minutes or an hour. And in that conversation, we'll get to know each other a bit better and I'll do my best to serve the hell out of you in whatever way I can. And at the end of the conversation, we'll have an idea of whether we're a good fit for each other. And I may offer to come back to you with a proposal if that's the case. Does that seem fair enough? And everyone always says yes. And so I don't have to think about it for the next hour. I just have a clear mind and try and help them to the best of my ability. And if I like them and get along with them and think I can make a difference to them, then I say, let me go away and put together a proposal for you. Well, that's been amazing for business, just learning to listen. And what I found, guys, is certainly in the business world, most people are horrible listeners. They're just terrible at it.

I find that true, especially when you start first learning NLP and learning things and distinctions in communication. You start kind of, you're actively listening. And like you said, you're watching their eyes. Are they going up to the right or down to the left or are they, when they're responding, are they using kinesthetic language or hear, you know, auditory language or visual language? You know, what you're learning and listening for all those, all the parts of the communication and sounds like from what you're saying, something you're missing. The music of the communication.

Exactly.

Let me ask you about even just because you mentioned nlp. And of course, you mentioned earlier.

In.

Our first episode of this, because this is now part two, where you literally sold your company, you transitioned from nlp. And certainly I've met some brilliant people in the NLP community. And I have met some of the weirdest, strangest, manipulative, freaky. Why is that? Like, what is it with that? And I'm saying that not because I want to be disparaging to NLP or any sort of thing. It's just like there are certain sort of things that attract really bizarre people from my perception.

Well, I'll give you my take on it. And there's a couple of things. I mean, first of all, there's a selection bias. Like really, really healthy, well adjusted people don't typically go looking for stuff to fix their psychological and emotional problems. So there's a selection bias there. But also like this is a little bit tongue in cheek what I'm gonna say. But one way of looking at NLP is it's an elaborate set of processes designed to help people not feel their feelings. Interesting. Now that's a little tongue in cheek and that's broad. Like here's the thing just to, just to clean that up a little bit. I am so grateful for the time I spent exploring nlp. And I learned amazing things and I don't regret a moment of was terrific. And I met wonderful, wonderful teachers and amazing people as well. And one of the big themes that runs NLP is here's how to change the way you feel. And I totally understand that and understand why people would want to change the way they feel, because lots of people feel bloody awful a lot of the time. But what I'm suggesting is that the reason that's such a focus for people, whether it's changing the way they feel with NLP or changing the way they feel with heroin, it's all arising from a misunderstanding of where our feelings are coming from in the first place. And so the challenge that NLP has is if you don't know about the inside out nature of life, if you don't know about the principles behind clarity, NLP is quite a lot better than most of the other stuff that's out there. But it's still built on the idea that for most people who learn nlp, they're still operating within the paradigm or the misunderstanding that their feelings are coming, their good feelings are going to come from achieving what they want to achieve. And their bad feelings are coming from circumstances or the past or that sort of thing. And that just throws the instrumentation off. That messes part of me that messes with our calibration, that misunderstanding. And I think so in the field of nlp, you get a bunch of people attracted to that field who are amazing people who want to do incredible things and see that it's an incredibly powerful communication skill set. And the modeling skill set can be incredibly powerful as well. And you also get a bunch of people who have really, really severe misunderstandings that show up as, you know, personal struggles and personality defects and all that sort of stuff. And they learn that really powerful communication that influence skill set as well. So, yeah, there's all of human life. Is there? Yeah. Well, that's great.

So thanks for, thanks for responding to that. Let me ask you some, some questions I actually had from the very beginning. Like, you talked about some of these, but I'll touch on them again. You said that the clarity model is ruthlessly subtractive. If you could go into depth into that. What you mean by that?

Yeah, well, it sort of loops back to what I was saying earlier about we're suckers for positive advice. We want. You know, every time if I'm working with a group and I ask people, what do you want to get from our work together? People will say things like more confidence or more money or better skills at this, or they'll have their list. And then the next question is, how do I get that? How do I get more confidence? Or how do I get less overwhelm? Or how do I get. What I find is, that's a natural question, but it's the wrong question. The right question is, what's getting in the way of confidence? What's getting in the way of you having a peaceful mind as you go through your email? What's getting in the way of you having the insights and the intuitions that are going to guide you? What's getting in the way of, like we talked about purpose earlier, people say, oh, I'm trying to find my purpose. I'm trying to find my purpose. I'm trying to find my purpose. The right question is, what's getting in the way of you knowing what the next step is for you and what the right direction is for you? And it turns out again and again and again that what's getting in the way is contaminated thinking, which is just thinking that's based on a misunderstanding. And to give you a metaphor for this, back in the early 1800s, when they didn't know about Germany, they believed that illness and disease was caused by bad smells. They called it miasmas. And these smells floated around the place. And if they got you, they could kill you. And so people carried around posies, and these were little bunches of flowers to keep the bad smells away. And you can imagine if someone accidentally went out without their posy, they might get very, very anxious and worried because of all the bad smells around. But all of that anxiety would be based on a misunderstanding. Well, it's the same with stress. It's the same with overwhelm. It's the same with people thinking they're not confident or that they lack confidence. The thing that's getting in the way is contaminated thinking, which is like sewage in the river. That's being generated by, by that one mistaken belief about where our experience comes from. We're always living in the feeling of thought in the moment. It's a moment to moment thing. Our feelings are telling us about the totality of our perceptual reality right now. Here's the cool thing. As soon as you start to clear up that misunderstanding, it takes things off people's minds. So literally over time, my clients report that they've got less on their mind, that they used to have a really, really busy mind and now they've got a much quieter mind. Or another thing people will report is I've got so much more time in the day. It seems like I've got an extra one to two hours every day. And we never worked on how to help them have more time. But because the model is subtractive, it takes away the things that have been getting in the way of you being your optimal self. So most kind of what we might call self improvement models work on the basis of Joe plus excellent model equals Super Joe. Well, the clarity model says, look, you're already Super Joe and you just have stuff that gets in the way. So let's take that stuff out of the way so that the Super Joe that you already are, are can show up more of the time. That's what I mean by ruthlessly subtractive. I'm not adding anything in, just taking away the stuff that gets in the way.

Can I ask you about this? Because this is really fascinating for me and so what I'm bringing up is all of the things that are either my pre existing beliefs that are not accurate or the obstacles that I see as to getting the clarity. If someone has mental retardation, if someone is depressed, if someone has a brain injury, being an addict, I very much am of the belief that addiction is not a choice. There's impulsive and compulsive behaviors that are beyond your ability to, to think your way out of or to use willpower. So all of those things exist in my brain and my thinking. Who is an individual or a brain that can't get the clarity. In your opinion, does such a thing exist?

Well, I guess it probably does in terms of I can imagine that it's possible for people to have serious brain injuries, that people can be in comas and things like that. And I guess that's probably not Clarity. But I have yet to meet anyone. I've yet to meet anyone and work with someone who can't get this, who doesn't see this, because it's not a state management thing. For instance, you mentioned that you meditate and that sometimes when you meditate it sounded like you get very, very peaceful. Well, that's because that capacity exists for you. I know that you may do the process of meditating. Meditation is an interesting one actually. So there's a really powerful distinction, which is the distinction between the practice of meditating and the state of meditation. Well, the purpose of the practice of meditating is to allow you to fall into a state of meditation. And that relies on the fact that a state of meditation is natural for human beings. It's natural for you, it's natural for me. It's natural for Dean. Now the practice of meditation, the practice of meditating is one way among many of falling out of your thinking and into the state of meditation. But the state of meditation is something that is already pre existing for human beings. It's something that's already there. Now I can imagine that there are people who have had brain injuries or whatever, whose brains can't do that state. I can imagine that. But I haven't ever met any of them and I haven't ever worked with any of them. I've worked with lots of addicts and I've never met any addicts who can't go into a state of meditation, into a spontaneous state of meditation. Because it's what's there behind the scenes of our moment to moment experience. It's sort of like on the beach. Go ahead.

Yeah, I'm just gonna say no. I remember you saying that in the book that the natural state of water is clear and when you muddy the water, when you stir up the water in a pond, it will return to that state of clarity. If you just leave it alone, just let it sit and it will return to clarity because that's the natural state. And I think when the point was that we're. Clarity is our natural state and we muddy the water by dredging up all these thoughts and create the feelings and create the interpretations of all the things.

That are going on.

It's really quite empowering when you think of it like that. Right after we were talking in London, that movie Divergence came out. I think it was divergent. And one of the things that they would do is they would induce this dream state where they had to go into these situations like, and get out of them kind of thing. They create These mental constructs. And whoever the lead character, she discovered that when she has it and she has this awareness and would say to herself, this isn't real. That would stop everything. And it would give her the moment of clarity to see exactly what to do in that. In that situation she was creating in record time, getting out of these, you know, unusually stressful situations. And that was kind of like likening to me when you said, we can kind of push the button on the screen and realize that none of this is real. We're creating it essentially, you know, that was something powerful for me.

It's such a powerful realization. And what I want to mention is it's easy to think that I'm saying, here's what you do in terms of just tell yourself that you're just to ask yourself, where do I think my feelings are coming from? But it's actually, here's the interesting thing, and this is kind of of back to where we started, from the beginning of the first episode in this is that once you understand the nature of films, you don't have to tell yourself it's just a movie. And once you understand the nature of gravity, you don't have to remember to lift up your feet when you walk upstairs and that sort of thing. The difference between the Clarity model and all the other models I've come across is the Clarity model is based on implications. So most models are based on application. What do I do? What are the things I need to do? What are the five steps? What are the things I need to do? The Clarity model is based on implication. So your understanding of germs, you understand the implications of germs, and so you know what to do in any context where there's germs, you have intuitions about it. You don't really even need to think about it. Same with gravity. You so deeply understand the implications of gravity that you respond contextually to gravity. Different terrains and that sort of thing. You don't even have to think about it. It's automatic. Well, it's the same with this understanding. What I find again and again and again is when I show people that your mind only works one way. It always and only works inside out. Never works outside in. Looks like it works outside in, but it never does. It's always inside out. And that you've evolved for reality and that you do great in reality. And all you need to do is, in any moment, as we wake up from our misunderstandings about where our experience is coming from, we find that we have what we need. Well, as you see the implications of this more and more deeply, you'll find it running automatically in your life. So I do, I do these intensive coaching sessions. It sounds kind of extreme. I guess the name intensive makes it sound extreme. But I work with people one on one for three days. And the purpose of that coaching is to set a new foundation for their life and their business and their work. And the interesting thing is, so we wrap up on the third day and then we have have coaching calls every three or four weeks afterwards. And three or four weeks afterwards they report that they are doing better than they were at the end of the three days. And then three months later they're doing way better. And then a year later it's like even better because there's nothing to remember or practice or anything like that. As you see the implications, you go on a learning curve, an automatic learning curve because you're learning from data just like you learned about gravity, just like you learned about germs. So it's a way of learning that we've been doing ever since we were little kids. But we don't really have a mental category for it. We have lots of mental categories for application based learning. We don't really have a mental category for implication based learning. The psychologists know about it, they call it statistical learning, but they haven't really taken it much too far outside the domain of language learning and that sort of thing. I call it implication based learning because it sounds cooler, but we don't really have a category for that. And so it's about recognizing that that's a way of learning that you already have. And all the stuff you do automatically is a result of implication based learning. And so the idea behind clarity is to make the self clearing capacity of your mind something that you're benefiting from automatically. Because I'm working on the assumption that, that none of us need more to think about and more stuff on our mental. So it's exactly automatic thing.

That's exactly what struck me when I was reading the book and I was trying to articulate in the video that I shot in when arriving back in Toronto that my experience of the book was that unlike a lot of books that it wasn't a mental construct that you had to learn these six rules or you learn these three sticks steps for something. It was something that I read the book and after reading the book I had the insight and you have that clarity. So it was really, it's interesting, it is unlike any other book that I've read like that. And it is hard to articulate in a lot of ways to somebody who hasn't had the insight yet.

Well, it's worth making a point. Sorry. Go. Go ahead, Dean.

No.

I just wanted to clear something up. So some people, when they, when they're introduced to this, they read the book or they come on a course or something like that, they have those big kapow insights like you had. It's like, oh, wow, that changes everything. Other people, they'll. They'll. It'll be more of a kind of drip feed. So it's little. It's almost like. So. So what I can say is that the way that it's going to work for you is going to be perfect for you. Because I've seen it again and again and again. That part of this is about realizing that you really, really do have this innate capacity for clarity. And this isn't something you need to tell yourself or fake it till you make it or anything like that. You have an innate capacity for clarity and well being and peace of mind. Just like you have an innate capacity digesting food or recognizing a friend in the street. You don't have to practice digesting food or practice recognizing people or anything like that. It's an innate capacity you have. You don't have to work at it. The only thing that gets in the way is an innocent illusion about where our experience comes from. But it's okay, because the thing is, is as human beings, we love the truth. We love something that brings us closer to reality. And so the thing that has me so passionate and so hopeful about this understanding as a solution to so many of the world's problems is we've got reality on our side. You know, the whole germs thing. I read this brilliant book called. I can't remember what it's called, but it was about the germ revolution and it's called 20 years that changed the History of Medicine. And the thing those guys had going for them was they had reality on their side. So even though most of the world disagreed with them and thought it was nonsense and had different beliefs and doctrines about what caused disease and illness, the people who were exploring germs and using disinfectants and things like that, they had reality on their side. And that created a leverage and momentum and also created a hopefulness and optimism for their patients. Like when I sit down with a client, no matter how much they've struggled, I'm just so hopeful because I know they've got this in them. I just know it. And I'm not even trying to convince them I know it. So they kind of pick up on that. They go, man, he's sure confident that I've got this. It's like I don't even, because I've got reality on my side. I don't even have a dog in the front. So I'm like, I'm confident yet unconcerned. It's like, don't worry about it. It's going to be fine. Relax, it's all good. You're going to be fine. It's sort of like if someone got a cut and they were all worried that it wasn't going to heal, it's like, no, it's okay. You've got that handled your body. And they're like, no, I didn't do.

Very well at school.

I didn't pass any of my tests. It's okay. Your body is designed to heal itself. You've got that handle. That's okay. Go ahead.

I've been wondering as we're talking and since we've all, you know, been around the Abundance360 world and about this whole, you know, thinking about artificial intelligence and the singularity and the rise of, you know, especially artificial intelligence that those as the computers begin to think more like our human brains but are definitely there's no illusion that it's not inside out thinking wonder. It's just, I'm just thinking about that in terms of how that you know, the one thing lacking that comes, you know, down the line here is as artificial intelligence begins to, you know, intake the same sort of data that we can, that we're intaking and processing in the same kind of way without being able to create the electrical or chemical, you know, squirts that create the emotions that we end up feeling because of the data. I just wonder how that's going to apply or whether that's more inherently clear thinking.

I don't know. Well, I've got a view on it and my view is we've got these incredible technologies today. The acceleration of technology is truly amazing. And it's interesting listening to Peter Diamandis who is just so brilliant and inspirational and he explains that our brains have evolved for local and that sort of thing which I think is local and linear in terms of our experience. Yeah, local and linear. And yet what I see is that again and again and again when people fall out of their outside in misunderstanding what they fall into is often non linear thinking and non local thinking and thinking that is much more global and universal and wise, insightful. So it seems to me that the most important thing for us as the technology accelerates faster and faster is having clarity of thought and clarity of understanding so that we're connected to that deeper wisdom in how to make decisions about it. Because like often powerful people have a history of making terribly ill judged decisions. And I think, I think it's more important than ever that the leaders in the world are acting from clarity rather than short termism and insecurity and misunderstanding. You know, our leaders are as much as susceptible to this misunderstanding as anyone else as we see again and again in the news stories. And I think it's never been more important for us as a species to recognize that clarity of understanding and clarity of thought and wisdom is going to be essential if we're going to meet the challenges that the acceleration of technology is bringing to us.

Well, let me ask you about that. For business owners or entrepreneurs listening to this, what can they do to get clear more quickly? And if they have teams, bring on clarity to their teams, to their teamwork, to their organizations, to all of that. Because when you're talking about an individual, many people listening are like, well, okay, now I'm starting or either I get this or that makes sense or I'm going to go read Jamie's book. But then there's everyone around us, all the people that we lead, if we're entrepreneurs or the people that we work with, if we work with teams. How do you bring that together?

Well, it's sort of like the oxygen mask thing. Put your own one on first before anyone around you. What I find again and again is the best way to bring it to your team is to see it for yourself, to lead by example. The more deeply you see it for yourself, the more you'll have intuitions and insights about how to bring it to your team. So often when I work with organizations, I'll have have a leader or an owner who works with me one on one, and then they end up saying, oh, I'd love to bring this to my team. Well, they have ideas about what's the best way to do that. So maybe I'll come in and work with the team, or maybe they'll take it to the team and roll it out themselves. So I've had both. I've had clients who bring me in or bring another trainer in. I've had clients who say, no, I know the right way to do it here. And they run with it themselves or give out books to be people or whatever. But the thing I love about it is someone who's listening to this and wants to bring it to their team, as you see it for yourself, you'll have instincts about how to bring it to your team. So, you know, one of the, one of the issues I see people facing is they overlook the fact that we're always. We always have the potential for fresh new thought. And often when we think about future situations, oh, well, how would I do, do this or how could I do that? Often people overlook the fact that you're going to have fresh new thought available to you then as well. And so for anyone who's listening to this and thinking, well, this sounds good, but how would I bring it to my organization? See it for yourself, explore it for yourself, do whatever you need to do to make up your own mind about whether there's merit in this and whether there's more to be explored and get it. So it's doing something for you. You. And that's going to start rubbing off on people. I'll give you an example. One of my clients, great story, actually, he comes to me and he's doing one of these intensives. So people pay a lot of money for these. And it's the first day of the intensive, and we're about 45 minutes in, and he goes, jamie, I'm going to need a formula for how we're going to work together over these three days. I'm feeling very uncomfortable because you haven't given me a formula for how, how we're going to work together. So he tells me that, well, I immediately get a little antsy because I'm like, oh, geez, I haven't brought a formula. But then instantly, like within a few seconds, I realized that I wasn't feeling my lack of a formula. I was feeling thought in the moment. So I'm like, oh, that's great. So I fall out of my thinking. And as soon as I fell out of my misunderstanding, it comes to me. So his name was Ian. I've got permission to share this story. So I say, okay, here's your formula. It's in two parts. Here's the first one. Ian plus misunderstanding equals stuck. That was the reason he'd hired me. He was feeling stuck. He was feeling his business is very successful, but he was feeling stuck in his relationships. And he was feeling kind of out of touch, wasn't feeling a sense of purpose. He was feeling stuck. He said, ian plus misunderstanding equals stuck. That's the first part of the formula. Second part of the formula, Ian minus a misunderstanding equals peace, clarity, spontaneity, fun, happy, go lucky. He'd said, to me that when he was a teenager, he was a really easy going, happy go, lucky guy and really enjoyed himself and had a lot of fun. And I guess he was in his late 40s, maybe his early 50s, he had become very serious and he just wanted to have some of that fun and spontaneity back. And I said, so, yeah, Ian minus a misunderstanding equals fun. Spontaneous, connected, peaceful on purpose, all that clarity, all that stuff. So he really, he goes, oh great, that's it. That's exactly what I needed. So we do this intensive, we check in at the end of the three days. All the things he brought in at the beginning, all the problems, all the issues, all the challenges, all the goals, the problems had either been resolved or they no longer existed, or the solution was obvious, or he was just relaxed about it and said, that'll figure itself out. The goals, they either didn't matter anymore or he knew how he was going to achieve them, or they'd been replaced by something even bigger, or he was clear on the next step to take, or he was like, you know what, I'll figure it out. I don't know why I was stressing about it. It had all become clear to him. So he goes back to work and what often happens when people go back to work, they find that while they were away on their intents, their team really shaped up. So he gets back to work and his team are a better team than when he left. Well, because you can imagine when the leader of an organization is stressed out and overwhelmed and that sort of thing, they don't really bring out the best in the people around them. And people get kind of triggered by their stress and by their moods and that sort of thing. So when he got back and he's just in a moment more clear headed, connected place, people start just really, you know, they raise their game. So it's now, I don't know, six months later, something like that. I think it was September, we did it. His organization is transforming and he hasn't brought me in to work with them. He may have given a few people copies of the books. He's had way better conversations with people and his team's shaping up now. He's not necessarily teaching them all about this as like a formal mandated thing. He just kind of follows his own wisdom about what to mention to who and to when and how to do it. See, I want everyone who's listening this to know you're way, way more capable than you think you are. You're way more on the ball than you think you are, you got way more going for you than you think you are do. And as you fall out of your misunderstandings, you're going to wake up into that more and more and more and you're going to find that more and more you have what you need at hand. So I think you'll find that when it comes to teams, this happens again and again. Is that as the leader or as the key player sees it for themselves, they have their own instincts and intuitions about how to share it with other people. And sometimes it's just by being yourself in a more clear headed, connected space that does the heavy lifting for you. You don't even have to mention it to anyone. They kind of pick it up off you. Does that make any sense?

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. Can you speak to, you talk about the leadership delusion in the book? Just speak to that?

Yeah. Well, see, it's so interesting. I remember when I wrote the book, I went onto Amazon and I wrote Leadership into the Amazon search engine and there was something like 65,000 books written on leadership and what are the keys to leadership? Then I thought, oh, this is interesting. So I went onto Google and I typed like top five keys to leadership or top ten keys to leadership. And again, again like 1.5 million articles on the top five keys to leadership. And they range from the sublime to the ridiculous. It's things like make good decisions. It's like, oh, thank you for clearing that up.

Be a leader.

Yeah, be a leader. It's like so much of it is like kind of good ideas. It's like, oh, that's a good idea. A lot of it's kind of of mom and apple pie statements. And the reality is that the leadership delusion is the misguided belief that a person can find the source of leadership outside themselves. It's very interesting actually. So for many years I've worked in the information products world and everyone who works in the information products world knows that the big challenges getting people to implement. But the issue is often the person who buys an information product, they go, oh well, the person who made this information product, they're going to give me the top five tips. But what they can't give them is the fact that to even get to the point where you create a successful information product means that you're a leader. You've developed your creative process, you've developed a willingness to take risks and to be criticized and to get over it. You're in touch with your resilience, you're in Touch with your willingness to step out of your comfort zone and all that stuff. Well, that stuff comes from within you. You can't get that from a book. It's already there within you. And the only thing that gets in the way of it is the belief that our feelings. I mean, here's a great example. So Little Book of Clarity got launched a few weeks ago on Amazon. And, and so lots of people who have read it and clients of mine and that sort of thing have gone and posted five star reviews, which is terrific. And then of course, people start posting one star reviews saying, ah, this book's rubbish, and da, da, da, da, da. Well, I love that. I love that. I love that my book polarizes opinion. It's wonderful. I love the fact that people are criticizing it because much worse than criticism is being ignored. But there was a time when I would have been devastated, devastated by criticism. So I had to build up that muscle. Well, the reason building up the muscle really just meant seeing through the fact that my feelings weren't telling me about what someone wrote in an article. My feelings are telling me about thought in the moment. The only thing they can ever be telling you about is thought in the moment. That misunderstanding is what stops people waking up to the source of leadership, leadership that's there within every single one of us and we all have it. And you know, often on training courses and things, I'll ask people, I'll tell some stories about times when I just spontaneously showed up as a leader. Like when I was a kid. You know, we've all had those times when we just had what it took in the moment or made the right call or whatever. And it's in every case, everyone can identify times when they were a natural leader, when they just didn't have, like, I remember one time I was like 15 years old, maybe 16 years old, and me and my family were in Hawaii and they, I don't know if you know, but in Hawaii they've got these like tsunami warning sirens on the telephone poles. So we're at a stoplight and the tsunami warning goes off. My parents, my mom and dad were in the front seat. My dad was driving. They just froze. And so I go turn on the radio and they're still frozen. Well, they were both war babies in England and an air raid siren meant one thing. They didn't have any air raid shelter to run to or anything like that. So I just like, I go turn on the radio, they're frozen. So then I shout it, turn on the radio, and it snaps them out of it. And they turn on the radio and then it's like. I think it was when Ronald Reagan. Someone tried to assassinate it. And so someone in Hawaii decided to turn on all the air raid sirens. It was kind of weird.

Oh, my.

But that was an example of I just knew what to do because I didn't have all the misunderstood thinking that they had running through their brains. There was no. When we don't have that misunderstanding, we're well equipped to deal with reality. And the leadership delusion is the ideal that you need to get leadership, that you need to find leadership from outside of you. It's there inside every single person. And there are certainly skills to be developed and mastered, but they need to be grounded in the inner qualities of leadership. And that's things like resilience and clarity and presence. And what I found is that as you increase your clarity of understanding, understanding, those inner leadership skills emerge. They're already there within all of us. It's just that for many people, their insecurities caused by this misunderstanding are getting in the way of them connecting with that source of leadership that's there in everyone. Gotcha.

Well, you know what? Let's do this then, because we're getting close to the wrapping up of two episodes, which have been fantastic. And I want to give people some next steps on going deeper with this because obviously you have books and you have training. I want to first ask you this, and I know this is an unreasonable question, but if you had to sum up the essence of everything that you have learned up to this point in your life in three sentences or less, what would it be?

You already have everything you've been looking for until now. In fact, you already are everything you've been looking for until now. And you're here for a reason. So follow your heart, play big, and don't take any crap. The only thing that's getting in the way is a misunderstanding. And we've all cleared up misunderstandings in the past. So you can clear up this misunderstanding. That was probably more than three seconds.

No, no, that was a great. That was a great response. No, that was very good. Thank you. So where can people, people go to read your books, work with you, get better performance, bigger results, talk about some of the things that you offer.

Great. Well, my books, you can grab them on Amazon, is probably the easiest way. It's clarity, clear mind, better performance, bigger results. And the little book of clarity, which is just out, my website, jamiesmart.com has information about training courses as well as free audios. You can download and blog articles, all that sort of stuff. I blog on Huffington Post in the UK as well. And then I've also set up, just a couple of weeks ago, I recorded like a 20 minute taster of this stuff called Instant Clarity. And you can grab that and the first couple of chapters of the little book of clarity over@jamiesmart.comILM for I love marketing. So jamiesmart.comILM. Dean, did you want to say anything?

I feel like I'm in a trance actually.

It's been really incredible. Yeah, most of. Most of the time.

It's been a really great couple of hours, Jamie. I mean, you know, what else can we say? You said it all. It's been fantastic.

Thank you so much.

Yeah, there's always more that could be said, Dean. But what I will share also to all the listeners is that because of what I want to do with addiction, what Jamie wants to do with obviously his massive transformative purpose, I will probably do another interview with Jamie soon on just the subject of addiction and mental disorders and how people experience pain and suffering and anxiety and that sort of stuff. And Jamie's going to be in Phoenix here in a couple of weeks from the time we're actually doing this recording. So we'll probably have a chance to meet up in person and show my office, maybe do a video. But certainly this won't be the last you're going to hear of Jamie Smart. What I would just recommend to the listeners is pick up the link Little Book of Clarity, which is the book I've been reading right now and it's awesome and I think you'll find it incredibly valuable. And check out Jamie's website@jamiesmart.com and any famous last words, Jamie, before we wrap.

Up two episodes, just thank you. It's been a huge pleasure to talk with you guys and to share this understanding with the world. I'm ever so excited and I'm so glad, Joe, that you stood up and shared what you shared at that event. Sharing your purpose with the world is part of what's made this happen.

Yeah, that certainly helps with clarity. So. Yeah, for sure. So thank you. Thank you, Jamie, and to all of our listeners, please give us your feedback and share this with anyone that you feel needs to hear it or could benefit from hearing it. And if you haven't already, subscribe to I Love Marketing on itunes or go to ilovemarketing.com and you can do it there. So. So thank you, Jamie and have a great day, everyone.

Thanks, Jimmy.