Mindset Monday - Thought vs Reality

This is episode 121 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast, where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, vitality and peak performance coach, Kari Schneider. Happy Monday, guys. It is Monday morning and it's been a busy one so far. We're not even at lunch yet. We've had two coaching calls, one for our reset, which is an incredible reset this time around, and one for our ongoing team coaching group. So the power ups in the morning get me lit up because it is so exciting to be with people, so exciting to start the morning in a powerful way. So that's why we do the power ups. But today, this is for Mindset Monday. So we want to take a look at this concept of a thought in your head, it being reality. Is it your reality? So the reason this is coming up for me, I don't know if you've seen the movie Inception. Has anyone seen the movie Inception? Papa something. But if you've seen that movie, let me know because it was really powerful. I remember it, you know, just this idea of one thing being planted in a mind in the movie. It was in a dream. They were in their dream state. This idea of a thought being planted in someone's mind so deeply that the person didn't realize that it wasn't real. And then they kept living or acting as though it was real. And it really got deep into this whole kind of different levels of dream states. And I was like, whoa, crazy. And I thought of this again recently because I started watching Social Dilemma on Netflix. I'm not advertising for this, but if you've seen Social Dilemma. Hey, Brent. If you've seen Social Dilemma, I'm only partway in, but it is hitting home because I avoid social media a lot and yet I use it for my business. So it's this kind of conundrum that I'm going with. But it's the same kind of thing in that you've got these influences via what you're being exposed to. Creating thoughts or having you be more likely to think something, taking you down a path, explaining, exposing you to different things, and then that becomes something that is stuck in your head. So I'm going to go into this just a little bit differently because I'm going to tell you a story that happened to me before I was even remotely aware of my thoughts. I had no freaking idea that my thoughts were influencing really anything at this time. This is over 20 years ago, and I went with a friend on A hike in the Rockies for the first time in my life. I was in my 20s, and. And we went. And we were going to go to a peak, and I'm hiking along, and I'm loving it. It's gorgeous. We're on a trail. There's trees. It's just incredible. It's totally right up my wheelhouse. I love the outdoors. I love hiking. And we keep going and we keep hiking, and we're making an amazing time. I'm just like, this is great. We get up there above the tree line. And if you've ever been hiking in the mountains, and I've done this many, many times since then, but this is my very first time. And if you get anywhere in the mountains, you realize that once you're above the tree line, you have this feeling of exposure. You are in exposure to the elements, to a greater altitude, to, you know, you're out there alone, to the elements of weather as well. So I look down, and it's scree. And scree is this kind of loose rock that just really moves quickly. If you're on it, you'd slide right it really easily. And we're on this narrow, narrow trail, and I have this realization, and we're probably, I'm telling you, about 200 meters from peaking this mountain. We're about 200 meters from the top. We're exposed. We're on this trail. It's not that far away. And I look down, and I realize that if I misstep once at all, I'm down. If I misstep, I think I'm gonna die. That's the thought that's in my head. If I have one wrong step, I'm going to die. And the person who I was hiking with, he keeps going, and he realizes I've stopped. And he turns around and he looks back. He's like, what are you doing? And I say, nothing, and I can't speak. And he turns around, he comes back towards me, and I'm frozen. I'm frozen on the spot. And he comes close to me. And I'm like, don't come near me. Because even him approaching me, I thought I was. I was just in this kind of vortex. I was totally frozen, and him coming near me. I felt like I was gonna just. His movement was gonna knock me over and I was gonna die. I'm gonna go down and fall down all this scree, you know, all the way down this mountain and die. That's what was in my head. And I was just frozen. And he's like, what's wrong with you? Cause he knew I was adventurous. He knew I worked really hard. I did all kinds of things. And he's like, what's wrong with you? I'm like, don't talk to me. Leave me alone. And I had to stay there by myself for a moment. I don't know, it could have been 10 minutes for all I know, but in my head, it seemed like split seconds. But I realized that I wanted to do more than this. And here's the thought that replaced the thought, oh, my God, I'm going to die if I make one wrong step. The thought was, I want to do so much more than just this. If I can't do this, how can I do all the other things I want to do in life? I wanted to go on all kinds of epic adventures. I want to travel all over the place. I want to do all kinds of amazing things. If I can't do this, how can I possibly do all the other amazing things that I want to do? And so I'm frozen in that spot. And this other thought came to me, and it was, if I can do this, I can do anything. If I can do this, I can do anything. And I started putting one foot right after the other. And he had said nothing to me. He just had to back off. And I'm just, like, frozen there. And I started putting one foot in front of the other. And we kept going and further up the mountain. Finally, 200 meters later, we reached the top of the mountain. And swear to God, no word of a lie from that top. And we peeked, we took some photos or whatever. We turned around and I ran down that point, like skipping along, running down the rest of the mountain. Past that point. I was frozen. I was frozen. I couldn't move. I thought I was going to die. And I ended up running past that point. Now what's the difference? The difference is I literally thought I was going to die. And my body responded, so it froze. I was in a panic mode, sweating, wanted to vomit, my heart's beating out of my chest versus the elation of reaching the top. Or even before that, the thought of realizing that I want to do more than this. If I can't do this, then other things are going to stop me. If I can do this, I can do anything. And that was way before 20, over 20 years ago, I even had any of the real thought awareness that I do now, or the training or the practice that I've done now. So what I want to leave you with, I want to give you Is is just the ability to question the thoughts that you're having. Question what's in there because it may or may not be serving you. So question what's popping up. Because the thought that you're having likely didn't come from where you want to go, from yourself. It came from other things. Maybe it came from your social media, maybe it came from your parents, maybe it came from a past experience, but it likely didn't come from from you creating it intentionally right in that moment. So take a look at your thoughts. So here are the ways that you can do this. Just a couple of little questions and one not question, one question not to ask what is the thought? That's the first question. What is the thought that I'm having right now? Especially if you are frozen like I was. Especially if you are stuck, Especially if you are sitting spinning, what is the thought? Or maybe it's two or three thoughts that you keep having over and over and you're spinning or you're stuck or you're ruminating, whatever it is, what is the thought? That's the first thing. And then is this a thought that I choose? Is this a thought that I choose? Or is this a thought I heard on the news? Or is this a thought that I've pulled from social media? Or is this a thought that my spouse told told me or my parents told me? Is this a thought that I choose? Is this thought one that I choose to think? So is this a thought that I choose? The next question what thought can I choose now? Now, I wasn't nearly as conscious of this up on the mountain, but at that point I was able to pull another thought. And that thought was, if I can do this, I can do anything. If I can do this, I can do anything. That was the thought that I picked. And this is the conscious question, what thought can I choose now? How will this new thought serve me? It could be, how will this thought serve my situation? How will this thought serve my family? How will this thought serve Serve where I want to grow. But how will this thought Thought. How will this thought serve? That is the next question. Now notice in those questions, what is the thought? Is this a thought that I choose? How can this thought serve me? In those questions, notice what I'm not asking Did I ask why? Why am I thinking this thought After I asked, what is this thought? No, because if you ask why am I thinking this thought? Quite often your brain is going to look for evidence. Because if I looked at that thought when I'm standing at the top of the mountain or almost to the top of the mountain. And I'm going, if I make one wrong step, I'm going to die. And I said, well, why am I thinking this thought? Well, obviously, idiot, you're going to die if you make one wrong step. It's like a fact. It's reality. Look around you. I don't need to ask why I'm having the thought. I just need to ask, is this a thought that I want to choose right now? No. What thought can I choose? So notice if you start to ask why you're having the thought, then you may just start to spin even more and make yourself wrong. Or look for more evidence to have that thought. There's all kinds of things you're going to do. So ask what is the thought? Is this a thought that I choose? What can I choose? Or what thought can I choose to serve me and serve my future, serve my family, serve my growth, Any of those things. So take a look. Just start to become aware. And when you look around and become aware, question, question whether you're going to adopt that particular thought. Something from the news, something from your family, something from your past. Do you have to think that thought? Question everything. So that is your mindset Monday today. Take a look at those thoughts. Don't have thoughts planted into your brain. Choose your thoughts. Grow your thoughts, nurture your thoughts. You plant the seed of your thoughts. No one else. Have a fantastic freaking Monday. I love you all. Have a wonderful rest of your week and rock your day today. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team podcast, you'll love being on the team. The Empowered Team runs year round. It is our group coaching and accountability program where we take mindset and physical performance concepts and break them down to usable action steps that optimize results. To join, email us@infompowerconditioning.com with subject line Team. That's info at Empower Condition.