So step number one decide to develop the habit right now
the habit of focusing on what's right in your world instead of what's wrong
the habit of focusing on what you do have instead of what you don't have in a
situation and as basic as that is and as well as
you know it you've got to make it a habit
because those habits form the chain of your ultimate character
of who you become and how you end up living your life we've got to condition
ourselves because if we don't we'll go back to the automatic state that most
people live in in today's society instead of judging yourself and others
decide remember these are decisions decide right now
to become curious instead of judgmental remember when you
find fault in other people when you start noticing constantly
how they've wronged you how this person is not good enough or they're too
egotistical they're too proud of they don't really care about people as soon
as you start judging other people you just gotta remember something
if you start judging other people you're gonna also start judging yourself
intensely if you're angry at other people there's
a very good chance you're angry at yourself as well
maybe you perceive more and judge less maybe instead of finding fault with
other people without really thinking about what
they've gone through to be where they are this day
maybe we can get really curious about what's making this person be in the
state they're in or what's the motivation behind this
person's anger we've got to get curious instead of living in a society where
we're so afraid we're so afraid to believe in anything or anyone that we
believe in nothing at all and we lose our power
our power of positive thinking we try to protect ourselves from things we may not
even need to protect ourselves from or we live in a society
where we try and destroy our heroes where we take something like barbara
walters incredible broadcaster a woman of
incredible integrity who gets nailed by one person in a book and it's
in every newspaper across the land how she probably stomped on people to get
where she was that's absurd our martin luther king
after he's passed on somebody comes back and stomps all over
his career and his reputation is that the society we want to live in
any person who takes glee and watching another person's pain will experience
plenty of pain themselves remember the quote he was without sin
let him cast the first stone the bottom line is if you go looking for
brown you're going to find it anywhere you look for it in others or yourself
free yourself from the disease of making others wrong and you'll free yourself
from the disease and making yourself wrong
you have a lot more energy to create solution instead of problems
it's part of the power of positive thinking instead of falling for the
destructive power of negative thinking if you want to get curious just ask
yourself what do i like about this person
wonder what's going on with this person that would make them feel this way how
could i help this person as you ask these kinds of questions you
may learn something about how human beings operate about their motivations
maybe even some things about how to support yourself as you try to support
others remember get curious instead of
judgmental if you really want to develop the power of positive thinking as a
habit as a lifestyle as a strategy for success
then decide right now to find something to appreciate
from any seemingly negative person or situation
and develop the habit of giving compliments see
if you really want to have some more positive feelings in your life you got
to keep focusing on what's right you got to get curious and most
importantly got to find something to appreciate even in the tough times
because in reality as we've talked about so often before the toughest times in
your life sometimes provide you with the real resources to change your life
so we've got to do is find something to appreciate not
someday when things work out we got to appreciate where we are right now
so when i say number three is develop the habit of noticing something you can
appreciate of the situation even something that seems to be negative
what i mean by that is find out what's working but also
appreciate what isn't working appreciate it enough that maybe it creates enough
pain for you to want to make a change hey being purely positive all the time
is not the ultimate solution being purely positive 98 of the time to
me is the solution remember our steps number one you're
going to focus on how it really is and that's what we did today julie and i
sat down and said let's see it really is let's not just be positive let's stop
for a second how is it really what's good what isn't good what's great
what isn't great in this context everything is great but comparatively
what's great what's not in both situations
decide what you do want and say you know i'm not perfect but i
am good and what makes me good and what makes me great what can make me
excellent as soon as i notice i'm not on track
i correct it and i get better your goal each day is to get better not to be
perfect and that's all anyone can ask of you if
every day you really try and contribute more be more and do
more than you were slightly the day before that's all anybody can ask and if
you know you're going to screw up and you don't make it a catastrophe it's
easier to bounce right back up see the only way you fail is if you quit
but if you learn something and you expand from it and you make some
new decisions that enhance your life and the people you care about
then there is no failure don't try to be perfect because you'll never
succeed but one thing you got to remember you're going to spend most of
your time being positive once you see how it is
that's it decide what you want and make it happen don't keep going back and
saying oh yeah but it's not working see balance doesn't mean you spend fifty
percent of your time positive fifty percent of the time negative
remember balance on a human scale is a little different negative experiences
are dense and it doesn't take a lot of those focuses of negative
to weigh a lot in your life make sure your focus is primarily positive but at
times at special times that you designate you're
going to say hey what is it working and allow that pain to drive you to do
something that's very positive that'll change your life
is to take a brave look at your life look at your life right now where it is
so let me ask you some questions as you begin to look out on the future look out
on this year let's take personal inventory what has brought you here
as you begin to look at the things that took place this past year
did you get out of it what you wanted did you achieve the goals that you set
out to achieve what part of your life or what things
that you do that you don't want to be a part of your life
are there any people as you begin to look at your life
and look at where you want to go and what you want to do are there any people
that might be some dead weight
that you need to think about unloading
because what you have found through that relationship that it's more toxic
than it is nourishing is more debilitating than it is
empowering and so now you've got to make a decision see
many of us won't be able to move forward because we're not taking true
inventory of our lives as you begin to look at your emotional your spiritual
and intellectual development how many books did you read how many
seminars did you attend how many classes that you take to begin
to develop yourself professionally to improve your craft or your skill
how many new things that you learn just take some personal inventory just
thinking just thinking just thinking beginning to know yourself what are the
things about your past that has influenced you right now
what's your philosophy of life what are your beliefs things that you feel very
strongly about
what are some of the things that you have picked up along the way that
you've been doing them for so long you think that they're you that you need to
begin to re-examine them and perhaps get them out of your life
see a lot of things we're doing we do unconsciously because we picked it up
somewhere in life what is it that you picked up somewhere
in life that maybe might be a liability to you what fear
what beliefs that you're holding on to tenaciously
that's no longer allowing your life to work
it's not enabling you to produce the results that you want to produce in your
life and you're still clinging to them see as
we go into a new world there's some old behaviors that just won't fit
what are the events what are the circumstances what are the people that
have shaped you just thinking just thinking
what are the things that you need to let go
some things that have cost you pain that stifling your growth and
development what are those things as you begin to look at your
profession or your career what is it that you need to do to begin
to upgrade your skills or your knowledge to continue for you to be competitive in
the marketplace
as you begin to look at yourself and ask some of these questions
what is something that you're good at are you living your passion are you
living a dream what do you regard as your greatest
personal achievement what is the one thing that other people
can do to make you most happy just think about these things what would
you do if you had one year to live and guaranteed success in anything you
decided to do what would that be
what would you do with your life if you had it to live over
getting to know yourself what is one value one deep commitment from which you
would never bulge what is one cause that you would like to
become involved in to make a difference on the planet i work in the cook county
jail in chicago it gives my life a great
deal of joy and fulfillment what is your biggest setback failure or
defeat of the past year what is it about you if somebody
really knew they wouldn't get into a relationship
with you
now don't go tell it
but once you acknowledge what that is then start working on it and changing it
change that it's easy to blame the other person but start taking ownership for
where you are are you proud of how you have been
living your life
have you explored your natural talents your gifts by enthusiastically
trying a variety of activities ladies and gentlemen a lot of us have so much
talent and abilities we just put them back on the back burner
just left them aside someplace never did anything with them never
brought them out here used to do him extremely well in high school or college
or just had a natural gift and never did anything with it what are
you sitting on what gifts are you sitting on have you
resigned yourself to life feeling that nothing can be done to
change your future or your circumstances have you been
afraid to try something different because you're afraid of how people
will react to you or what they will think
those are some of the things that i suggest that you begin to answer
yourself now here are some things that i suggest
that you begin to look at working on to develop your character
some things that will give you some personal strength
now looking at yourself one of the things i'm suggesting you look at
what is it that you need to be in the process of doing more of or less of
like being more direct so i used to have a problem of not telling people what i
actually thought because i didn't want to hurt anybody's feelings
saying no without feeling guilty
more focused so i used to be the jack of all trades and master of none used to a
lot of things one year i decided to do one thing well
i looked at all of my talents and i decided the strongest one my
ability as a speaker that's the one i'm going to focus on
but i'm capable of doing a lot of other things
but only when i decided to focus
then i begin to reap the rewards of my talent and then after you do that you
can begin to expand and use the other talents that you have
deciding to keep your word if you just decide i'm going to keep my
word if i say something i'm going to do it regardless
being more considerate
more trusting more discipline being less fearful being more
adventurous find something that you can look at your
life that you say hey i know i've got a problem in this area
being late i need to take care of that procrastinating i need to deal with that
not taking care of business being seriously not serious
creating an imbalance in my life where i'm spending more time looking at
television or having social fun and not spending enough time working on
me see most people ladies and gentlemen spend more time working on their jobs
and they spend working on themselves they work harder on their jobs and they
work on themselves and whatever we achieve in life whatever
we create whatever we're able to manifest
comes out of the human mind now i want you to think about five things that if
you have the courage to do them it will give you a feeling of
satisfaction and self-respect
think of five things that if you had the courage to do those things
you would feel a tremendous feeling of satisfaction within
and self-respect
take the time to write those things down whatever they might be to you
it might be in your personal life it might be in your
your friendships your family relationships
number one there's an aspect to your own skills
and your own celebration of work that if you were to
develop a few new habits around that it would bolster your confidence because
once you understand the science of confidence and the importance of seeing
the actions first not the belief i'll prove to you that kind of going
and addressing the skill piece so that you yourself feel more confident and
celebrate your work that'll help the next morning 54321 i'm getting up
and that's when it hit me it hit me that oh my god
in five seconds flat either self-doubt wins or
you do in five seconds flat either your
feelings dictate what you're about to do or you do in five seconds flat
you can change anything and that changes everything life because this is the
secret to self monitoring whatever it is that you said that you
wanted you wanted more money you wanted more
uh the ability to be able to focus you wanted to change your relationship
it comes down to changing who you're being every single time
and the fastest the simplest way to do that is to reduce the things that
you need to do into five second windows is right here in the red in the central
region of your brain this is where those patterns get encoded
this is where habit loops become engineered into your mind as a
closed-loop system something that you do without even
thinking so i'm going to give you an example
um you walk into your closet there's a pair of jeans
you're going to pull them down which leg do you put in first
you're thinking about it right now right you don't when you put your jeans on
because the pattern of grabbing it and lifting for me it's my right leg
that's encoded as a chunk right here so i've been experimenting with this
because i want to um yeah i just want to
understand this stuff and so i would go in there and i would
literally grab the jeans and start to do this
and knowing that i want to chain 5 put on this one and now i've actually
retrained myself to i mean it's a dumb example but
this puppy right here is your prefrontal cortex
if i were to pick up a camera and try to learn what some of you know
this would be blinking seriously like like like a christmas
tree lights blinking this part of your brain is active in
functional mris when you're learning new behavior
when you're acting with courage and when you're doing any kind of strategic
thinking so in order to change yourself
we got to get you out of here and we got to activate this part of the brain
and what's cool about the five second rule because this part of the brain will
fight you on changing because you already know you're supposed
to put your right leg in first this part of the brain is active when
i'm training myself to interrupt those impulses and use this one
so this part of the brain makes it harder this part of the brain makes
change easy when you count backwards five four three
two one you activate the prefrontal cortex
that's what's happening nothing in life is permanent you can change
anything at any time you can change your thinking patterns you can change your
behavior you can change who you hang out with
you always are in control here's the benefits of this
we activated the progress principle and when you
figure out what matters to you and you focus on
one small action just four i don't care how little it is forward is forward
folks it increases people's rates of
completion on the overall project to 76 it sounds so stupid that these
little things work but they they unlock aspects of the way
that your brain naturally works to your advantage so when you pick one small
move forward it makes it easier to try doesn't it and
when you try you reduce self-doubt because you see
yourself taking action you know from the confidence competency
loop that that actually builds confidence and
then of course because you have progress based on all this research that's coming
out of the harvard business school on something that matters it actually
creates this momentum effect so this teeny little tweak one selfish
project for you remind yourself why this is important
and one teeny teeny little move you're gonna make forward
and you win every time now let me show you this crazy
trick that will also change things plan when you quit working let me remind
you that 96 of creative breakthroughs don't happen
while you're working so super super important so the five
habits no phone in the bedroom no snooze 30 before 7 30 or
make whatever you know thing it is that you want to do
one project that matters that's it one project that matters in one small
way and set a quitting time if you have a problem that can be solved
with action you don't have a problem and even if the
problems that you feel that you face are mental you can solve them with
action and you also now know how
see it spot it five four three two one and move that is what's
going to work every single time and if you can start to absorb this idea
that confidence in every aspect of your life
is just the decision to try that's it it begins right there
look i don't expect you to be perfect i expect you to fail
but i do expect you all to try thank you for being here