Deep Topics to Think About
Good morning, chaps. How are we doing today? I hope you're well. The next challenge is coming up. Now every morning we're gonna talk about a topic, and I'm gonna go through them now and I'll do a brief overview of all of them, so maybe we can see what we're in for.
Speaker 1:They're gonna be group conversations. You don't have to talk, but your insight is invaluable. All of you have got insights into things that could help someone else have insight themselves, which could change the way they think forever, put it that way. So I'm excited to bring these topics up so we can all talk about them. Because the world doesn't talk about these things in a constructive manner.
Speaker 1:You know, we're not fighting each other. We are gonna we can have dialogue. First thing we're gonna talk was perfectionism. Like what is perfectionism? If you think about it, perfectionism is a form of black and white thinking.
Speaker 1:You will only do something if it's perfect and that comes from insecurity as well, but also comes from procrastination point of view. Perfectionism is black and white thinking, and if you if nothing is ever perfect straight away, so the to think you can make things perfect is absolute nonsense. You can have high standards, but perfectionism will stop you making the strides you need nothing. Think of everything. Think of all the companies in the world.
Speaker 1:You see that fault of Jeff in his garage in like 1998. It looked a terrible crack 10 basically. I look at Amazon now. You know, he wasn't he didn't wait for the perfect office to start. He waited for the perfect tool.
Speaker 1:He didn't think that he has to be perfect from the start. You just get get going. I looked back to my first Rugby Warfare website. My back I looked back to my first fitness website, like terrible. Rugby Warfare's first version, terrible.
Speaker 1:The first samples, terrible, first line of clothing terrible, got better, lived like Louise when we first launched the website looking back terrible. The system, not as good, emails, numbers, nothing has ever, you know, I perfection, I've never got I've perfectionism for me is a plague in the mind. It's not it's not good. Yeah. And I think it does come from insecurity as well because you want to control everything.
Speaker 1:And that's another topic again, wanting control of everything, which is nothing nothing much is in your control put it that way. Nothing much at all and we get into that with stoicism which is the next topic. What is in your control? And the stoics were very clear on this and the stoics didn't worry about being perfect man. Epic teachers would say, what, so do you think a horse or whatever will stop running because it's not the best horse in the world?
Speaker 1:Obviously not. Do you think like that wrestler or that person doing that craft isn't is gonna stop doing the craft because they're not the best in the world? Obviously not. We don't wanna do something that's gonna be the be the best at it. You're never gonna be the best at something.
Speaker 1:If you are, you're a you're a very rare individual. But people will always be better. There's always gonna be more talented people, more skillful people, more beautiful people, richer people, all that stuff. Right? That shouldn't stop you doing what you truly believe you want to do in your life.
Speaker 1:I'll only do that if I'm the best, I'll only do that if I look stupid, I'll only do that, no, that's not how it works. And the Stoics is an old school of philosophy, know, it's been around since 500 BC ish, like very old, it's been around for a while, it's it's it was the main school of thought at one point for the Rome's Romans and the Athenians. He lost his way after the Roman Empire fell pretty much, Marcus Aurelius was kind of the last true stoic leader basically, and their main mantra is things don't disturb me, it's my perception of the thing that does. Right? They talk about things in-depth like your automatic reactions, where your control is, you should never get angry, another stoic called Seneca wrote a lot of letters with advice about anger and all this type of stuff.
Speaker 1:They'd look at things as good, bad, and indifferent. You know, what is good? What is inherently good? Right? They would say wealth isn't inherently good.
Speaker 1:They'd even say health isn't inherently good. It's what you use them for. So wealth isn't good in itself because people can use a destructive means. There's not many things that are good in themselves apart from virtue. So the way your character, how you are, temperance, which is moderation, justice, doing the right thing, wisdom.
Speaker 1:Right? Temperance, justice, wisdom, and courage. Those are the cardinal virtues of stoicism. They are inherently good. Right?
Speaker 1:Everything else is indifferent or bad. And the thing is we put we may we think things we put too much things too much pressure for us to achieve the things that are unhealthy good, wealth, status, fame. They're not unhealthy good, depends what you do with them, and even then they corrupt the mind. After that we talk about food conflict. Why are we fighting food all the time?
Speaker 1:Who has conditioned us to fight against food? Why have we made a war between us and the food? That's the question to ask. Why have we been told this is good, this is bad, we should eat this, we should eat that. Depends on the marketing.
Speaker 1:It depends on how powerful the marketing was in the decade you were growing up in your teens probably, or your mother was swayed by some or father was swayed by some diet at the time. If you think back to you know breakfast is the most important meal of the day is a marketing slogan by Kellogg's. It's not actually the most important meal of the day, all of the foods are important, but that's ingrained into our brain as society for a marketing slogan. Smoking cigarettes was women never used to smoke cigarettes, and then this genius marketer did a campaign where he got women to smoke, and it made them look like they wanted to do it naturally, and they call them freedom freedom something freedom lights or whatever, and then all women well, all a lot of women started smoking. Right?
Speaker 1:There's loads of examples marketers turning things into a slogan that sticks so much in our culture that we take it as truth. Right? And this comes down to carbs, fats, good foods, bad foods, organic, free from section, gluten, all this stuff, all of it. They're making us fight all different types of food. There's one company making you fight another one, another.
Speaker 1:The more the claim has to be more penetrating, more penetrating, more penetrating to get through to you to make action. So marketing is a dark arts basically. The next one is conditioning and diet culture similar to food conflict but it goes beyond. Are you aware of your own conditioning? Who is that thing inside the brain that is the way of its own conditioning?
Speaker 1:Is it that thought itself, that me is aware that me is conditioned? Or is it another part of the brain that's not conditioned, that's not me that is aware that I am conditioned to the balls, basically. I'm conditioned to the hilt guys. Accent, language, spoke Welsh first language, love Wales, hate England, conditioned. I see that as a product of my environment and conditioning, now I'm free from it.
Speaker 1:I don't actually hate England. Well some of you some of you hate the English ruling class, but that way. But yeah, you've got to be aware that you are conditioned to start with and otherwise where do we go? Where if you're not aware that you're conditioned to believe what you believe then there's no way you can go from it. If you think you genuinely have the beliefs you do from your own your own thinking, I'm sorry, but maybe you have one or two that you might have made to come up solo.
Speaker 1:Probably not though. Chances are the things you believe right now the way you are is the conditioning of your past, and that is you. And once we accept that fact, we can then be free from it. So we're gonna talk about all the different ways we're conditioned and have some insights into that. Then we saw moderation.
Speaker 1:The Buddha talked about moderation. Socrates spoke about moderation. The stoics spoke about moderation. A lot of people, philosopher since, you know, a great quote I love is fortify yourself with moderation, it's an impenetrable fortress. Okay, if you are fortifying your mind with moderation you can't be swayed, you cannot, that fortress is indestructible.
Speaker 1:You can't be swayed into excess drinking, excess doing excess drugs or drugs in general or eating too much food or doing too much of the bad thing, doing too much of the good thing. You you don't turn things into problems. You understand moderation, And it is an impendable fortress. You know, there's Buddha and Socrates who are alive around the same time, different parts of the world, both come up to the moderation concept, other people, other cultures as well. Is it there for a reason?
Speaker 1:Stop chasing happiness. You can't chase happiness. You can't run after and catch her. Happiness is a byproduct. And people say the state of being, what does the state of being mean?
Speaker 1:I don't know. Don't you know, it's your essence. Happiness is a lot of different things. One day it could be that you're content. Right?
Speaker 1:One day it could be that you're joyful. One day, you it may come in different forms, but it's still a byproduct of living in the moment day to day, not letting the anxiety take over, not letting fear take over, living with stillness, letting the mind be still and not chaotic, unhappiness can come to being. Happiness cannot be forced though. Chasing happiness makes you more unhappy. Don't know?
Speaker 1:That's a fucking fact for you. Damn right that's a fact. Chasing happiness doesn't make you happy. No way. It makes it worse, way worse.
Speaker 1:Lessons from Edith Eager, Viktor Frankl survived, Auschwitz of course and became psychologists, their books are fantastic so I'll be bringing up points from their books such as the one that always hits me Edith Eager says that the prison of her own mind was the worst prison she's been in and she's been to Auschwitz. For someone to say that that shook me to my bones. So are we creating our own prison in our mind that is worse than the most prisons anyone else can make for us? It's true though. It's true.
Speaker 1:Acceptance or neutrality. You know, are we accepting? Are we body positivity? Right? No matter what, are we toxic positivity?
Speaker 1:There's another phrase coming out. Or are we neutral? You know there's that famous Zen story about that farmer and his son, right, and, his son the one part of the story is, I might butcher it, but it goes something like this. The son gets hit in the leg by a horse or something, right, the horse kicks him. Something happens, broke, his leg's broken.
Speaker 1:His friends are like oh you must be gutted that your son's broken his leg, he goes we see, so neutral very, we see. You know, and then the next day the army come and take the men out for war and they go oh you must be lucky your son didn't get drafted because he's got his leg broken. He's like we see, we see. And then other things happen where like, I don't know, it keeps going that you must be you must feel lucky, you must feel lucky, you must feel like he's wheezy, wheezy, wheezy, always neutral, wasn't celebrating, wasn't, you know, going against him, he's neutral. And just keeping a cool head and being like, you know what, like, this this is bad, but then, you know, he didn't go to war, but then don't look good.
Speaker 1:It ends up being I don't know if it goes bad or not, the story, but the story is that the farmer was always a neutral point of view about things, wasn't swayed the extreme positive or the extreme negative, right, which meant he kept going. I butchered that story, sorry. Oh my god, it's terrible. Escapism, is following a religion the same as following a crystal? Am I escaping through my crystal the same as escaping to Jesus, the same as escaping to books, the same escape into alcohol, the same as escaping to entertainment films, TV shows, the same as escaping to someone else.
Speaker 1:Is it all, even objectively different, are they all the same forms of escapism? Is this still escapism? Are you still trying to get away from yourself? Are you trying to bring external force in to help you? Do you know I mean?
Speaker 1:I'm not saying that's the right to take. I'm just asking what is what is one escapism worse than another? If someone turns to alcohol to escape and someone turns to entertainment like Love Island and watches every season back to back every night for like a year, more is worse. Well, you could say, of course, alcohol is toxic, so physically in the body is worse. But to those two people, they're both still escaping.
Speaker 1:One's just got a different method. Right? So we're all trying to escape, but all trying what's our escapism? What do we escape through? And can we improve or make you know, do we always have to escape?
Speaker 1:Why we all trying escape our own minds for? Why can't we sit in our room alone for ten minutes? Why can you sit alone for ten minutes on your own without music, without TV, without your phone? Why can't we do it? Next one, anxiety.
Speaker 1:Self explanatory. Big topic, won't go into it right now, but question to ask, is anxiety does anxiety require a trigger and is that trigger can that trigger be unconscious? And what do we mean by unconscious? Next one, what's in your control and what's not? Stoicism, again Donald's coming in that evening.
Speaker 1:What's in your control and what's not? Not much. Sorry to break a deal. There's not much in your control at all. Only your voluntary actions.
Speaker 1:That is it. That's the only thing in your control. Your attitude, most of the time is, but your voluntary actions. Me deciding to do me deciding to pick my phone up is in my control, but then being able to actually pick my phone up isn't in my control because the phone could weigh 10,000 kilos. Obviously it doesn't, but I still want to do it.
Speaker 1:Do you I mean? Limits of the mind. What's the limit of the mind? What's the limit of our mind? What's the limit of my mind?
Speaker 1:What's the limit to your mind? Is there a limit to the mind? Is there a limit to thought? Definitely. If you are only seeing the world through your lens, which is your self image, you've created a view, your memories, experiences, the you.
Speaker 1:If you're only seeing the world through that, you're extremely limited because you're limited to all of your upbringing and memories and knowledge and the people you've met and the knowledge you've attained. That's it. It's very small scope. That's an extremely limited view of the world, and everyone views the world through their view. And they think they can collect more views and more views and more views and then eventually they're gonna complete there and have the full perspective, which is impossible.
Speaker 1:There's no way one mind can have full perspective situation or anything. So the mind's got limits, we go into all the other limits we can go, but then we are aware of the limits and can we go beyond? Oh, can we go beyond? Comparison. Why do we care compare?
Speaker 1:The famous quote, comparison is the thief of joy. Joy can only happen in the moment. So comparison not only ruins joy, you are never living in the present if you're comparing. You're always living in the past and the future. You cannot live in the now if you're comparing.
Speaker 1:You will never live in. If you're always comparing, you're living. If you compare, you think you're better than other people and you think other people are better than you. Simple fact. Think about it.
Speaker 1:For you to compare, you must put other people above you, thus other people underneath you because that's how it works. You cannot have a hierarchy without you being above someone. So you feel better when you compare to people that are worse than you in your head, as in worse as in, you know, put on in commas. Commas. I don't even know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1:That's what I'm saying. Like Austin Powers. No. It's his name of, doctor Vivo. Comparing them, you think they're better than you.
Speaker 1:Do you know what I mean? It's a it's a dangerous thing comparing. Oh, god. It is. Think about it.
Speaker 1:It's dangerous for the mind. Can you get inspiration without comparing? Absolutely. But you're always comparing. How many of you comparing yourselves to love violent people?
Speaker 1:How many of you compare yourselves to others? How many of you put other people on a pedestal and and then wonder why you feel shit about yourself? Because you're putting yourself in this freaking fake Fugazi game that other people are better than you when you were better than other people. It's not true. As long as you think that way, you're in for conflict.
Speaker 1:You're in for pain. Why do people put people on pedestals like? Look. I'm I'm asking myself that question. When I look at someone like, they say never meet your heroes, and there's a there's a there's a truth to that.
Speaker 1:I look at someone that inspires me, Bruce Lee. If I were to meet Bruce Lee as the man I am today, I wouldn't be thinking of a photo. I would want to converse with him and have a chat and be able to just meet the man and be present with him. And a photo as a bonus at the end, if it was to be possible, would be great, but it wouldn't be a requirement for me meeting him. Ask me this ten years ago, I would have only cared about having a photo of Bruce Lee to tell everybody I had a photo of Bruce Lee.
Speaker 1:He's dead by the way, so I can't, but do you mean? So the complete different mindset, like, it's all about showing off to others that I've met Bruce Lee versus, you know what? This man has inspired me. Let me meet him in the now, me and Bruce Lee, and let's chat. Let's chat.
Speaker 1:Completely different way of looking at things. But loads of people today just want photos to show off to their mates, it's a signal, it's a status signal. Listen, have photos from memories, that's a thing. Someone actually asked me this on a in a Snowden thing, when Snowden will say like oh yes god you save our photos and all that but we've all had photos as a group today, we've had photos with you, like yeah but we've done a process together, we've done a journey together, daily. We've been helping each other out to get to achieve our goals.
Speaker 1:Having photos to remind yourself of progress you've made. We're both in it together. We're both on the same layer. We've both been this is your journey. We've helped you.
Speaker 1:We've you've you've been part of our business and the service we provided and here's a photo of the team that's helped you, right? It's a two way thing. Most people have photos, it's not a two way thing, it's a complete one way thing. Hey, I see you, you can increase my status, Let me have a photo with you. I don't care what you say.
Speaker 1:I don't care. I'm not gonna say anything to you. Just have a photo, send it to my social media. Adios. That's done.
Speaker 1:I've taken some status from you, which you think you are, but you haven't and people actually don't care. But so we live in a Comparison. Next one, are we rational? Are we allowed to know? We talk about that one.
Speaker 1:Awareness. What is awareness? There's a lot of talk about awareness, but what is it? Awareness. Can you be aware?
Speaker 1:Well you can't be aware if you're comparing for one. You can't be aware if you're thinking too much either. To be aware needs absolute attention but not concentration. It just needs attentiveness to the day to day moments, the relationship you have with you and the food and you and your partner, you and somebody else, you and a friend. Being attentive to that relationship between you and those things, awareness of that will reveal a lot of stuff to you that you've never seen before.
Speaker 1:Okay? And that's the last one. So hopefully that's a nice little recap, not recap, preview of what we're gonna talk about. Maybe a few things to think about so you can start thinking about them for next week, but I've got a lot more stuff coming your way for these chats. And I'm gonna be taking a backseat.
Speaker 1:I'm gonna be making sure you guys are all chatting about these things. I'm gonna learn a lot from you. I look forward to bringing these topics up and getting deeper into them but have a good day, enjoy yourself and remember to live one day at a time of course. Use this as a prompt to do your next action but live now. Live immediately.
