Transcription
[Music]
So welcome to day five. Today is about how to get what you really want out of your life on a consistent basis. In order to get what you really want, you've got to know what it is, which for most people is a unique concept. Seriously, when I ask people, "What do you really want?" the answer I usually get is something like, "Well, I don't know," or something general like, "Well, I wish I had a better relationship. I wish I could start my own business. I wish I had more money. I wish it could be more successful."
The challenge with all those responses is they're so general, and they're not what you really want anyway. People don't want relationships. People don't want money. They don't want businesses. They don't want to be thinner. What we all want are the things we think we're going to get from those changes in our lives. Everything that you really want in your life comes down to one thing: you want some kind of change in how you feel, or what I call a change of state. The state of mind or body you're in at that moment in time.
We all want to change how we feel. Think about it. The only reason you want more money, you don't want little pieces of paper with pictures of deceased notables on it, do you? Of course not. You want money because of what you think it'll give you. You think it'll give you more freedom, more fun, or the ability to give to other people. You believe it's going to lead to some kind of pleasure. If you want it, say, "I want a business." Listen, I know a lot of people in business who don't want their business anymore. The bottom line is, it's not the business you want, it's what you think a business will give you. The feeling changes. You think it'll give you. Somebody says, "I want to get married." They want to get married because of what they think that will give them. Or, "I want a relationship." They think it's going to give them a certain kind of feeling. That's what drives all of our behaviors.
Challenge me on this. See if you can find an exception. Is there anything in your life that you really, really want that the reason you want it doesn't come down to eventually some feeling you're going to get if this thing happens in your life? I'll tell you over and over again, no matter what exception someone has tried to find, if I keep asking them, "Why do you want that?" "But why do you want that?" "But why do you want that?" eventually they get to a point where they go, "Well, because it makes me feel good." And so that's what we really want. We want to feel good. We want to have those special feelings inside. In other words, we just want to be able to manage our emotions, manage our states, and create what we really want emotionally in our lives.
Everything we do, we've already said, is to create pleasure, that's an emotion, and to avoid pain, that's an emotion too. And if we want to change our behavior, the quickest way to do that is change how we feel. I mean, think about it. Haven't you had a situation in your life where you did something and after you did it, you said to yourself, "I can't believe I said that. I can't believe I did that. That was so stupid." Have you ever had a situation like that? I mean, an area you're normally pretty smart in, you just did something really dumb. I know I have, plenty of times. Haven't you also had the opposite experience, though, where you're on a roll, where things were just flowing, where it was like you were unstoppable, and you don't even know how you were doing it? You were just like flowing, you know? Or after you did it, you know, somebody said, "You do that?" You went, "Yeah, that was me." And you don't know how you pulled it off. You were rather proud of it, though. Haven't you had those kind of times where you're just on a roll?
So, I've got a question for you. What's the difference in your behavior? Why is it in one situation you perform brilliantly, in another situation you perform, how should we say, brutally? The difference is not your ability. What we do at any moment in time, and that moment, is based on the state that our mind embodies in at that moment in time. In other words, what people can do, it's absolutely incredible. What they will do is usually disappointing. And the difference is not their capability, but rather what state they're in right now. If every time they think about public speaking, they associate fear or pain, that's going to change their state, and all of a sudden they're going to feel tight in their body, and their whole emotional state will change, and they're not going to get the most out of themselves. But if whenever they think of public speaking, they think of absolute pleasure, they're going to be in a great state of mind, and they're going to get more out of themselves.
I mean, think about it. When you're feeling really frustrated, do you behave the same way as when you're feeling like you're on a roll, when things are flowing? Obviously not. You have the same ability, but things act and behave differently coming out of you. You speak differently, you communicate differently, everything changes. Or I'll give you another example. Have you ever forgotten something simple, like your own home telephone number, or address, or how to spell the word "the"? Ever had one of those enlightening experiences? Now, you know how to spell the word "the." How come you couldn't remember? The answer is because you're in what I call a stupid state, right? You were in a state of mind where your brain wasn't able to get a hold of the answers. The answers are there, but you couldn't get there.
So, I believe one of the most important things, probably the most important thing, that you and I can do in our lives to create the power and joy and passion that we really want, is to learn to manage our own states of mind. In fact, think of the cost of not managing them. If you don't manage your emotional state, it'll cost you virtually everything you want in your life: friends, family, success, and just the joy that every one of us wants to experience on a daily basis.
Hey, let me ask you a question. Is what happens in your life the thing that determines how you feel at any moment in time? Yes or no? In other words, it doesn't matter whether or not, for example, the economy is doing really strong as to whether or not you feel good. Most people say, "No." Some people say, "Well, you bet, you know, it does." It matters how your relationships are going? Does that determine how you feel? Is how you feel determined by the weather, by how much sun or rain there is? Is it determined by how other people treat you? I'm here to tell you the answer to that is no. I'm not saying that it doesn't complement or support you feeling one way or another. I'm saying how you feel at any moment in time is purely designed and the result of how you are directing your own mind and body at that moment.
What I'm saying to you is, no matter what has happened in your life, you are in control of your own states. And once you understand that, number one, and number two, you use that ability, you now have control over your life at a whole new level, and you have more fun and joy and passion than you ever dreamed of. Once you take that responsibility and take that control. Now, for some people, when they say, "Well, that seems like a heavy responsibility." Well, look at the opposite. What's the price of not managing your states? Well, I'll ask you a question. What is John Belushi, Elvis Presley, Freddie Prinze, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Marilyn Monroe? What do they all have in common? They were all people that never learned how to manage their state. That's what they all were. People that had every reason in the world to be happy by anybody else's standards, but who destroyed themselves, literally killed themselves in the end.
I mean, Belushi is one of my favorite examples. Why? Because I like this guy. Didn't you? Wasn't this a fun guy? I mean, if you were to think of somebody, didn't he feel like this guy that you could connect with? I don't know about you, but I really enjoyed him, and millions of other people did as well. He had what most people would think would make them happy. He had all these people that loved him, appreciated his work. He got to be creative. He was in movies, he was in television, he was on Broadway. I mean, here was a guy that was spontaneous. He had a great family that totally loved him. He had all the money and fame that most people think that they could possibly want or need. And yet, he's not here. How come? He's dead. Why? Not because of old age, you'll recall, but because this man did not know how to control his own emotions within himself. And he tried to change the way he was feeling by using drugs. He used drugs as a way to change his state, and he's no longer here. And neither of the other people I mentioned on this list. Think about it. There's a major price. And now, managing your state, and in managing your state, there's major rewards.
Now, let's contrast Belushi with a friend of mine. His name is W. Mitchell. One of the people in the world that I not only love most, but also have the most respect for. W. Mitchell is a unique guy. Fifteen years ago, he had a unique experience, one that most people would never forget. He was driving his motorcycle 65 mph down a freeway when something caught his attention. When he looked over while he continued to drive forward, he got fixed on something. I don't know if you've ever done that. He got stuck there a little too long. Well, when he looked up, he was traveling 65 miles an hour right into the back of a Mack truck that had stopped in front of him. In a last-minute, split-second decision to try and save his own life, he slammed himself on the ground and he slid 65 miles an hour underneath this truck across the pavement. Then the worst thing happened. The gas cap popped off, fuel spilled out all over the place, and then from the friction, exploded and ignited. Three-quarters of his skin was burned off. His entire face was mutilated. His fingers burned all the way down to the knuckles. He woke up two weeks later in a hospital bed in searing pain, fearing to even breathe.
Now, for most people at this point, they say, "Hey, I'm out of here. Why stick around in this body? I'd rather just die." But not only did he not die, but he's become an example of true possibility for people all over the country. I mean, this gentleman could not even take drugs because his body was in such bad shape. But when people met him, they thought he must be on drugs because he seemed so up. You know, they go in and talk to him, they'd feel bad, and he goes, "Hey, it's over. We just got to move on." His mother said, "We just must not realize how bad it is." Well, the reality is, he just made a decision. He decided that he was going to manage a state. Why? Because he saw the alternative as much more painful. He said, "Look, I got one or two choices. I can feel bad emotionally about everything I've lost and just make my total life a mess emotionally and have more pain to add to my physical pain, or I can focus on what I'm going to do, which means I can at least focus on something that could bring me some pleasure and get rid of my focus on the physical pain." And that's what he did. His life has become such an example because he kept managing his emotions.
Now, not only did he do that, but within three years, he managed himself so well that he got back into business. Even though he didn't look too terribly attractive, but he ended up going into business and becoming extremely successful. The new company he developed after his accident became the number one employer of its type in the state of Vermont. He became a millionaire. He even learned to fly airplanes. Now, that's not the end of the story. About eight years later, he's flying his airplane with three other friends in Colorado, and he made himself a rather big mistake. He didn't go through his checklist, and he didn't notice that there was frost that had developed on the wing. And when he took off, he crashed. Three people walked away. He was not one of them. He was paralyzed from the waist down for life. So they cut off his toes since he didn't need them anymore and sewed them on his hands so he'd have something to be able to grasp things with. He's stuck in a wheelchair now for life. Of course, he doesn't look at us stuck in a wheelchair. In fact, you say, "At this point, he must have given up, right?" No. Even after his wife left him, she said, "Look, I don't want to be around a fried." Even after all that, he still didn't give up. He turned around, and the city he was living in in Colorado had some major problems. He decided to become the mayor of that town. After that, he decided to run for lieutenant governor of the state of Colorado. He placed third in a group of six, and he ran on the issues, not on a sympathy vote, and he campaigned door to door. Now, remember, this guy didn't look too terribly good. In fact, he used to wear a button that said, "Send me to the governor's mansion, and I won't just be another pretty face." Kind of a nice way to interrupt people's patterns and make them associate something new to you. Now, he didn't win the lieutenant governor's place. He still didn't give up. He now has his own radio show in Colorado, and he has found the woman of his dreams and remarried.
So, I've got to tell you, if you start to tell me, "Well, gosh, Tony, I got all these problems, it's hard to manage my state," just think about W. Mitchell. When I look at somebody like Belushi and see all that he had, and I look at somebody like Mitchell, who seems to have had all these challenges, but is so happy, so successful, such a sense of possibility, it becomes clear to me that I have no excuse to ever not manage my state on a consistent basis. No matter how big the problems may seem, you're much better than anybody like that might ever hope to be.
So, how do we manage our states? Well, one, remember, I believe virtually everything in life comes down to "why to," then "how to." I believe if you want to succeed, you've got to have 80% of success is figuring out why to succeed, why to manage your state. For example, 20% is how. Here's the how. Let's do it quickly, and let's just get right to doing it and doing some exercises. There are two primary ways to control your state of mind and body. They are: number one, controlling the way you use your physical body, what we call your physiology. And number two, controlling your mental focus. That is, what you pay attention to, what you think about, what you picture, what you say to yourself. Today, we're going to focus on how to use our physical bodies to create the emotions that we want at any moment in time. And then on your next tape, we're going to work on how to control our focus, how to control the mental imagery and pictures and things that we think about in a way that immediately changes our state as well. Let's start and focus again today on physical movement.
Now, I want you to think about something here. In order to feel anything in your life, you feel it through your nervous system, through your physical body. Now, if I told you, "I know someone who is totally depressed," I bet you could tell me about the way they move, or even their posture, and you would probably have an accurate representation. In other words, if I told you about someone I know that's totally depressed, and let's say they're outside your door right now, and I said to you, "For $100,000, describe for me what is this person like? What's their posture like? For example, where's this person's head?" Most people say, "Down." "Where are their eyes?" Again, most people say, "Down." "Where is this person's breathing? Is it full or shallow?" Again, most people say, "Shallow." And where is this person's facial expressions? Are their muscles in their face pulled up and tight, or are they down and slack? Again, most people say, "Slack."
How did you match up with these descriptions? Again, if you're like most people, most of those descriptions match the picture you have in your mind. Why is it that when we think of a depressed person, we think of somebody who's physically hunched over a little bit, looking down, talking a little bit more slowly, with their eyes down, and they're breathing shallow, and their facial muscles slack? The answer is, in order to get depressed, you got to work at it. It's not easy. You have to use your body in a certain specific way. I mean, try something ridiculous with me for a moment, won't you? Sit up right now in your chair. In fact, if you're not driving, stand up. If you're driving, that would be difficult. But if you're sitting, stand up for a second, if you would. And if you're sitting and you're in a car, then sit up. But I want you to stand up. Stand tall, breathing fully, really strong, breathe fully. And I want you to look up towards your ceiling. And as you're standing there, breathing tall, looking at your ceiling, what I want you to do is something really ridiculous, really dumb. Put a huge, silly grin on your face. Go ahead, try it. Oh, come on, nobody's noticing. You're by yourself. And if they are noticing, then you'll get their attention anyway. Put a big grin on your face, look at the ceiling. Listen to me now. Now, what I want you to do while you stay standing tall with your shoulders back, breathing fully, with this big grin on your face, I want you to get depressed without changing any aspect of your body. Don't change your facial expression. Oh, come on, you can do it. Hang in there. Get depressed. No, no. You know, some of you are cheating. I can tell. I'm in the room. If you drop those shoulders, if you drop your head, if you stop breathing, or if you stop smiling, it doesn't count. Stand tall, breathing big, big smile, looking at the ceiling. That's right. And get depressed without changing. All right. Well, if you can't change, and just stay happy and sit down.
Here's my point. You might say, "What does this got to do with state management?" Are you saying every time I don't feel good, I should stand up tall, stare, and grin at the ceiling? Yes. No. There are many ways to do this, but this is one. My point is this: How come when you stand tall and you breathe and you have this big grin on your face, how come you don't feel depressed? The answer is because it's pretty difficult. Because you're sending a totally different message to your brain. See, the way we move our facial muscles, the way we gesture, the way we physically walk, the pace at which we talk, all of these things determine how we feel in any given moment. If you don't like the way you're feeling, rather than try to pump yourself up intellectually, going, "I feel good, I feel good, I feel good," or doing too many affirmations, "I feel good, I feel good, I feel good, I feel good," your brain goes, "BS. That's not enough." What you've got to do is change the way you're moving.
I mean, think about it. When you were growing up, didn't you have a parent that told you, "Hey, look, if you're depressed, go do something"? Why did that work? 'Cause when you go do something, you change the way you move, you change the way you breathe, you change what you're focusing on, or what you're paying attention to, and voila! You have an emotional change, a state change, if you will. So, I want you to realize the power of your own physical body. When I was struggling, I had no idea of the power of my body. I was at the effect. But you know what? I still use these tools. I just used them in the wrong way.
Hey, listen. You already know the power of your body. When you don't like the way you feel, what do you usually do? I'll tell you what most Americans do. They do something to change the way they feel by changing their body, by changing their biochemistry. What do they do? They do things like drink alcohol. Why? Because the minute you drink alcohol, does it change your state? You bet. Do you behave differently when you're in a different feeling state? You better believe it. He goes, "Yeah, man, I sure do." The bottom line is, you changed your biochemistry. Soon as you did that, that was changing physiology, and your emotions and feelings and behaviors change instantly.
Now, a lot of people in our society, when they don't like how they feel, they change their body and change the way they feel by using cigarettes. They smoke, and therefore they breathe differently. When they breathe differently, they feel differently. When they feel differently, they behave differently. So they don't like how they're feeling. They're feeling a little tight, they're feeling a little frustrated, they're feeling a little stressed. They smoke a cigarette, and they think the cigarette makes them feel better. What makes them feel better is the fact that they're taking nice, deep, slow breaths. Why not try it without the cigarette? What a concept. Amazing. Bottom line is, you can change just by changing your breathing alone.
Now, what else do we do? Well, a lot of people, and they don't like the way they feel, what do they do? They eat. You know, they go, "I don't feel good," and they eat, and then they get fat, and they look in the mirror, and they don't like how they look. That makes them feel worse. So they don't like the way they feel, so they eat some more, right? And they're caught up in that loop again. Have you ever been there? So, food is another way we try and change our physical body in order to do it. Some people just go to sleep. And some people do things like go shopping or watch TV. But we're going to talk about that in your next tape. That are people that are changing what they're focusing on. But the primary way most of us try and change how we feel is by changing the way we use our physical body. Drugs is the most obvious example. We've already talked about that. Cocaine. Why? Because it changes their state rapidly. That's why people still purchase it, even though it destroys their life simultaneously. They don't focus on that. The point is, any change in your physical body makes an immediate, radical change in the way that you feel. So, what you've got to learn to do is use this to your advantage, instead of being at the effect of things. Immediately change your emotions.
So, right now, let me give you a frame of reference about what I'm saying. I learned a long time ago that if I really wanted to succeed on an ongoing basis, I probably needed to measure my level of emotion, my level of intensity. I got a lot of this by working with professional athletes. I noticed that most athletes are really conscious of and pay attention to managing their emotions and their states. And you watch a tennis player, and every time before he hits the ball, he bounces the ball the exact same way, the exact same rhythm, kind of anchors himself, if you will, or triggers himself back in a date. Football players do it differently. You know, they grab their other buddy's head, and they go, "Wham, wham, wham," and smack heads with them, and then they feel good. You know, baseball players, they spit, you know, grab their legs, you know, scratch the ground, but they do certain things every time to get themselves in state. And as I started work with professional athletes, people like the Los Angeles Dodgers, or the United States Army, or individual Olympic athletes, every one of them focused on, "Are they ready or not?" Kind of checking their state.
But you see, in life, I think life is not black and white. I look at life as having many huge and colors and shades. So, one day, I pulled one of these guys aside and I said, "Look, it's not 'Are you ready?' or 'You're not.' Let's try a stupid game, okay? Let's pretend we're going to measure your level of power and readiness on a scale from 0 to 10. Zero is your dead, 10 is your absolutely unstoppable." I said, "Where are you on that scale?" The guy said, "Well, I'm about level seven, six and a half, seven." I said, "Well, you're about to bat right now against Dwight Gooden. Tell me, if you stay at level seven, what's going to happen?" You know what's amazing? Instantly, he could tell me. When he realized where he was, he said, "I'll either ground out, or I'll pop up, or I'm going to be in a situation where I'm going to strike out." I said, "What level do you need to be at on a scale from 0 to 10 to be successful with Dwight Gooden?" He said, "Level 12." I said, "Okay, that gives me a frame of reference." So, you also need to know where you need to be to be successful.
Now, with an athlete, it's pretty clear. And for peak performance, they've got to be at level 10 or above, if you will, on a scale from 0 to 10, 10. But isn't your life just as important as an athlete's? If you're going to go in right now, and you're going to influence your son or daughter to do something like get excited about their schoolwork, how are you going to do that if you're at level three? It's not going to happen. Too often, I see parents say, "Go, I just can't motivate my children. I just don't understand why. I talk to them about all the reasons why they should really go for it, but it just doesn't seem to work." Do you have any suggestions, Mr. Robbins? I'll say, "Yeah, try talking a little faster for your children." See, the way we use our voice will affect our states. See, I have a lot here I want to share with you in a short period of time, so I speed up a little bit. How would you feel if I said, "Well, ladies and gentlemen, this is day five, and today what we're going to learn to do is manage our states of mind and emotion. And over the next 30 days of this program, I want you for hours at a time to listen to my voice." Well, after you came out of a deep trance and turned off the tape, I doubt very seriously if we create very much change. I'm not saying it's not appropriate to talk in a more relaxed way than I am in this frenzied pace that I'm sharing with you to try and get everything in. But what I am saying is, make sure that you're in an appropriate state for what it is you're trying to accomplish. Does that make sense?
On a scale from 0 to 10, where do you need to be to be effective at a given task? If you want somebody to feel loved by you, you probably don't want to go, "Level 10! I love you! I love you!" Okay, that probably won't work either. So, everything is context-related. But I'm asking you today to commit yourself for the next four or five days, even though we'll be doing other exercises, to looking at what state are you living in in your life. If you want to look at the state of your life, look at the level of intensity and joy and passion you're creating. Where are you today on a scale from zero to 10? Or better yet, before you started this 30-day program, where were you? Do you remember that first day before you got the tape program or everything else? Where were you on a scale from 0 to 10? You remember where you were? First of all, think about it for a moment, if you would. Where were you? What was your state like? Where were you on a scale from 0 to 10? Now, I want you to think of something. Where were you after you finished that first tape on a scale from 0 to 10? Most people that we followed up with and interviewed with are usually at level eight or above. And when they started out, they were in level six or five or four or three. And so, what I want you to do is do it without me. You don't need me to change your state. You need you. You need to move your body differently, and you need to pay attention to where you are. Use the state that's most appropriate for where you need to be for the given situation.
So, let me give you, first of all, some specifics about how you could change your body. I've mentioned a lot of them, but let's be really precise. The number one way that you can change the way you feel at any moment of time is to change the way you move. The reason is this. In fact, you might want to remember this phrase: Emotion is created by motion. The way you move your physical body is the fastest way of changing your emotion. So, for example, if I'm not feeling passionate, and I want to, instead of pumping myself up, all I have to do is clap my hands or move my hands rapidly and make a rapid gesture, not a little minor one where I just push my hands out a little bit and then bring it back at a slow pace, but I mean speed, acceleration, if you will. If you speed up the quality of your movements, you will instantly change your emotional state and your intensity.
So, try it right now, even while you're listening to me. Here's what I want you to do. Take your hands and put them together so that you're touching them, almost like in a praying motion. And what I want you to do when I say "now" is at the pace that I say, I want you to pull them apart. And just gradually pull them out to your sides at the pace that I count, like one, two, three, four. Okay? And by the time I hit four, you should be level with your shoulders. Okay, let's try it. Your hands are together, and just notice what happens to how you feel. Ready? One, two, three, four. Okay, bring your hands back together. One, two, three, four. Again, one, two, three, four. Again, one, two, three, four. This is known as a state of absolute boredom.
So, let's try something new. Let's try moving more rapidly this time. Instead of one, two, three, four, when I say "now," I want you to pull your hands apart. And don't limit them to the length of your shoulders. I want you to literally pull them apart and pull them out as far as you can, like extending your entire wingspan. Now, be careful on this. Look around you before you do this to make sure you don't hit anything. And let's have some fun. Do something silly. I know it seems ridiculous, but just try it. Now, if you're driving, this is not useful. Keep one hand at least on the wheel and try it with the other one. Okay, here we go. Your hands are together, and when I say "now," I want you to literally bring them out, explode them out to your sides, and extend your fingers and everything out as far as it can go. In other words, you're going to take your hands and make them go as fast as they can apart, all the way out, and extend them. Ready? One, two, three, go! And just feel that. And bring your hands together again into a clap. Okay? And then do it again. Out as fast as you can. Go fast as you can. Bring them in. And again, out as fast as you can. Again, in. Again, out, fast. Now, if you do this about 10 times, you will feel what we call a state change. Do you feel it now?
Now, I know this may sound weird and bizarre. You're going, "Okay, Tony, what am I supposed to do? Clap this wingspan every time I need to change state?" No. What I'm saying is, you must learn to develop what I call power moves. What a power move is to me is finding a certain type of gesture or a couple of them that no matter how bad I was feeling or frustrated or tired or whatever the case may be, that I can make this movement and instantly, instantly I feel strong, instantly I feel resourceful, instantly I feel like I could turn things around. You need to develop what those are, and you already have them because you've had times in your life when you felt great. How were you moving at that time? That's the first clue. In fact, what I often do with people is get them to stand, stand up, and walk around the room and notice how would they walk if they felt totally successful, I mean, unstoppable. Try it right now. Oh, you're going, "Well, I'm in the car." Great. If you're in the car, then you can try this later on. But if you're actually listening to me and you're not in the car, stand up right now and try something. Come on, come on. Don't, don't just listen to me. Stand up. Come on, come on, come on. I'm watching you. I'm there. You got to know this. The only thing I want you to do is stand up and walk around the room. And what I want you to do is first of all, walk the way you normally walk. Just, you know, walk around in a circle or walk straight back and forth. Notice how that feels. Come on, you can do it. There you go. Now, what I want you to do now is make a state change. And I want you to, if you would, imagine that you feel absolutely strong and unstoppable. I mean, in your power. And what I want you to do is just walk around the room as if you felt unstoppable and powerful, and move your body the way you would be if you were unstoppable and powerful. Go ahead and try it right now. Go ahead. Walk around the room and actually strut the way you would strut if you felt unstoppable and powerful. Make a gesture or two the way you would if you felt unstoppable. And then try to go back the opposite again. Go to feeling not confident, not sure, and walk around the room, not sure about whether you can succeed, making gestures like you're not sure. Feel the difference in your body. I want you to get an example of that. Then back to confident again. Make it strong.
Now, you say, "What if I'm listening in the car?" Well, if you're listening in the car, all I want you to do is sit right now, or even if you're sitting down, come back with me right now and sit down. What I want you to do is just notice how you can change your state from being bored and tired to feeling energized just by changing your body. So, try this. First of all, sit the way you'd be sitting right now if you had five times more energy than any other time you can remember. Come on, go for it. Don't just listen. If you're just going to listen to this tape and not follow through, turn it off. But if you're going to go for it and make changes, then play with me. Okay? Sit up in your chair right now. Come on, sit up the way you'd be sitting if you had five times more energy than any other time. Breathe right now the way you'd be breathing if you felt strong and excited and energized. Put a facial expression on your face right now, like you'd have if you felt totally passionate and excited. No, it doesn't look like this. Come on, put a big grin on your face, or a big feeling of energy. There you go. Good. And make sure you gesture that way. Notice how this feels. Now, if you don't feel any change, it's because you've not made a radical enough body change. That has changed your body really major. Create more tension, more excitement, whatever it takes.
Now, go from this state to being in a state of boredom. Go ahead. Sit the way you'd be sitting if you're bored and tired. That's it. Just notice how that feels. Go ahead, really bored and tired. You know, and as you're sitting there bored and tired, I got a question for you. Did you change your body to do it? You bet you did. What did you change to get bored and tired? Well, did you notice anything happened to your head? Did it go down? Did you relax any of the muscles? What happened to your breathing? Did it change? How about your facial expression? Does your muscles go slumping or slack?
Now, try this. Get back to energized as fast as you can. Oh, come on, play with me. What I want you to do, just, just for a moment, is practice snapping yourself from being in a state of being bored and tired into a state of energy. It's going to be very valuable for you. Let's try it. Back into an energized state. Come on, as energized as you can get. Come on, sit up in your chair, breathing with some energy, feeling strong. Come on, even more energized than before. Now, go to bored and tired. Back to energized. Come on, as fast as you can. Snap yourself. I know this looks weird if you're driving in your car and somebody's looking in the other window, but hey, it'll make their day. You'll change their state. Come on, if somebody else in the family's watching, they don't have to know what's going on. Just go for it. Here we go. Total energy, lots of energy and excitement. Feel it in your body. Move your body. Sit the way you're sitting if you had even more energy. Bored and tired. Energized as fast as you can. Come on, snap back in that state. Bored and tired. Energized faster. Again, come on, even more, even more, even more. Bored and tired. Energize back in that state again. Feel it. And just stay there. Stay in an energized state.
Now, you might say, "Well, this sounds weird." Let me ask you a question. How valuable is it for you to be able to go in life, in business, in your job, and your personal relationship, from being bored and tired and wiped out to being in a peak state? How important would that be to increasing the quality of your life? Say, on a scale from 0 to 10. I'll tell you, I think it's a level 9 or 10 or above, and I think you probably would too. So, developing new ways, new habits of moving your body is the single most powerful way to change state.
Here's another quick way. Change your breathing. As I said earlier, one of the reasons people smoke cigarettes is because in order to smoke a cigarette, you change your breathing pattern rather radically. When people eat food, often times they feel better afterwards because they fill their stomach up, and it changes the way they feel and the way they breathe. Well, all that food in there, things slow down, they feel less stressed. Almost every yoga practice that I've ever studied or noticed teaches some kind of breathing pattern as part of how to change your emotions and the way you can grow spiritually, if you will. So, changing your breath. Try different breaths, breathing faster, breathing slower, and discover what breathing patterns work best for you to create the changes that you want.
Thirdly, learn to manipulate your face. I teach people in seminars how to do what I call facial aerobics. What that means is is doing many different expressions as you possibly can in a short period of time so that what happens is you really have access to different emotional states. Do you know you have over 80 different muscles in your face? And a slight change in your facial muscle instantly changes the way you think and the way you feel. There was a study done at the University of California at San Francisco where they took manic depressives, and all they did was change their facial expressions, made them smile on an ongoing basis. These are people who were manic depressives, bear in mind. People normally need drugs to change the way they feel. Not one of those persons, while they were able to keep smiling, was able to feel depressed. In fact, some of them began to manage themselves by smiling for 20 minutes at a time for no reason, and pretty soon they began to feel great, and they began to develop a new habit. Do you have habitual facial expressions of grimacing or frustration? Will you crinkle up your nose, or your eyelids, or your forehead, or something else that you do on an ongoing basis? I'm here to tell you that those habits create those negative emotions in your body on a regular basis. You need to develop some new habits of using your face.
And finally, one of the ways you can manage your state best is to control your diet. And I'm not going to teach you a health seminar here, although I do those across the United States. I do want to say this to you, that most of us in life do not pay attention to what we're putting in our body, and what you're putting in affects deeply how you feel emotionally. Blood sugar, for example, alone makes a radical shift in how you feel emotionally. So, if you aren't paying attention to how you're eating and you're throwing anything you possibly can in that body without looking at the consequences, you're going to pay an emotional price. Many times, hyperactive children, or people that are having major ups and downs in their life, it just comes from some basic, simple dietary approaches. If they made a few simple changes, they'd live a much more balanced emotional life. So, my challenge to you is to study health, to find out not how to throw your pendulum and go off on the deep end on some bizarre diet, but how can you make sure that the way you're breathing, the way you're moving, and the way you're eating things is giving you as much as possible to your life and not taking away, not throwing your life into a pendulum. Make sure that you have that physical energy and drive. It comes from having enough sleep and eating well.
For now, though, I want to have you focus on one emotional state because I'd like you to be able to trigger a state change anytime you want. And that emotion is the one I know as passion. As you may have picked up, I'm a fairly passionate person, and I talk about that at the end of each tape because I think out of a state of passion, you can create almost anything you want in your life. I think most people in life want passion. They want that drive, that attraction to life. They want that juice in their relationships, in their business, and their ability to learn. But most people are barely making it through the day. You know, I mean, hey, you got to watch TV, fight the traffic home, get a bite to eat, and go to bed. Bed so you can get up tomorrow and start the same vicious circle all over again. I mean, after all, guys got to work, got to make your way and stuff. After all, I work hard for a living. Can't expect me to be passionate at the end of the day. Easy for you, but come on, I work for a living. Let me just tell you something. I used to believe that kind of stuff, and I used to feel that way too. Am I saying you can't talk slowly and be passionate? Absolutely not. I can talk quietly and still have passion coming through in my voice and the way I'm speaking to you and the way I feel inside. But that's passion. This is not passion. If you want passion, you got to talk like you're passionate. You can't talk like you're bored and feel passion. It won't work. Your body will lead your mind. Take care of it.
How can we use this knowledge? Simple answer. I want you to do it by doing the following. In a moment, at the end of this tape, your only exercise today is to do this. I want you to absolutely whip yourself into a passionate state. And if there's somebody there, I want you to talk to somebody about something, and I want you to do it two different ways. Talk to them about something you believe in, something you're really usually pretty excited about, but do it in a dispassionate way. In other words, talk to a friend. And by the way, let me just say this, if you're in your car, or if there's nobody there, talk to the wall. Okay? Talk to the road. It doesn't matter if you're talking to yourself.
People are driving by. They'll again be entertained, so this is very useful.
Now here's what I want you to do. If while you're doing this, I want you to talk about something. And you can just talk out loud to no one, or talk to someone if they're there. Talk about something you're normally inspired about, but talk in a succeed. And I really think that if you were to study it, it would really change your life too.
And I want you to notice what you do when you're dispassionate. Notice, for example, how you're standing. Are you wavering back and forth? Are you standing still? Are you back on your heels? How do you gesture, or do you even gesture when you're dispassionate? How do you use your voice? What's the volume? What's the tempo? What's the tone of your voice? What do you do with your facial expressions when you're passionate versus dispassionate? Pay close attention.
And then what I want you to do is, and really go for it for two or three minutes, be totally dispassionate. Notice how it feels to be dispassionate. I doubt if you'll like it too terribly much.
Then what I want you to do is change your state completely. And I want you to go to the other extreme. I want you to talk to yourself, or the wall, or your radio, or the crowd, or the traffic, or your friend in a totally passionate way, where you're more inspired, more excited, more passionate than you can ever remember being in your entire life. I mean, I want to go for it 100%. And while you're talking to whatever it is, I mean, go for it 100%. Don't go, "Oh, this is stupid." All right, I'll try it halfway. Do it all the way, or don't do it at all. If you're not going to do it at all, give this tape program to somebody who will follow through. But if you're one of those people, then go for it. Okay? Be outrageous. Push yourself.
And then notice how are you moving differently? What are some of the specific gestures that you give when you're passionate, and where are they? How, what's the difference in the quality of them? What's the difference in how you use your voice? What's your volume like? What's your tempo? What's your facial expressions like? Again, notice the difference.
When you're done, here's your assignment. Your assignment is pull out your success journal and record the difference. In other words, what I want you to do is leave this session today having knowledge of the buttons in your brain. In other words, if I notice that if I take my right hand and I actually snap it out in front of me very, very fast, that when I'm passionate, I tend to do that, making a point. And when I'm dispassionate, my hands are below my waist or just kind of hanging out there. Then the next time I want to be passionate, even if I'm not feeling passionate, I can just snap my hand out there and immediately it's there.
If I notice that when I'm dispassionate, I talk kind of quiet and tired and stuff, but when I'm passionate, I speak a little more rapidly, then if I want to get passionate, I just start speaking more rapidly. Immediately, and pretty soon I immediately feel passionate as well.
If I notice that when I'm dispassionate, I'm back on my heels or leaning away from somebody, but when I'm passionate, I'm leaning into them talking and gesturing, then I start leaning into somebody in order to feel passionate towards them. In other words, find out how your brain works. You are different than me or anyone else you're going to meet. Find it exactly what triggers passion within you in terms of movements. An experiment. What would be a kind of move you could make that immediately would make you feel strong, even if you were afraid a few moments ago?
So let me be clear. Here's your exercise. One, talk to something or someone in a dispassionate way about something you're normally inspired about. Dispassionate, or you don't really believe it or feel it. Two, change your state and get absolutely, absolutely passionate. Will you feel more excited, more energized, more passionate ever before? Three, dissect in your mind the difference in how you moved, how you breathed, how you used your face, and how you used your voice, and record that in your success journal. And finally, today, experiment at some point in the day you don't feel very inspired, or you don't feel anything in particular. Snap yourself into a powerful state.
Or ask yourself, where am I on a scale from 0 to 10? If you find yourself at level four or five or six, to me, that's a pretty boring way to live life. Maybe you want to amp yourself up, crank yourself up to level eight or nine, just by changing your movement. Or maybe you want to be able to go from being totally excited to relaxed, just by changing your breathing, or your tempo, or your gestures. Because being able to relax quickly and easily is sometimes, and oftentimes, as important as your ability to get yourself excited. The only reason I push in the other direction is I think most people have the ability to get in this state. They may not have the ability to get in the other one. Whatever you're already good at, make it better. Whatever state you're not good at getting in, practice getting into it until you can absolutely make the change you want as fast as you can think it.
Remember, any emotion you're feeling is based on how you're moving. Little movements like breathing, and big movements like gestures and facial expressions. Take control the day and experiment and explore. Have the adventure of discovering how you can use your body to immediately direct your mind and your emotions.
And by the way, if this happens to be Friday, if you started on a Monday, the weekend is here. Time to listen to your three-dimensional cassettes. Let those do some conditioning, and I'll see you on Monday, or whatever you've chosen to do. Until then, live with passion.