Transcription
Whenever you feel sad, or mad, or nervous, or out of control, what I want you to do is just write it down. And then ask yourself a series of questions. Um, and I have I have this cute diagram of the different types of ants. And I always ask my patients, so which which are your ants? Are they like All or Nothing ants? Were you thinking words like always, never, everyone, every time? Are they Less Than ants, given to us by social media where we compare ourselves to others in a negative way? Guilt-beating ants? Mind-reading ants? Fortune-telling ants? Blame ants? Um, so identify the type. Do you have an example of a bad thought that just sort of runs around your head? Oh gosh, um, I think I live in a permanent state of assuming I'm going to get bad bad news. And it doesn't haunt me. I think I'm generally quite a calm person and quite focused and peaceful in my brain. But I think because I've run companies for the last 10 years or longer, you're always just about to get bad news. So I think that can be that can be playing on the radio in the background somewhere, like I'm going to open an email and it's going to be bad news. There's so many opportunities for bad news in my world, so yeah, yeah. So I think you write it down: this is going to be bad. And then my friend Byron Katie has this process that I've refined a bit. So that's a fortune-telling ant, right? And so this is going to be bad news, or I always get bad news—fortune-telling and all-or-nothing. And so the first question is, is it true? Right? The second question: is it absolutely true with 100% certainty? And if one is no, two is automatically no. The third question: how does that thought make me feel? On edge, on edge. How does the thought make me act? So the third question has three parts: how does the thought make me feel? Tense, on edge. How does it make me act? Uh, removed, uh, what's that word? Is it apathetic? Reticent? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the third part of that: what's the outcome of believing it's always going to be bad news? I mean, there's no good outcome, really. Suffering. Yeah, suffering. Yeah. The fourth question: how would you feel if you didn't have that thought? Free. And how would you act? Uh, happier and uh, more present. And the outcome of not having that thought? Better relationships, life, because you're more present. Yeah, yeah. And then the fifth question: so the first one is, is it true? The second one is, is it absolutely true? The third one: how would I how do I feel, act, and what's the outcome of having this thought? The fourth question is, how what I feel, act, and what's the outcome not having the thought? The fifth question is my favorite: just take the thought and turn it to the opposite, and then ask yourself, is that true? So it's going to be good news, or it's going to be innocuous news. And then go, yeah, 99 times out of 100, that's true. And then I would, because I'm also a CEO, I'm like, well, how many of these things can't I handle? Virtually none of them. I can handle all of them, right? So I'll be okay. And then I meditate on the opposite of the thought that's bothering me. And so I take these thoughts captive. I like that. And people who are depressed are infested with negativity. But you can train that your brain is healthy; it's easier to do. You can train that. But you imagine there's no second-grade class in the world where teachers teach children not to believe every stupid thing they think. In fact, I was watching one of the confirmation hearings today, and the senators were filled with ants. Oh yeah, they were distorting things; they were angry; they were making things more negative than they needed to be. We are model bad thinking, and the News does it purposefully because they know if they piss you off, if they scare you, you're going to tune in so they can sell you more copper underwear. So we're in a society that breeds these ant attacks, so you have to be careful. People who watch the news in the morning are 27% less happy in the afternoon. And so you have to guard what goes in. So every day you're programming happiness or sadness. And I believe Dennis Prager has this great five-minute video called Why Be Happy, and I love it so much. I wrote a book called You Happier, and I start with his idea that happiness is a moral obligation. And I'm like, so I grew up not too far from here. I went to Catholic school; my mom was very serious about being Catholic. And growing up, the idea happiness is a moral obligation was nowhere in my childhood. And I had a good childhood. Why is it a moral obligation? Because of how you impact other people. If you were raised by an unhappy parent, or married to an unhappy spouse, or raising an unhappy child, and you ask those people, is happiness an ethical issue, they would all say yes. So is it wrong to program your mind to look for what's right? It's hard for some people; it's just a pattern, right? Yeah, it's like getting biceps are hard, but it's it's not right; it's just repeatedly doing the same thing that gives you the desire you want. Have you seen someone shift from being a stereotypically negative person, down and out, negative, depressed, to the opposite? Yes, truly the opposite. A lot. But you got to do the process; it's you you got to do the work. When you love yourself, you do the work. Like I come from a family of fat people, but I'm not. Why? Because I know it's a risk for me. And so every day of my life I'm on an obesity prevention plan. And I wish I didn't have to be, right? I wish I could just eat anything I want and it would be okay, but it's not the reality of my life. Are we recording? 87% of people don't subscribe on the Clips Channel. Yeah. Taking Liberties, what? Just coming for free and then bouncing? What? 87%? 90% of people on the Clips Channel don't subscribe. What it says here. So I've been doing all this for free. You've been consuming all these clips for free. Listen, can we we'll make a deal. Um, I'm really going to make these clips amazing, and you're in the Clips algorithm on our show. So can I ask a favor, please? Can you hit the Subscribe button if you've watched more than one before? How how about that? If you've watched more than one—first one free, buy one get one free. The second one I'm going to have to ask you to subscribe to. If this is the first time you've seen a clip on this channel, move along; you don't need to subscribe. But if you've seen one before, please do me a favor, help a guy out, hit the Subscribe button. Thank you so much.