THE ED MYLETT SHOW - 7 Powerful Questions to Stopping Fear and Anxiety

Episode Date: July 11, 2024

Imagine mastering your emotions and transforming your life from the inside out... In this episode, I’m giving you the ultimate guide to taking control of your emotional state with 7 powerful questi...ons that will change the way you feel and elevate your life. Learn how the quality of the questions you ask yourself directly impacts the quality of your life. These aren’t just any questions—these are the keys to unlocking a mindset that propels you towards success, happiness, and fulfillment. Here’s what you’ll gain from this episode: •Discover how to reinterpret events in your life to serve you emotionally, turning fear and stress into empowerment and peace. •Learn a simple yet profound exercise to focus on who loves you and who you love, instantly transforming your state of mind. •Shift Your Attention: Identify whether you focus on what you have or what you lack, and learn how to shift your attention to gratitude and abundance. •Realize the magnetic power of your thoughts and how they draw the experiences and people into your life. •Learn the 7 critical questions that can turn your emotional state around, providing clarity and direction in moments of fear, worry, and anxiety. This is more than just an episode—it’s a toolkit for changing your life, one thought at a time. Get ready to unlock a new level of emotional mastery and start living the life you were meant to lead! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 So, hey guys, are you frustrated with where you're at right now? Maybe stunted in your progress? Well, if you are, I want to recommend a place for you to go called GrowthDay. GrowthDay.com forward slash ed. It is the number one personal development app on the planet. It's got all kinds of high performance techniques in there, courses, accountability, journaling, live speeches from some of the top influencers in the world, including me.
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Starting point is 00:00:49 and electronics plus free shipping on everything. Don't miss out on Black Friday and July savings at Dell.com forward slash deals that's Dell.com forward slash deals. deals. Welcome back to the show everybody. So one of the things that I love about doing these solo episodes is it gives me a chance to respond directly to many of you about the questions that you ask. And one of the questions we get asked over and over again is, truly, how do I change the way I feel? Especially when I'm feeling fear or worry or anxiety, stress. And, you know, when I answer your questions, I have to be candid with you. A lot of times I'm helping myself as I answer these questions as well because it's something
Starting point is 00:01:37 that I struggle with. And I have to tell you, you know, as we get going today, I've struggled most of my life with living in some form of worry. And I'll talk about why that is today. And if you do that, maybe why it is for you, I know what it's like to be very afraid. I know what it's like to be stressed, feel overwhelmed, concerned. And that can turn into other emotions too that don't serve us like anger and frustration, depression, right? And so how do we change the way we feel?
Starting point is 00:02:04 And I have some answers for you today that I think are gonna help you. So today is gonna be called Seven Questions You Can Ask Yourself to Change the Way You Feel. And they work, and there's probably more than seven, but I'm gonna give you seven things to think about today. And why do I say questions to ask yourself? Because the truth of the matter is the quality of our life is really the quality of how we feel or the emotions we have. And the emotions we have and how we feel is oftentimes predicated on what we think about. And most people never stop back and go, okay, so if it's true, what I
Starting point is 00:02:37 think about causes an emotion, like a thought causes an emotion and a feeling. What is thinking? What is a thought? And is thinking? Right, what is a thought? And the truth is, a thought is a very quick process that happens internally of asking and answering a question to yourself. So the truth of the matter is, your life is really predicated on the quality of the questions you ask yourself.
Starting point is 00:02:57 Because the quality of your questions gives you a thought, gives you an answer, which gives you a thought. That thought creates an emotion or a feeling, or sometimes causes an action that can create an emotion or a feeling, or sometimes causes an action that can create an emotion or a feeling. So if you go all the way back, a quality of our life is the quality of our emotions. It's actually predicated on the quality of the questions
Starting point is 00:03:13 that we ask ourselves. And so when you can take control of the internal questions you're asking yourself, it can change everything in your life. And when you're feeling fearful or worried, or a form of anxiety, anger, it's typically because you're lacking some of these questions or you're asking them the wrong way. So I'm going to cover those things with you today because questions direct our attention.
Starting point is 00:03:37 And attention is almost everything. We really get what we pay attention to, don't we? What you pay attention to, you get. And the brain is really lazy. The brain is constantly trying to conserve energy, so it loves to run patterns. It loves habits. So when you begin to build the thought loop, the habit of asking yourself a question of, what am I worried about? What am I lacking? Et cetera, et cetera. Your brain constantly goes to find those things. And because you can only process so much information at once, right? Like I'm in a very crowded room. There's wood, there's chandeliers, there's a TV over there, there's a computer. There's actually somebody doing work outside with a saw that I can hear right now. There's an ocean
Starting point is 00:04:12 out there. There's all kinds of different things. There's the clothes I'm wearing. If I paid attention to everything in my life, I would go crazy. So your brain tries to conserve energy and keep you sane. And it kind of just filters out a bunch of different things. But sometimes when we repeat a thought, it can become what I talk about often on here, like a delusion. It becomes delusional thinking and we miss what's always been there. I talk a lot about the reticular activating system in the brain, the RAS, which is basically the filter of your life.
Starting point is 00:04:42 It reveals to you that which you truly believe or which is really, really important to you. And it sort of scans out everything else. It's sort of like a matrix. I read about it in my book, The Power of One More. And so these questions you ask yourself can direct your RAS so that you're paying attention to the things that serve you. And so we're gonna go through that today.
Starting point is 00:05:01 And remember this, thoughts are really like magnets. They truly are. When you begin to think about something repetitively you draw to you through what you're aware of The people places and things that actually make those thoughts real oftentimes So you have to be careful what you think about because you'll probably attract it And I think a lot of you know what I'm talking about Especially those of you that have become more and more successful You've really developed the ability the vibrational frequency to get yourself in such a state that when you think about something regularly, all of a sudden, someone you haven't thought about in years, you're thinking about them
Starting point is 00:05:31 all the time, they call you out of the blue. Or you just had a thought recently about a particular car, all of a sudden you see that car everywhere. Or certain message, people say, well, our phones are listening to us. You know that thing now where you're like, be careful what you say because your phone's going to show you something from it. That's also how your brain works. Be careful what you're thinking about because your brain's going to show it to you. And so today we can change the way we feel if we can change and
Starting point is 00:05:53 ask these questions. So here's the seven questions. The first question to ask yourself when something's happening is, what does this mean? Step back and assess your meaning of the event because oftentimes in life, and by the way, sometimes fear is not a bad thing. Fear can cause you to focus. That's hardwired into you through hundreds and thousands and millions of years potentially to protect you. So sometimes fear is like, pay attention to this. This is something you need to work on. So it's not always detrimental. Also remember this when it comes to meaning, it's not what happens to us in life. It's how we react It's how we respond in life. Remember that again. It's not what happens. It's how we react and how we respond
Starting point is 00:06:32 Well, normally our response is based on what we think something means So the first question is to ask yourself when you're worrying about something or fearful about something or a some event that's coming up That's causing you stress, what does it mean? Because if you can change the meaning, you're going to change the emotion. When you change the emotion, you've changed your entire life. And oftentimes, maybe you've attached a meaning to something
Starting point is 00:06:56 that doesn't serve you. And people can have two different meanings. There's this great story that I've heard many, many times about Mother Teresa. And I've told it on the show before. But Mother Teresa would say, like, let's take me or you, usually most people, that she would say when she was present for someone's death,
Starting point is 00:07:11 it was the greatest honor of her life. That's the meaning she would take from it. But I think most people, myself, probably you included, if I was present, if I went to a... There was a car accident on the road, and I had to pull over, and I got out of my car, and I found someone that had passed away from that car accident and I had to take them from the car.
Starting point is 00:07:30 My meaning in that event would be tragedy. I'd probably replay that video and it would cause me great pain in my life. I'd replay it over and over and over again, you know, these mental images we replay. Because the meaning for me as I was witness to tragedy, someone lost a mother, a daughter, a sister. And that would be the meaning, justifiably by the way, that I would take from that event. Mother Teresa would say that if she was at that exact same moment, that it was the honor of her life because her belief was, oh my gosh, I was present to watch this person's
Starting point is 00:07:59 soul leave their body and go to heaven. What an honor to be present for that. And many times she loved to care for the dying because she could help them through that transition and time. So she would look at death, presence of death, being there for it as an honor. Now I'm giving you a very extreme case, but do you see how then she'd leave that event of someone's passing, feeling blessed, feeling honored, feeling privileged that she got to watch someone's soul go to heaven, happy for that person that they get to spend
Starting point is 00:08:28 eternity in heaven, whereas most people would be at that same event, both justified, a different meaning, create a totally different event. You need to be leaving that car accident and go, I was blessed today? I know that sounds crazy. I was honored today? And I'm giving you the extreme example that's almost
Starting point is 00:08:43 ridiculous just to illustrate the point. If you listen to the show for a while, you've heard me and my guests talk a lot about how critical it is to have your wellness goals in order, especially lately with me. So you know how powerful visualization is when you visualize yourself one, 10, 30 years from now, you've achieved all your goals. Ask yourself this. Am I healthy at that point? In your visions, of course you are. But like anything else, without a plan to get and remain healthy you can't hit the goal that's why I'm so thrilled to be partnering with LifeForce it's
Starting point is 00:09:10 co-founded by my good friend Tony Robbins and Peter Diamandis LifeForce is a leader in proactive care the LifeForce membership includes everything you need to understand your wellness and help you make good decisions today to keep you on track in the future for your health. Listeners of my show get $250 when they first sign up for their membership by going to my lifeforce.com slash ed. That's my lifeforce.com slash ed. Take control of your wellness with LifeForce and see what the healthiest version of you actually looks like and is capable of. These products and statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. These products are not
Starting point is 00:09:44 intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp and I'm grateful that it is. I gotta tell you, you know, I get asked all the time, what's the one thing that most of the guests that have been on this show have in common? I can tell you, they're all from different backgrounds. Some of them are tall, some of them are short, some of them are from the US, some of them are from abroad, different ethnic backgrounds, religious backgrounds, you name it. But I gotta tell you, most of them have been to therapy and
Starting point is 00:10:06 I'm a big believer in therapy. I think that whether you've got some real trauma you got to work through in your life or you know you just got a problem you want to work on right now, maybe you just want to talk out loud about some issues you got or find a better quality of emotions. Big believer in therapy and I love better help. I love better help because number one, it's done online. Number two, if you get a therapist you don't vibe with them, you can switch at any given time that you want to. It's a wonderful way to go to therapy and I really believe it can help you if you have things that you want help with. So decide today you're going to give BetterHelp a shot and stop comparing and start focusing with BetterHelp.
Starting point is 00:10:37 Visit BetterHelp.com slash EdShow today to get 10% off your first month. That's BetterHelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash EdShow. Today, to get 10% off your first month, that's betterhelphelp.com. The point is, what does this mean? And oftentimes the reason that we've attached so much stress or worry or fear or anxiety to something is we've attached a crazy meaning to it. It's meaning something that's irrational. It's meaning something that's exaggerated. It's too much.
Starting point is 00:11:04 It's bigger. And oftentimes the meaning we take is really, what are they going to think about me if this happens? What are people going to say? How are they going to feel about me? How are they going to look at me? But when you decide to take control of the meaning of something and step back away from it, get above it, think about it, and attach the meaning, many times in my life, I'll ask myself, what would I need to believe this means? What meaning do I need to attach to this that I can also believe? It can't be outrageous, right?
Starting point is 00:11:32 But what would I need to believe about this so that it would serve me emotionally? Because clearly the meaning I've attached to this is, it's something horrible. You know, if you're a business person and you get a tax audit, let's just say, you're in an audit of some type, right? You see the meaning is if this goes the wrong way, I'm gonna lose everything and I'm gonna live on the street and I'm gonna go broke and you actually begin to, you may not say that verbally, but it's like,
Starting point is 00:11:54 it's tremendous, right? Like it's the worst meaning. Or as you can say, listen, this is something, I know we've done things that we need to be able to do, even if it doesn't go my way, I can come back, I've come back from difficult things before, you attach a meaning to it. A lot of, as I'm recording this, so many of my friends are having their children graduate.
Starting point is 00:12:10 I've got friends graduating... I had my son graduate college recently. I've got a good friend whose son graduates high school today. I saw some videos online today of kids graduating sixth grade. One of them is graduating kindergarten, and it's interesting the different meanings parents attach to those events and the totally different emotions. My son graduated from college, I was proud and excited about his life and pumped up, and yet there were other parents there that were so sad because it was the end of a chapter
Starting point is 00:12:44 of his life. And even and even the different kids, some are excited to get out into the world. They've attached that many others, like, Oh my gosh, this best time of my life, the fraternity, the sports are over. So it's the same event. The meaning you attached to it means everything. I've watched parents online today cry when they're sixth graders leaving sixth grade and now going on to, you know, depending on where you live, like middle school or junior high and others excited about it.
Starting point is 00:13:10 Same event, different meaning. When you begin to ask yourself, what do I believe this means, evaluate that, attach a correct meaning that serves you, all of a sudden you've changed your emotional state. That's number one question to ask yourself. Number two question to ask yourself is, just when I want to change my state and how I feel, quality of the questions, quality of our emotions, right? Who loves me? And who do I love? And just stopping at any given time when you have stress in your life and just taking an inventory of that one thing. People talk about gratitude exercises all the time and I think they're're wonderful But I like simple things and for me it just comforts me to think for a second no matter
Starting point is 00:13:49 What's going on the stress who do I love and who loves me and I could tell you just picturing my mom Just brings me a little bit more peace also for some reason for most of us our moms not everybody But if you have a good mom our moms just give us some sort of perspective on things, don't they? And what really matters in life. And so then I'll think of my children, my family, and my wife, and siblings of mine, my sisters, and my friends, many of my great friends.
Starting point is 00:14:21 Your best friends aren't necessarily the people that you have to spend the most time with. They're the people that you have the best time with. Let me say it to you again. Your great friends don't have to be people you spend the most time with or a lot of time with. They're the people you have the best time with. And begin to think about them and those best times. It's just fair to give yourself that gift. It's okay. You say, well, me, when I got a business stress, yeah, take a second. Who do I love? Who loves me? What are some of those best times? Just give yourself the gift of it for a second. It'll completely
Starting point is 00:14:50 change your state, right? Now, by the way, there's a bunch of things you can do to change your state, obviously moving your physical body. We're talking about the questions today. There's a bunch of things you could do, but ask yourself, who loves me? Who do I love? So, so far we've covered two things. Evaluate and attach the correct meaning to what's going on. A real one, a realistic one, a reasonable one, not some crazy one you couldn't really believe. Evaluate the meaning. That's one way to change your emotions. Number two, just take an inventory real quick of the most important things in life. Who loves me and who
Starting point is 00:15:19 do I love? Picture their faces. Give yourself that gift of asking that question because guess what happens when you ask that question That's what you pay attention to and just in that second to give yourself some perspective and to pay attention to that matters Why number three is about attention? What am I paying attention to? Okay, what you pay attention to is the most critical question you can ask yourself I believe of all the questions what you're paying attention to matters the most in your life and at any given time Ask yourself this question. Are you paying attention to what you possess or what you lack? Ask yourself that at any given time. Are you paying most attention to what you possess or what you have? or what you lack or don't have?
Starting point is 00:16:07 And I could tell you for the majority of my life. I have focused on what I don't have at any given moment I don't have the answer to this question. I don't have the money for this. I don't have the relationship for that I don't have the whatever it's we are constantly looking for what we don't possess As opposed to having an appreciation and putting constantly looking for what we don't possess as opposed to having an appreciation and putting our attention on what we do have because they're two totally different perspectives. If you pay attention to what you don't have, there's a lot of what you don't have compared to what you do have.
Starting point is 00:16:37 So you can just keep looking and looking and looking and looking. But when you ask yourself, if you ask yourself that question, what do I have right now? What do I possess? When possessions don't mean things necessarily, it could be a thing, it could be money, it could be a house, but it could be you're in possession of one of the most wonderful relationships in the world. You're in possession of whatever your faith is. What do you have? And when you focus on what you possess and have as opposed to what you lack, you're happy.
Starting point is 00:17:06 You're more blissful. If you live a life where you're constantly focused on what you don't possess, and I'm not talking about just things, friends, relationships, emotions, money, right? Answers to things, you focus on what you don't have, that's a vast space compared to the things you do have. But when you begin to change your attention, what you pay attention to is what you do have, that's a vast space compared to the things you do have. But when you begin to change your attention, what you pay attention to is what you do have. It changes everything. And that's why, by the way, so many people continue to try to possess more and more things
Starting point is 00:17:36 because they're so focused on what they don't have. They're like, if I can just get more stuff, more things, more houses, more cars, more money, more success, more accolades, more attention, more whatever, more followers. And what happens is these are when you find people, they're professional possessors. They acquire things. They're really good. And some of them are the people that you might admire most in the world. They're on my show. They've possessed Grammy awards and Oscars and Super Bowl trophies and World Series rings and golf championships and tennis championships and lots of money and beautiful houses and cars and they're still unhappy
Starting point is 00:18:12 because even though they have all these things, they focus on what they don't possess and need to get more. And when you live a life which is by about 95% of people, I know this is me too most of the time until I've changed this, of what I don't have or what I don't possess. Man, you know, I learned this years ago at an event for I think Tony Robbins, he made a suggestion on that and I have to tell you it really shifted things for me and in your case, I would ask you, do you focus on what you don't possess or what you do possess? Because when you begin to become grateful for what you do possess the
Starting point is 00:18:46 relationships the cherished moments memories Your health whatever it might be you live a life of a real bliss But if you have that mindset where what you're always paying attention to is what you don't have and what you want What you don't possess? You could end up having a whole bunch of possessions. And I'm talking about just not material things. You could have great people around you, amazing relationships that you cherish and great physical possessions and money and still be unhappy because you're paying attention to
Starting point is 00:19:18 what you don't have. And that's why sometimes people get later in life and they go, I had this beautiful family around me and I didn't pay attention to them. Or I had this amazing relationship and I didn't pay attention to it. I kept chasing this or that. It's because they paid attention to what they didn't possess as opposed to what they did possess. The happiest people put their attention on what they do possess, not what they don't.
Starting point is 00:19:45 It changes everything and it is work. And that's why you have to ask yourself about the meaning of an event. Number one, that's why you gotta focus on who you love and who loves you. This directs your attention. These are extra questions that help direct your attention. So ask yourself this upfront, do I spend most of my time focusing on what I do possess? The relationships, the loved ones, the material things, the ideas, the thoughts, my health, my faith, or do I spend most of my time focusing on what I don't possess and trying to acquire
Starting point is 00:20:12 it? And yes, you'll get better and better at acquiring those things, except it's not what you'll pay attention to when you get them. You'll keep paying attention because it's your thought pattern. Remember this, your brain creates thought patterns, habits to save energy because it's lazy and it wants to save energy. So you're really one of two people. You focus on what you do possess or what you don't. Okay. And no matter what you end up possessing, I guess I'll tell you this, you will have created a pattern in your life that will never allow you to be blissful if
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Starting point is 00:21:38 see if something's really stressing you, just ask yourself, in five years, will this matter? Will this matter in five years? And if that doesn't work, will this matter in 50 years? And you'll change your perspective on something. Sometimes we make something such a big deal, such a big stress. But when you begin to just step back and say, is this going to matter in five years? You get a perspective on it that allows it to be reduced to its proper influence over
Starting point is 00:22:01 you. Right? And I know me, one of the reasons that I've been materially successful in my life is I make things a huge deal. We gotta get this done now, now, right? I'm great at that. Let's go, let's go. I'm amazing at elevating the magnitude of something.
Starting point is 00:22:18 And it's really served me in achievement. It's not served me in fulfillment because I make things a huge deal that aren't gonna matter in a year. They're not gonna matter in five years. And so I've lived an awful lot of my life not in the quality of the emotions that I'm worthy of because I focus on what I don't have. I've attached the wrong meaning to things. I don't spend enough time focusing on who I love and who loves me. And I sometimes don't ask myself regularly enough, is this going to matter in five years? This I'm super crazy worked up about. In five years, is it going to matter one way or the other? Now again, as I cover
Starting point is 00:22:57 these things, that doesn't mean you shouldn't pay attention to problems. We're going to get to that in a minute. There's answers here. This isn't Pollyanna, but imagine this What if you took this tool basket? I've given you of the five and you start to evaluate what meaning did I attach this? Does meaning serve me is this meaning I've attached accurate truthful real or am I off base on this meaning? I've attached to it's killing my emotional state if I change the meaning could I change me right now? And if I got really good at always attaching the right meaning to something, could I change my life? Number two, if I started to spend more time on who loves me and who do I love, what would that do for my life? Right? Third, start to focus or pay attention to what you pay
Starting point is 00:23:40 attention to. What am I paying attention to? What I lack or what I have? What I possess or what I don't possess? Right? And then a little perspective question. This is really going to matter in five years and what's it going to mean? And will I be okay? Right? Number five question to ask yourself. What can I control about this and what can't I control? It's one of the most powerful questions on earth because when you start to really have manic thoughts or just thoughts that don't serve you or stress in your life you really have lost control of your thoughts and
Starting point is 00:24:15 successful people, happy people delineate, distinguish between what can I control and what's out of my control. And this is probably something as a control freak, somebody who likes to control everything, another one of these things I've struggled with. By the way, it's why I have this great list because I really struggle with all seven of these. And at any given time,
Starting point is 00:24:34 when I've got all seven of these clicking the right way, I have a totally different quality of life. And so ask yourself, what can I control about this? And then filter out all the things you can't control. And by the way, surrender all the things you can't control and by the way surrender all the things You can't control give them up give them up to God give them up or just give them up altogether If you're not a believer in God, which I recommend you believe in God But if you don't just got to give them up because doesn't serve you you're literally worrying stressing obsessing over things
Starting point is 00:24:58 You cannot control by the way. Here's a good one. You can't control people. You can't control other people's behaviors You can't control other people's behaviors. You can't control other people's reactions So if you begin to surrender all of that and just focus on what you can control your way ahead. Here's the other thing It helps you figure out what number six will be in a minute But it helps you start to move the needle on fixing something if you've got 18 things You're thinking about 14 of them which you can't control at all Then the four you can control get lost in the shuffle or get watered down But imagine if you went right into the four things you control or the one which you can't control at all, then the four you can control get lost in the shuffle or get watered down.
Starting point is 00:25:25 But imagine if you went right into the four things you control or the one thing you can control, all of a sudden your ability to reduce this thing down to what it really is and maybe eliminate or fix it has increased tremendously. But we don't in our life, we just have all these thoughts of everything, most of which we can't control. Most people spend most of their life thinking about things. They can't control Is that not crazy? But what you know, why do I do it because it became a habit it became a habit at one point and
Starting point is 00:25:54 Now you've repeated it over and over again and it's a delusion like I've talked about another podcast, but it's habitual now It's become who you are. It's become the familiar But the way you changed something is you become aware of it. It loses its power over you and you replace it with something new. Like many of you know that my dad ended up was a recovering alcoholic, drug addict, ended up being sober the rest of his life. And one of the most powerful parts of that program is their idea of knowing, having the wisdom to know the difference between what you can and cannot control and surrender the rest of it.
Starting point is 00:26:26 And I could tell you when I pray at night, I'm like, God, these are the things I can't control. I'm giving those to you. If you can please handle these, that would be great, or at least make me stronger and help me delineate between the things and distinguish that I can control and be great at fixing those things. And so that's number five, which leads to number six. This is real stuff here.
Starting point is 00:26:43 What's the one catalyst decision or action I could take right now that would reduce this issue the most dramatically or eliminate it? What's the catalyst decision, number six, or action? What you'll find is, and I have found in my life that there's typically one decision or one action if you took it, it could eliminate this problem altogether. If you could just get yourself to focus on what's the one thing I could do to annihilate this issue, what's the one action I could take, what's the one thing I could do. And it's a catalyst because if you do that one thing, issue two, three, four, five, and
Starting point is 00:27:15 six sometimes resolve themselves. What's the one action if I took this action, if I took this one action, if I made this one decision, all of these things end up falling into place for me There's typically something and every single problem that if you made that one decision or took that one action It knocks down like it's almost like dominoes that just start falling if you do the one thing But most people because they're so distracted with the wrong meaning They're so distracted with not focusing on who loves them. They're pay attention to the things they don't possess They have a flawed perspective of how important this will be in five years
Starting point is 00:27:49 They have not delineated or distinguished down what they can control Because they've done none of that. They can't arrive at this decision But if you've done those other things now, you're okay. These are the things I can control What's the one action the one decision I could do that would go to the biggest impact on either? one action, the one decision I could do that would go to the biggest impact on either eliminating or reducing this stress, this problem, this issue right now. And then you go about doing it. And then seven, last question is, what perspective do I need to have on this? Perspective is different than meaning.
Starting point is 00:28:18 Perspective is reviewing your life and, and, and asking yourself this, have I been through worse than this and I survived? What's the worst case scenario? There's nothing wrong with asking yourself, what's the worst case scenario? So I call seven the perspective question. And the perspective first is to look at the rest of your life and go, look, I've been through harder
Starting point is 00:28:37 than this, I've been through worse than this, if that's true. Maybe that's not the issue. Maybe you haven't been, maybe this could be the worst thing. Then you've got to ask yourself is what's the Worst-case scenario. I think a lot of times we literally play these games and we're like if this happens I'll die I'll live on the street Probably not
Starting point is 00:28:53 Probably not and if it is You've been diagnosed with something that could cause that then I think the perspective question becomes Finding someone who's got it worse than you. You know, I've my grandmother used to tell me she goes Eddie no matter what you're going through somebody who's got it worse than you. My grandmother used to tell me, she goes, Eddie, no matter what you're going through, somebody's always got it worse. And sometimes it's just asking yourself, being grateful for the fact that maybe I don't have it that bad. I was having a particularly horrible day this morning and I ended up doing an interview today with Ann Byler and I don't know the timing of how podcasts come out, but she was telling her life story and
Starting point is 00:29:33 When she was a young woman she had Her daughter was killed on her farm Accidentally by her sister and like a tractor accident accidentally by her sister in like a tractor accident. And she literally had to carry her daughter in the car into the emergency room. And she tells this story on the show about she's literally dumped her body on the desk of the emergency room and just said, can you save her? And lost her child. I'm not having that bad of a day. And then she ended up being abused and raped by her pastor after that. I'm not having that bad of a day." And then she ended up being abused and raped by her pastor after that.
Starting point is 00:30:07 I'm not having that bad a day. And so sometimes just getting a little bit of perspective for how blessed you are. And then I have these other friends that are incredible at this that have had cancer diagnosis and they'll say, Eddie, I'm blessed. I don't have this or that or the other thing. And so every once in a while, just giving yourself a perspective question of maybe you've been through worse than this, right? If that's not true and this is the worst thing you've gone through, what's the worst case
Starting point is 00:30:32 scenario? It's okay to visit that for a second. Don't be afraid of it. I think you'll find out that bogeyman's not as bad as you think. And then if that doesn't help you, then you got to search and have some perspective on someone's probably got it worse than you or has had it worse than you. And to be grateful for the little great things you do have going in your life and pay attention to that.
Starting point is 00:30:52 And so to me, these seven things that I've shared with you help. What's the meaning you need to attach to the event? Change the meaning, you change the emotion, you change your life. Number two, focus on a minute on who loves you and who you love. Third, pay attention to what you do possess, not what you lack. Remember that. Fourth, what impact will this have in five years? Get some concepts, some perspective based on that, right? Number five, what can I control and what can't I control?
Starting point is 00:31:22 And surrender what you cannot. Number six, once you figure out what you can't control, what's the one catalyst decision, the one catalyst action that if I get that done, the dominoes are gonna fall in my favor? And then seven is the perspective question. And if you have these seven questions in your tool bag, maybe you ask them all seven in that order,
Starting point is 00:31:40 maybe you need one of them at a time, maybe depending on the situation, it's that one question of the seven you need to ask yourself Maybe as you're listening to this you're going you know what I do two and three really really well But man do I screw up number five or six and maybe there's just one of these you need to work on the good News I guess for you is that I need to work on a lot of it And I have worked on a lot of it, and that's why I have all seven of these And I also want to give you some hope you know You don't have to be perfect to help people.
Starting point is 00:32:07 One of the reasons I think I reach so many people with my work is I've needed to get better at so many things. I've made so many mistakes. I've got so many things that I don't yet still have figured out, and it's caused me to work on them and find answers. One of those things has been the quality of my emotions. I've spent too much of my life as a young man and even a middle-aged man living in worry and anxiety and angst and some fear it doesn't mean
Starting point is 00:32:31 I haven't had lots of great times. But there were more to be had, if you know what I mean. And one of the main things was wrong meanings attached to events, definitely. Also paying attention all the time to what I didn't possess, what I didn't have, instead of paying attention for what I do possess, what I do have. And I think those are the biggies for me. I'm really probably pretty good at that catalyst decision thing. I had to really improve at the let go of what you can't
Starting point is 00:33:00 control and focus on what you can control. Anyway, I hope this helped you today. That's why I do the work. I'd just ask you one thing, if you could share the episodes that I do, and maybe it's one week, maybe it's every week, but when you feel like something could be shared or helped, please do it, and if you don't, that's okay as well,
Starting point is 00:33:15 but hopefully once in a while, anyway, I put something out that you feel like you could send to somebody that would help them. That's all I ask to pay it forward. Okay, everybody, God bless you. Max out. That's all I ask to pay it forward. Okay everybody. God bless you max out This is the end

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