[00:00] Welcome back to the Focus B show. This is Katie Sudddart here aka the focus b. And on this show, I interview high performers and leaders around the world to discover their secrets on peak performance, productivity, mindfulness and leadership. So if you want to take your performance and your leadership to the next level, then you're in the right place. Listen up and connect with the magic.
[00:37] We all have one great superpower. Hopefully you have more than just one, but this is one that is universal and that we all have. That's our ability to choose how we respond to life. It might not sound like a superpower, but once you develop this ability to actually choose your response, it changes your whole life. And the more you practice it, the greater this inner muscle strengthens. This is all linked to many concepts that you've probably read about. Could be being proactive, proactivity being the number one habit of the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey. It's also linked to what Viktor Frankl talks about in his book Man's Search for Meaning. It's linked to so many different things that people have spoken about during the years. Also linked to the stoic dichotomy of control. The principle is always the same and this is taking responsibility, which means choosing your response. Responsibility, the ability to choose your response to life. This entails that when something happens that doesn't suit you or isn't according to plan or upsets you or annoys you, you can choose how you respond to that person, to that circumstance. You have the ability within you. We all do. And this is the greatest superpower. We have the ability to shift our perception, to shift our emotions and to choose our response. For instance, if, let's say in business, you have this great business client you're super excited to work with, and the last minute they ditch you for your competitor. Most people leading a reactive life, which is what most of us do, unless we learn this or we have it innate, but most of us don't. And so if we haven't learnt to do this, most of us will react and respond in a sort of autopilot way. We'll be disappointed, maybe we'll be angry at the client, maybe we'll also be upset about the competitor, et cetera, et cetera. This just generates a whole load of emotions that don't serve you and maintain the situation. The situation is still the same in that moment. You can choose to let go, to accept without resigning yourself. Acceptance and resignation are different. You can choose to discuss it further, you can choose to remain calm. But we often feel in those moments that we don't have the choice. We often feel like the emotions just come and we can't actually choose it. And this is because we haven't developed a strong enough gap in our mind between the circumstances happening and our response. There's a gap. There's a gap between the stimulus and the response, which is what Viktor Frankl talks about. But for most of us, it's just instantaneous. Someone shouts at you, you shout back. That's a sort of instantaneous. What happens when you practice meditation, for instance, you strengthen this gap. This means that when there's a stimulus or a circumstance or a situation that happens, there's a mini pause in your mind. There's a mini break, and you pause and you think there's no point in shouting back. That won't help. And you change your reaction. The more you practice meditation, for instance, and taking responsibility and shifting your response, the greater this pause and the more you realize that you can choose. You don't have to shout back or get annoyed. These are very basic illustrations or examples. But you can apply this to everything in your life. And this is why I call this a superpower. I literally mean absolutely everything. And the principles go like this first look. If it's something that's in your control or out of your control, this is where we go back to the whole stoic dichotomy of control look. Is this something that you can influence, that you can change? Or is this totally out of your control? For instance, if it's something like the weather, or someone being disagreeable, or something that's just clearly totally out of your control, or is it something that you can change? Your mood, your thoughts, your emotions, those are the main things. We can actually influence. That's step one. Notice the difference between what you can and can't control. Once you've seen that, if it's something that's totally outside of your control, you can still choose how you respond to it. Like I said, if someone shouts at you, you can respond calmly and politely and walk away or ignore them or whatever it is, you can choose this response. Now, what we often hear, if you pay attention maybe you said it yourself I know I have is that person made me so mad. That situation really upset me. That situation didn't do anything. That situation happened. Your thoughts about that situation made you upset. Situation is just a situation. It's what we think about that situation that leads to these emotions. Now, sometimes it doesn't matter. Sometimes you can just say that situation and it's sort of the same. But if you think about it that way all the time, this is when you start to blame other people and circumstances for your own response. And that just simply isn't true. Someone can be super mean or disagreeable, and you don't have to respond in that way. You still could choose to respond differently. Now, maybe on the moment it suits you to be mean or disagreeable to them back, whatever, this is your choice. But someone acting in a certain way does not have to make you act in that way. Back. If you already know this and it all sounds familiar, then you've been practicing. It fantastic. But if you haven't, I challenge you to really start looking at it from that perspective. Because what happens when you blame circumstances or you give your power out to external circumstances and people, then you start to feel disempowered and you start to feel like a victim of the surrounding. And you can change this. You can change it to, okay, this is out of my control, I accept it or I walk away. And what's in my control, I be proactive about. I take initiative on things that matter. I leave my comfort zone to take actions and to move forward on projects that are important for me. It's really a shift in the whole mind. And you'll notice that there might be an inner resistance. You might think, yeah, but that's not true. What about this in that circumstance? What about this person? What about what the other person did the other day? People do many things. Many things happen in life. But we can always choose how we respond to them. And what I'd say is this even in the bleakest, most dire circumstances, you can still choose to distance yourself a bit from them and to tune in to the inner peace that you have. Because we all have deep, deep down, sometimes it's hidden. That deep inner peace calmness it's in all of us in all times, but sometimes we lose it. And so you can always choose to go back to it. And actually, often people that go through really hard times, they find it again because suddenly the victim, the blaming, the complaining, they're shouting, they're upset, just doesn't lead them anywhere. And you'll notice that the people that are the most at peace, generally, they've gone through a lot of suffering. And it's sort of like they've realized, okay, all this suffering, it's not really helping me. All I can do is tune in and find that core inner peace and stay there and actually accept that and run through it. So you'll probably notice this as a pattern. Generally people have gone through a lot of suffering. The wisest people, the more peaceful people, the deeper people are. People who've suffered a lot and realize that all this victim blaming, complaining doesn't serve them. And they tune into that inner peace. But this is something we can do at all times. So it's worth remembering that you can shift your perspective any day about anything. Sometimes it's more challenging. If you mean tired or you're going through a hard time, it can be difficult to change your perspective. But you practice it, it grows as a muscle and you are then able to choose your emotions, choose your reaction, your default thought and your default emotion. Don't have to stay. So it's perfectly natural if someone suddenly snaps at you or something suddenly happens to have an instinctual response emotionally or thought on the moment. But then before you act or before you respond, you have the ability to shift that within you, to reframe it, to change the way you think about it, and to even choose another emotion once you process the first one. All of this takes practice, but it's a topic I'm super passionate about because I've noticed that to really transform in your life, you need to channel all your energy into the things that you can control, be super proactive there and not let all the other stuff weigh you down. And the way of doing that, the way of them not squashing you. I often talk about circumstances squashing you. The way you do that is by taking responsibility, by accepting, and by keeping some distance from it and really putting all of your energy on the things you can influence, the things you can change, you can focus on, and not wasting time, thought, focused energy on things that are totally out of your control. Because all that complaining, blaming, victim mindset, all of that, it just maintains you where you are. It doesn't make anything move forward. So you're losing a lot of time, a lot of energy, a lot of goodwill, discipline, willpower speaking thoughts on things that are totally irrelevant. Basically that sounds harsh, but the talking about all the annoying things in life that you weren't able to influence is sort of pointless if you really stop to think about them. Maybe you need to let off steam, do it ten minutes, then realize it goes nowhere, and then continue in your proactive, responsible, taking ownership, whatever term you choose. And then you choose to influence circumstances around you. Again, this is something that if you look at people that you admire in your field, in business, in fitness, wherever you'll notice, they have this ability to take responsibility, they have this mindset, this ownership mindset, and they choose to put all their focus on things they can influence. They don't have lame excuses all the time. They're not always blaming and complaining about other people and life and circumstances. They're putting all their focus and energy on what's in their control so you can do the same. We can all practice it. It's not about being perfect, it's about constantly training ourselves to take responsibility, take ownership, shift things in our life. Super passionate about this, and it's something that we can constantly improve. It's not just we've done it once, we're good, especially as things get harder and you have more challenges in your life. It's something that you need to constantly improve, work on, think about, and change the way you approach situations. Hope this was useful for you. Highly recommend Stephen Covey's book if you haven't read it already. Wishing you a fantastic day and thank you so much for tuning in.
[12:36] Thank you so much for tuning in today to the Focus Bee show. I would absolutely love to hear your feedback, so let me know in an Apple review or YouTube comment what was most valuable for you, and feel free to share this episode with a friend or a family member wishing you a wonderful, magical and focused day ahead.
[13:05] You close.