Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Stop Setting Goals — Become the Person Who Wins - E192

Starting point is 00:00:00 Have you noticed that the world that we live in has been doing most of the thinking for you? That your beliefs, perceptions, reactions, fears, and doubts have been shaped by unsolicited outside noise? How easy it's been for you to slip into that default sleepwalking mode and label it as life and reality. Yeah, that ends here. Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast. This is your opportunity to start thinking for yourself, reclaim control, and step back into that role as the shock caller and dominant force of your own reality. It's when you change the way that you look at things, that the things that you look at begin to change. So let's wake up,

Starting point is 00:00:41 let's rise up, and let's make sense of why and how shift happens. Makes sense. You know, it's interesting with the whole diagnosis thing is everybody kind of comes out of the woodwork. It appears that like everybody reappears. And then you realize, they never really went away. Like there's a lot of people out there that I love and appreciate and support. I just don't have time to let them know. And it's times like these where you realize it, you know. I think what's important in that lesson is to know that you're never alone. I don't think we're ever alone. I think all of us, even the ones that think that they're alone, have just a plethora of

Starting point is 00:01:23 people that love and support them. I'm having the opportunity, another blessing of this whole diagnosis thing. I talk a lot about the suck and embracing the suck. So I'm taking two medicines. I'm going to start in just a second, but I just want to do something with you guys today because I'm starting to notice that the second medicine that I'm taking are these two little pills. Let me see if I can show you.

Starting point is 00:01:47 They're so small. They're teeny little pills. These two pills, by the way, cost $45,000 a month if you pay cash. because a lot of people don't have insurance these days. 45 grand, take two of these a day. So what happens when I take these pills? These are targeted cancer killing something.

Starting point is 00:02:10 Anyway, when I take these, everybody in my family knows that I pretty much go down for about two hours, starting about an hour later. So I'm going to take them now, and I don't know, we'll see. Because I'm starting to notice that I'm getting a little bit better. Taking a little risk here. What happens when they come on, the feeling, it feels like you're getting the flu and you just lay down and your body aches and shakes and stuff. But what I've been noticing after, today's day seven, is that it's getting a little less shitty. I feel confident to take those two pills with you today.

Starting point is 00:02:43 Just quick update. I'm optimistic, you know, as always, feeling blessed. Today is called The Becoming. Today I'm going to show you how everything that's happening in our lives, including what's happening with me. me right now has a purpose and it's a tool and it's a vehicle and it's perfect if you choose to look at it that way. So whenever people ask me how I'm doing, I just, they're so impressed by this outlook on life, but I've always had this outlook on life. And, you know, it's like I say things like near perfect and closing the gap, you know, and I'm joking when I say that, but what I notice is that I'm turning

Starting point is 00:03:24 into a better version of myself as a result of this shitstorm. So I'm feeling very, very blessed. And I'm feeling like this is an opportunity that's been presented to me. And in a very, very strange way, I almost feel lucky that I was chosen for this. You know, so many people feel sorry for you when you receive a diagnosis, you know, and I get it. If I'm on the other end, I'm probably doing what's appropriate as well. But imagine if you looked at yourself after you get a diagnosis as a lucky one. You know, a lot of my good friends that know me well say, you know, you couldn't have picked a more perfect person to go through this, to handle this, you know. So in any case, yeah, just I'm really, really fascinated. And you're going to get some of that

Starting point is 00:04:09 in today's episode, which I'm going to get started within a second. Using yourself as a science experiment, I guess, I guess. I mean, I don't know if I'm using myself as a science experiment. You know, I think that I am an experiment in life. I think we all struggle so much to just remind ourselves to live in the present moment. You know, we spend so much time in the future in the past and so much time trying to avoid dying rather than living. And I just feel so blessed because that's all I'm doing right now. I'm just living. God, I spent my whole life trying to figure out how to do that.

Starting point is 00:04:46 Let's get started. So this is the becoming. You don't build the future. Become the person, the version of yourself, who cannot escape it. Great morning, as always humans. Great morning world. I am Dr. J.C. Dornick, otherwise known as, and going by often the dragon. Welcome to the Make Sense with Dr. J.C. podcast, and welcome to the uprising of the

Starting point is 00:05:09 sleepwalking masses. And this is a place where confusion dies and progress thrives. So today I want to begin with an awakening, which typically is how it happens. You know, I do a lot of journaling in the morning. It's part of my morning routine. God, for 18 years now, I mean, these things that I do in the morning, you're just hearing one of them, but they're called rise-ups. And now I use AI and versions of it and stuff,

Starting point is 00:05:36 and it translates into my substack into this series called Goodshift. I actually type. For me, I used to write, now I type. But I've got thousands and thousands and thousands of these. I always tell my kids and my assistant and my wife. wife. If I ever kick the bucket, just go open up my file and just, you know, post all of those in a book or something like that and make some money from it because I've just got thousands of them. But I want to begin with an awakening, which is how I begin most of my days. And an awakening is just

Starting point is 00:06:08 when we go, hmm, which stands for, I haven't made up my mind, but it's just an open and curious place to start. When I refer to an awakening, I don't mean just like an idea or some sort of positive affirmation or something, you know, that you read in a book or listen to a podcast. An awakening that has been unfolding inside of me since I have received this diagnosis. And I talk a lot about this diagnosis because it's my current reality right now, but I think we all have a diagnosis. A lot of people have self-diagnosed themselves. A lot of people have allowed their mother, father, teacher, preacher, society, and evolution to diagnose you. But I think we all suffer from some sort of diagnosis. So you can use this concept of being diagnosed. You know, I have this

Starting point is 00:06:56 awakening now because I've been thinking a lot about it. You know, you go through these different versions of like this, oh, why is this happening to me? I hear so many people say, God, I just feel so bad that this is happening to you. Like I didn't deserve this. or something like that, right? Does anybody deserve cancer? You know what I mean? Like, I always think that that's funny. Like, who deserves cancer?

Starting point is 00:07:22 And I think what they mean is, like, I've lived very, very healthy for 20-some-odd years, you know, don't drink, don't smoke, exercise, you know, meditate, do all the things that, I guess, would promote, like, a non-cancer environment. But that's not really the way cancer works, everybody. So rather than sucking my thumb about it, I've decided to kind of get open and curious about it.

Starting point is 00:07:45 So recently something shifted inside of me. Again, I realized that I was no longer merely coping with this diagnosis, and I was no longer trying to find some sort of a clever way to frame it, because that's what I did in the beginning. I tried to figure out some sort of clever way of turning it around and reframing it in my mind, which is different than owning it in a reframed way in your mind. I was no longer trying to remain positive while secretly wishing I could negotiate my way back to the life that I had before.

Starting point is 00:08:20 I want you to know that I do not want to go back to the pre-cancer life that I had before because I've completely radically accepted and embraced this as not only part of myself, but a blessing. Think about that for a second. Isn't that an interesting way to look at life, to really, truly radically accept everything about it? So I looked at the totality. I love that word, by the way, totality. I looked at the totality of this whole experience, and I recognize something that even, as I say it out loud right now, might be difficult for some people to understand. What if this diagnosis, and remember, you have your own diagnosis,

Starting point is 00:09:04 whatever it is, what if this diagnosis is not interrupting my life, what if actually, in fact, it's part of my life? What if this is not standing in the way of the person that I once dreamed of and decided to become? There's the becoming. What if this is the exact scenario that was required in order to reveal that person that I decided to become? It's a different way of setting goals. Sometimes we set goals about acquiring things. I like to set goals based on who I want to become.

Starting point is 00:09:40 Let me be clear. And I always have to do this. I want to be clear about something. I'm not saying that cancer is good. And I'm not telling anyone else how they should feel about their diagnosis, their illness, their loss, their pain or something like that. A lot of people are reaching out to me. And like I said, I always offer, if anybody's struggling with their mindset and they're struggling with cancer, I offer all of my tools and my resources for free because I have a Make Sense Academy.

Starting point is 00:10:12 That's a private academy. My book, I'll send you a copy of my book. I'll even send you a pair of glasses with no lenses in them so you can change the way that you look at things. I'm not saying that it's a good thing. I guess what I want to say is I'm not the kind of person that would ever romanticize like suffering or suggest that someone has to be grateful for their own terrible circumstances. It's not what I'm saying. This is my personal realization that I'm sharing with you right now,

Starting point is 00:10:41 my choice and my relationship with what is happening in my life. And I have reached the place where I can accept that this diagnosis with all its difficulty may in fact be the perfect scenario, like I said, for my becoming. Not because I wanted it and not because I would have chosen it. That's not what I mean, but because it's here. And if it's here, then I refuse to waste it. Make sense? I want to make sure that you guys understand that the way that I've adopted this kind of a mindset has a lot to do with my morning routine and I kind of drifted off of it.

Starting point is 00:11:20 But I want to get back to Jim Quick's new Limitless Daily book, 365 days of just strengthening your brain, your intelligence, your human intelligence, rather than artificial. intelligence, but also empowerment like God today was just amazing. I'm going to share something that I read in it today because I actually started when I started reading it from my birthday. And today is the 27th live. Today I read, you can also allow yourself to embrace lifelong learning. You never stop learning because life never stops teaching. And when I read that, I said to myself, This is part of life's teaching. So why don't I choose to learn from it? Is this not like in my destiny, whatever's going on right now?

Starting point is 00:12:14 You see, years ago, just like most of you, I made a decision. And I decided that I was going to live my life, whatever that means for all of us, to the fullest, and become the best version of myself that I could possibly access in this lifetime. That was my goal. And it was always connected to being a father, a husband, a friend. a coach, a mentor, a human. And it didn't mean like the richest version of myself or the most famous version. And not the version with the most followers, awards, downloads, and recognition and stuff like that.

Starting point is 00:12:47 Although I will tell you that I like those things. I like those things. I like the downloads. I like the awards, the followers, the likes, you know, the views, all that stuff. It's great. But it's not part of my goal. That's gravy. I mean the most awake version of myself, the most loving, the most authentic, courageous, present

Starting point is 00:13:08 version of myself. And what I'm trying to share with you right now, if I just go off for a second, is that version of myself is coming out right now, post-diagnosis. You follow me? So this is the version of me that could remain rooted in the truth when life stops cooperating. Can you stay in your truth when life stops cooperating? and not become a victim of circumstance. Because life handed me a situation that basically asked me this. This is the way I look at the diagnosis, like a challenge that I either accept or not.

Starting point is 00:13:45 Life handed me a situation that asked me this. Did you mean it? All that shit that you say, J.C. Did you mean it when you said that you trusted the process? Did you mean it when you said you wanted to become unshakable? Or as I say, unfuck with a will. Did you mean it? Or was it all bullshit? Was it all talk? Did you mean it when you taught people to separate what is in their control from what is outside of their control? Did you mean it? Or was that just like

Starting point is 00:14:14 some product that you were selling? Or did you only mean it while life was comfortable? Life was asking me if I was the real deal or some sort of phony baloney. That's the way I look at the diagnosis. It was like, oh, really? You know that saying, careful, what you ask for? You just might get it? This is exactly what I asked for. I realize it now. I asked to be tested. I asked to have my interface response system tested. I trained for years and years and years to get my body healthy to have it tested. So that was my awakening, long story short. Perhaps this diagnosis is not taking me away from my becoming. I was on my way somewhere before the diagnosis. So I'm saying this didn't take me away or off track. Perhaps it's providing me the exact resistance tension.

Starting point is 00:15:06 We're going to talk about this stuff. Urgency and clarity that's necessary, almost like ingredients in a dish or a soup, necessary to complete the process. Now, what's interesting about that, and this is maybe a big takeaway. I didn't know that a cancer diagnosis was part of the necessary process when I had six. the goal to become. So you don't know either. And here's the funny thing. I don't know what's ahead of me now, but I know that it's perfect. It's perfect. And then there's always this what we control and what we don't control. I mean, you guys can make decisions right now to sit in the realm of what you control. And yes, that can change your outcome. And I would highly recommend it. But either way you look at it, What is coming is perfect because it's going to teach you the lesson.

Starting point is 00:15:59 It's going to teach you to be stronger. It's going to train you for what is necessary. I don't think most people ever actually decide who they are becoming. So I hope you take that with you today. Who are you becoming? Have you decided? So people have dreams, wishes, vision boards, five-year plans, affirmations, goals written on bathroom mirrors, right?

Starting point is 00:16:22 We've done that. But underneath all of that, there's often. often a hidden sentence that says, well, we'll see, maybe, hopefully. You know, if life works out, if I catch a break, if people support me, because if people don't support me, then I can blame it on that. And if I don't fail, of course, if nothing terrible happens, that's not becoming. That's called negotiation. Try to capture that difference today.

Starting point is 00:16:50 The difference between becoming and negotiating. because leaders don't negotiate with their identity. They decide on it. So let's talk about identity before evidence. So the greatest leaders that I have ever met all share something in common. They have already met their future self, already shaken hands with their future self. They know it very, very well. They already know who they are in the future.

Starting point is 00:17:18 One of my mentors, Wayne Anderson, taught me to lead from the future and act in the now. That's what that means. They already know who they are. The world just hadn't caught up with them yet. So that's why they do not require constant motivation. I talk about that a lot on this show. Motivation, timing, and self-belief are not precursors for success, especially people that are legitimately going after their dreams. There are things we build. They're like muscles. We build them along the way. So for example, if I still haven't decided whether I am a healthy person, in the future, I will negotiate with the idea of having pizza today. Feel me?

Starting point is 00:18:00 If I don't know whether I am an athlete and fit in the future, I will negotiate with my workouts. Should I go to the gym today? You know, what's funny about going to the gym when you're in my situation is everything that I feel when it comes time to go to the gym is the reason that most people wouldn't go to the gym. I feel nauseous. I feel weak. I have pain, I'm tired, all of that stuff.

Starting point is 00:18:27 But it's like that every day for me. So it's non-negotiable, the gym. Because I have decided that I am fit and healthy. And I have to prepare for my surgery as well. So if I don't know whether or not I am a leader in the future, I will negotiate with discomfort. But once identity is settled upon, there's nothing left to negotiate.

Starting point is 00:18:48 Put that in your pipe and smoke it for a second. Once identity is settled upon, there's nothing left to negotiate. Now I want to share with you, for those of you that have been with me since the beginning when I took those two pills, because I want to give it to you real time. It's been like maybe 15, 20 minutes. What I'm feeling now is a little bit of a sweat coming on. It's so fucked up.

Starting point is 00:19:13 You know, my wife and I look at my pills because they pop out through like a tinfoil. We look at them as those, what are those apothecary? Is that what they're called? like the 25 days to Christmas or something like that. So we always sing. So today was day seven. We're like, on the seventh day of Christmas,

Starting point is 00:19:31 my true love gave to me, two pills that will make me feel like I'm dying. So anyway, I just want to let you know that I'm just feeling a little shitty now. But I'm here, and I'm just so happy to be with you guys. So I don't wake up in the morning and ask, do I feel motivated to brush my teeth?

Starting point is 00:19:51 Why? because I've already decided that I'm a person that brushes his teeth in the morning. So if there's something that you know you want to do and need to do and you're negotiating with it, now you know why. Now imagine applying that same certainty to every important area of your life. Imagine no longer asking whether you feel like honoring your health. Imagine that. Imagine no longer asking whether you feel confident enough to speak your mind, to speak your mind, your truth. Imagine no longer having to ask whether you have permission to create things, to lead, to love, to forgive, to write, to build, or to begin. You don't need permission

Starting point is 00:20:35 from anybody. What if the decision had already been made? What if you stopped waiting for evidence before claiming the identity? Here's what most people say. Once I become successful, then I'll feel confident. Once I lose the weight, then I'll become healthy. Once my business grows to this certain amount and I have this much money, I'll become a leader. That's a big one. I hear that a lot. Once my anxiety goes away, this was mine, I'll become more peaceful and calm.

Starting point is 00:21:08 But what if the order is reversed? So this is what I call the hidden lie. Most of us have been taught this process in the wrong order. Most of us have been taught do have become. Do the work, have the result. Become the person. Think about it. Isn't that what you were pretty much taught? You know, do the work. I mean, Stephen Presfield wrote a book called Do the Work. Embrace the suck. Do the work. Do hard things. Great book called Grit. Do the work, have the result, become the person. Work hard, make money, become successful.

Starting point is 00:21:41 But life appears to operate from my vantage point, the guy with the no lenses. Life appears to operate in the opposite direction. We say, and this is what I learned from my mentors, thank God. This comes out of the makes sense, how to rewire your mind and transform your life. B do have. Now, you know that one of the tenets of the Make Sense Academy and the Make Sense ecosystem is that it's who you are that determines how well what you do works. That's what B do have means, okay? The becoming, which is what we're talking about today, the becoming comes first.

Starting point is 00:22:15 The evidence follows. The identity gives birth to be here. behavior. Behavior, repeated long enough, produces evidence. And then the world finally recognizes that you have decided long before you could see it. That's the way it has. Be do have. James Clear, you know, famous for atomic habits, which by the way, James Clear, Atomic Habits, and Mel Robbins let them. Do you know that those two books are still months and months and months and months and months, maybe even like a year, still number one and two in the New York Times bestseller list, meaning they're selling like 40 to 45,000 copies of

Starting point is 00:22:57 their book, a week, still every week. That's why my buddy Jim Quick needs to sell with all of our help. We're going to help him, his book. He needs to sell like 60,000 when he launches it, because he wants to be number one. So James Clear famously teaches that every action you take is a vote for the type of person that you wish to become. But I would take it one step further, James, talking to James as if he's coming on the show. Remember this moment. Every action casts actually two votes.

Starting point is 00:23:29 One vote for the person that you're becoming and one vote against the person that you are leaving behind. That doesn't mean that you need to be perfect. Perfection is another type of a trap. You guys know that. A single decision does. does not define you. But repeated decisions reveal who is winning the election. So ask yourself, which identity, which version of you is currently getting the most votes? I want to tell you about

Starting point is 00:24:00 something called the circle of control. We're going to do a little bit of stoic stuff. And also share with you in real time, a little bit of nausea right now. This is just from taking those two little... If I didn't take those pills, I wouldn't be feeling these things. and I want you guys to come along with me. I want you to learn from this. Wouldn't it be cool if I threw up on a live stream? I mean, you might say that you wouldn't want to see it, but you'd watch it.

Starting point is 00:24:27 Out of the corner of your eye or something like that. So let's talk about the circle of control. By the way, side note, I saw the movie with my daughter, Odyssey, with Matt Damon. Oh my God, what a fantastic movie. Please run and go see that movie. amazing, amazing movie. God, what a great movie. Just three hours of just greatness. I felt like

Starting point is 00:24:52 complete shit while I was watching that movie and I enjoyed it thoroughly. So for thousands of years, Stoic philosophy has taught a simple but life-changing distinction. And you guys hear it on this all the time. Some things are within our control, other things are not. Epictetus taught that our options, impulses, desires, and choices belong to us. Our options, impulses, desires, and choices belong to us. Other people's behavior, our reputation, many external events, and even aspects of the body may not fully belong to us. The decision of my cancer did not belong to me. Stephen Covey later translated this into what he called Circle of Concern and the Circle of Influence.

Starting point is 00:25:44 Modern psychology speaks of an internal or external locus of control. Jim Dethmer talks about that as well. One of my mentors, just a fantastic guy. Internal and external locus of control. Another word is agency. You either have agency or not. Different language, same truth. Peace begins,

Starting point is 00:26:06 when we stop spending energy trying to control what was never ours to command. You will spend more energy this week, all of you, all of us. You will spend more energy this week trying to control things that you have zero power over, then you will spend acting on the things that you can actually change. Take that to the bank. It's the way that we're wired. And it's exhausting. It's exhausting you.

Starting point is 00:26:35 It's exhausting me. it's exhausting us. You cannot control whether someone understands you. You can control whether you communicate with that someone honestly and authentically. I think that's what I'm doing when I'm taking you along with my medication right now. Because I realized I was telling my wife the other day, because I still do my podcast, right? And some days I feel like shit. And I always say, I can fake it today. I can get through it. But I don't want to fake it. I don't want to fake it. I want to live authentically. I want to live honestly. You cannot control whether someone understands you. You can control whether you communicate with them honestly. You cannot control the economy. You can control your preparation

Starting point is 00:27:23 and your decisions. You cannot control whether someone approves of you. You can leverage these things, but you can't control whether or not someone approves of you. I promise you. I promise you. You can control whether you betray yourself to gain their approval. Ooh, I hope you grab that one. You cannot always control the thought that initially pops up and appears in your head. You can control whether or not you invite it to stay for dinner. You cannot control every medical outcome, but you can participate fully in your journey and your care.

Starting point is 00:28:00 That's what I'm in control of right now. I'm fully participating in my getting healthy. You can ask questions. We can always ask questions. That's in our control. You can nourish your body 100% in your control. You can move. Remember I said before you're going to spend more time doing things that are out of your control rather than in?

Starting point is 00:28:24 Think about that the next time that you make a decision to not do something that's in your control. Like nourish your body, move your body. You can rest. That was always a challenge for me. You can choose how you relate to the experience that's at hand. And most importantly, you can choose who you are becoming even within a shitstorm. Remember, there's an eye in every storm. So here I am full offering of complaining about everything and sucking my thumb.

Starting point is 00:28:57 But I remember I can control who I'm becoming even within this. So that's the circle of control mindset in its simplest form. You stop demanding command over life and begin mastering your relationship with it. Cool, right? Now, I love to talk about rivers. I got this idea first from Stephen Pressfield. It just loves to talk about the river that's flowing beneath us. It's always flowing.

Starting point is 00:29:23 So I love to use this analogy, and I've done it before, but it's appropriate right here. So just picture a river. the river is moving freely until it encounters a massive boulder that's been plopped at it. The river does not stop and say, this boulder should not be here. How funny is that? Does a river stop and say, who put this boulder here? I don't think the river ever like even notices that there's like some strange boulder, because it's on its way somewhere. It does not spend three years like we do discussing the injustice of the boulder or looking to blame someone for putting it there. Or wake up every morning trying to move the boulder with some sort of positive

Starting point is 00:30:05 thinking strategy. What does the river do? It flows. It flows around it, over it, and under it. Remember, I always say that, isn't it mysterious how life has mysteriously placed everything that we desire inconveniently right on the other side of a big pile of shit. That's why life is hard. She's got to work for it, right? It's an obstacle course. What's the goal in life? Not to get the stuff on the other side. It's to become a shit navigator, just like water in the boulder. So the water flows around it, over it, and under it, just like we can with shit. The boulder does influence the root, but it does not determine the river's nature.

Starting point is 00:30:48 I'm the river. The cancer's the boulder. You're the river. Whatever your diagnosis, whatever your cancer is, is the boulder. You dig? The river remains the river, the becoming. I'm becoming a river, a roaring river. And that is untouchable.

Starting point is 00:31:08 It's untouchable flow. Untouchable, by the way, does not mean that nothing difficult can reach you or that we become numb or emotionally detached from it. What it means is that it means external chaos no longer gets, I'm sorry, external chaos no longer gets unrestricted, authority over our internal state. It means external chaos, noise, out of our control, no longer gets unrestricted authority boundaries, right, in our control over our internal state. What we do is we stop fighting every boulder. We stop believing that because the path has changed,

Starting point is 00:31:51 that's all that's happened in my life. Ever since I can remember, my path has been changing. right? God laughs at those that make plans, right? You stop believing that because the path has changed, that the destination has been lost. Nothing's changed when it comes to the destination. Sometimes the obstacle is part of the path. Sometimes the detour develops the capacity that's required for where you are going.

Starting point is 00:32:19 And sometimes the boulder actually reveals that you are never meant to be stagnant water. Think about how many times you stop your flow. You damn your river. Now let's talk about tension. We mentioned this before. This is where the idea became, for me, when I started thinking about the tension and the river and all that stuff,

Starting point is 00:32:41 I'm always been a big fan of tension, but this is where it became like deeply personal for me, this whole thing. I think about it a lot because I'm always looking to make use of my situation. I have had countless people, and they still, today it'll happen again, ask me things like, how are you so calm? How are you maintaining this mindset during a cancer diagnosis? You have such a positive attitude, which, I mean, I like the compliments, but I don't

Starting point is 00:33:06 understand why that's such a shocker. It's what I know. And I think that that's probably another reason why I'm so grateful for all the shit that I've gone through in my life. It's made me who I am. How are you not completely consumed by fear as society teaches you to be? And the doctors in their diagnosis is teach you to be. Here's my answer. Because my diagnosis never got a vote in my becoming, and neither do other people, especially the ones that I don't give a shit about. It was not invited to the meeting where my identity was being decided upon. See, cancer can affect my body, but it does not get to redesign my identity or my becoming. I am still the architect of my becoming. It may influence the materials that I'm working with, and it also may also may

Starting point is 00:33:53 alter the schedule of things? You know, for sure on that. And it may introduce circumstances that I would never have selected, like, oh, hey, I'll take kidney cancer behind door number three. But it does not get to take the pencil out of my hand. It does not get to make me less of a loving person, less grateful, less present, less courageous, less alive. As a matter of fact, I have chosen to allow this experience and permit this experience to summon more of those qualities from me. Gratitude, love, presence, courage, living in the present moment. I've decided to let more of those things manifest because of this. That's why I now see this as part of the perfect scenario for my becoming.

Starting point is 00:34:47 Couldn't have asked for a better, more perfect scenario for who I decided to. to become. Again, not perfect because it's unpleasant or guarantees the outcome that I want, just like before I don't have any guarantees. But it's perfect because it's real. It's here. And whose is it? It's mine. And it's asking everything of me right now. There are parts of yourself that you cannot meet through convenience. There are capacities that remain dormant inside of you until life introduces sufficient resistance. You know that. In physics, when we talk about tension,

Starting point is 00:35:29 tension is not always the enemy. It's actually required. Think about it. The guitar string without tension makes no music. The bow without tension cannot launch and shoot the arrow. A muscle without tension cannot grow. The goal, therefore, is not to create a life without tension. The goal is to become someone who knows what to do with it,

Starting point is 00:35:55 which very often begins with just trusting the process and knowing that the tension is necessary, not needing to know right away. I don't know yet. I don't know yet. Big, big part of my book when I wrote about those three magic words at this time, which I got from originally the first time I heard it, was from a good friend of mine, his name is Nima. he would just always add those words at this time.

Starting point is 00:36:21 So the goal is to be the someone who knows what to do with it. Tension can become anxiety or it can become energy. That's how I got through my public speaking fears. The obstacle is not necessarily stopping your becoming. It may be revealing it. And this is the awakening that I had. Cancer did not teach me who I was. It introduced me to who I had already.

Starting point is 00:36:48 become. I learned so much about myself and what I've been doing for all these years. It all started to make sense. If you've read my book, that's what the whole book is about. Is this these awakenings of me saying, well, that makes sense now. I never knew why 20 years ago I decided to lose all that weight and get healthy. Stop doing stupid shit. I thought it was to like be fit or play the role of the health coach or be a better dad and all that stuff. And I'm sure that's it had something to do with it, but I didn't know that I was in training in preparation for this. Years of practicing awareness, pausing, sorting, years of choosing to become the shock caller and the dominant force of my reality. Then life all of a sudden said, okay, let's see.

Starting point is 00:37:37 Let's see, big boy. And it didn't do that as a punishment. It's almost like a revelation. It was life's way of saying, well, this is what you train for. Let's give you. it a shot. Napoleon Hill once wrote, whatever the mind can conceive and believe, it can achieve. Most people stop at achievement. I've decided not to do that anymore. Because before achievement comes becoming, you cannot consistently achieve what you refuse to become. And when you fully become the person capable of creating a particular future, who you are determines how well what you do works. When you become the version of yourself and the person that's capable, the person right for the job of creating a particular future, that future begins to feel less like a fantasy and more like

Starting point is 00:38:26 inevitability. That is the meaning behind this whole episode's title. You don't build the future. You become the person who cannot escape it. Checking in right now, most of my joints, especially my low back and my kidney area hurt a lot. And it's interesting because like, what am I supposed to do with that? You know, I'm sharing it with you only because I want to share it with you, but it doesn't change anything. Like, I just noticed I had to cross my leg down here because it makes the pain a little bit better in the low back. That's what it made me remind myself to tell you about that. But I also know that a couple hours from now, I'm going to feel better. And I also know, this is what my wife tells me, she goes, that pain and all that discomfort,

Starting point is 00:39:14 that's the medicine killing and fighting the cancer. I'm like, yeah, I'm like watching a fight. You do not build the future. You become the person who cannot escape the future. That does not mean every specific goal is guaranteed. Life does not work like a vending machine. You do not insert three affirmations, two cold plunges, and a vision. board and receive the exact future that you ordered. I've learned that the hard way. I thought that I could

Starting point is 00:39:45 control my outcome. That's not the way it works. So you have to trust the process that you're on your way somewhere. So that's why I've changed the acquisition of things to the becoming of who I want to become. Becoming does not give you control over every outcome. It does something way more powerful than that. It makes your direction non-negotiable. It makes growth inevitable. You may not arrive exactly where your old mind had predicted. I sure haven't. You may arrive somewhere more truthful.

Starting point is 00:40:19 That's where I am right now. I am in a place right now, and I'd love to know where you are. I'm in a place that's way more truthful, way more authentic. And there's no way I could have gotten here without this diagnosis. The future is not something you eventually reach. It's something that you rehearse through your daily choices until your identity can no longer escape its expression. That is why your routines and my morning structure,

Starting point is 00:40:50 and I'm reading Jim's Limitless Daily, God, I can't wait for you guys to get that. That's going to change your life. It takes like three, four minutes to read. So that's why your routines matter. That's why your standards, matter. That is why your attention matters. And remember, everybody's vying for your attention right now. The future is not built primarily in dramatic moments. I don't know if you've noticed this. It's built

Starting point is 00:41:17 in ordinary Tuesdays, in the meals that you choose, the call that you make today or don't make, the walk that you decide to take. I always try to take that walk with my wife. The boundary that you set and honor, the thought that you reject, the promise that you keep when nobody's watching. I find it interesting, and this is just a curious, I don't have an opinion on it, I haven't made up my mind about it, but I find it interesting why people tell other people that they're praying for them. I guess it's a way of letting you know, but if I'm praying for someone, if I don't tell them I'm praying for them, does it not work? Is that why I have to tell them?

Starting point is 00:42:05 Or is the magic of the prayer not in the actual prayer? It's in telling somebody that you're thinking about them. I'd love to know your thoughts on that. Victor Frankel, a man's search for meeting, one of my top ten favorite books, survived Nazi concentration camps and later wrote about the human capacity to find meaning even in unimaginable suffering. This is where I get all my stuff. One of the ideas associated with his work is that those who have a why, a why that makes you cry, a why that's as big as the sky, can endure almost anyhow. That's what Victor Frank was able to do. You're becoming as your why, if you've decided on it.

Starting point is 00:42:49 Hard does not disappear once you've decided, by the way. In fact, hard becomes more relevant. Pain does not disappear. Pain gets context, though. Fear does not disappear, but fear loses its command when you decide. Becoming asks for something more honest. It says, this is painful and I know who I am. This is uncertain, and I know how I am going to meet it. I cannot guarantee the result. I know this. But I know. But I am, I am going to meet it. I cannot guarantee the result. I know this. can participate in the process. I may not control the wind, but I still remain responsible for the sale. Have you decided because you don't control the wind to stop dressing and maintaining the sale? Your why does not eliminate your how, my friends. It helps you survive it, and that's without surrendering your identity. So just in closing, I always think about this concept of if I died tomorrow. And you might think that that's dark, but that's the way I want to live my life, right? So here's the question. It's not, if I died tomorrow, will I have accomplished enough?

Starting point is 00:44:05 That's not the question. That question is kind of like still obsessed with achievement, and I'm kind of past that right now. A far better question might be this. If I died tomorrow, would I die becoming the person that I had decided to become? Because achievement is not guaranteed. Tomorrow is not guaranteed. The length of this life is not guaranteed. I don't have any better or worse chance of living through this day than you, regardless of our situation. The exact outcome of my treatment is not guaranteed, but becoming that is available for all of us today. And perhaps that's one of the deepest gifts hidden inside the awareness of death. It does not only ask whether you're prepared to die.

Starting point is 00:44:51 It asks whether you are finally willing to live. So here's my final challenge. I have one question. Who have you already decided to become? Because until that answer becomes absolute, every obstacle will become negotiable with you. That's it for today. To support the Make Sense with Dr. J.C.

Starting point is 00:45:11 podcast, be sure to subscribe, like, and share, as well as follow the Make Sense substack for free daily questions. quotes, live streams, and blogs. And remember, learning without action is just another form of distraction. If something hit home and you learn something today, give it away. That's the only way it's going to stay. See you next time. Makes sense.

Makes Sense - with Dr. JC Doornick - Stop Setting Goals — Become the Person Who Wins - E192

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