It Is Easier To Be Wise For Other People Than For Yourself
Welcome to the one day at a time podcast where we forget about yesterday. We don't worry about tomorrow. It's what are we going to do today? This all matters because you've only ever had or will ever have the fantastic twenty four hours a day you're about to embark on. So hopefully this episode is going to give you some daily dose of wisdom that you can take action on today to improve your life.
Speaker 1:And remember, all it takes is one day at a time. Good morning, Well, first of all, my throat's better, not 100%, but it's better. Second, Wales did lose four nil, which is devastating, but fair play to the boys again, tiny country, small nation on the European stage. Knockout stages, go through the group games. So, you know, they put us there.
Speaker 1:Supporting Wales on on the Euros has never happened in my lifetime until 2016 onwards and the first time we qualified. So it's been a good and Scotland this time. It's been quite good to actually not have to just watch England for once. Mean, so, yeah, happy days. It's gone now, but there we go.
Speaker 1:I did go to the school of life on the weekend so the school of life the guy who founded Alain de Breton is this you know he's a brilliant author so we're gonna be reading one of his books and book club. He's got loads of little books essays you can buy in the shop and they're on loads of different topics. And the good thing about this guy is like he takes these like philosophical lessons and he basically makes them very actionable, easy to understand and it's not full of fluff. He's a brilliant mind as well so like if you are in London I think it's in like Russell Square you can go to the school of life and then go to the British Museum and see some ancient Greek stuff and Roman stuff so yeah you can do that trip, get a few books so yeah really good but we're gonna look we're gonna we're gonna read his book next in book club after Jay Shetty but a random video right that's on YouTube and a video came up and I just was like right recommend video Boris Johnson versus account me read something Greece versus Rome.
Speaker 1:I was like, what? So you're watching this. Basically Boris Johnson in, like, 2015, he's debating this professor at Cambridge about, like, why is ancient Greece better than ancient Rome? Or, like, what's had the most impact? And I was like, to be fair to Boris, he's a good he's a good, like, public speaker, like, lecturer because he can do some jokes and stuff like that.
Speaker 1:But I was, like, listening to what he was saying, I was, like, if you know all of this and you wanna take all the lessons from the ancient Greeks and you've got all these views on democracy, he even said Boris Johnson even says that he's for the many, not the few. Right? And that was Jeremy Corbyn's campaign like motto for the many not the few as in you know most public not just the elites and I'm like it made realise it doesn't matter how much you know about all this stuff, if you're not going to apply it right to your own life when you've got the chance to what is the point knowing it? And Boris like a pop, he's a populist like he'll, he's already come to the conclusion and he'll say whatever he wants to get his thing he wasn't listening to the other person wasn't like, you know, he's trying to crack jokes and disarm and stuff like that But just that's just a note that I was making like, we can read as many books as we want. We can learn about all history lessons and all that.
Speaker 1:But when it comes to the time we have to make decisions ourselves. And we know all of the past what do most humans do? Ah well this time is different. Nah it can't be the same. Me I'm the only person that's ever had this kind of decision to make it's just you just align to yourself you know the right decision is but then you go for the easiest decision.
Speaker 1:And I was reading this, it's actually a book by Alain de Breton on I think it's called like the 60 greatest thinkers so if you want to have a recap of all the top thinkers in political history and just in philosophy stuff it's a really good easy read that would get you up to speed but there's a guy called La I'm not gonna rinse his name La Rochefold I think he's a French guy. He was the one that came up with the concept of a maxim or an aphorism. And he's basically he's got loads of aphorisms or maxims on, basically the how the human psyche is in reality and he was a French guy and people when he's coming out of these back in the day people didn't like him because he was saying a lot of home truths to us that we weren't really comfortable with like people knowing. He said that the reason why we argue so much against my maxims is because they expose the human heart. It's as we ourselves are afraid of being exposed by them.
Speaker 1:And it's true so I'm gonna give you some maxims that I liked so far from the book and, see if any resonate or if you wanna fight to smell viral, let me know. Okay, the first one which is what my you know, I thought about straight away is Boris is, it is more vital to study men or women than books. Right, the purpose of reading and looking into other people is probably to learn from them. And you know, you can talk theory all day, but definitely important to learn from others, especially people we look up to maybe in the same field as us we can learn a lot by just reading a biography or whatever on them or reading their work. Okay, in the human heart passions, emotions are perpetually being generated so that the downfall of one is almost always the rise of another.
Speaker 1:That's just the reality of us as humans, mean might be sad today that goes and then we're angry and then we're happy and someone else forever. We are more able than willing, often we imagine the things that are impossible because we want to excuse ourselves in our own eyes. Yep, that is true. Those who devote too much attention to little things generally become incapable of great ones. Correct.
Speaker 1:We are so accustomed to disguise ourselves from other people that in the end, we disguise ourselves from ourselves. Mhmm, I've seen that in many forms. It is easier to be wise for other people than for yourself. Oh my god if this is literally like this hit Tom so hard like I can like I said, read all these books, do all these voice notes, help people in health and fitness and see people doing amazing transformations. Right?
Speaker 1:And then when it comes to yourself, it's still just as hard as everyone else to take the same advice. Right? That's the thing. The soup you have to be able to give if you can give someone wisdom and an advice, right? And you you know, you've got no kind of emotional attachment to where you're giving it straight and you're like, is clear as day.
Speaker 1:This is probably the best thing for you to do. And they take that advice amazing. You can take advice from people easier than taking advice from yourself, but the ability to take advice by yourself and being able to detach yourself. Oh, my day is so hard, but a superpower. So I think all of us should try and we can basically become our own helper in a way we don't have to be our own worst enemy all the time we can we can try we can we can become our own helper and I was someone has helped me as well as like I've been more kind in my mind to myself I keep saying to myself like we've been through a lot or like, myself and like we as a team as opposed to I'm stupid or like, know what mean?
Speaker 1:I'm like thinking there's two things in the mind. We know the monkey mind, the chimp mind. We know we got the emotional part of our brain. We got the logical part. There's always the those two in in dynamics going on.
Speaker 1:You wanna try and work with it, you know, we live we're living with someone in our mind twenty four seven. That's what I'm looking at now. And it just kind of makes more sense to me, so I'm trying to make sure they're aligned. Okay next one we are sometimes as different from ourselves as we are from other people yeah imagine you're in social scenarios and then you on your own you could be a creative person and then who are you? You mean who are trying to be over there and who are you now?
Speaker 1:Important questions. Few people are wise enough to prefer useful criticism to treacherous praise Yes, we should welcome criticism and some people deliver criticism in really bad ways and this they need to learn to to give criticism in kinder ways because it does triggers you know automatic But we can overlook how it's delivered in most cases. We can try and see the good from it, and we can learn from it as long as we trust or know that it's coming from someone we know is a decent person. So anyone can criticize and just be a troll. But if someone you know and trust says something, a criticism is you.
Speaker 1:Just try and look at what they're actually saying as opposed to straighten your guard up. Again, much easier said than done, but there's a lot to learn from those things. You know thinking back to myself like people say something to me I would like immediate defence more and you think back well actually probably is more true isn't it it's probably truer than me not you know me going against it I probably should listen. The desire to be seen as clever often prevents us from becoming so. Boris Johnson, mate take your advice you learned from the ancient Greeks and deploy it now.
Speaker 1:Oh god, small mindedness leads to stubbornness. It is hard for us to believe anything that goes beyond what we see. Yes. Sometimes it takes as much cleverness to profit from good advice as to give ourselves good advice. Again, leading on from previous one.
Speaker 1:We find very few sensible people except those who agree with our own opinion. Aye. Oh, he's sensible because he agrees with me. He's not sensible. He doesn't agree with me.
Speaker 1:Right? We have to accept that we have people in our lives that have different opinions doesn't mean they're not sensible because different opinions. Amazing and unbelievable to believe mind isn't it? That people got different opinions but we can all be sensible. We are lazier in our minds than in our bodies.
Speaker 1:Yes we are indeed And I was reading, Plato's Republic the other day and Socrates was speaking to this I think he's speaking to Glycon which is Plato's brother I think and he was saying to him like look when we train the mind when we train the mind by you know doing whatever and then we go and do physical training physical training is still is another way of training the mind he says either whatever we're doing is training the mind and that's the most important thing. And if the mind isn't getting stronger, isn't getting fitter, isn't getting more resilient, our body's not gonna follow suit. Even if you've got stronger body, if your mind is not capable of taking your body to its potential, then the mind is always gonna be the cap on everything you do. And there's a brilliant quote I heard the other day as well about business, he said that a company's growth only as the company's growth potential is only as big as the the mind of the CEO or as the kind of like vision of the CEO I was like wow it's like that. So we're the CEO of our own life, whatever we think is capable, whatever our vision can be, that the end of our vision is the cap of what we could do with our mind.
Speaker 1:Do you know I mean? So in that regard, we have to work on our mind even more than we are right now, all of us. I think in the gym, know, you go 10 reps, I said then you can go five, five more. David Gorgens talks about this, he says, most of us reach 30% of what we can do and stop because that's when like the slight pain starts. So yeah, we've got to learn to probably in ways focus on strengthening our mind becoming more resilient and I think everything else in our life will become easier and will follow suit.
Speaker 1:But a few more because this voice not getting on and my throat stand hurt. We are never as unhappy as we think or as happy as we had hoped. True? That's a good thing, you know? Like, we're never as unhappy as we think, but we're not as happy as we hope.
Speaker 1:We're not playing this romanticism fairy tale, and we think we're unhappy, we're maybe having a bad ten minutes sometimes or about half an hour, maybe a bad half day, potentially a bad day, in most cases. And then obviously there are, of course, there's cases that are gonna be beyond that. But in general, we can't just be like, oh, Monday, I'm unhappy. Just flip on your head. It's Monday, new week, get on with it.
Speaker 1:Build up the momentum for this week and you'll feel better about yourself as opposed to being like, oh, it's Monday, I'm so nappy. That's not gonna work for you, is it? And last one, temperance, so moderation is simply a love of one's health or the inability to eat too much. That's true, but in today's world most of us find hard to not eat too much. But it's interesting with this guy in the sixteen hundreds, the same moderation is the is the love of one's health.
Speaker 1:You think about it, this French guy, you know, probably one of, you know, probably quite wealthy in a way living a year was wealthy actually, is claiming or saying the moderation is the love of one's health and we should really take that seriously because I've mentioned moderation so many times. If we can be more if we are being moderate with overeating and drinking, well we are prioritizing our health aren't we? I mean we're not prioritizing the, leisure or luxury of time that we're spending out to a prioritizing health over that momentary oh that was a nice dessert or that and this and we always regret eating too much or drinking too much we always do I don't think I know someone who's woke up after a massive bend on a weekend and gone I'm chuffed to bits I did that bend I'm chuffed to bits I drank way more than I needed. Nobody really does it. Like we can we can we can lie to ourselves and say, oh yeah mate, but you know, you live once and you don't forget to make because you know, you live once and you know, you should be able to do whatever you want and I'm like, yeah, but you could have still had maximum fun and not taking it too far.
Speaker 1:That's the thing. You can still do that and not take it too far. It's being able to live and not go that step further, the unnecessary step that we all take because, again, comes back to the mind, the weak mind we have. That we we we fall into the prey of tomb that that more is better all the time and it's not. And if we can be moderate in those key areas, the Sunday will be saved and we feel better on the Sunday, we'll a better day.
Speaker 1:And then Monday's not as bad, it all knocks on. So have a moderate day today, that's it. Your task, have a moderate day today. You know, if it's gonna be raining like it is now, well, more sweetness be realistic, most you're not gonna go on your walk, but you might as well do something at home, go to the gym, track your macros, try and stand up as much as you can. Remember the study I mentioned it last week about the the hunter gatherers being just moving about squatting down more.
Speaker 1:That's it, really different. So if you can just do that, the key stretches in or whatever, and have a good day. Hit your macros, and your momentum will build. And I'll be back tomorrow. Sorry that the my voice is a bit down a bit because it is hurting speaking, but all is well.
Speaker 1:So enjoy your day and remember to live one day at a time and live moderately. And that's it. Thank you for listening to the one day at a time podcast with your host, Galf Lear. Hopefully you understood something I said. I hope that some wisdom kind of distilled through into your mind, and I want you to now action it today.
Speaker 1:I don't want you to think about tomorrow. I don't want you to think about yesterday. I don't want you to think about leaving a review on this podcast. I don't want you to think about going to another website. What I want you to do is as soon as this podcast ends, you will take action and make the most of today.
Speaker 1:Ground yourself today. Follow the one day at a time philosophy, and your life will change.
