#1631 Reprogramming You - Harps

a moment of awareness of your own programming? The fact that from the day that you were born, you know, you've had all this data and inverted commas punched into your hard drive. You've had all these experiences, all these humans.

You've lived in this house, you've been to these schools, You've gone to this church or synagogue or Moss Score Temple or Scout Hall or park or beach or and you've had this never ending series of conversations and interactions and experiences and relationships and dialogues and disappointments and breakthroughs and breakdowns and laughter and tears, and the never endingness

of the conscious experience that is your life. And in the middle of all of that, that kind of doing and being and conversing and living and thriving and surviving and ducking and weaving and getting up and going to bed and doing a bunch of stuff in the middle of it, and making friends and losing friends, and in the middle of all of that. Until this point in time when you listen to this, you've been programmed. And I've been programmed. I've been programmed by my world. I've

been programmed by my experiences. I've been programmed by my parents. I've been programmed by my friends and my peers, my colleagues, my business partners that I've had, the people that I've looked up to, the problems and the problematic people that I've dealt with, have influenced the way that I think

and respond and choose friends and cope under pressure. The work that I've done, the companies that I've worked with, the teams that I've worked with, the elite athletes that I've worked with, the addicts and alcoholics, the people in prison that I've worked with, the people with all kinds of abilities and disabilities that I've worked with, have all shaped me. They've influenced how I think. They've influenced everything from my self belief to my level of awareness and

gratitude for for what I have. It's interesting that on many levels I didn't choose to be how I am today. On some levels, yes, but on some levels no. And the same with you. You just are how you are and the way that you are today. And this is not a good or bad thing. This is an awareness thing, a curiosity thing, the way that you are today if science is to be believed, and fucking that's fraught with danger, isn't it. But let's just say it's kind of right then.

About twenty percent fifteen twenty twenty five maybe percent of how you are, how you think, how you choose your all of the emotional, psychological, behavioral, and physiological components that make you you. A small ish percentage of that is genetic and inherent and unavoidable, but a big part of how you are and who you are, and how you think and how you operate and even even what your

body functions like. So much of that is about you and your experiences and where you've been and what you've seen and what you've done and what you haven't done. And so I guess the questions that I'm asking in this around this idea of recognizing our own programming for what it is good or bad. Some of it's good,

some of it empowers us. But some of our programming which results in certain beliefs and certain ways of thinking and choosing and being and doing and existing on a social level, on an emotional, on a psychological, on a spiritual, perhaps on a financial, on a practical, on a physical level, some of those things, some of those habits and behaviors and ways of operating that are a byproduct of our programming service, and some of us get in the way

of our potential and our possibilities. So the questions that I've been asking myself and others for a bunch of years, feel free to take notes, feel free to come back. This is a kind of me thinking out loudish with not too many notes in front of me about twenty dot points I've got written, and by that I mean twenty words on my screen in front of me. The kind of questions that I ask people is really simple things like is your current operating system working? What does

that mean? It means is the way that you typically do stuff? Does it work for you? And by does it work for you, I mean is it producing the

outcomes you want it to produce. Is the way that you are currently doing life or a particular part of your life, whether it's relationships or work or money, whether or not it's spirituality, whether or not it's managing your mental and emotional health, whether or not it's it's renovating your physiology for the better, whether or not it's building a business or a career or an academic kind of endeavor that you're pursuing. Is the way that you are

currently doing that thing working. Now, it's mostly going to be a yes or no answer. It might be a kind of or it might be a partially. But once we know if something that we are typically doing is working or not working, then that gives us clear indication as to whether or not we should one continue to do that, to discontinue doing it, or three continue doing it in a way that's somewhat modified or more likely to produce better outcomes. Do your typical thoughts empower you

or limit you? Why do you think the way that you do? Is that you thinking critically? That is what I call clean slate thinking. That is no influence from anyone or anything else. This is just you. I know. This is very difficult. But do you think the way that you think about this thing because you've simply adopted and adapted thinking and believing in perspective and ideology from someone else. Or is the way that you think about whatever fill in the blank, is the way that you

feel about X, we'll call it X? Is that all you? Is that all you? Or is that nearly zero you? Like? Where did that thinking come from? Does it serve you? Does it sabotage you? Does it propel you forward or back? Or does it keep you trapped in some kind of psychological emotional behavioral holding pattern? Where did your beliefs, the things that you believe, where did they come from? Did you choose them? Because if you didn't use them, they

ain't yours, there's someone else's. And maybe over time you might do an audit on your beliefs, or you might do a deep dive into where that came from and whether or not that belief actually is truly representative of or aligned with what you think and how you think, And you might circle back and go, you know what, actually, I do believe that I do on my own independently, when I've held that up to I've put that belief up on the old cognitive hoist, and I've walked around

it and kicked the tires, and I've come to the conclusion that I actually do think that's true. But there are so many things that we believe that we didn't choose, and those beliefs are essentially just a byproduct of proximity of other people's thoughts or what I call I don't know if anyone else calls it cognitive osmosis. That is, our thoughts and our data processing and our thinking and our worldview simply becomes a version of the people that

influence us the most. Are you wasting your potential or optimizing your potential? If you're wasting it, how are you wasting it? And why are you wasting it? Then? What is one thing that you could do to start to use your potential rather than put it in the bottom drawer. What is a better use of your time? What is a better use of your talent? What is the better use of your energy? How can you take that potential and turn it into something great or something worthwhile or

something valuable. What kind of practice all outcomes can you produce with that potential? And what's stopping you? What's getting in the way. What about your habits? What about your habits around food and exercise and lifestyle. There's some obvious ones. Are those habits making you better? Are they making you better? Are they a positive? Are they making your life better? Are you consciously designing, creating, and inhabiting your ideal life?

Are you doing that consciously or are you an unconscious passenger in your own life being kind of controlled and programmed and determined by external forces and influences. So, when you think about consciously creating your own best life, whatever that means for you, based on I guess your values and goals and wants, what needs to change for that to happen. Are you being swept along by the energy

and momentum of everything and everyone around you? Or are you consciously and courageously choosing your path and purpose every day? Because here's what's happened. Here's what happens when we live unconsciously. We blink and then we're five years older. We blink, it's twenty twenty nine. We blink. We're doing the same thing that we were doing. We're having the same conversation, the same internal dialogue. We're doing the same dumb shit

we're making the same dumb excuses. We're still waiting for a fucking miracle or some kind of magic or some kind of you know, ethereal spiritual sign from somewhere or someone or something. What we're not doing is we're not taking control of our choices and our behaviors and our existence. We are hoping that things will work out. We have brought into the bullshit that things will work out if you're a good person, it'll all end up. Okay, guess

what doesn't happen. It doesn't happen accidentally. You'll build your best life or you'll be a passenger in the life that just happens to you and around you. So I've got some thoughts for you around this, and number one is to question everything that you're currently doing. So think about the thing I'm talking about, the big things, the typical things that you're doing. And then off the back of that, why am I doing this, this thing that I do a lot, this thing that I consistently do,

why do I do it? Why do I do it? And does it work based on who and how I want to be? Is it optimal this thing that I'm doing? Does it make my life better? Or is it fucking my life up? Is it fucking my relationships? Up? Is it fucking my health up? Is it fucking my mental health? Up? Does it make me more anxious? Am I spending money on shit I don't need? Am I eating food I don't need? Am I seeking attention that I don't need? What am I currently doing? That is a form of

self sabotage? What am I currently doing that doesn't work? And how can I do better? And what can I do better? What do I need to stop doing? What do I need to start doing more of? Consider which of your current thoughts and beliefs and habits might be standing between you and your growth, you and your purpose, you and your happiness, You and your best life. I'm going to use that as a global term. Best life means something different to you than it does to me

and everyone else listening. There might be some convergence of ideas, but there might be a lot of divergence. It doesn't matter. I'm just talking about so for me, part of my best life is working for me is not having a boss's is not having the structure and rules of living in someone else's work or commercial paradigm. That's great for me, but it might be terrible for you. So when I talk about your best life, that's based on your values and your goals and your story about what success is.

So let me go back to what I said before, that that is, consider which of your current thoughts, beliefs, and habits, so, in other words, what you are doing right now, typically consider which of those might be standing between you and your growth, you and your purpose, you

and your happiness, and you and your best life. And think about, think about go back to all of those beliefs that you didn't choose, those ones that are a byproduct of proximity and cognitive osmosis, and that whole idea of just becoming a version of somebody else rather than you being you. Taking on the thinking, the ideas, and the attitudes of those around you doesn't mean you can't learn from others, doesn't mean that that's something great can't

metaphorically rub off. But at the same time, you can't be them. You can only be you. And when you are a version of somebody else, invariably things will end in tears, metaphoric tears or literal tears. So perhaps open yourself up to the idea or ideas that one you might be wrong about something that you really don't want

to be wrong about. Think about that, Think about the idea that you might currently believe something or want something to be true, or think a certain way about a thing that is perhaps a flawed idea or an untrue truth in inverted commerce. And one of the challenges for us is that in a world where everyone gets things wrong, everyone makes mistakes, everyone makes erroneous assumptions, everyone has beliefs that are flawed, everyone gets disappointed, But none of us

want to be wrong. None of us want to be wrong. And I don't think that we need to want to be wrong, but I think we need to be okay with it, because when I'm not open to the idea or comfortable with the idea or okay with the idea, that I'm going to get things wrong. And some of the things that I get wrong will be things that currently form part of my worldview, part of my strongly held belief part of my version of reality, part of

my version of the truth. And when I believe something strongly, then that thing that I believe strongly shapes my identity, how I see the world and how I see me in the world. Now when my identity and a particular belief or idea or ideology or philosophy or theology, when they are intertwined, then I don't want to be wrong. And it doesn't matter quite often for people what data

or information they are presented with. They will push back, not through logic and not because they happen to be right, but they will push back because they are emotional, they are scared, and they do not want to entertain the idea that this thing that I've believed or thought for a very long time could be wrong, because that's fucking terrifying. Because if that thing that I've thought for a long time is wrong, then I don't know who I am.

I don't know what is up and down because my identity and that belief are kind of one and the same. We need to open ourselves up to the idea that we are going to be wrong and now and then it's going to be something profound, something that we really struggle to accept. But nonetheless, it doesn't mean we're right, and it doesn't mean that being wrong makes you a

bad human. It makes you human. You and I will need to unlearn some things, and even in the context of being in a certain group, changing your mind, changing your thinking, changing your beliefs and behaviors. That's going to ruffle some feathers depending on the group. That's going to piss some people off. That's going to destroy some relationships. Sometimes.

I know I've done this. I've been in groups where to think a certain way and believe a certain way, and have a certain ideology or philosophy or theology, or set of behaviors or practices or rules. It's a lot, isn't it. That was non negotiable. And so when I would put up my hand and go, oh, I'm not sure that I agree with that, it's like, well, you need to agree. You need to get in line or get out. And so when you're in a group that says you need to get in line, you need to conform,

you need to fit in. You need to believe, you need to not question, you need to comply. You need to kind of believe what we tell you to believe. We don't want you to We don't want to teach you how to think. We want to teach you what to think. In fact, you thinking critically and arriving at your own conclusions and beliefs and ideas and truths. Well, that's just delusional and you can't belong. But the reality is for you and me, it's not your job to

be like them. Now that doesn't mean you can't belong to a group. But if you belong to any group where you can't have your own opinion or ideas, or you can't disagree, or you can't push back. And I'm not talking about being problematic or being difficult. I'm talking about being in any kind of group, not necessarily religious, but any kind of group where your divergence of opinion or ideas or belief or thinking where that is not welcome or not embraced or not tolerated. Then you, my friend,

are in a cult occult of thoughts. And yes, it might be religious, or it might be political, or it might be sporting, or it might be nutritional, or it doesn't matter. But I'm not talking about religion per se. I'm talking about the way that people endeavor to control and manipulate and coerce and manage and even intimidate people into thinking a certain way. Fuck that, and some of you know exactly what I'm talking about. By the way, the group could be a family, the group could be

ten people at work. The group could be a sporting club. The group could be a bunch of people that have dinner every Friday night that are in inverted Comma's friends. And you sit there biting your fucking tongue every Friday night because you don't want people to know what you really think about some of their bullshit, and so rather

than be you, you conform. But guess what, when you don't be you, and when you conform, you're compromising in a way which is terrible for your own growth, your own development, your own ability to live in alignment with your values and be that authentic person. For some of us, it's really time to open ourselves to the idea of

having different conversations with different people. Talk about programming, talk about deprogramming, talking about how to just expose ourselves to different ideas, different culture, you know, to have new experiences, to do new things, to be less self less, self righteous and afraid and more curious. Like the truth is, you don't even know what you don't know, as don't I. We don't know what we don't know of all there is to know. And I know this is an obvious thing.

But if all there is to know is an ocean of knowledge, an ocean of information and awareness. Then me, who's been learning for sixty years, I know a drop. I know a one single drop in an ocean of knowledge, and so on no level can I be or do I have the right to be presumptuous or arrogant or self righteous about what I know or what I think.

I know. There's nothing wrong with believing, there's nothing wrong with thinking, you know, there's nothing wrong with having attitudes and ideas, of course, of course, but I need to be brave enough and grown up enough, and self aware enough and humble enough to know that some of the things that I think and believe and even teach periodically are going to be wrong. They're going to be I'm just going to fuck up. I'm going to have good intentions, I'm going to believe I'm right, but one day I'm

going to find out I'm wrong. And I've been finding out I'm wrong forever. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I don't. But if I don't teach or talk or coach or help or serve until I know everything and I'm right about everything, then I'll never leave the fucking house, because I'm never going to be that person. Neither is anyone. By the way, all of the self proclaimed in inverted commas, alleged gurus and experts get shit wrong constantly. They just

have better branding and marketing than you and me. That's it. Do you think that high profile, famous, rich, well respected people don't fuck up twenty thirty times a day. They sure do, and it's okay as they should. That doesn't bother me that the experts fuck up. It doesn't bother me. It bothers me, doesn't really bother me. I just don't like the fact that they present themselves as having it

all figured out. It ain't true. So maybe think about your day to day rituals, rules and habits, like the stuff that you typically do most days of your life. So what are the rituals and rules and habits and predictable behaviors that you execute daily that don't fucking work? Right? We can't change what we can't acknowledge, we can't get good at what we won't do. And if we're putting our head in the metaphoric sand and pretending that we are not the problem, someone else or something else is

always the problem. Yes, there'll be external variables, and there'll be people in your life periodically, who are pricks? You know that's going to happen. We get that, but also, you know, we also hear about people who have got amazingly tough challenges, but in the middle of those tough challenges they just find a way. And I've spoken about many of those people. I'm not going to talk about

them again. But you know, my day today, life is a fucking Disney movie compared to some of my friends, some of my friends who have got what I call real problems. I don't have real problems. I have bullshit problems. But it's important for us to think about what are the things that we typically do day to day rituals, rules, habits, behaviors that are not working for us, and why we keep doing them. Think about the things that you do in terms of, for example, money, the way that you spend,

the way that you manage money. Is it working. Do you spend money that you don't need to on things that you absolutely don't really need while simultaneously struggling financially. Think about the way that you work. Think about your career. Think about your job. Think about all the variables that

go under the banner of my career. The way that you act and interact, the way that you create an accountability list every day, to do list every day, the way that you execute your level of professionalism, the way that you communicate, interact and connect with the people in the proximity of you at work. Think about I won't bang on about this, but what you do to your body and what you put in your body, is it working. Yes.

We can go into all the nuance and all the variables, and we can do a deep dive into the science of everything. But you know, like you have an instinctive and intuitive, a natural knowledge and understanding that you are doing shit right now which doesn't align with the optimal version of physical health or how you want to be, or how you want to feel or how you want to operate. Maybe you don't, but I would think most

of you do. Are you currently doing something to your body, or putting something in your body, or not doing something for your body, as the case may be, that is putting you in a place of disadvantage that is not adding to the quality of your life. Recognize it, make a decision about it. Change it. Oh, it's not that easy, and it's not easy. Never said it's fucking easy. In fact, I'm always saying it's hard. I'm always saying it's difficult. I'm always saying we've got to climb the fucking hill.

I'm always saying it's inconvenient and uncomfortable. I'm always saying that. So don't say to me, oh but it's not. Yes, it's fucking hard. Do it anyway? Do it anyway? Think about your day to day operating system, rules, rituals, etc. Around mental and emotional self regulation. What are the things that you are doing on a daily basis that are good for your mental health? What are the things that you are doing typically and repeatedly that maybe are bad

for your mental health? Are you obsessing about and focusing on and wasting a huge amount of time and energy on things that you can't control, and that the end result of that five ten, fifteen, twenty minute kind of cognitive rabbit hole of fucking stress and wow w W the end of that is you in a state of anxiety. Conversely, maybe you can do some stuff that is going to turn on your parasympathetic nervous system that calm the farm. Maybe there are some breathing exercises, Maybe it's working out,

Maybe it's meditating. Maybe it's lying with your dog on the floor. Maybe it's just speaking out loud things that you're worried about, and it's just in the acknowledgment that, oh,

my god, it's all right. One of the things that's worked for me in terms of minimizing with certain areas anxiety and overthinking and self doubt and all of that was for me to literally articulate on this show all my own bullshit, and me talking about my flaws and faults, me talking about my shortcomings, me talking about my failures and periodic successes. All of that for me has actually

been therapeutic. It's actually been good for my mental and emotional health because I'm closer to the authentic me, the person not the persona that I have at times in my career pushed the persona out to the public, which is a version of me that at times was not one hundred authentic. Think about in terms of your day to day rituals, your personal growth endeavors who you want

to become. Think about lifelong learning. Think about how you can optimize your time and energy that I spoke about a minute ago to be more effective and productive, Be more strategic. Think clearly about what you want. You can be driven by your emotions, but regulated and guided by logic and strategy and critical thinking. This is the thing I really really want that call? How do I create that?

What's my timeline, what's my plan, what's my strategy? What's my accountability is I've said countless times some people have listened to me thousands of times and are still not doing any of the things that they know are true for them, Which is why I say all the time, I can't change anyone. I can only change now. I can influence and talk and educate and inspire. Sometimes and some people will say, harps, I listened to this podcast that I'm doing right now. I'll get feedback from people saying,

thank you. I really needed to hear that I had a light bulb, I did this thing. Blah blah blah blah blah. And some people may but I would think based on the numbers of people that listen, there might be a few. But some people will listen to this and not because of me, but because they're ready, but because they do the work, but because they make the decision, but because they get uncomfortable, because they lean into whatever needs to be lent into They do it as a

byproduct of intersecting with this podcast. But still I'm not doing it because I'm not doing the work. I'm not getting uncomfortable, I'm not making the effort, I'm not taking the risks. I'm not doing any of it. How many times do we need to hear a version of And by the way, none of what I'm saying today is new.

I didn't invent any of this. All of these ideas and thoughts and messages are spoken about daily by probably thousands or millions of people around the world, where we question what we do and why we do it, and how we do it and whether or not it's working, and we think about our programming, and we think about critical thinking beyond the programming, and we start to become aware of my potential, beyond the unconsciousness of my current existence, where we think, Wow, what if I stepped out of

my unconscious operating system that groundhog danus of doing things that don't work, and I stepped into ownership, and I stepped into awareness, and I stepped into strength and courage, and I made different decisions, not because I've got more time in the day or not because it's easy now or not because I've got a cheersquad, but just because

I just do it. What if what if I expose myself to different ideas and I open the door on different philosophies and teaching and theologies and texts and traditions and cultures and people and environments. What if I see different stuff? If I see more stuff, I hear more stuff, I'd read more stuff, and I'd do more stuff. What if I do that? What if I broaden my awareness by just doing different things? What if I recognize the gap between how I live day to day and my values?

And if my values are the road map for constructing a life, a lifestyle and existence and an operating system that works for me, then the obvious question is how does my current behavior or way of living or being and doing align with my values? And if the answer is not very well, that's okay again, no self loathing,

just awareness. Cool. Well, I know what my values are, so my values can now become the roadmap for future me, for future decisions, for future behaviors, for future transformation, growth, learning, evolution, development. What matters to me? Well, these are the things that are most important. These are my goals, These are my values. These are my standards, These things are my internal sat nav. I defer to them when I am designing, refining, and creating the best version of my life and me in

the middle of that. I think we need to get our head around the idea that that our truth might not be the truth, that the thing that's going on is not the same as your story about the thing that's going on. And your story about the thing that's going on might be a product of the story that you grew up in. It might be a byproduct of the story that people in your world that you love and respect and look up to and trust. It might be that their story has become your story. But there's

still a chance that it's just a story. There's still a chance that there's a chasm between the truth and your truth. Maybe not in some cases and maybe in other's.

So I guess the challenge for us as we think about this idea of becoming aware of our programming and the way that you know our beliefs and ideas and values and behaviors and outcomes, and the way that we do personal and professional relationships, and the way that we interpret the data that we're inundated with on a minutely is that word on a minute by minute, hourly daily basis. You know, once we start to identify things that are

working and not working, we can make different decisions. We can change beliefs over time, we can change ideas and behaviors and rituals and rules and habits and outcomes. And we're not going to change quickly. We're not going to close our eyes and wake up and next Wednesday, we're going to be a different human with a different reality. It's a process. And it might not be ten things. That might be one thing, It might be two or three things. It might just be a key thing that

you need. It might just be that you change one significant component of your life and a myriad of things change because of that. I know many people who have and this is going to be an obvious thing to say, but it's true who the main thing that, the main thing that they have done is just change their body for the better. And I'm not talking about appearance or shape or vanity or ego. I'm talking about they've changed their body for the better in terms of health and

function and performance. And then when their body changes, when they went through that process of thinking and doing and being different and creating different outcomes and changing their physiology for the better. Not only did their physiology changed, but their psychology and their sociology and their emotional system. And they built resilience and understanding and awareness and strength and insight.

And they did something hard. And yes, their body changed, so where they live changed, but who they are changed along the way because they created something that is a great result. They did something that was hard, and then they take that strength and that knowledge and that confidence and competence from that transformative process into other processes in

their life. I encourage you to think about how you think, and I encourage you to open the door on this kind of awareness of how much of what I do is a result of programming, and how much is me