your entire life has been an attempt to
exert control
on some part of the universe
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you're an entrepreneur you really want
to grow your business you want to serve
a certain number of customers
you want to have certain revenues coming
in
because if all of that happens
you think you're going to feel a certain
way and you really want to feel that way
your friends colleagues society will
look at you a certain way and hey that's
good that's what i want
it is an attempt to control your
environment
everything that you do
is in some way shape fashion or form and
attempt to control
your environment well i have some news
for you
you do not have control you never had
control you
never will have control what you have is
the illusion of control
the illusion of control comes about
because in your life you have set a goal
for yourself and you've said you know
here's my goal and if i do all of these
things then i'm actually going to
achieve my goal
and guess what
you succeeded
and you did this many times in your life
and each time you succeeded and so you
think gee i really can do it i can do it
i
have control
and not only have you done it but you've
observed others around you
and they seem to have done it
and they got the results they wanted
so all of that combined to tell you yes
i can do it i have control
that is the illusion of control
now i'm not knocking the illusion of
control it is a wonderful creation
that's what makes you get up in the
morning and strive and do all of the
things that give meaning to your life
and accomplishment
but it's wonderful to use the illusion
of control
knowing that that is the illusion of
control
because when it breaks down and it will
sooner or later in every one of your
lives you don't go to pieces you simply
say ah this is where the illusion broke
down where do i go from here
so given the truth that you never have
control you never had it how can you
eliminate stress and cultivate
resilience well i want to share some
concepts with you
concept number one is mental chatter
which is the internal monologue that you
have going on in your head all the time
it begins when you get up in the morning
is with you right through the day is
with you now
when you should be listening to my
chatter instead of yours
but in the short time i've been speaking
how many of you have already gone
someplace else what am i going to have
for lunch who do i have to call
right i rest my case mental chat has
always been with you it's like an
unwelcome relative who's shown up in
your house and you can't throw him out
so you live your life as best you can
despite your mental chatter you ignore
him suppress him work around him
big mistake
and the reason it's a mistake is because
you don't live a real life you live
an artificial life
and
this artificial life is constructed with
your mental chatter
then we have mental models and a mental
model is a notion you have that this is
the way the world works but this is not
the way the world works it's your model
of this is the way the world works and
the more you believe in your model of
this is the way the world works the more
evidence you seem to get with this in
fact is the way the world works and very
soon you built
a silo around yourself that's so thick
you can't break out of it
we spend
too much of our emotional energy
on the two three or four things that we
think are wrong in our lives
and we entirely ignore the 30 40 50 200
things which are pretty done good
in our lives
everybody in this room is incredibly
privileged and when i pointed out you do
recognize that you don't have to bother
about whether you're going to have lunch
today you don't have to bother about
whether you have a roof over your head
or a bed to sleep in
so when i point that out you say yes yes
and you do recognize you are incredibly
privileged the problem is you don't feel
that you are incredibly privileged you
feel that you are put upon flip this
around
consciously and do this preferably you
know just before you go to bed think
about the many things in your life that
are actually pretty darn good
and i've got to tell you that if you're
a type a person who lives in your head
and i'm sure this room is full of taipei
people who live in their heads
you have a tendency to think gratitude
rather than feel gratitude
so you can't go good health check better
sleep in check roof overhead check
it doesn't work that way you have to
feel it
rather than think it
so if you're a type a person who lives
in your head then it'll take some doing
before you get to the point where you
actually feel the gratitude rather than
think the gratitude and when you get up
in the morning don't go immediately to
the space of oh my god there's too much
to do and i don't have enough time to do
it all
go instead back to
that space of appreciation gratitude and
eventually you want to get to the point
where your default emotional domain is
appreciation and gratitude
now let me give you a little bit
advanced version of the same exercise we
begin by being grateful for the many
good things that we have in our life
but do recognize that whatever you are
grateful for
can go away
you're grateful for good health you get
hit by a truck and you're a quadriplegic
eventually i would like you to be in a
place where you're not grateful for
something
you are just grateful period
and that is when you find that your life
truly has been transformed
you know a few hundred years galileo got
into trouble because he kind of
postulated that perhaps the sun doesn't
move around the earth the earth moves
around the sun every single one of you
is convinced that galileo got it wrong
the earth does not move around the sun
it revolves around you personally
think about how no matter what happens
you very quickly bring it down to what's
the impact on me
your spouse gets a great job offer and
you say gee how's this going to affect
our relationship
your boss leaves the company and say gee
who's the new person going to be and
what's my relationship going to be with
that person or possibly am i going to
get promoted or is that
or is it that turkey down the hall
that's living in a me centered universe
and here's what you
need to know
if that is where you spend most of your
time
if that is where you predominantly live
you are going to live a life of
mediocrity
punctuated with flashes of pleasure but
essentially meaningless it just comes
with the territory that is the way it is
the only way you're going to be able to
bust out of that
is if
you can find a cause which is bigger
than you are a cause which brings a
greater good to a greater community and
you have tremendous flexibility in
defining both the greater good and the
greater community
but unless you can find something
which is bigger than you are
that brings a greater good to a greater
community and in the pursuit of which
you can subsume your identity
you're going to live a medium for
existence
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you