In this short motivational video, the speaker greets the audience and dedicates the talk to friends Ian, SP, and Travis. He introduces a core mindfulness principle: we are not our thoughts or emotions; they are impersonal mental events that only gain power when we identify with them. To break this identification, he proposes an observer stance called “I am noticing” (the IAN acronym). By labeling feelings as observations—e.g., “I am noticing I feel discouraged”—one creates space to examine the root cause and choose a response rather than being driven by the emotion. He then links this to a “yes‑and” framework: “yes” signifies acceptance of the observed feeling, and “and” represents the conscious choice of how to act. The speaker illustrates how this approach can transform frustration into patience and encourages viewers to apply the IAN and yes‑and methods throughout their day. The video ends with a friendly sign‑off.
Chapters
Good morning, everyone. Here is your Moment of Yes for Friday, February 26th, I think. The end of a week, and I hope everyone has an awesome weekend. So today, I wanna introduce you guys to my good friend, Ian. Some of you may have met Ian before. Actually, I do have a good friend named Ian. So Ian, if you're watching this, this one's for you, brother. So I'll get back to Ian here in a second. So I was having a coaching listening call with my good friend SP, who might be watching this right now. So this one's for you as well. And we were talking about this concept of, obviously in the idea of you are not your thoughts, right? So let's just talk about that for a second, that you are not your thoughts. The thoughts that you are having, you don't own them. Even though they're happening inside your head, it feels like you own them, but they're actually, They're just impersonal thoughts and they're kind of the same thoughts that the entire planet is feeling and they kind of come in and out like clouds, but since we think we're thinking them, we associate them with ourselves, but they're really, they're just thoughts. And we think good thoughts, we think bad thoughts, negative thoughts, positive thoughts. They're just thoughts. They don't have any power until you associate yourself as, yes, that thought is me. or that emotion is me. And so this idea, if we can free ourselves up from recognizing that we are not our thoughts, but the thoughts that we act upon, you know, our action sort of kind of defines, you know, who we are. And so how do we help ourselves not be our thoughts? And so the idea or the exercise is to sort of detach ourselves and become the observer or to become the noticer. Therefore, I am noticing that Travis is very discouraged right now. See, if I become the noticer instead of like, I am discouraged and being it, if I can notice it, if I can notice that I am feeling discouraged, then I can create some space between the feeling and the action. And I can actually do some work and try to figure out why am I feeling discouraged right now? Why am I feeling frustrated? Why am I feeling angry? Why am I feeling impatient? And then instead of just being that emotion, we can observe it, we can notice it, and then we can probably pull that weed and then choose our way back to a better frame of mind. So how do we do that? We do that by noticing. Even that phrase, I am noticing. I am noticing, if you haven't figured it out, is a great acronym for that, is IAN, I-A-N. I am noticing. So as you go through the day and whatever you're feeling, when you're feeling something, instead of saying like, I am angry, or I'm excited, you can say, I'm noticing I'm feeling excited. And if you want to, you can try to discover the roots of that feeling and then choose your way forward. So I am noticing gives you that space that you are not your emotions, you are not your thoughts. When you notice them, you then get to choose whether you want to act upon them or not, or release them and let them go and choose another thought, choose another emotion. So the power of I am noticing. That's my good friend Ian. So we can bring that Ian mentality to everything that we do. That's where we have power because we get to choose our response. The yes and. Yes is acceptance. Oh, I'm noticing that Travis is frustrated right now. And I'm going to figure out why, and I'm going to choose to be patient, and— so the yes is acceptance. The and is where we get to choose our response. When we associate ourselves as I am my thoughts, our thoughts choose us. Huge difference. There you have it, guys. That's your moment of yes for today. Have an awesome day. Bye.
