There was a day when painting was new and the people that became good at it
were the ones that were painting it's amazing to me how many people have
opinions about Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn or making videos or doing this
kind of podcast and getting people to listen to it a whole lot of people with
opinions who've never done it and so I believe the great way to be great at
anything is to be a practitioner you know people ask me all the
time I make the analogy you know you can read about push-ups but if you want the
results that push-ups give you you have to do the push-ups and I just think a
lot of people with business entrepreneurship and specifically being
a social media content creator or a modern media digital creator read a lot
talk a lot to pontificate a lot and don't do a lot the way I figured out how
to have my podcast the way I figured out my youtube show the way I figured out
everything I do is by doing and you're gonna get some bumps and you're gonna
make some mistakes I think most people don't do because they're worried about
what other people think
I think we're all flawed and that's the beauty
of who you are, and instead of trying to make yourself perfect in every area it's
so much easier when you accept the things that you're terrible at or
that are your weaknesses or that are the things about your wiring, look if I were
diabetic I would take insulin I happen to be somebody that's wired for anxiety
no big deal so figure out how to instead of fighting
those things actually trick it because the truth is that you're never gonna
feel ready to make these changes you're never gonna feel like doing them but you
can always make a decision that's always in your control staying with somebody
that treats you like garbage is a decision, staying at a job that you
hate is a decision staying in the body that you are not proud of is a decision
is it going to be easy no it's not gonna be easy to change
it's simple, do a Google search and then use the five-second rule to force
yourself to do that stuff change comes down to five second
decisions and this is why the five-second rule is important for
everybody to know it's your job to push yourself and I don't care if you're
Dr. Martin Luther King jr. or your Michelangelo or your lin-manuel Miranda
who wrote Hamilton you will struggle with self-doubt and everybody that you
admire everybody and the list is the same period Oh Oprah Winfrey and I want
to be like you know Tom and I want to be like you know Branson and I want to be
like jay-z and I want like everybody's list has a Bill Gates and do you know
what those people do they do not have the habit of hesitating they trust themselves
We're surrounded today by people being satisfied with mediocre and for me
as soon as I realised that I could believe in myself and I had a supporting
crew beside me and around me that it opened up a lot of the doors and the
moment I used someone else's standard of excellence that was just enough to get
me moving and then you need to put that person aside or look past that person
and create or do you create your own lane and so for me you know once I
stopped looking at what everybody else was doing and then truly believed in
what I could do that you know combining it with all those character traits that
I talked about before that that's when human potential is truly
truly can be found and experienced
Over a few weeks of difficult training my seal class
which started with 150 men was down to just 42, there are now six boat
crews of seven men each I was in the boat with the tall guys but the best
boat crew we had was made up a little guys the Munchkin crew we called them
No one was over five foot five the Munchkin boat crew had one American Indian one
African American one Polish American one Greek American one Italian American and
two tough kids from the Midwest they out paddled out ran and out swam all the
other boat crews the big men and the other boat crews will always make
good-natured fun of the tiny little flippers the munchkins put on their tiny
little feet prior to every swim but somehow these little guys from every
corner of the nation in the world always had the last laugh swimming faster than
everyone and reaching the shore long before the rest of us
Seal training was a great equalizer nothing mattered but your will to
succeed not your color not your ethnic background not your education not your
social status if you want to change the world measure a person by the size of
their heart not by the size of their flippers, thriving is really the states
beyond surviving and succeeding but what is exciting about the concept of
thriving is that you can be thriving even in the most extreme and challenging
circumstances so it's not as people think that first of all you resolve all
your problems you become financially successful and then you thrive there is
a place in us in which we are thriving independently of our circumstances and
that is really the key about thriving it's not dependent on how our business
is doing on whether we got that next promotion on whether our boyfriend
asked us to marry them or all the things that we normally identify successful
we're growing up in a facebook Instagram world in other words we're good at
putting filters on things we're good at showing people that life is amazing even
though I'm depressed right and so everybody sounds tough and everybody
sounds like they got it all figure it out and the reality is there's very
little toughness and most people don't have it figured out and so when the
more senior people say well what should we do, they sound like this is what you got to do
they have no clue so you have an entire generation growing up with lower
self-esteem than previous generations right through no fault of their own
right they were dealt a bad hand right now let's add in technology we know that
engagement with social media and our cell phones releases a chemical called
dopamine that's why when you get a text feels good so you know we've all had it
when you're feeling a little bit down or feeling a bit lonely and so you send out
ten texts to ten friends you know hi hi hi hi hi cuz it feels good when you get
a response right, it's why we count the likes
it's why we go back ten times to see if and if it's going
my Instagram is growing slower, did I do something wrong do they not like me anymore
right the trauma for young kids to be
unfriended right because we know when you get it you get a hit of dopamine
which feels good it's why we like it it's why we keep going back
Dopamine is the exact same chemical that makes us feel good when we smoke when we drink
and when we gamble in other words it's highly highly addictive right we have
age restrictions on smoking gambling and alcohol and we have no age restrictions
on social media and cellphones which is the equivalent of opening up the liquor
cabinet and saying to our teenagers hey by the way this adolescence thing if it
gets you down, but that's basically what's happening that's basically what's
happening right that's basically what happened you have an entire generation
that has access to an addictive numbing chemical called dopamine through
social media and cellphones as they're going through the high stress of
adolescence why is this important almost every alcoholic discovered
alcohol when they were teenagers when we're very very young the only approval
we need is the approval of our parents and as we go through adolescence we make
this transition where we now need the approval of our peers very frustrating
for our parents very important for us that allows us to acculturate outside of
our immediate families into the broader tribe but it's a highly highly stressful
and anxious period of our lives and we're supposed to learn to rely on our
friends some people quite by accident discover alcohol and numbing effects of
dopamine help them cope with the stresses and anxieties of adolescence
unfortunately that becomes hardwired in their brains
and for the rest of their lives when they suffer significant stress they will
not turn to a person they will turn to the bottle, social stress financial
stress career stress that's pretty much the primary reasons why ant alcoholic drinks
what's happening is because we're allowing unfettered access to these
dopamine producing devices and media basically it's becoming hardwired and
what we're seeing is as they grow older they too many kids don't know how to
form deep meaningful relationships their words not mine
they will admit that many of their friendships are superficial they will
admit that their friends that they don't count on their friends they don't rely
on their friends they have fun with their friends but they also know that
their friends will cancel on them if something better comes along deep
meaningful relationships are not there because they never practice the skill set
and worse they don't have the coping mechanisms to deal with stress so when
significant stress starts to show up in their lives they're not turning to a
person they're turning to a device they're turning to social media they're
turning to these things which offer temporary relief we know the science is
clear we know that people who spend more time on Facebook suffer higher rates of
depression than people spend less time on Facebook alcohol is not bad too much
alcohol is bad gambling is fun too much gambling is dangerous right
there's nothing wrong with social media and cell phones it's the imbalance right
if you're sitting at dinner with your friends and you're texting somebody
who's not there that's a problem that's an addiction if you're sitting in a
meeting with people you're supposed to be listening to and speaking and you put
your phone on the table face up or face down I don't care
that sends a subconscious message to the room that you're just not that
important right that's what happens and the fact that you cannot put it away
it's because you are addicted right if you wake up and you check your phone
before you say good morning to your girlfriend boyfriend or spouse you have
an addiction and like all addiction in time it'll destroy relationships it'll
cost time and it'll cost money and it'll make your life worse
so for me the first step is just opening yourself up
to new experiences and new role models because
most of us can't see ourselves in people so then we try and fit ourselves into
the boxes that we do see and I mean there's this beautiful
quote that I've been saying it everywhere and I wish I wrote it but I didn't
so it's by a philosopher and writer named Cooley
and he said that
today I'm not what I think I am I'm not what you
think I am I am what I think you think I am I
Just let that blow your mind for a while it's so powerful I know what I think I am
I'm not what you think I am I am what I think you think I am so we live in
this perception of a perception of ourselves
hence my identity is made by what my parents think I should be my identity is
made up by what my college or university thinks I should achieve while you're
living in that bubble and that echo chamber getting to what you really want
to do is impossible because maybe that just doesn't fit and I think so many
people feel that way today that they don't fit into the current education
system they don't fit with the three or four or five careers that you're taught
exist so that process of self excavation and actualization first requires being
exposed you can't be what you can't see if I never meet a billionaire I wouldn't
want to be one because I don't know what that feels like I don't know what it
looks like I don't know what it takes and I think that's the biggest
challenge of our society that we're not exposed so that's the first step being
exposed to unique experiences and role models second step is finding that
experiencial role model that you're passionate about and exactly like you
said taking it seriously shadow them, network with them spend
time with them observe them even from afar it takes that observation being
addicted to observing that person's lifestyle and then the third step is
growing yes or no does that work for me not everyone who's gonna go out from the
camera monk is gonna feel like the way I did and that's cool but not everyone is
gonna go and follow and shadow a billionaire and go that's exactly the lifestyle I want
they may want the result but do they want the hard work that goes with it
and so for me that's the third step it's observing focusing shadowing
getting as close to the process of that individual and then going yes or no do I
want that process, not do I want the result so you have a
generation growing up with lower self-esteem that doesn't have the coping
mechanisms to deal with stress right now you adding a sense of impatience
right they've grown up in a world of instant gratification you want to buy
something you go on Amazon it arrives the next day you want to watch a movie
log on and watch your movie you don't check movie times you want to watch your
TV show binge you don't even have to wait week to week to week right
I know people who skip seasons just so they can binge at the end of the season
right instant gratification you want to go on a date you don't even have to
learn how to be like heyy!!
you don't even have to learn and practice that skill you
don't have to be the uncomfortable Say yes when you mean no, say no when you mean yes
swipe right bang
I'm a stud right
you don't have to learn the social coping mechanisms right
everything you want you can have instantaneous everything you want
instant gratification except job satisfaction and strength of
relationships there ain't no app for that they are
slow meandering uncomfortable messy processes and so I keep meeting these
wonderful fantastic idealistic hard-working smart kids that just
graduated school they're in their entry-level job I sit down with them
when I go how's it going they go think I'm gonna quit I'm like why
they're like i'm not making an impact like you've been here eight months
it's as if they're standing at the foot of a mountain and they have this abstract
concept called impact that they want to have in the world which is the summit
what they don't see is the mountain I don't care if you go up the mountain quickly
or slowly but there's still a mountain and so what this young generation needs
to learn is patience that some things that really really matter like love or
job fulfillment joy love of life self-confidence a skill set any of these
things all of these things take time sometimes you can expedite pieces of it
but the overall journey is arduous and long and difficult and if you don't ask
for help and learn that skill set you will fall off the mountain or you will
the worst case scenario the worst case scenario and we're already seeing it the
worst case scenario is we're seeing increase in suicide rates we're seeing
an increase in this generation we're seeing increase in accidental deaths due
to drug overdoses we're seeing more and more kids drop out of school or take
leaves of absence due to depression unheard of this is really bad
the best case scenario the bet those are all bad cases right the
best case scenario is you'll have an entire population growing up and going
through life and just never really finding joy
they'll never really find deep deep fulfillment in work Renly they'll just
just walk through life it's fine how's your job it's fine the
same as yesterday how's relationship it's fine like that's that's the
best-case scenario which leads me to the the fourth point which is environment
which is we're taking this amazing group of young fantastic kids were just dealt
a bad hand it's no fault of their own and we put them in corporate
environments that care more about the numbers than they do about the kids they
care more about the short-term gains than the long-term life of this young
human being we care more about the year than the lifetime right and so we are
putting them in corporate environments that aren't helping them build their
confidence that aren't helping them learn the skills of cooperation that
aren't helping them overcome the challenges of a digital world and
finding more balance that isn't helping them overcome the need to have instant
gratification and teach them the joy as an impact in the fulfillment you get
from working hard over on something for a long time that cannot be done in a
month or even in a year and so we're thrust into them them in corporate
environments and the worst part about it is they think it's better they blame
themselves they can't they think it's them who can't deal and so it makes it
all worse it's not I'm here to tell them it's not them it's the corporations it's
the corporate environments it's the total lack of good leadership in our
world today that is making them feel the way they did they would dealt a bad hand
heads and I hate to say but it's the company's responsibility sucks to be you
like we have no choice right this is what we got and I wish that society and
their parents did a better job they didn't so we're gonna we're getting them
in our companies and we now have to pick up the slack we have to work extra hard
to figure out the ways that we build their confidence we have to work extra
hard to find ways to teach them social the social skills that they're missing
out on there should be no cell phones and
conference rooms none zero and I don't mean the kind of like sitting outside
waiting to text I mean like when you're sitting and waiting for a meeting to
start nobody go this is what we all do we all sit here and wait for the meeting
to start meaning starting okay we start the meeting no that's not how
relationships are formed remember we talked about it's the little things
relationships are formed this way we're waiting for
meeting to start we go how's your dad hurt he was in hospital oh he's really
good thanks for asking he's actually I home though I'm really
glad it was really amazing I know it was really scary cool that's how you form
relationships hey did you ever get that report on oh my god no I didn't follow
up your I totally are can I help you out of that really
that's how trust forms trust doesn't form at an event in a day even bad times
don't form trust immediately it's the slow steady consistency and we have to
create mechanisms where we allow for those little innocuous interactions to
happen but when we allow cell phones and conference rooms we just okay I have the
meeting and then my favorite is like when there's a cell phone there you go
like this you go it rings and go I'm not gonna answer that mr. magnanimous you
know when you're out for dinner with your friends like I I do this with my
friends when we're going out for dinner and we're leaving together we'll leave
our cell phones at home who are we calling maybe one of us will bring a
phone in case we need to call the new birth or take a picture of our meal
we'll take one phone and so it's like an alcoholic the reason you take the
alcohol out of the house this week is because we cannot trust our willpower
we're just not strong enough but when you remove the temptation it actually
makes it a lot easier and so when you just say don't check your phone people
literally will go like this and somebody would go to the bathroom and what's the
first thing we do because I wouldn't want to look around the restaurant for a
minute and a half you know but if you don't have the phone you just kind of
enjoy the world and that's where ideas happen
the constant constant constant engagement is not where you have
innovation and ideas ideas happen when our minds wandering we go and you see
something on you can do that that's called innovation
right but we're taking away all those little moments right
you should not end none of us none of us should charge our phones by our beds we
should be charging our phones in the little rooms right remove the temptation
you wake up the middle of night cuz you can't sleep you won't check your phone
which makes it worse but if it's in the living room its relaxed it's fine oh
yeah but it's my alarm clock fine alarm clock
they cost $8 so my hope would be that we begin to live life as an incredible
mystery and treasure and that therefore no matter what happens we can approach
each day that way and for me the key to that is approaching each day for in a
fresh way it's like without carrying yesterday or last year or old
resentments or angers of course this is much harder to achieve then then to talk
about but if we have that as a goal then it affects very much the decisions we
make
you
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