Discover How to Improve Your Life with the Rare Art of UnLearning.
Best Life of Your Life: The BLOYL Podcast, Episode 19
Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher Radio or Tunein.
Transcript:
Welcome back to Best Life of Your Life! Thanks so much once again for spending some time with me today. We all know that having great information can be extremely useful when it's put into action.
What most people seldom think about is how devastating bad information can be to their business, career, relationship… their life.
So, with that in mind, we're going to jump into a topic today that I flat-out believe is not talked about enough but we're going to talk about it today >> that the topic is unlearning.
If you remember the movie Avatar from a few years ago, there was a line in there, one of my favorites, that said, “It's hard to fill a cup that's already full.” Think about that.
If you think you know it all, then how are you going to gain new information? If you think you've got a topic completely figured out; if there's a belief that you're adamant about, then you're not going to have room for new info that could be different and more useful.
I'll give you an example, a simple example. If you remember the company Blockbuster, the old place where you used to go to rent movies. You'd drive to Blockbuster and it was a big store and you'd walk in, then you'd walk up and down the aisles and pick out your movie, either your VHS or your DVD depending on how old you are, and you'd go pay for your rental, take it home and then come back a few days later and drop your video off. They are now gone, they're bankrupt.
We don't get movies like that anymore, and why not? Is it because Blockbuster had bad information? No, they were great at that. They were great at building stores where people would walk in, drive to, and get their videos and leave. The problem is they had cognitive fusion when it came to their business model. They were stuck in what they did. They clung to that safety net that they believed would carry them safely into the future. As we all know, it didn't.
If we want movies now, we're watching Netflix on our TV or Amazon Prime or Hulu or if we still want a physical DVD, we're just hitting a Redbox next time we go to the store.
Their refusal to unlearn led to their demise, and unfortunately, there's many people out there who's similar pattern of refusing to unlearn something that used to keep them safe is leading to their own demise — it's preventing their own growth, it's preventing them getting what they really want.
How does this apply to us personally? Look, we all want new ways to improve our income, our health, our fitness levels, our family life, our relationships, our careers. It's very likely that you, especially if you're listening to this podcast, you probably have a habit, at least to some degree, of finding new and better information that theoretically should be able to help you achieve the things you want and experience the life that you want to experience.
I mean, one of the greatest gifts that we have is the power of increased perspective. Increased perspective helped me so much in my own life that it prompted me to create this podcast and to share with you.
But sometimes, there's a hidden enemy lurking in the midst of all the great new information that we get.
There's like this little invisible gremlin that for many people it gets in the way of taking action or it gets people to continue actions that aren't useful even when they know it's not useful. The habit of clinging to old and obsolete and outdated rules and beliefs that we claim are facts. How many of you know somebody, and maybe it's you, I'm not going to make you admit to that, but how many of you know someone who believes that there are no good men left? Or there are no good women left? Or that they, no matter what they do, they can't get in shape? How many of you know that whoever it is that's saying those things, they know that what they're saying isn't factually true?
Then, why do they believe that? Why do people say that it's impossible to make more money? It's impossible to get rich. You have to know the right person to get wealthy. Or you just have to be lucky? The people saying this stuff, they know factually it isn't true. It would take 20 seconds to Google countless stories that would completely debunk those beliefs.
Why do we cling to that stuff? Why do we keep believing it? Well, we do because at some point, those beliefs protected us, or at least they made us feel like we were being protected. If you and I are going to make real progress, if we're going to improve those things we want to improve, if we're going to have better health, fitness, if we're going to have more money, if we're going to have better relationships, we've got to let that stuff go. We've got to empty our cup.
We've got to stop claiming allegiance to old information just because the stories are familiar. Just because there's a history with something that you used to believe, it doesn't mean it's going to help you in the future.
Because if your beliefs about how hard it is to get in shape or if your beliefs about how impossible it is to have a good relationship or a better family life or the career that you want, if those beliefs haven't helped you this far, yeah, they're probably not going to help you in the future. It's time for a new story.
What I'm going to give you today is four ways to help you in your process of unlearning, to help you break that cognitive fusion and start making room for new and better information so you can act on a better information.
Step number one:
We've got to do an identity check; and that identity check is simply asking two really simple questions. Question #1, who will I become if I continue to believe this story? I'll give you an example. If your goal is to break the six-figure barrier, you want to make six figures a year, you want to make seven figures a year or eight or nine.
If you continue believing whatever story it is you have about money, will you become that person that achieves the goal? Or if it's your goal to have an amazing relationship full of trust and romance and adventure and excitement and laughter and fun, will you become that person if you keep believing that the good men or women out there are all taken or they just don't exist?
The reason that I challenge you to ask that question is because it will make you face the reality of an unuseful story. Once you recognize that the story that you're telling yourself isn't useful then you can create a new one. Then you can recognize that you can create a story based on the acknowledgment of the influence you have on whatever goal it is you want.
The 2nd question is, do these beliefs even match what I value? If one of your deep values is that anyone can accomplish anything if they put their mind to it, then that doesn't match an old belief of ‘you have to be lucky to be wealthy'. If you believe that anyone is capable of anything they put their mind to, you're not going to allow yourself to cling to your excuses. Similarly, if you believe that with love, with true and unconditional love, any relationship can flourish then you're not going to cling to a belief that all the good men are gone or all the good women are gone.
You've got to make sure your story is aligned with what you truly value, what you believe, what you want in your life. It's as simple as that.
Step one is just an identity check. Who will I become if I continue to believe this story and do these beliefs even match what I value?
Step number two:
We've got to increase the quality and the quantity of information that we take in that matches the outcome we want. I'm going to say that again. We need to increase the quality and the quantity of information we consume that matches the outcome we want.
In other words, when it comes to how to build a relationship, are you finding (good) information sources, either people that you know or professional coaches or counselors or books that you read or videos that you watch online, or, are you getting your relationship advice from your favorite reality TV show or your friend that can't keep a relationship or coworkers that are bouncing in and out of relationships or struggling in their own right?
What's the quality of the information and how much of it are you taking in? I mean, think about it.
To dumb it down, if you're getting cooking advice from your mechanic that knows nothing about cooking, then you're going to have a problem when dinner is served.
Sometimes this is difficult to do because we have friends that we trust, we have family members we trust, coworkers that we all just listen to. They're our social environment but if they're not feeding you the information you're looking for, it doesn't mean they're bad or they're wrong or they're useless. It just means that when it comes to those topics, those things in your life that you're trying to improve, you may just need to look elsewhere. That's all.
You just may need to add a better information source and I think that's something that we all recognize but it's just not something that we do enough. I get it, sometimes it can feel guilty if somebody really cares about you and they're offering advice, it's easy to feel a little bit of guilt if you don't listen to them. Because most of the time people are really trying to help, but a lot of times the information that they're giving you can often be fear-based, especially if they're struggling with something similar, so just be aware of that.
Increase the quantity and the amount of information resources that match the outcome you want. Look for people that have achieved the result or the expert that's helping other people achieve the results.
Step number three:
This is probably unexpected, sleep, yes, sleep. You've got to get an adequate amount of sleep. Why do we need sleep? I'll try to keep this real simple. I'm not a neuroscientist… but I can read.
Our brains have something called glial cells and they're like the gardeners in our mind. Simply put, when we sleep something called microglial cells, they work to prune away the connections that we don't need. You can think of it in simple terms as when we sleep our brain clears up the space that we need to build new and stronger connections. If we don't sleep enough then our brain won't be able to clear up that space for better and new connections and we need that space so we can learn more and learn more effectively.
Sleeping clears away space for better and new information and not sleeping enough, it prevents that process.
It makes a difference, trust me. I'm not somebody who likes to take naps but research shows that just a 10 to 20 minute nap per day can really make a big difference in helping us learn things that are useful.
If you're not getting enough sleep, and most of the research shows that at least seven hours, ideally eight to nine hours is ideal for most people, and yes, we are all different, but aim for that ballpark of eight hours and it will make a difference. It definitely makes a huge difference for me. Years ago I didn't sleep that much, nowadays I make sure I get roughly eight hours on average and it feels so much better.
Step number four:
Make sure you're spending time with people who inspire you.
Make sure you're spending time with people who are working towards not necessarily the same goals as you but are looking to make the same type of improvements that you want to make in your life. I think we've all heard the saying from Jim Rohn that we're the average of the five people we spend the most time with — and in so many ways that's very, very true.
I know for a lot of people this can create difficulty because some people have family members and just long-time friends that are struggling and appear stuck in their life and they're not going anywhere. There's a lot of guilt that comes in when people think about spending less time with those people, but if you don't find something or someone to inspire you so you can step your game up, you're going to spiral downward with him. It just happens.
I mean it's like that with anything whether it's a sport, whether it's a skill, if you're spending time with people less skilled than you, whether it's in tennis or cooking, you are not going to improve.
You've got to play with somebody that's playing at a higher level than you in order for you to improve your game.
When I was in high school, the only way I got better at playing basketball or soccer was to spend my time on the court or on the field with people that were kicking my butt, because it made me step up!
I'm sure that you right now, there's somewhere in your life where you've experienced that; so improve your circle of influence. And that can be done personally, it can be done virtually, but you've got to immerse yourself in people that are going to step your game up, step your beliefs up and get you on the path toward what you want.
Simple as that –just those four simple things:
- Doing a quick two-question identity check
- Increase the quality & quantity of your information sources that match the outcome you want.
- Get your sleep!
- Improve your social surroundings.
I guarantee you it (these 4 steps) will help you unlearn those old and unuseful beliefs that you probably wanted to get rid of anyway. And once you do that then you're on your own way to living the best life of your life.
Thank you so much again for spending a few minutes with me, can't wait to talk to you again soon.
If you got something useful out of this episode and I'm sure you did, make sure you share with somebody something positive you got from today's episode. Let them know what you've listened to & encourage them to listen.
There's nothing more important than paying it forward when you hear something good. Until next time, make sure you take care of yourself and make sure you take care of each other.
Love you guys, talk to you soon.
-Aaron
Discover How to Improve Your Life with the Rare Art of UnLearning.
Best Life of Your Life: The BLOYL Podcast, Episode 19
Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher Radio or Tunein.
Transcript:
Welcome back to Best Life of Your Life! Thanks so much once again for spending some time with me today. We all know that having great information can be extremely useful when it's put into action.
What most people seldom think about is how devastating bad information can be to their business, career, relationship… their life.
So, with that in mind, we're going to jump into a topic today that I flat-out believe is not talked about enough but we're going to talk about it today >> that the topic is unlearning.
If you remember the movie Avatar from a few years ago, there was a line in there, one of my favorites, that said, “It's hard to fill a cup that's already full.” Think about that.
If you think you know it all, then how are you going to gain new information? If you think you've got a topic completely figured out; if there's a belief that you're adamant about, then you're not going to have room for new info that could be different and more useful.
I'll give you an example, a simple example. If you remember the company Blockbuster, the old place where you used to go to rent movies. You'd drive to Blockbuster and it was a big store and you'd walk in, then you'd walk up and down the aisles and pick out your movie, either your VHS or your DVD depending on how old you are, and you'd go pay for your rental, take it home and then come back a few days later and drop your video off. They are now gone, they're bankrupt.
We don't get movies like that anymore, and why not? Is it because Blockbuster had bad information? No, they were great at that. They were great at building stores where people would walk in, drive to, and get their videos and leave. The problem is they had cognitive fusion when it came to their business model. They were stuck in what they did. They clung to that safety net that they believed would carry them safely into the future. As we all know, it didn't.
If we want movies now, we're watching Netflix on our TV or Amazon Prime or Hulu or if we still want a physical DVD, we're just hitting a Redbox next time we go to the store.
Their refusal to unlearn led to their demise, and unfortunately, there's many people out there who's similar pattern of refusing to unlearn something that used to keep them safe is leading to their own demise — it's preventing their own growth, it's preventing them getting what they really want.
How does this apply to us personally? Look, we all want new ways to improve our income, our health, our fitness levels, our family life, our relationships, our careers. It's very likely that you, especially if you're listening to this podcast, you probably have a habit, at least to some degree, of finding new and better information that theoretically should be able to help you achieve the things you want and experience the life that you want to experience.
I mean, one of the greatest gifts that we have is the power of increased perspective. Increased perspective helped me so much in my own life that it prompted me to create this podcast and to share with you.
But sometimes, there's a hidden enemy lurking in the midst of all the great new information that we get.
There's like this little invisible gremlin that for many people it gets in the way of taking action or it gets people to continue actions that aren't useful even when they know it's not useful. The habit of clinging to old and obsolete and outdated rules and beliefs that we claim are facts. How many of you know somebody, and maybe it's you, I'm not going to make you admit to that, but how many of you know someone who believes that there are no good men left? Or there are no good women left? Or that they, no matter what they do, they can't get in shape? How many of you know that whoever it is that's saying those things, they know that what they're saying isn't factually true?
Then, why do they believe that? Why do people say that it's impossible to make more money? It's impossible to get rich. You have to know the right person to get wealthy. Or you just have to be lucky? The people saying this stuff, they know factually it isn't true. It would take 20 seconds to Google countless stories that would completely debunk those beliefs.
Why do we cling to that stuff? Why do we keep believing it? Well, we do because at some point, those beliefs protected us, or at least they made us feel like we were being protected. If you and I are going to make real progress, if we're going to improve those things we want to improve, if we're going to have better health, fitness, if we're going to have more money, if we're going to have better relationships, we've got to let that stuff go. We've got to empty our cup.
We've got to stop claiming allegiance to old information just because the stories are familiar. Just because there's a history with something that you used to believe, it doesn't mean it's going to help you in the future.
Because if your beliefs about how hard it is to get in shape or if your beliefs about how impossible it is to have a good relationship or a better family life or the career that you want, if those beliefs haven't helped you this far, yeah, they're probably not going to help you in the future. It's time for a new story.
What I'm going to give you today is four ways to help you in your process of unlearning, to help you break that cognitive fusion and start making room for new and better information so you can act on a better information.
Step number one:
We've got to do an identity check; and that identity check is simply asking two really simple questions. Question #1, who will I become if I continue to believe this story? I'll give you an example. If your goal is to break the six-figure barrier, you want to make six figures a year, you want to make seven figures a year or eight or nine.
If you continue believing whatever story it is you have about money, will you become that person that achieves the goal? Or if it's your goal to have an amazing relationship full of trust and romance and adventure and excitement and laughter and fun, will you become that person if you keep believing that the good men or women out there are all taken or they just don't exist?
The reason that I challenge you to ask that question is because it will make you face the reality of an unuseful story. Once you recognize that the story that you're telling yourself isn't useful then you can create a new one. Then you can recognize that you can create a story based on the acknowledgment of the influence you have on whatever goal it is you want.
The 2nd question is, do these beliefs even match what I value? If one of your deep values is that anyone can accomplish anything if they put their mind to it, then that doesn't match an old belief of ‘you have to be lucky to be wealthy'. If you believe that anyone is capable of anything they put their mind to, you're not going to allow yourself to cling to your excuses. Similarly, if you believe that with love, with true and unconditional love, any relationship can flourish then you're not going to cling to a belief that all the good men are gone or all the good women are gone.
You've got to make sure your story is aligned with what you truly value, what you believe, what you want in your life. It's as simple as that.
Step one is just an identity check. Who will I become if I continue to believe this story and do these beliefs even match what I value?
Step number two:
We've got to increase the quality and the quantity of information that we take in that matches the outcome we want. I'm going to say that again. We need to increase the quality and the quantity of information we consume that matches the outcome we want.
In other words, when it comes to how to build a relationship, are you finding (good) information sources, either people that you know or professional coaches or counselors or books that you read or videos that you watch online, or, are you getting your relationship advice from your favorite reality TV show or your friend that can't keep a relationship or coworkers that are bouncing in and out of relationships or struggling in their own right?
What's the quality of the information and how much of it are you taking in? I mean, think about it.
To dumb it down, if you're getting cooking advice from your mechanic that knows nothing about cooking, then you're going to have a problem when dinner is served.
Sometimes this is difficult to do because we have friends that we trust, we have family members we trust, coworkers that we all just listen to. They're our social environment but if they're not feeding you the information you're looking for, it doesn't mean they're bad or they're wrong or they're useless. It just means that when it comes to those topics, those things in your life that you're trying to improve, you may just need to look elsewhere. That's all.
You just may need to add a better information source and I think that's something that we all recognize but it's just not something that we do enough. I get it, sometimes it can feel guilty if somebody really cares about you and they're offering advice, it's easy to feel a little bit of guilt if you don't listen to them. Because most of the time people are really trying to help, but a lot of times the information that they're giving you can often be fear-based, especially if they're struggling with something similar, so just be aware of that.
Increase the quantity and the amount of information resources that match the outcome you want. Look for people that have achieved the result or the expert that's helping other people achieve the results.
Step number three:
This is probably unexpected, sleep, yes, sleep. You've got to get an adequate amount of sleep. Why do we need sleep? I'll try to keep this real simple. I'm not a neuroscientist… but I can read.
Our brains have something called glial cells and they're like the gardeners in our mind. Simply put, when we sleep something called microglial cells, they work to prune away the connections that we don't need. You can think of it in simple terms as when we sleep our brain clears up the space that we need to build new and stronger connections. If we don't sleep enough then our brain won't be able to clear up that space for better and new connections and we need that space so we can learn more and learn more effectively.
Sleeping clears away space for better and new information and not sleeping enough, it prevents that process.
It makes a difference, trust me. I'm not somebody who likes to take naps but research shows that just a 10 to 20 minute nap per day can really make a big difference in helping us learn things that are useful.
If you're not getting enough sleep, and most of the research shows that at least seven hours, ideally eight to nine hours is ideal for most people, and yes, we are all different, but aim for that ballpark of eight hours and it will make a difference. It definitely makes a huge difference for me. Years ago I didn't sleep that much, nowadays I make sure I get roughly eight hours on average and it feels so much better.
Step number four:
Make sure you're spending time with people who inspire you.
Make sure you're spending time with people who are working towards not necessarily the same goals as you but are looking to make the same type of improvements that you want to make in your life. I think we've all heard the saying from Jim Rohn that we're the average of the five people we spend the most time with — and in so many ways that's very, very true.
I know for a lot of people this can create difficulty because some people have family members and just long-time friends that are struggling and appear stuck in their life and they're not going anywhere. There's a lot of guilt that comes in when people think about spending less time with those people, but if you don't find something or someone to inspire you so you can step your game up, you're going to spiral downward with him. It just happens.
I mean it's like that with anything whether it's a sport, whether it's a skill, if you're spending time with people less skilled than you, whether it's in tennis or cooking, you are not going to improve.
You've got to play with somebody that's playing at a higher level than you in order for you to improve your game.
When I was in high school, the only way I got better at playing basketball or soccer was to spend my time on the court or on the field with people that were kicking my butt, because it made me step up!
I'm sure that you right now, there's somewhere in your life where you've experienced that; so improve your circle of influence. And that can be done personally, it can be done virtually, but you've got to immerse yourself in people that are going to step your game up, step your beliefs up and get you on the path toward what you want.
Simple as that –just those four simple things:
- Doing a quick two-question identity check
- Increase the quality & quantity of your information sources that match the outcome you want.
- Get your sleep!
- Improve your social surroundings.
I guarantee you it (these 4 steps) will help you unlearn those old and unuseful beliefs that you probably wanted to get rid of anyway. And once you do that then you're on your own way to living the best life of your life.
Thank you so much again for spending a few minutes with me, can't wait to talk to you again soon.
If you got something useful out of this episode and I'm sure you did, make sure you share with somebody something positive you got from today's episode. Let them know what you've listened to & encourage them to listen.
There's nothing more important than paying it forward when you hear something good. Until next time, make sure you take care of yourself and make sure you take care of each other.
Love you guys, talk to you soon.
-Aaron