Hey Arjun,
Welcome again.
Super to be here.
How are you today?
Very,
Very good.
Thank you.
Lovely to have you again.
Same here.
And I'm really excited for this series of podcasts.
For the second episode of our series of podcasts.
Part two.
So last time,
Last week,
We spoke about emotions,
Emotional states,
And we started touching on how do we start identifying our emotional states,
How do we start changing them,
And where does change start to happen.
So today,
I'd really like for us to start this conversation with beliefs.
Because as we touched upon last week,
Emotional states follow a belief system,
Follow a thought pattern.
True.
So let's talk about beliefs today.
Amazing.
And this is like my favorite topic in the whole world.
Because this is at the root,
Which when nourished,
Leads to a better fruit.
And like we said the last time around,
When we looked at the process of the results or the outcomes,
And prior to the results or the outcomes,
The actions and the actions are preceded by decisions,
And before decisions come emotions,
And the emotions come from belief systems.
And those beliefs actually come from our nature and our nurture.
So now,
The beliefs are definitions.
They are the software,
The program that runs very much akin to the program that runs when you boot your laptop up.
There are certain processes that we run through.
Beliefs are how we respond or react to external circumstances.
Beliefs are things that essentially we believe the world to be a particular way.
So let me just give you some broad strokes on what beliefs are,
And then after that we can discover the difference between an empowering belief and a disempowering belief.
And then maybe after that we can talk about how we start changing certain beliefs such that they serve us,
Rather than staying with beliefs that don't serve us.
So that would be a good place to go.
So broadly speaking,
Albert Einstein said there are two kinds of people in the world.
The first kind of person is a person who believes that he or she lives in a friendly universe,
And the second kind of person is a person who believes that he or she lives in a hostile universe.
That's like the overarching belief system.
Do I live in a friendly or hostile universe?
Another way to look at it is,
Do you believe that there is abundance and plenty,
Or do you believe that we live in an environment of scarcity?
Another belief could be the world is getting better versus the world is getting worse.
Another belief could be this is the beginning versus this is the end.
And a very core belief says I am worthy versus I am not worthy.
So these are core beliefs.
The way we express our beliefs,
When we translate it into language through a discovery process is fill in the blanks.
So we fill in the blanks.
I am,
And you go ahead and fill in the blanks.
Life is,
Fill in the blanks.
People are,
And you fill in the blanks.
This is like the discovery of what your beliefs really are all about.
And once we do this,
We unfold,
We reveal,
We unearth to ourselves the patterns,
The definitions,
The memes,
And the belief structures that we operate upon.
And this is why two people in the same situation respond completely differently.
Let's say you're in a taxi cab and the driver is behaving in an untoward fashion.
And there's one kind of person who gets upset and angry and assigns blame to the taxi company,
The government,
The driver and so on and so forth.
And the other kind of person who just feels absolute compassion for the person and the moment,
Even though they're in the same situation,
Two people respond completely differently.
The old story about the two twin brothers and one was an alcoholic and the other twin brother was a very very successful entrepreneur,
Work-life balance and a great family life.
And the newspaper reporter who reached out to both of them out of curiosity,
Interviewed the first twin brother who was an alcoholic and asked him,
Why are you an alcoholic?
And the gentleman looked at her,
Leaned forward and said,
I'm an alcoholic because my father was an alcoholic.
And she wrote that down in and among many other questions.
And then she went to the other twin brother who was a very successful entrepreneur and she asked him,
Why are you such a successful entrepreneur?
And he responded,
Because my father was an alcoholic.
So he gave the same response that his twin brother gave,
But he made a completely different choice based on a different belief that he had chosen to subscribe to even though he had had the same experience that his twin brother had had.
And this is how powerful beliefs can be in shaping who you are and therefore shaping the results that you get in the process.
So broad strokes Naseema,
This is what beliefs are,
This is where it comes from and like we mentioned in the previous podcast,
Our environment brings forth these programming school teachers,
Influences during our youth,
That's our,
Which is what we call our nurture and then our nature is the programming that is embedded into our DNA and like we said before,
Science shows now that we inherit certain behavioural proclivities,
Belief proclivities from our ancestors.
So yeah,
This is broadly what beliefs,
Or the domain of beliefs is all about.
So Arjun,
In that case,
We can almost say that beliefs are not ours,
Right?
We inherit them,
We hear them,
We learn them and then we choose to absorb them into our system or reprogram it ourselves and absorb it in a different way.
Like the example that you just gave now of the two twin brothers,
They've had the same upbringing,
They've had the same father and yet they've chosen to interpret the same event or circumstance or example and go in two completely different directions.
So I'm very curious because whilst we understand that beliefs are not ours,
They're given to us or they're role modelled to us,
At which point do we as individuals make that choice of going this way or that way or that way or that way or that way?
Because there's a zillion ways we could go in.
At which point do we make the choice or are we even making the choice?
That's a great question because a healer friend of mine once said,
She said,
Arjun,
If you're not choosing you're losing.
And we are making choices at every given moment in time.
We're making a choice whether to react or to respond.
We're making a choice whether to look at this as an opportunity or look at this as adversity.
We're making a choice whether to perceive this as a stepping stone or as a stumbling block.
We're making a choice as to whether this is great for us or this is bad for us.
This is the best thing that ever happened or this is the worst thing that ever happened.
These are the choices that we're making moment to moment to moment to every external event that presents itself to us.
Life is a series of God-ordained opportunities brilliantly disguised as problems and challenges.
And the opportunity in every challenge is in the choice that we have the ability to make should we choose to make that choice.
When folks like you,
Me and our listeners embark upon the journey of personal growth,
We now expand our awareness.
And the awareness that we expand is the awareness of our thinking.
And in the previous podcast we used a term called metacognition,
Which is think about what you're thinking about.
And so now when we think back not just 10 years,
Sometimes I encourage my coaching clients to think back say two days at an event that played out and their response or lack thereof to that particular event.
And I get them to now get into an observation state of kind of just perceiving,
Noticing the thought choices that led to the actions that they took which gave them the results.
So you think a thought,
You feel an emotion,
You take an action,
You get a result.
Okay,
So we've kind of beaten that horse to death,
We know that's where it works.
And so now what we're working on is we want to actually affect those thoughts.
And thoughts and beliefs are very akin in that a belief is nothing but a thought that you keep on thinking over and over and over again.
Okay,
So that's what a belief is.
A belief is,
So if a thought is an element,
The belief is a compound.
Alright,
So that's really how the whole thing really works out.
So we're kind of observing and having,
Endeavoring to develop a certain amount of,
A certain extent of awareness about what those thoughts are that we are thinking because those thoughts are the choices that we're making in every given moment in time.
When we think nasima,
We think in pictures,
We think in sounds,
We also think in feelings and senses in terms of tactile,
We also think in terms of fragrances,
We also think in terms of taste.
Okay,
Now in addition to the five senses,
We also think using language.
And let's say for example,
English is the language in which you think.
You think either in statements or you think in questions.
And now the quality of the language in those statements or questions determines the meaning that you give to the event that has transpired in the external environment.
So the angry taxi driver in whose cab you're sitting in causes you to now have a thought.
And apart from the five senses with which you think,
You also think within yourself which is a conversation between you and you.
And one conversation choice could be,
How dare he speaks to me this way,
How dare he behaves this way.
When you make a statement like this,
It immediately evokes anger,
Irritation,
Frustration and that kind of a response versus somebody else sitting in another cab where they have the exact same taxi driver or similar taxi driver who's behaving in an untoward fashion.
And this person instead chooses a question rather than a statement.
And then the question that he asks might be,
I wonder what makes this person treat people this way.
I wonder.
I wonder what must have happened with this person in the past that makes him treat people this way in the present.
I wonder.
This is language inside the mind.
I wonder what must be happening in this person's finances,
Relationships and health that makes him treat people this way.
I wonder.
I wonder.
So in the first taxi driver,
First taxi,
The passenger is experiencing the emotion of frustration.
In the second taxi,
The passenger is feeling the emotion of fascination.
And so instead of anger,
We've chosen curiosity.
And from a place of curiosity,
You now have affected your emotional state.
You're in a better place.
And this now changes everything around you.
So this is where the beginnings of affecting your thinking happen.
Now I want to give a carry out here because some people kind of take this to an extreme and say,
Oh,
Does this mean if I'm being abused I do nothing?
No,
No,
No,
No.
Don't add words to what I'm saying.
You know,
Chunk up,
Get to 30,
000 feet and look at the big picture.
We can have a conversation about defining boundaries.
And that is necessary,
It is important.
But you can define boundaries without losing control of your emotional state.
You can actually achieve both.
You do not have to respond with irritation or frustration or rage in order to communicate your boundaries to somebody.
You can shout without being angry.
You can raise your voice without being irritated.
That's different.
I discern between the two and I'm cognizant that one needs to be assertive,
But I'm conscious that you don't need to be aggressive.
So these are the fine things that we need to talk about.
But yeah.
Super exciting.
You know,
This reminds me of,
I don't know if you're familiar with the work of Miguel Ruiz,
The four agreements.
And one of his,
I think it was the second one where he says,
Do not take anything personally.
So whenever you're going through life and things are happening,
Do not take anything personally.
And the third agreement is do not make assumptions.
Because the moment you take everything personally and you make it about yourself,
You lose the ability to step back and ask those questions.
You know,
Have that curiosity to ask what may be going on in that person's life to have led him to behave this way.
So it's very interesting,
But that requires discipline and self-control and self-awareness.
And I love what you said about you can raise your voice without being angry.
You can consciously choose to do that because it's a means to an end,
But the emotional charge is taken out of it because you're doing it for a completely different reason.
You're doing it for a means to an end,
Not because you're reacting out of your conditioning.
So I want to ask you something else.
A lot of times people say,
You know,
My father made me this way or I am this way because of my mother.
They destroyed me.
I have low self-esteem because they've done this to me.
That's a belief.
And that is a belief that we cling to so hard because it gives us the excuse almost,
And I'm not saying that in a negative way,
But it gives us the excuse of not empowering ourselves to go around that and do differently or be differently and feel differently.
I've seen that a lot as a coach,
As a transformation coach.
I hear that a lot.
And my aim is to help people to ask them,
Explore that question a little bit more.
True.
You say somebody made you this way.
Is that true?
When did you decide that?
That's a great question.
When did you decide that?
And how do you start reprogramming that question?
What can you tell us about that when people say that?
Yeah,
Absolutely.
This is great because once again you're not talking about beliefs.
Let's look at it this way.
Let's in our mind draw three concentric circles.
And for those of you who don't know what concentric circles are,
You draw a big circle,
Then you draw one circle inside of that big circle,
And then you draw another mini circle inside that circle.
So three concentric circles.
Now let's look at the outermost of these three.
And the title of the outermost one is,
It's Possible vs.
It's Not Possible.
So here we go,
We have a situation where someone says,
I am this way because my father did this and my mother did this and my brother and my sister and so on and so forth.
Therefore,
This is how I am and nothing can be done about it.
So at a very core level,
The meaning of that is,
It's not possible to change myself.
So that's the belief system that we've identified.
And let's use the mind,
Let's use rational,
Let's use logic to challenge that paradigm,
To challenge that definition that this person has inadvertently subscribed to.
And that definition being,
It's not possible that I can make this change because of what has happened in the past.
It's relatively easy to do because we can identify thousands if not millions of people,
Many of whom have written books and have audios and videos.
In fact,
Even friends of yours perhaps or mine and even acquaintances that we might know,
Who might have had similar if not worse circumstances,
But have gotten control of their thinking,
Their attitudes,
Their actions and therefore their outcomes and end results,
Have made amazing transformations as a result of,
In spite of the challenging upbringing that they had.
And you know,
I'd like to confess that I'm one of them.
I had a very tumultuous upbringing.
But to me now,
That tumult has brought out the teacher in me.
In fact,
My past has not been my tormentor.
My past has been my teacher and has caused me to do everything that I'm doing today.
And I wouldn't be half the man I am today if I hadn't had some of those challenges that I had when I was growing up.
In fact,
My sensitivity towards people who have had similar issues around just the extent of abuse that was experienced is huge because I've been there,
Done that,
Got the t-shirt,
Got a whole wardrobe of t-shirts and I'm able to kind of explain to people that,
Hey,
Listen,
I've been there and I did it,
Despite being quote unquote disadvantaged.
And so if I can,
You can.
And I'm not the only example,
There are a multitude of others who've done that.
So that's the outermost of the three circles,
It's possible versus it's not possible.
The next circle after that in the three concentric circles is I'm capable versus I'm not capable.
Alright,
So we know it's possible,
We can't deny it.
Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile in April of 1954 and before April of 1954,
Medical doctors said it was impossible for a human being to run one mile in four minutes or less.
Medical doctors,
Scientists presented empirical evidence and so nobody did it.
Roger Bannister challenged that paradigm,
Broke the four minute mile and within a few months of him having broken the four minute mile,
We had scores of others.
In fact,
Within a year or two,
We had fifteen to twenty others around the world who had done it and today now there are tens of thousands of human beings on our planet who can run one mile in under four minutes.
But he challenged the paradigm,
It's possible versus it's not possible.
Now,
We cannot refute that it is possible because it has been done.
Similarly,
There is evidence out there of people who have had your circumstances or worse who have become better not bitter as a result of it.
Now,
Let's talk about capability and the second concentric circle says I'm capable versus I'm not capable and this has to do with you personally and your potential and the ability that you have or your perception that you do not have the ability.
And if you are listening to this podcast,
Most likely you've had various experiences in life,
You've had some kind of experience in life,
You've had some kind of education,
You've worked somewhere or working somewhere,
You've had family experiences and I'll bet you despite the failures that you've had,
You've also had recoveries,
You've had challenges but you've also had victories,
You've done things where you have surprised yourself and there are things in the past,
Times in the past where you thought you couldn't do something but you went ahead and did it anyways.
Even if there are two or three incidents like that where you thought you couldn't but you did it,
That is enough evidence for you to now say,
Hang on a second,
I do have capacity in other areas,
All I have to do now is to expand that capacity into the area that I'm addressing now.
Also,
You have today,
Thanks to the internet,
An infinitude of teachers,
Guides,
Mentors,
Exemplars,
Models who can teach you by example and help you to develop two key things that you need for capability.
Capability,
Competence is two things and pretty much two things only,
Knowledge and skill.
Knowledge and skill.
Remember back in the Roman days,
They had those big drums,
You had the drummer with those two drumsticks and going boom,
Boom,
Boom,
Boom and they had the rhythm and the Roman army would march through the streets,
Left,
Right,
Left,
Right.
So it was like two counts,
Boom,
Boom,
Boom,
Boom,
Knowledge and skill,
Knowledge and skill,
Knowledge and skill,
Knowledge and skill.
You have a brain,
You have a mind,
You have the capacity to learn,
You have the ability to develop a new skill.
If you learn the skill of using a fork and a knife and a spoon and you learn the skill of putting on your buttons on your shirt or tying your shoelaces or speaking a language or driving a car or operating a computer software,
All of which are learnable skills,
You can learn to get a higher degree of control over your thoughts.
So that's the second concentric circle,
I'm capable versus I'm not capable and that brings us to the innermost of the three concentric circles and the innermost,
Which is the weak link in the chain,
This is the make or break,
This says I'm worthy versus I'm not worthy.
I'm worthy versus I'm not worthy.
So the outermost circle is it's possible versus it's not possible,
That's evidence outside,
I'm capable versus I'm not capable,
That's evidence in your own personal life,
I'm worthy versus I'm not worthy,
Which takes us back to where we started this conversation on beliefs and this is one of the greatest beliefs when we crack this particular thing and it's worth all the time,
Energy,
Effort to actually shift this aspect,
This innermost circle from I'm not worthy to I am worthy.
And another way to put it could be I'm deserving versus I'm not deserving and so often we may not say it outwardly but it's almost like we know it inwardly.
At the root of self-esteem and self-confidence is this belief of I'm deserving versus I'm not deserving aka I'm worthy versus I'm not worthy versus I'm not worthy.
And this is the place where we work to establish,
To develop,
To incorporate,
To build our sense of self-worth.
When you do this,
Even when you start building it just like a muscle in the gym the first time you go there,
Your body hurts,
You can barely run a hundred meters and you're panting and you're sweating and it's hard work but it is the most important hard work that you will ever do.
Your ROI,
Return on investment on this kind of work is epically high and this is the domino that knocks every other domino.
This is that first button that we push that activates every other machine in the factory and gets everything going.
That first step,
That beginning,
That starting point to establish your self-worth.
Very,
Very,
Very thought provoking.
As you were talking,
I just remembered what we discussed in our last podcast when we talked about bringing change from the inside out.
Because if we have this core belief deep,
Deep,
Deep inside that we're not worthy,
No matter what we do on the outside,
We'll only be at the superficial level.
It's so interesting because we talk a lot about self-love,
Right?
There's so many gurus out there talking about self-love,
Self-love.
Sometimes I think,
I question myself,
What is self-love and how do I know I have it?
How do I measure it?
How do I know I wake up every morning and I feel self-love?
Because let's face it,
Some days we wake up and we're like,
We don't feel it,
Right?
We do the actions,
But we don't necessarily feel the vibration inside.
How do we start that work on that inner circle and how do we know it's working?
You talked about return on investment and I completely agree with you.
This is the most important investment of work that we can do for ourselves.
Where do we start?
Absolutely.
You know what you said,
Some days you wake up feeling not all that great.
Some mornings you wake up and say,
Good morning God,
And other mornings you wake up and say,
Good God,
It's morning.
There are times when you're on top of the world and other times when the world is on top of you.
The reason I say this is because this can be used as our metric.
A very broad question could be,
Which do you feel more of?
You being on top of the world or the world being on top of you?
This is actually quite measurable in a broad sense and also in a very specific sense.
In a broad sense when you just think back this morning and say,
Okay,
How was my morning?
Not the things that I did but the feelings that I felt for the most part.
The other thing that we've got to remember about metrics and accomplishment is that when I'm sitting with folks who want to make a transformation,
The erroneous perception of transformation is that we are moving from black to white.
Black,
I love all colors and darkness also has value in it.
There is inherent value in darkness as there is in light.
We have an expectation that we want to fix it,
Get the job done.
What we don't realize is this sort of growth is not going from black to white,
Rather it's moving through shades of gray.
This journey has more than 50 shades of gray.
What we are doing here is if we are in black,
Could we get to a shade of dark gray and then a slightly less darker shade of gray and so on and so forth.
That's the metric that we can use to do this whole process.
In terms of what we could do to now start affecting our emotional states,
Science has shown when we are asleep we are in the delta state as we are rising we get into the theta state and just about when we are waking up in about the first 20 minutes after having waken up in the morning the brain still continues to be in the alpha state.
This is when the doorway to the subconscious mind is open.
This is your opportunity for programming.
Therefore,
What you feed your mind in the first 20 minutes of having just woken up can make or break your life because this is when you are most amenable,
Moldable,
Programmable,
Influenceable and utilizing those 20 minutes upon just waking up is the secret if you want to call it that or the system.
I often say there are no secrets to success because information is ubiquitously available today but there are systems to success.
A great system to success could be the first hour in the morning which we call the hour of power and as part of that first hour is the first 20 minutes.
When you read something positive listen to something wholesome or engage in an activity which brings you joy,
Happiness and fulfillment.
This now has a ripple effect on the rest of your day and so forth over a period of time.
Don't expect immediate results.
That's the succinct response to your question.
We need to talk about this more in the next podcast.
Actually,
What I would love for us to explore in the next podcast since you mentioned Shades of Grey is shadow self because when we talk about that core belief of unworthy versus not worthy this is a lot to do with how we feel very,
Very deep at the very subconscious level that we may not be aware of ourselves which brings us to the interesting topic of the shadow self.
Let's do that next week.
Thank you,
Thank you,
Thank you so much.
I'm super excited for the next few weeks.
Awesome.
See you soon.
Bye bye.
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