[Music]
what would you say if I told you that
you have the power to manipulate time
would you believe me
good so this is a scene from the movie
The Matrix and this is where neo the
main character he slows down time and
he’s dodges those bullets in a single
moment
okay critics he’s not really slowing
down time but he is thinking and acting
wicked fast and so it appears as though
time is slowing down what I love about
this scene is that he doesn’t even know
or believe that he’s the one and that he
has this power and so you know right
after the scene
Trinity his partner in resistance says
to him you know you were just as fast as
the agents mid disbelief he puts a
finger through the hole where the bullet
went through in his pants and he said
not fast enough so this is a great
metaphor for you because you have that
power to you just don’t know how to use
it yet now as I said it’s not really
about time it’s about managing the
energy of our thought it’s about making
the unconscious conscious because when
we create awareness we open up options
and opportunities and in effect dodge
those bullets because you can’t change
your circumstances in most cases but you
can change the way you interact with it
and that’s what neo is doing in the
moment
Einstein said that everything is energy
and I believe when you turn that
statement and went around it’s also true
energy is everything how energy flows
through us and how we manage our energy
directly dictates the quality of our
life and we manage our energy through
thoughts thoughts are energy but really
don’t take it from me
take it from the scientists who have
done study after study after study that
say that our thoughts our judgments and
our perceptions they directly impact our
body and vice versa one of my favorite
authors in this space is Kelly McGonigal
and she’s written this book called the
upside of stress she’s a health
psychologist and through the book she
tells people that stress is bad for you
only if you believe it is I know that’s
crazy right she used to tell people that
stress was bad for you all the time and
tell them it would create illness until
she did the research one particular
study that stood out for her that really
changed her mind was that they tracked
thirty thousand people over eight years
and they asked them about their levels
of cortisol which is the stress hormone
in their body they measured that they
asked them about the levels of stress
that they had and also what they
believed about stress and so what they
came up with in their results were that
people who had a high level of stress in
the past year were 43 percent more
likely to die prematurely but only those
who believed that stress was bad for you
those that didn’t believe that stress
was bad for you actually had no greater
risk of dying prematurely than those who
had very little to no stress and then
really what made this that much more
impactful for me was I had my own
experience it became real this is my son
Ethan he’s 12 and last year in January
he came down with an acute sense of
anxiety he couldn’t go to school
he couldn’t interact with his friends he
couldn’t function so we went to see a
psychiatrist and in this first session
that we had she was helping us to
understand a little bit about how
anxiety affects the body and the mind so
she asked when we first got there to
play a little game and go ahead and spin
around a couple times right so spun
around and spa
around and then you know he was like
this and she said so do you do you feel
your heart racing do you feel dizzy in
your head and queasy in your stomach and
he’s like yeah and she said are these
the same symptoms that you feel when you
feel anxiety and he thought about it and
he said yeah she said notice that when
you feel it in this moment it’s funny
but when you feel it when you’re going
to school or you’re going to interact
with your friends it’s debilitating and
it only grows when you feel it and he’s
like yeah and then it hit me
it matters what he believes about stress
and given that it matters what we think
about anything and everything another
great example of how our thoughts impact
our results is with the placebo effect
so some of you have heard about it some
of you may have experienced it this
little sugar pill that has the same
biological impact that the actual
medication has how’s that possible it’s
possible because people believe that it
will work positive thinking leads to
positive results so the opposite is also
true
that negative thinking leads to negative
results and that has a name it’s called
the nocebo effect I know right
so that is why it is so critical
critical that you know how to manage the
energy of your thought so let’s think
about and learn about thoughts our
thoughts the National Science Foundation
tells us that we have 70,000 thoughts a
day 70,000 that’s like a thought every
second but here’s the interesting part
only 5% of those thoughts are new think
about that
that means that we are constantly 95% of
the time repeating our thoughts over and
over and over again in our heads are you
aware of what percentage of those
thoughts are negative and the impact
that it has on your life and we all have
these automatic negative thoughts that
go on unconsciously so things like you
know oh that’s good for them but not for
me I can’t do that I’m not good enough
I’m not experienced enough I’m not
strong enough
I’m just not enough so self-sabotage
lives in the unconscious so what about
right now how are you judging me or what
are you thinking about right now are you
still back at the matrix kind of going
through a scene or you go seventy
thousand thoughts let me google that and
you’re on your phone or maybe you’re
shaking your head in disbelief and say
no way that that’s true about stress or
maybe you don’t like the sparkles on my
shirt or the buckles on my shoes maybe
that’s how you’re judging me and what
I’m talking about the fact is is that
our thoughts they create our judgments
and our judgments they create our
decisions and all of that happens in a
split second before you even realize it
in this moment and every moment so what
about critical moments in your life are
you aware of what you’re thinking have
you ever had a life-or-death situation
or a moment that would impact the rest
of your life well I’d like to share with
you a take you on a journey so I was
scuba diving in Australia at the Great
Barrier Reef and we were in a scuba
diving advanced course and I was really
excited because you do a lot of
different things in this advanced course
than you normally do and so we were
going to be going on a night dive and
you know the ocean is like Las Vegas is
that there is activity day and night and
it’s so vastly different during the day
than it is at night so I was super
excited about this night dive and I was
walking down to the scuba deck that
night and I noticed it was so cloudy and
dark and it was really windy like you
could feel the wind blowing and it was
the waves were crashing against the side
of the boat and the boat was kind of
rocking and I thought if you asked me
not the best night for a night dive but
you know I was eager but then I came
down and I overheard the instructors
talking about the safety of the dive and
questioning whether it was safe for us
to dive that night and they proceeded to
say okay they we were going to make that
dive but I couldn’t get it out of my
head that there was a question about the
safety and then everything seemed
magnified the clouds seemed to come in
on me and the boat seemed to rock that
much more I was really uneasy about this
dive and as luck would have it I was one
of the first to go into the water and as
I was standing there about to go into
the water my heart was racing and it was
so loud it felt like it was in my ears
and then splash I was in the water now I
had to wait for nine other people to get
into the water and those waves were
crashing against me and it was bringing
me further and further away from the
area where they were jumping in and then
the waves kept crashing against my face
and it was making hard for me to breathe
I even had to put on my regulator which
normally you don’t put on until you go
underneath the water so I was using up
precious air from my tank that I was
going to need for later and then my
goggles got fogged and I had to take
those off and organize that and and I
was getting further and further away
from the group I was thrashing my arms
and legs and nothing was working
so panic set in fight-or-flight
so with that my thoughts came crashing
in like the waves I didn’t train for
this this is dangerous
people die at sea I could die I could
die remember earlier how I said those
ninety-five percent of our thoughts they
keep repeating themselves so as it was
repeating itself in my head that fear
was getting great
and then I had this out-of-body
experience you know you ever experience
yourself experiencing yourself and and I
saw that this death trance was
absolutely not helping me and that
realization is when the unconscious
becomes conscious I was now truly aware
that I had a choice
I could be the victim and give in to my
fear and give up my power or I could be
the victor and make this a great
adventure
and so another part of me woke up
smacked me in the face and said this is
pathetic
this is not who you are pull it together
take a deep breath so I did and I took a
couple of deep breaths and with that I
was able to calm down and I was able to
see that the turbulence above the water
was from the wind and the elements
outside and that down below the water it
was calm so with that I made the
decision to complete the dive and
interesting enough as I made that
decision
I got relatively quickly back to the
group how it seemed like it was
impossible before it’s because I was
paralyzed by fear fear is like our
kryptonite kryptonite renders Superman
powerless when he’s near it and when I
panicked in the water that night I gave
up my power I gave in to the fear so by
letting go of that fear I let go of the
resistance that kept me from getting
back to the group so I’m not saying that
letting go a fear anger sadness or any
other such emotion will make it easy for
you to do what you have to do but it
will make it easier
I believe that your experiences and your
challenges they don’t have to define you
but if you allow them they will refine
you you have a choice and that choice
always always begins with awareness
making the unconscious conscious and
really then and only then do you truly
have a choice of what this moment means
and how you’re going to interact with it
and what I’d like to share with you is
for ways that I practice in order to
create greater consciousness and greater
control over the energy of my thoughts
so number one is self-talk you heard me
I said I could die I could die those
words that I were using right that was
really as soon as I heard that
negativity in those words that was a
trigger for me to break that pattern of
thought our words matter a great example
of this is Tony Robbins did an interview
with Nelson Mandela
and he said mr. Mandela how did you
survive 27 years in prison Nelson
Mandela got pretty intense and he said
Tony I didn’t survive
I prepared Wow right listen to the
powerful use of words and the energy of
those words so what do you feel when
you’re feeling survival you feel
aggressive you feel angry you might feel
hurt it would lead to a very different
experience than if you’re preparing for
something what do you feel when you’re
preparing you feel calm controlled
purposeful very different result so your
words they reflect your thoughts so you
want to really choose your words wisely
and listen carefully
number two is focus what was I focused
on that night while I was scuba diving I
was focused on the distance that was
being created between me and the other
and I was focused on the fear and the
waves crashing against me what we focus
on is what we think about and if you
focus on your fear over here and what
you don’t want you could get more of
what you don’t want but if you shift
your focus you shift your perspective
you change how you interact with it and
you change your results
number three is physiology when my heart
rate was beating above 150 beats per
minute that’s when our brain we go into
fight or flight mode that’s when we lose
access to the executive function of our
brain and so by just breathing I was
able to slow down my heart rate and get
back that access to my executive
function so you can do this too you
don’t have to be in a life-or-death
situation to just move your body breathe
or to use your body positioning to shift
your mindset you can do this every day
you can do it at work if you’re
distracted or school if you don’t want
to do your homework you can do it in any
context maybe a conflict or you’re not
getting the result that you want your
body is with you all the time and lastly
when we combine that with a purpose
that’s greater than ourselves now we
have all the aspects of what I call
energy management and that means that’s
how we show up for the time that we have
and you have to practice it so there’s a
great quote by the Navy SEALs and it
goes that in a crisis you don’t rise to
the occasion
you sink no pun intended sink to the
level of your training but I would say
you sink to the level of your thinking
so back to the matrix so in the movie
neo as he starts to believe that he’s
the one and he’s practicing using his
power he’s grainy game
agility and speed and so if you want to
gain greater agility and speed in how
you manage the energy of your thoughts
then you can manage your self-talk
direct your focus use your body and your
physiology and connect to a purpose
that’s greater than yourself and now you
have the power to dodge those bullets
stop those bullets of unproductive
thought that come from emotions like
fear anger sadness hurt guilt or shame
the fact is you are neo you are the one
you have the power and you always have
thank
[Applause]
you
[Music]
what would you say if I told you that
you have the power to manipulate time
would you believe me
good so this is a scene from the movie
The Matrix and this is where neo the
main character he slows down time and
he’s dodges those bullets in a single
moment
okay critics he’s not really slowing
down time but he is thinking and acting
wicked fast and so it appears as though
time is slowing down what I love about
this scene is that he doesn’t even know
or believe that he’s the one and that he
has this power and so you know right
after the scene
Trinity his partner in resistance says
to him you know you were just as fast as
the agents mid disbelief he puts a
finger through the hole where the bullet
went through in his pants and he said
not fast enough so this is a great
metaphor for you because you have that
power to you just don’t know how to use
it yet now as I said it’s not really
about time it’s about managing the
energy of our thought it’s about making
the unconscious conscious because when
we create awareness we open up options
and opportunities and in effect dodge
those bullets because you can’t change
your circumstances in most cases but you
can change the way you interact with it
and that’s what neo is doing in the
moment
Einstein said that everything is energy
and I believe when you turn that
statement and went around it’s also true
energy is everything how energy flows
through us and how we manage our energy
directly dictates the quality of our
life and we manage our energy through
thoughts thoughts are energy but really
don’t take it from me
take it from the scientists who have
done study after study after study that
say that our thoughts our judgments and
our perceptions they directly impact our
body and vice versa one of my favorite
authors in this space is Kelly McGonigal
and she’s written this book called the
upside of stress she’s a health
psychologist and through the book she
tells people that stress is bad for you
only if you believe it is I know that’s
crazy right she used to tell people that
stress was bad for you all the time and
tell them it would create illness until
she did the research one particular
study that stood out for her that really
changed her mind was that they tracked
thirty thousand people over eight years
and they asked them about their levels
of cortisol which is the stress hormone
in their body they measured that they
asked them about the levels of stress
that they had and also what they
believed about stress and so what they
came up with in their results were that
people who had a high level of stress in
the past year were 43 percent more
likely to die prematurely but only those
who believed that stress was bad for you
those that didn’t believe that stress
was bad for you actually had no greater
risk of dying prematurely than those who
had very little to no stress and then
really what made this that much more
impactful for me was I had my own
experience it became real this is my son
Ethan he’s 12 and last year in January
he came down with an acute sense of
anxiety he couldn’t go to school
he couldn’t interact with his friends he
couldn’t function so we went to see a
psychiatrist and in this first session
that we had she was helping us to
understand a little bit about how
anxiety affects the body and the mind so
she asked when we first got there to
play a little game and go ahead and spin
around a couple times right so spun
around and spa
around and then you know he was like
this and she said so do you do you feel
your heart racing do you feel dizzy in
your head and queasy in your stomach and
he’s like yeah and she said are these
the same symptoms that you feel when you
feel anxiety and he thought about it and
he said yeah she said notice that when
you feel it in this moment it’s funny
but when you feel it when you’re going
to school or you’re going to interact
with your friends it’s debilitating and
it only grows when you feel it and he’s
like yeah and then it hit me
it matters what he believes about stress
and given that it matters what we think
about anything and everything another
great example of how our thoughts impact
our results is with the placebo effect
so some of you have heard about it some
of you may have experienced it this
little sugar pill that has the same
biological impact that the actual
medication has how’s that possible it’s
possible because people believe that it
will work positive thinking leads to
positive results so the opposite is also
true
that negative thinking leads to negative
results and that has a name it’s called
the nocebo effect I know right
so that is why it is so critical
critical that you know how to manage the
energy of your thought so let’s think
about and learn about thoughts our
thoughts the National Science Foundation
tells us that we have 70,000 thoughts a
day 70,000 that’s like a thought every
second but here’s the interesting part
only 5% of those thoughts are new think
about that
that means that we are constantly 95% of
the time repeating our thoughts over and
over and over again in our heads are you
aware of what percentage of those
thoughts are negative and the impact
that it has on your life and we all have
these automatic negative thoughts that
go on unconsciously so things like you
know oh that’s good for them but not for
me I can’t do that I’m not good enough
I’m not experienced enough I’m not
strong enough
I’m just not enough so self-sabotage
lives in the unconscious so what about
right now how are you judging me or what
are you thinking about right now are you
still back at the matrix kind of going
through a scene or you go seventy
thousand thoughts let me google that and
you’re on your phone or maybe you’re
shaking your head in disbelief and say
no way that that’s true about stress or
maybe you don’t like the sparkles on my
shirt or the buckles on my shoes maybe
that’s how you’re judging me and what
I’m talking about the fact is is that
our thoughts they create our judgments
and our judgments they create our
decisions and all of that happens in a
split second before you even realize it
in this moment and every moment so what
about critical moments in your life are
you aware of what you’re thinking have
you ever had a life-or-death situation
or a moment that would impact the rest
of your life well I’d like to share with
you a take you on a journey so I was
scuba diving in Australia at the Great
Barrier Reef and we were in a scuba
diving advanced course and I was really
excited because you do a lot of
different things in this advanced course
than you normally do and so we were
going to be going on a night dive and
you know the ocean is like Las Vegas is
that there is activity day and night and
it’s so vastly different during the day
than it is at night so I was super
excited about this night dive and I was
walking down to the scuba deck that
night and I noticed it was so cloudy and
dark and it was really windy like you
could feel the wind blowing and it was
the waves were crashing against the side
of the boat and the boat was kind of
rocking and I thought if you asked me
not the best night for a night dive but
you know I was eager but then I came
down and I overheard the instructors
talking about the safety of the dive and
questioning whether it was safe for us
to dive that night and they proceeded to
say okay they we were going to make that
dive but I couldn’t get it out of my
head that there was a question about the
safety and then everything seemed
magnified the clouds seemed to come in
on me and the boat seemed to rock that
much more I was really uneasy about this
dive and as luck would have it I was one
of the first to go into the water and as
I was standing there about to go into
the water my heart was racing and it was
so loud it felt like it was in my ears
and then splash I was in the water now I
had to wait for nine other people to get
into the water and those waves were
crashing against me and it was bringing
me further and further away from the
area where they were jumping in and then
the waves kept crashing against my face
and it was making hard for me to breathe
I even had to put on my regulator which
normally you don’t put on until you go
underneath the water so I was using up
precious air from my tank that I was
going to need for later and then my
goggles got fogged and I had to take
those off and organize that and and I
was getting further and further away
from the group I was thrashing my arms
and legs and nothing was working
so panic set in fight-or-flight
so with that my thoughts came crashing
in like the waves I didn’t train for
this this is dangerous
people die at sea I could die I could
die remember earlier how I said those
ninety-five percent of our thoughts they
keep repeating themselves so as it was
repeating itself in my head that fear
was getting great
and then I had this out-of-body
experience you know you ever experience
yourself experiencing yourself and and I
saw that this death trance was
absolutely not helping me and that
realization is when the unconscious
becomes conscious I was now truly aware
that I had a choice
I could be the victim and give in to my
fear and give up my power or I could be
the victor and make this a great
adventure
and so another part of me woke up
smacked me in the face and said this is
pathetic
this is not who you are pull it together
take a deep breath so I did and I took a
couple of deep breaths and with that I
was able to calm down and I was able to
see that the turbulence above the water
was from the wind and the elements
outside and that down below the water it
was calm so with that I made the
decision to complete the dive and
interesting enough as I made that
decision
I got relatively quickly back to the
group how it seemed like it was
impossible before it’s because I was
paralyzed by fear fear is like our
kryptonite kryptonite renders Superman
powerless when he’s near it and when I
panicked in the water that night I gave
up my power I gave in to the fear so by
letting go of that fear I let go of the
resistance that kept me from getting
back to the group so I’m not saying that
letting go a fear anger sadness or any
other such emotion will make it easy for
you to do what you have to do but it
will make it easier
I believe that your experiences and your
challenges they don’t have to define you
but if you allow them they will refine
you you have a choice and that choice
always always begins with awareness
making the unconscious conscious and
really then and only then do you truly
have a choice of what this moment means
and how you’re going to interact with it
and what I’d like to share with you is
for ways that I practice in order to
create greater consciousness and greater
control over the energy of my thoughts
so number one is self-talk you heard me
I said I could die I could die those
words that I were using right that was
really as soon as I heard that
negativity in those words that was a
trigger for me to break that pattern of
thought our words matter a great example
of this is Tony Robbins did an interview
with Nelson Mandela
and he said mr. Mandela how did you
survive 27 years in prison Nelson
Mandela got pretty intense and he said
Tony I didn’t survive
I prepared Wow right listen to the
powerful use of words and the energy of
those words so what do you feel when
you’re feeling survival you feel
aggressive you feel angry you might feel
hurt it would lead to a very different
experience than if you’re preparing for
something what do you feel when you’re
preparing you feel calm controlled
purposeful very different result so your
words they reflect your thoughts so you
want to really choose your words wisely
and listen carefully
number two is focus what was I focused
on that night while I was scuba diving I
was focused on the distance that was
being created between me and the other
and I was focused on the fear and the
waves crashing against me what we focus
on is what we think about and if you
focus on your fear over here and what
you don’t want you could get more of
what you don’t want but if you shift
your focus you shift your perspective
you change how you interact with it and
you change your results
number three is physiology when my heart
rate was beating above 150 beats per
minute that’s when our brain we go into
fight or flight mode that’s when we lose
access to the executive function of our
brain and so by just breathing I was
able to slow down my heart rate and get
back that access to my executive
function so you can do this too you
don’t have to be in a life-or-death
situation to just move your body breathe
or to use your body positioning to shift
your mindset you can do this every day
you can do it at work if you’re
distracted or school if you don’t want
to do your homework you can do it in any
context maybe a conflict or you’re not
getting the result that you want your
body is with you all the time and lastly
when we combine that with a purpose
that’s greater than ourselves now we
have all the aspects of what I call
energy management and that means that’s
how we show up for the time that we have
and you have to practice it so there’s a
great quote by the Navy SEALs and it
goes that in a crisis you don’t rise to
the occasion
you sink no pun intended sink to the
level of your training but I would say
you sink to the level of your thinking
so back to the matrix so in the movie
neo as he starts to believe that he’s
the one and he’s practicing using his
power he’s grainy game
agility and speed and so if you want to
gain greater agility and speed in how
you manage the energy of your thoughts
then you can manage your self-talk
direct your focus use your body and your
physiology and connect to a purpose
that’s greater than yourself and now you
have the power to dodge those bullets
stop those bullets of unproductive
thought that come from emotions like
fear anger sadness hurt guilt or shame
the fact is you are neo you are the one
you have the power and you always have
thank
[Applause]
you
[Music]
Please follow and like us: