this talk will change your life except
that it probably won’t and it probably
won’t shock or amaze you either or
restore your faith in humanity but
hopefully what it will do is to try and
shed some light as to why so many people
make this claim you know this sort of
very outrageous claim that this will
change your life
and perhaps more importantly why is it
that so many millions of people buy into
this notion that the answers to their
problems are found externally through
other people’s recommendations advice
suggestions magic formulas rather than
trust their own judgment
now how common is this clean well a
quick google search will show us with
without any particular word or article
in there you know this will change your
life
we have about 173 million hits of these
kinds of promises promises to progress
you towards your potential with various
content in these websites and that
content ranges anywhere from you know
blogs articles buses bread anything you
can think about everything in anything
and of course I love fruits so I thought
you know could I get on the sort of
treadmill of transformation with a fruit
can a fruit do that to me and as luck
would have it yep I found about close to
fifty four million websites that could
that promises to transform my life
apparently the mangosteen is one of the
most popular options or choices and as
delicious of a fruit the mangosteen is I
doubt that it’s going to change my life
right this is definitely one of my
favorites and after you you know read
dr. Zeus’s quotes that’s it you’re done
right you don’t need to look any further
you’ve got all of life’s answers but I
think you know a good starting point is
that we need to look
why do people make these promises as
untrue and as outrageous as they are is
it for fame for fortune for recognition
is it because that they want to you know
or they could be absolutely genuinely in
the pursuit of an altruistic act of
making a positive impact on other
people’s lives but we don’t have access
to why people do what they do and we
don’t have access to their internal
drivers or intentions or motivators so
let’s shift our attention rather to why
is it that many of us fall victim to
these claims you know why is it that we
get so dragged in or gravitate to this
transformational treadmill sometimes
without proper thought or consideration
and you know that we do because there
definitely is a demand for it or else
there wouldn’t be this incredible supply
of individuals both amateurs as well as
experts who claim that they have the
answers to the better version of who we
are and at this point you might be
thinking yeah but everyone knows that
these claims the stuff isn’t actually
going to change my life right logically
perhaps but we don’t always operate on a
logical field nor do we always think or
behave rationally but what we are is
that we are pleasure seeking and pain
aversive and so what happens is just by
the mere exposure to such a title we’re
drawn in we’re captivated and the brain
gives us a hit of dopamine and then we
get that sort of rush of pleasure of
excitement of experiencing the
possibility even if it’s a possibility
of that fantasy and what happens is a
part of our consciousness registers this
promise as an expectation and we hope to
fulfill that expectation right we start
looking forward to the fact that maybe
there is somewhere somehow in some way
we will be able to fulfill that dream
but unfortunately in most cases
it ends up in disappointment and many
people end up on the cycle of fantasies
and feelings of failure and they’re
constantly after that next rush of
dopamine to be able to achieve or arrive
at that expectation so let’s talk about
some of the root causes or reasons as to
why we fall victim to seeking external
answers rather than trusting our own
judgment well the first reason is
because of our brains pre-historic flaws
and what this means is that mother
nature had a plan mother nature’s plan
was to make sure that we all survived
right and in order for you to survive
for us to make sure that you know we
stay alive especially in the environment
that we lived in thousands of years ago
millions of years ago there was danger
always looming around the corner and so
she evolved a brain that did three
things routinely we underestimate our
capabilities and our skills we
underestimate opportunities and we
overestimate danger and risk and so
throughout our days throughout our lives
we’ve got these flaws that hold us back
and if we don’t confront these flaws and
if we’re not aware of these negativity
biases what happens is that we think
that we’re not capable internally to
arrive at solutions so what we do is we
think our internal world is holding us
back so perhaps I need to look out
externally for particular solutions the
next reason why this happens is because
we have we are obsessed with seeking and
receiving the approval of others and
thanks to evolution again we’re wired to
crave inclusion as Aristotle said many
moons ago human beings were social
animals and anyone who claims otherwise
is either a beast or a deity and so that
sense of belonging when we get
recognition or approval from others it
hits that need for a sense of belonging
now from a developmental
effective human beings are the species
that are most dependent on their care
providers for their developmental
process we depend on others to be
cleaned to be fed to be sheltered and to
get approval see if you think about it
for example a baby giraffe within hours
sometimes days its able to walk by
itself
at which point do humans become
completely independent 18 12 25 at what
age perhaps never right and so as we go
through life and we grow up through our
socialization process and enculturation
process we learn how to become
independence we learn how to feed
ourselves to cleanse ourselves to
shelter and to protect ourselves but the
one attribute or characteristics that
isn’t directly or exclusively taught or
developed in us is our ability to self
examine and self affirmed and so we go
through life expecting the next clap nod
smile pat on the back positive
reinforcement to make sure that we’re
doing the right thing at the right time
in my 20-year career in learning and
development in the space of psychology
as a lecturer as a consultant coach and
now Dean of a Business School I feel
absolutely privileged to have been part
of hundreds of people’s transformational
journey and I tell you the question that
I’m asked most often throughout this if
you had to ask me what was the one one
question that is always asked and that
is what do you think I should do dr.
Shane to that question I try and answer
what do you think you should do and then
maybe we can talk about what I think we
should do right to flip it around so as
you can imagine you know there are so
many various ideas opinions
recommendations throughout life our
family our friends the media all the
data
that comes at us and all these various
opinions and if we’re not clear about
what we think we should do if we’re not
able to self affirm it can be very
difficult to grow through life with that
mindset now our obsession with external
voices you can be seen in other
dimensions of our life as well
apparently the average motorist will
travel 1292 extra miles in the wrong
direction just because the sat-nav tells
them to do so and so sometimes we even
know where to go we might know the
address of where it is that we’re going
to but we prefer but we prefer the
external voice to the internal voice
that says hey look I got this don’t
worry about it okay and this is an
actual news story a woman follows
sat-nav and drives straight into a lake
and the 23 year old driver is a little
bit embarrassed I say yes she is a
little bit embarrassed but she ended up
in a lake that she could see she could
see the consequence of following an
external voice but what happens to the
many metaphoric Lakes that we end up in
because we have decided to live by
somebody else’s plan about who we should
be or somebody else’s design of us and
so when you come succumb to being who
others think you should be rather than
who your core self is you know we my to
end up drowning because we’ve ended up
in these Lakes the third reason why this
happens is limiting beliefs and limiting
beliefs take shape quite early in life
and they become the truths that enslave
us now they could come from culture
traditions family and so on our
experiences and these are the sentences
or statements that hold us back from
life and I think one of the most
beautiful stories I ever heard
demonstrates the idea of limiting
beliefs in the best way possible there
was a woman who was walking past a herd
majestic beautiful elephants and she saw
that they were tied up by a piece of
rope and a block of wood and so she
couldn’t believe that these majestic
beautiful animals were standing in
stationary not moving how is it there’s
no way that that block of wood was heavy
enough to hold them back so she went to
the trainer and asked what’s the story
between the rope from the block of woods
and the trainer said well it’s very
simple when the elephants are young
enough when they’ve just come into the
world they’re light enough for this
block of wood to hold them back and they
grow through life conditioned and being
learning that they can only go as far as
the length of the rope and so they never
question it now us too we’ve got all
kinds of ropes that are attached to us
ropes that you know were attached to us
when we were told in our fifth grade
that we’re not good at art or that we’re
not very creative or that you’re too old
or you’re too young to do anything so
it’s very very important to challenge
those limiting beliefs so they don’t
hold you back and that so you don’t lose
your confidence to always depend on
external voices the fourth area that I’d
like to talk to you about is what I
refer to as comparison chaos now we live
in an era in which we are bombarded by
other people’s edited contrived and
fantastic you know lives everyone’s
having a better time than we are and we
are creatures of comparison so we
compare the comprehensive notion or idea
of my life with the edited sort of
corner dimension of one particular spot
of somebody else’s life and we think
that perhaps gosh my differences are
deficiencies and I may be inherently
flawed because my life isn’t as good as
theirs so what happens the more
comparison that takes place the bigger
hit my confidence takes and so if I’m
not feeling confident or if I lack
self-esteem that I’m not likely to
listen to the voice within I’m likely to
be drawn and to listen to other people’s
voices
and finally we’re upgrade obsessed right
we’re part of a generation that upgrades
things all the time we upgrade our
laptops applications Mobile’s and so on
so hey why not upgrade my life and if
there are 200 million people out there
telling me that they’ve got the answers
to how I can transform my life maybe I
should do it
right if I’m applying the same
philosophy to them so what’s the result
of this self-help or self-help and as
we’re bombarded by these different
messages what happens is that we get
more and more disconnected from our
internal compass and more and more
dependent on external voices and the
problem with this perhaps the darkest
most dysfunctional aspect of this ladies
and gentlemen is is that with that
wealth of information you know this sort
of plethora of information that comes at
us it’s not consistent it’s
contradictory so you have one author
telling you that you need to live in the
moment be you know enjoy the present
then you have the other author in the
same breath saying what live in the
moment No you’ve got a plan and prepare
if you fail to plan you plan to fail you
need you know goals and schedules and so
on and so forth one author tells you
that you need to be grateful and
practice gratitude for everything that
you have the other author says challenge
yourself you know challenge the process
don’t be happy with the status quo
so there’s cognitive chaos trying to
navigate through all this information
who do we follow right and it is very
difficult to work through all this
especially if you ignore your own voice
values and vision so what’s the mindset
shift here the first thing we need to do
is this we need to stop relying
exclusively on external solutions for
our problems and in doing so we need to
embrace the fact that success
satisfaction and growth requires that we
not only take into account external
advice and so on but that we need to
turn it
around and look more inwards to find
solutions and when you do that you tap
in to a very rich and resourceful in a
world that can provide exceptional
answers why should we do this well
because you have the ability to self
assess and to develop but I’d like to
invite you to change your strategy to
try and adopt a new strategy and I call
this strategy waking up to live a more
awake existence to be more wakeful in
how you get on with your day-to-day
activities there are people who live
like this so I’m going to share with you
what I’ve come up with in my
observations of individuals who live in
this manner to start with they’re
incredibly skilled at paying close
attention to what the problem is or the
challenge that they’re going through
they can completely clear the clutter in
their mind and be laser sharp focused as
to what is the issue when you ask these
people what’s wrong rarely do they say I
don’t know I don’t know what could be
happening they know exactly what’s going
on next they allow their mind to wander
and wander about their skills and
abilities about their limitations about
what is causing the problems is it false
assumptions is that something against
their values and in wondering about that
they begin to understand what could be
contributing to the problem
next they don’t wait for magical
solutions to occur or for the perfect
moment to act they begin action and when
they begin acting they’re able to see
and utilize their skills and abilities
to try and cope with the situation next
they look back at what they have done
and they assess in the sort of what has
gone right and perhaps what needs to be
re-evaluated and it is at this point
where these individuals say that you
know I’ve got these particular skills
and abilities but perhaps now I need to
seek externally
for certain resources and solutions to
further my cause you see people who are
awake are not under any false illusions
of grandeur
but they know when to tap into their
inner rich self and when to use outside
to arrive at solutions and finally
ladies and gentlemen it is through the
repetition of this process and
reflection that we learn from our
mistakes and we get the necessary
inoculations from life that teach us the
importance of growth as well as allowing
us to evolve so the next time you are in
a conversation or at a job interview and
someone asks you if you were a superhero
what is your superpower well tell them I
don’t need to think hypothetically nor
do I need to fantasize about this
because I have the answer
my super power is self-awareness and it
is with the power of self-awareness that
I can make the seemingly impossible
possible what I’m inviting you to do is
to be the expert in your life to read to
realize that growth and satisfaction and
fulfillment are not variables that can
be bought or borrowed externally they
can be to a certain extent but if we
forget about our inner world we won’t
succeed you need to remember that your
differences are not deficiencies and
that you are not flawed you are
incredibly unique you’re whole you’re
resourceful and that you should be the
architect engineer of your present and
of your future so let’s all endeavor to
live not by default but live a life of deliberate design thank you very much
that it probably won’t and it probably
won’t shock or amaze you either or
restore your faith in humanity but
hopefully what it will do is to try and
shed some light as to why so many people
make this claim you know this sort of
very outrageous claim that this will
change your life
and perhaps more importantly why is it
that so many millions of people buy into
this notion that the answers to their
problems are found externally through
other people’s recommendations advice
suggestions magic formulas rather than
trust their own judgment
now how common is this clean well a
quick google search will show us with
without any particular word or article
in there you know this will change your
life
we have about 173 million hits of these
kinds of promises promises to progress
you towards your potential with various
content in these websites and that
content ranges anywhere from you know
blogs articles buses bread anything you
can think about everything in anything
and of course I love fruits so I thought
you know could I get on the sort of
treadmill of transformation with a fruit
can a fruit do that to me and as luck
would have it yep I found about close to
fifty four million websites that could
that promises to transform my life
apparently the mangosteen is one of the
most popular options or choices and as
delicious of a fruit the mangosteen is I
doubt that it’s going to change my life
right this is definitely one of my
favorites and after you you know read
dr. Zeus’s quotes that’s it you’re done
right you don’t need to look any further
you’ve got all of life’s answers but I
think you know a good starting point is
that we need to look
why do people make these promises as
untrue and as outrageous as they are is
it for fame for fortune for recognition
is it because that they want to you know
or they could be absolutely genuinely in
the pursuit of an altruistic act of
making a positive impact on other
people’s lives but we don’t have access
to why people do what they do and we
don’t have access to their internal
drivers or intentions or motivators so
let’s shift our attention rather to why
is it that many of us fall victim to
these claims you know why is it that we
get so dragged in or gravitate to this
transformational treadmill sometimes
without proper thought or consideration
and you know that we do because there
definitely is a demand for it or else
there wouldn’t be this incredible supply
of individuals both amateurs as well as
experts who claim that they have the
answers to the better version of who we
are and at this point you might be
thinking yeah but everyone knows that
these claims the stuff isn’t actually
going to change my life right logically
perhaps but we don’t always operate on a
logical field nor do we always think or
behave rationally but what we are is
that we are pleasure seeking and pain
aversive and so what happens is just by
the mere exposure to such a title we’re
drawn in we’re captivated and the brain
gives us a hit of dopamine and then we
get that sort of rush of pleasure of
excitement of experiencing the
possibility even if it’s a possibility
of that fantasy and what happens is a
part of our consciousness registers this
promise as an expectation and we hope to
fulfill that expectation right we start
looking forward to the fact that maybe
there is somewhere somehow in some way
we will be able to fulfill that dream
but unfortunately in most cases
it ends up in disappointment and many
people end up on the cycle of fantasies
and feelings of failure and they’re
constantly after that next rush of
dopamine to be able to achieve or arrive
at that expectation so let’s talk about
some of the root causes or reasons as to
why we fall victim to seeking external
answers rather than trusting our own
judgment well the first reason is
because of our brains pre-historic flaws
and what this means is that mother
nature had a plan mother nature’s plan
was to make sure that we all survived
right and in order for you to survive
for us to make sure that you know we
stay alive especially in the environment
that we lived in thousands of years ago
millions of years ago there was danger
always looming around the corner and so
she evolved a brain that did three
things routinely we underestimate our
capabilities and our skills we
underestimate opportunities and we
overestimate danger and risk and so
throughout our days throughout our lives
we’ve got these flaws that hold us back
and if we don’t confront these flaws and
if we’re not aware of these negativity
biases what happens is that we think
that we’re not capable internally to
arrive at solutions so what we do is we
think our internal world is holding us
back so perhaps I need to look out
externally for particular solutions the
next reason why this happens is because
we have we are obsessed with seeking and
receiving the approval of others and
thanks to evolution again we’re wired to
crave inclusion as Aristotle said many
moons ago human beings were social
animals and anyone who claims otherwise
is either a beast or a deity and so that
sense of belonging when we get
recognition or approval from others it
hits that need for a sense of belonging
now from a developmental
effective human beings are the species
that are most dependent on their care
providers for their developmental
process we depend on others to be
cleaned to be fed to be sheltered and to
get approval see if you think about it
for example a baby giraffe within hours
sometimes days its able to walk by
itself
at which point do humans become
completely independent 18 12 25 at what
age perhaps never right and so as we go
through life and we grow up through our
socialization process and enculturation
process we learn how to become
independence we learn how to feed
ourselves to cleanse ourselves to
shelter and to protect ourselves but the
one attribute or characteristics that
isn’t directly or exclusively taught or
developed in us is our ability to self
examine and self affirmed and so we go
through life expecting the next clap nod
smile pat on the back positive
reinforcement to make sure that we’re
doing the right thing at the right time
in my 20-year career in learning and
development in the space of psychology
as a lecturer as a consultant coach and
now Dean of a Business School I feel
absolutely privileged to have been part
of hundreds of people’s transformational
journey and I tell you the question that
I’m asked most often throughout this if
you had to ask me what was the one one
question that is always asked and that
is what do you think I should do dr.
Shane to that question I try and answer
what do you think you should do and then
maybe we can talk about what I think we
should do right to flip it around so as
you can imagine you know there are so
many various ideas opinions
recommendations throughout life our
family our friends the media all the
data
that comes at us and all these various
opinions and if we’re not clear about
what we think we should do if we’re not
able to self affirm it can be very
difficult to grow through life with that
mindset now our obsession with external
voices you can be seen in other
dimensions of our life as well
apparently the average motorist will
travel 1292 extra miles in the wrong
direction just because the sat-nav tells
them to do so and so sometimes we even
know where to go we might know the
address of where it is that we’re going
to but we prefer but we prefer the
external voice to the internal voice
that says hey look I got this don’t
worry about it okay and this is an
actual news story a woman follows
sat-nav and drives straight into a lake
and the 23 year old driver is a little
bit embarrassed I say yes she is a
little bit embarrassed but she ended up
in a lake that she could see she could
see the consequence of following an
external voice but what happens to the
many metaphoric Lakes that we end up in
because we have decided to live by
somebody else’s plan about who we should
be or somebody else’s design of us and
so when you come succumb to being who
others think you should be rather than
who your core self is you know we my to
end up drowning because we’ve ended up
in these Lakes the third reason why this
happens is limiting beliefs and limiting
beliefs take shape quite early in life
and they become the truths that enslave
us now they could come from culture
traditions family and so on our
experiences and these are the sentences
or statements that hold us back from
life and I think one of the most
beautiful stories I ever heard
demonstrates the idea of limiting
beliefs in the best way possible there
was a woman who was walking past a herd
majestic beautiful elephants and she saw
that they were tied up by a piece of
rope and a block of wood and so she
couldn’t believe that these majestic
beautiful animals were standing in
stationary not moving how is it there’s
no way that that block of wood was heavy
enough to hold them back so she went to
the trainer and asked what’s the story
between the rope from the block of woods
and the trainer said well it’s very
simple when the elephants are young
enough when they’ve just come into the
world they’re light enough for this
block of wood to hold them back and they
grow through life conditioned and being
learning that they can only go as far as
the length of the rope and so they never
question it now us too we’ve got all
kinds of ropes that are attached to us
ropes that you know were attached to us
when we were told in our fifth grade
that we’re not good at art or that we’re
not very creative or that you’re too old
or you’re too young to do anything so
it’s very very important to challenge
those limiting beliefs so they don’t
hold you back and that so you don’t lose
your confidence to always depend on
external voices the fourth area that I’d
like to talk to you about is what I
refer to as comparison chaos now we live
in an era in which we are bombarded by
other people’s edited contrived and
fantastic you know lives everyone’s
having a better time than we are and we
are creatures of comparison so we
compare the comprehensive notion or idea
of my life with the edited sort of
corner dimension of one particular spot
of somebody else’s life and we think
that perhaps gosh my differences are
deficiencies and I may be inherently
flawed because my life isn’t as good as
theirs so what happens the more
comparison that takes place the bigger
hit my confidence takes and so if I’m
not feeling confident or if I lack
self-esteem that I’m not likely to
listen to the voice within I’m likely to
be drawn and to listen to other people’s
voices
and finally we’re upgrade obsessed right
we’re part of a generation that upgrades
things all the time we upgrade our
laptops applications Mobile’s and so on
so hey why not upgrade my life and if
there are 200 million people out there
telling me that they’ve got the answers
to how I can transform my life maybe I
should do it
right if I’m applying the same
philosophy to them so what’s the result
of this self-help or self-help and as
we’re bombarded by these different
messages what happens is that we get
more and more disconnected from our
internal compass and more and more
dependent on external voices and the
problem with this perhaps the darkest
most dysfunctional aspect of this ladies
and gentlemen is is that with that
wealth of information you know this sort
of plethora of information that comes at
us it’s not consistent it’s
contradictory so you have one author
telling you that you need to live in the
moment be you know enjoy the present
then you have the other author in the
same breath saying what live in the
moment No you’ve got a plan and prepare
if you fail to plan you plan to fail you
need you know goals and schedules and so
on and so forth one author tells you
that you need to be grateful and
practice gratitude for everything that
you have the other author says challenge
yourself you know challenge the process
don’t be happy with the status quo
so there’s cognitive chaos trying to
navigate through all this information
who do we follow right and it is very
difficult to work through all this
especially if you ignore your own voice
values and vision so what’s the mindset
shift here the first thing we need to do
is this we need to stop relying
exclusively on external solutions for
our problems and in doing so we need to
embrace the fact that success
satisfaction and growth requires that we
not only take into account external
advice and so on but that we need to
turn it
around and look more inwards to find
solutions and when you do that you tap
in to a very rich and resourceful in a
world that can provide exceptional
answers why should we do this well
because you have the ability to self
assess and to develop but I’d like to
invite you to change your strategy to
try and adopt a new strategy and I call
this strategy waking up to live a more
awake existence to be more wakeful in
how you get on with your day-to-day
activities there are people who live
like this so I’m going to share with you
what I’ve come up with in my
observations of individuals who live in
this manner to start with they’re
incredibly skilled at paying close
attention to what the problem is or the
challenge that they’re going through
they can completely clear the clutter in
their mind and be laser sharp focused as
to what is the issue when you ask these
people what’s wrong rarely do they say I
don’t know I don’t know what could be
happening they know exactly what’s going
on next they allow their mind to wander
and wander about their skills and
abilities about their limitations about
what is causing the problems is it false
assumptions is that something against
their values and in wondering about that
they begin to understand what could be
contributing to the problem
next they don’t wait for magical
solutions to occur or for the perfect
moment to act they begin action and when
they begin acting they’re able to see
and utilize their skills and abilities
to try and cope with the situation next
they look back at what they have done
and they assess in the sort of what has
gone right and perhaps what needs to be
re-evaluated and it is at this point
where these individuals say that you
know I’ve got these particular skills
and abilities but perhaps now I need to
seek externally
for certain resources and solutions to
further my cause you see people who are
awake are not under any false illusions
of grandeur
but they know when to tap into their
inner rich self and when to use outside
to arrive at solutions and finally
ladies and gentlemen it is through the
repetition of this process and
reflection that we learn from our
mistakes and we get the necessary
inoculations from life that teach us the
importance of growth as well as allowing
us to evolve so the next time you are in
a conversation or at a job interview and
someone asks you if you were a superhero
what is your superpower well tell them I
don’t need to think hypothetically nor
do I need to fantasize about this
because I have the answer
my super power is self-awareness and it
is with the power of self-awareness that
I can make the seemingly impossible
possible what I’m inviting you to do is
to be the expert in your life to read to
realize that growth and satisfaction and
fulfillment are not variables that can
be bought or borrowed externally they
can be to a certain extent but if we
forget about our inner world we won’t
succeed you need to remember that your
differences are not deficiencies and
that you are not flawed you are
incredibly unique you’re whole you’re
resourceful and that you should be the
architect engineer of your present and
of your future so let’s all endeavor to
live not by default but live a life of deliberate design thank you very much
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