The One You Feed - Paul Hannam on The Wisdom of Groundhog Day

Episode Date: December 19, 2018

Paul Hannam has started, owned and managed a number of successful businesses and he taught business and environmental management at Oxford University. His new book is The Wisdom of Groundhog Day: How to Improve Your Life One Day at a Time. Before you jump to thinking you know what he’s going to say about this – wait and listen to this episode. You’ll be surprised and intrigued by his insight and recommendations based on this movie.Need help with completing your goals in 2019? The One You Feed Transformation Program can help you accomplish your goals this year.But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!In This Interview, Paul Hannam and I Discuss…His book, The Wisdom of Groundhog Day: How to Improve Your Life One Day at a TimeThe controlled experiment of Groundhog Day (the film)The life skill of experimentationInvestigating our behaviorWorking on changing one variable at a timeKeeping a journalAsking “what is my role in creating my mood?”Looking inward for the answerMaking change 1 day at a timeThe action of our inner lifeNarrowing the spectrum of life through routineThe inner monotonyHow you have everything you need to be happy nowSlowing down with mindfulnessGrounding yourself in your sensesConnecting with natureThe conditioned selfThe authentic selfConditioning, Circumstances and Our MindHow our brain doesn’t like changeThe 5 characteristics of our conditioned selfTry looking at things in a new wayTrying to control our inner stateLetting go of outcomesPaul Hannam LinksHomepageTwitterSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Hi friends, 2019 is right around the corner and if there's a change you'd like to make in your life and you're thinking 2019 would be a great time to make that change, then I encourage you to check out the One You Feed personal transformation program. In the program, I will work with you one-on-one to help you make the changes in your life that you want to make. Go to oneyoufeed.net slash 2019 to learn more. Culture really encourages the behaviors of the bad wolf and this often leads to anxiety, a sense of entitlement, and the need for approval and control. Welcome to The One You Feed.

Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter.

It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together, our mission on the Really No Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor,

what's in the museum of failure, and does your dog truly love you? We have the answer. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The Really No Really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Paul Hennam, a British author and entrepreneur

who started, owned, and managed a number of successful businesses. He taught business and environmental management at Oxford University university his new book is the wisdom of groundhog day how to improve your life one day at a time hi paul welcome to the show well thank you eric it's a pleasure to be here your book is called the wisdom of groundhog day how to improve your life one day at a time and we will get into the book in a second but let's start like we always do with a parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his granddaughter and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love. And the other is a bad wolf, which represents things

like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops for a second and looks up at her grandfather. She says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. Well, this is one of my favorite parables and it has many meanings for me. First of all, it reminds me that I always have a choice, which really is my greatest gift. In every moment, I have a choice to feed the bad wolf and act out of fear or self-interest, or I have the choice to feed the good wolf and act out of love, peace of mind, or compassion. I think we live in a world that is always providing a lot of food for the bad wolf

through advertising, marketing, TV, and social media. And our culture really encourages the behaviors of the bad wolf. And this often leads to anxiety, a sense of entitlement, and the need for approval and control. And I think we make ourselves miserable by always wanting more as we try in vain to feed the insatiable appetite of the bad wolf. So I really ensure that I counteract these forces by taking responsibility for feeding my good wolf, what I call my authentic self in the book, with practices like self-awareness, gratitude, mindfulness, and service to a cause greater than myself. My good wolf knows that I have everything I need to be happy now, and I really try to appreciate

this as much as possible. But there's more to it than this, Eric, because I really think that Groundhog Day is perhaps the best example of the two wolves parable. In the film, you can really see what it's like to spend a day, and in fact, a lifetime feeding the bad wolf and compare it with watching Phil Connors, the main star of the film, spend each day feeding the good wolf. The movie is really the story of someone who starts out living the way of the bad wolf, driven by ambition, competition, cynicism, and greed, and then shifts to living the way of the good wolf. He experiments with every possible strategy in between, but eventually he finds,

as I think we all would if we were trapped in time forever but the only way to live is to feed the good wolf yeah as i mentioned to you before the show i had not seen that movie in forever and went back and watched it and really enjoyed it and i agree i do think it is a great story for teaching um i had not seen it in a long time your book prompted me to watch it and i really enjoyed it one of the things that you mention in the book is that it's the very repetitive nature of Phil's day. The fact that he gets to keep doing the same day over and over and over, and he can really see how what he does makes a difference. It's a very controlled experiment, they would say, in a scientific sense. a difference. It's a very controlled experiment, they would say, in a scientific sense. Our lives are a little bit different, but you do mention that you think that experimentation is a really important way for us to work on finding a better life. Absolutely. For me, experimentation is one

of the most important life skills that we can learn. In my work as an academic, a coach, an entrepreneur, I've always tried to experiment with different ways of living. I mean, we have to experiment in order to learn how to drive a car. We have to practice to do most of the things in life. But how many of us really practice or experiment with the art of living a happy life? And for me, Groundhog Day really reveals how by trying one thing and observing what happens and then getting feedback and trying something else, either moving forward or trying something else, we can really make huge progress. The tragedy is for me that most people are stuck, get stuck in routines, in ways of doing things in repetitive patterns. They lose sight of the fact that they do have a choice.

So experimentation is at one level is a mindset, but also it's a skill. Because if we keep a journal and if we really spend the time to investigate our behavior, notice how other people are reacting to us, like Phil does in the movie, we can gain tremendous insight. But it's allowing ourselves to be vulnerable, to be truly self-aware, to be honest with ourselves. That's often the hardest barrier to overcome. But when we do that, we can make enormous strides. Or we can be, like Einstein said, insane and just keep on repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results. Yeah, I do find that the variables in life, for me, make it challenging

is like, I try and figure out like, okay, I'm in a, I'm in a certain mood, or I feel a certain way, like, what is it that's causing that? Because there are so many variables. How did I sleep? How did I eat? Did I exercise? Was the sun out? Well, I mean, it just the list goes on and on and on. And so I do think experimentation is, is really useful. The other thing that I have found to be really interesting is that sometimes what works for me, one day or one week or one month, all of a sudden, stops working as well. And and I need to adjust that. So what do you do to kind of help control the variables in your own life? Well, I think like a good scientist, you have to work on one element at a time, on changing one variable at a time. I think one of the problems

where businesses and I think other change programs get wrong is they try and change too much too quickly. Whereas we need to make small incremental changes and give them a period of time for you to really adjust and identify the change that's happening. So it's doing it in a far more controlled and a far more detached and objective way where possible, which all sounds a bit dry. But we're held back in our life by a series of beliefs or feelings or behaviors that prevent us from being truly happy and fulfilled. So it's really worth taking the time to do this. And it's, I think, keeping a detailed journal of trying something. So if you have a boss you don't get on with, and day after day, you're banging your head against a brick wall trying to improve him, just try something completely different. Go in and pretend that he is the best person or she's the best person you've

ever met in your life, and treat them the way you would act on a first date, with absolute love, listen to everything they say, be at your absolute best. But it might sound crazy, but often, but the film is about somebody who lives in this crazy existence. But by completely reframing and transforming what's supposedly normal, he's able to discover the real key to a happy life. And sometimes we need to get out and look at things almost from a level of meta-awareness to be aware of what's happening in front of us, rather than keep on associating ourselves with these behaviors and just jumping into it, hoping it will get better.

Yeah. One of the things I started doing recently is using a mood tracker. I've been in the process over the last six, maybe no more like eight months of transitioning off antidepressants. I've been on them for a long time and they were hugely beneficial to me. I just don't know if they still are. Right. So I thought, you know what, I'm going to give a shot at transitioning off of these. And I've been doing it very slow over a long period of time. But one of the things I realized I wanted to do was start to track my mood because a little bit of a bad mood, this little part of my brain jumps up and goes, see, see, you need the medicine and which is not true.

And so I've been tracking it to really get a sense of what's the reality of how am I feeling multiple times a day, day after day, instead of my most recent recollection. Because that's one of the things about bad moods or depression for me. One of their salient characteristics is the sense that comes along with them, like it's always this way and it'll always be that way. That's a great question. Well, as somebody who's suffered through most of my life from and how I can overcome what can be very, very challenging moods. And I think you're right. I think the challenge for most of us is when we feel bad, we tend to want to change something outside of ourselves.

It might be we reach for a drink, we watch TV, or we think, oh, if only I had a new job, if only I had a new partner, then we'd be happy, then everything will be better. But what I found in my work, and again, the film really validates, is it's only by going within and really looking at how you change your mood. What is your role in creating that mood? Now, of course, bad things happen to us, they happen to everybody, but we all respond in very different ways. So what is the mechanism and what level of influence do we have over those mechanisms for being more resilient, for being more elegant in our response to what can be bad moods? And I think tracking is incredibly important because it also overcomes a

lot of biases, such as the one you mentioned, such as the recency bias, the fact that we tend to remember what's most recently happened to us, or we tend to negatively filter, or we look for confirmation of what we believe is our personality. So we take on the persona of being an anxious person or a depressed person, and it makes it very difficult to change if that becomes your identity. it very difficult to change if that becomes your identity. Whereas if you have a level of distance, and again, coming back to experimentation and that awareness, and actually writing down what's happening during the day, tracking your moods, it gives you a little bit more control, but it gives you more understanding and appreciation of what's really happening. And once you've done that, you can start to bring about some of the incremental changes. Because the essence of Groundhog Day and the essence of the work I do

in consulting, coaching, etc., is making change one day at a time. AA is absolutely right about this. One day at a time is the absolute key. And the metaphor of the movie beautifully illustrates that. But tracking your moods one minute at a time, one hour at a time, one day at a time is a great way to start that process.

Yeah, I definitely agree with that and that idea of making small changes or making one change at a time. There are certainly cases where an entire overhaul of your entire life can be a wonderful thing. But those usually are the result of having, you know, at least in my case, pretty much ruined my entire life and having a chance to hit the reset button. For most of us, that's not an option. And since that's not an option, you know, almost the opposite, that slow incremental approach works so much better because we're actually able to do it, see what works and what doesn't work, and then stick with it. Very much so. And also it's more within our control, whereas a lot of the change we have is reactive. We're reacting to life events like

failures in relationships, at work, in health. Yet when you proactively determine, decide to change, then you can almost take up more control of the process. And we're not really taught this. This is something we learn, or some of us learn, at some stage in life. But I think it's something that everybody ought to be taught. Thank you. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast,

our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor we got the answer will space junk block your cell signal the astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer we talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth plus does tom cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today.

How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening?

Really No Really. Oh, yeah, really. No Really. Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, friends. The new year is right around the corner.

Hi friends, the new year is right around the corner. Is there a change you'd like to make in your life and you're thinking 2019 would be a great time to make that change? Maybe it's a new habit like exercise, meditation, or healthier eating habits. Maybe it's a job change or prepping for a certification exam that will take your career to the next level. Whatever it is, do you think you'd benefit from some help in making that change so that it's a successful one that lasts rather than just another failed attempt? If so, I invite you to check out the One You Feed Personal Transformation Program. In it, I work one-on-one with people to help them make the changes in their lives they want to make. I've coached hundreds of people from around the world and I can tell you having support, guidance, accountability, and encouragement is the difference between making lasting successful change and just another short-lived valiant effort that never panned out. Let's put the principles and skills we discuss on the One You Feed to work in your life in 2019.

Go to oneyoufeed.net slash 2019 to learn more about the program. You'll also learn the number one skill I teach my coaching clients that enables them to make lasting changes in their lives. Again, that's oneyoufeed.net slash 2019. I really look forward to working with you. So you described the Groundhog Day condition. Can you explain a little bit more what that is? We've sort of alluded to it. It was a metaphor I developed to really explain my experience of working over many years now with thousands of people and also understanding my own life, people I know who've struggled at different levels. And what the Groundhog Day condition is, is the sense that you

are stuck in a rut. It's the sense that you're living on automatic pilot, that you can't change, that you're almost a helpless victim of forces beyond your control. It's the sense that every day is very similar or the same. And you just have to go on a train or watch people commuting to work to see it in process the way everybody seems to have the same look they they're almost moving like automatons to work and this is a very visible sign of groundhog day but when i've talked to clients i find that even they might be in london today los angeles Angeles tomorrow, Sydney the next day, but in their inner life, they're going through the same repetitive patterns.

And for me, the inner life is where all the action is in our life, where all the important work is done. We know this from the great spiritual writers, from the great psychologists, from neuroscience now, but the key to living a happy life is to have a happy inner life so i use the groundhog day metaphor to say that not only can we get stuck in repeating our outer life you know going to the same job every day having the same conversations every day etc the same problems but more importantly in our inner life we're living habitually stuck in a routine which gives us some level of comfort maybe and some distraction, but

prevents us from really experiencing the full spectrum of what life can offer because we narrow it. What Kurt Lewin, the psychologist, used to say, we freeze it. We become frozen in a set of beliefs and a set of structures and routines that give us a false sense of happiness, a pseudo happiness, but doesn't deliver the true authentic fulfillment that we're looking for. And so what are some of the things that you recommend to do to try and break up that, I'll just call it inner monotony, right? Because as you said, the outer world is not really necessarily the thing.

There are plenty of people who live in a very small outer world circle. You know, they do very few different things are very similar and they love their life. So it's not about, you know, whether I'm going to 50 different cities or I'm staying in my one little area that I love. It's the inner monotony that you're talking about. So what are some things people can do to break that up? Well, what we're learning at the moment, and there was a very influential paper a few years ago called, I think it was A Wandering Mind is an Unhappy Mind, published at Harvard, that really showed that if you were in the present moment, even if you're doing a relatively dull work, you will be happier than if you're doing a more

interesting job, but your mind is wandering to what you should be doing, what you want to be doing, where you want to be at the weekend. So the first and for me, most important skill is to be in the present moment. And if you like, Groundhog Day is about a man who rushed into town and wanted to rush out, living in the future. He was focused on his career, getting this promotion to Pittsburgh. He just wanted to get out of that town, but he was forced to stay there. And he gradually slowed right down. And Groundhog Day is almost a permanent present moment. It's the power of now in practice. And by slowing right down, you're able to really savor what you already have in life

and realize that you actually have everything you need to be happy now. And Groundhog Day is not about getting more. It's a story of somebody who removes all the superficial aspects of his life to discover the essence of who he is and what really leads to happiness, which are the same things we've always known. Good relationships, meaning, fulfillment, helping others, being creative, all these things which have always been available to him, but he's been looking in the wrong place. So the first essence of really breaking out a Groundhog Day is to slow down. Mindfulness is, for me, the ultimate practice. I practice mindful walking. When I walk around my environment, even if I'm walking the

same walk every day, it really grounds me in the present moment. You know, I'm not there staring at my phone or thinking about what I want to be doing next. I'm listening to the birdsong. I'm feeling the wind on my face. I'm being human again. I'm trying to break free of what I call my conditioned self, which is all about what

other people think of me, getting approval, achieving status, what my qualifications are. That got me so far in life, but I reached a complete plateau. I had to go through my own crisis in my own life, a bit like not being trapped in time, but a series of pretty bad events happened, but forced me really to go within and discover that I didn't need any of that stuff to be truly happy. And so my life journey now is all about being in the present moment and appreciating what I have. Yeah. One of the things I've been doing a lot, and I think I've mentioned it on recent shows, but it's hard for me to remember what I've said when and haven't, but is that idea of being in the present moment is one of those things that it's at the point of becoming

cliched wisdom at this point, right? It's, it's what everybody says. And the challenge that I face is, and I think a lot of people face is I go, okay, I should be in the present moment. So I come to the present moment for about a quarter of a second. And then I'm off again in whatever's happening because the, the, the habitual thought patterns are so strong. And so there's a few different tricks that I use. One that I've been doing a lot lately is, I think the term for it is grounding yourself in your senses. But I just, wherever I'm at or whatever I'm doing,

I try and pay attention to five things that I can see, five things that I can hear, and then five things that I can feel sensation wise. And that is really useful for me because it's it gives my brain something to do to keep me in the present moment a little bit more. And I more and more keep trying to do that, to try and move out of the conversation that's always going on in my head, which sometimes the conversation in my head is a lovely place to be, but a lot of times it's not. And so to your point, I think for me to break up that inner monotony is to, is to be present. It's just one of those things that is easier to say than do. Do you have any sort of little things that you do to help yourself to be more present? Because like I said, it's one

of those things that we do for a little bit, but then we are right back off in thought again. That's an excellent question. And you're right, suddenly mindfulness has become, you know, it's in every magazine and it's being turned into a consumer good in some way and going away from its very essence. But for me, reconnecting with nature is by far the most powerful way. I'm an environmentalist. That's my great passion. But environmentalism doesn't just mean for me fighting climate change. It means loving and appreciating nature and being out as much as possible. I live in a beautiful part of England in the South Downs, which is a national park. But you don't have to be in a national park. You can be in any park. But it's all about getting it out of your head.

In the book, I say it's moving from thinking mode to being mode. And some people, yoga or swimming, for me, it's walking. But anything that gets you in touch with your body and with your, as you said, your feelings. I think on one of your shows a few months ago, you had a guest, and I think you mentioned about looking for things that are red. You know, you're driving along or looking. I thought that's a great technique anything like that that takes you away from your normal routine thinking what i call the groundhog day condition and sort of shakes it around but the best way for me is through body scan meditation

and or or deep breathing or but above all being out in nature because the actual act of walking is very meditative in itself. And also walking in cities. You know, the French used to have a word for this, la flaneur. These were people who in the 18th and 19th century used to walk around cities, sit down and write down inspiring quotes and then go and walk around and just experience the beats of the city. So it doesn't have to be in a national park, but it's doing something different, coming back to the concept of experimentation, trying something new until you find something that works.

Yep, I agree. So let's talk about the conditioned self a little bit. It's something that you reference often in the book, and certainly a topic that's been on a lot of the shows over the last, really probably close to a year, is this idea of, you know, really what is our self and you make a distinction between the conditioned self and an authentic self. Let's start with the conditioned self. Sure. Well, I use it as a simplification, really, of quite like the two-wolf parable of, you know, quite a complex world that we live in. I don't necessarily believe there is a pure self that we're trying to find. What I do believe, though, is that the real culprit in our life is the

conditioned self. This is the self that is raised to seek approval, to be in control, but wants ego gratification, but always wants more. And this is a like i said at the beginning about the bad wolf it's fueled by our society the whole of our society you know modern western society and capitalism is based on having insatiable desires because as soon as we stop desiring things we stop buying things and that's bad news in a way for the capitalist society and the problem is it's destroying our planet and we have to find a more elegant way of living. So the conditioned self is all about living somebody else's life. It's being on a trajectory, maybe from our school, from our parents, from our culture.

And it's not being really understanding what we really want. really understanding what we really want. Whereas the authentic self is, if we can identify or discern it, is who we are beyond our roles, our responsibilities, our achievements, our labels, you know, as a father, as a husband, as a CEO, whatever it might be. And the only way to get there, coming back to our previous discussion, is to go into our bodies, is be present and just be quiet and notice when everything shuts down, who are you? And a lot of work is done by people like Daniel Goleman and his concept of Richard Davidson of meta-awareness, the ability to rise above and see these different thoughts, these different voices that we mistake for who we are. So for me, the authentic self is who we are when we let go of all of that stuff. And I think we then have a more natural inclination towards being more loving, more calm, more fulfilled. I don't say all of us. I mean, there are psychopaths out there,

there are people with serious issues. But there are people who are born bad and people who are born good. But for most of us, when we let the noise die down and when we transcend these shackles of our conditioning, I feel that we can identify and find somebody who's more real and more authentic. We all have those moments. Again, it could be on holiday. It could be of a loved one. It could be a sunset when we feel this feels real, this feels authentic.

And the more work we can do to find that, the better. And I think the less time we spent thinking about what we want and more about what other people want, the less time on trying to control things and more time on accepting things. But we can start to move towards this position of what I call the authentic self. But the real issue is transcending and breaking through the conditioned self and being aware of who we are, how our personality has been constructed. And this goes back to my work at my master's level in social psychology more than 35 years ago, how we are constructed by our society. Yet most of us don't realize this, how subtle these influences are. © transcript Emily Beynon I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden.

And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth.

Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth plus does tom cruz really do his own stunts his stuntman reveals the answer and you never know who's going to drop by mr brian cranson is with us how are you hello my friend wayne knight about jurassic park wayne knight welcome to really no really sir bless you all hello newman and you never know when howie mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really? No, really. Yeah, really. No, really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason Bobblehead. It's called Really? No, Really? And you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

or wherever you get your podcasts. Yeah, the conditioned self, you mentioned three main things that create that conditioned self. One is our conditioning. Second is our circumstances. The third is our mind. Can you break those three down real quick? Sure. Well, our conditioning is what I've really just explained, our education, our parents,

peer pressure, the society we live in. Our circumstances are our immediate circumstances in terms of our work, the quality of our relationships at any one time, how we're feeling unhealthy, when our mood is low, we tend to be more negative in many ways. And we can sink back and we tend to look outside and say, oh, this is wrong, they're wrong, they don't treat me right. But the one that I think is the biggest challenge is our mind. And in many ways, our brain is constructed to prevent change. Our brain does not like change. There's a system called cognitive security and cognitive consistency that means our brain tends to do everything it can to stay the same, to reinforce our beliefs. This is how confirmation bias works. So we're always looking to reinforce our beliefs. We find it very difficult to challenge our beliefs. So if our belief is that I should always be promoted every year, or I should be a billionaire, or everybody should love me, or everybody should do what I say,

we're looking, you know, we're reinforcing this. And it's one way ticket to disaster. But our brain tends to reinforce this. I used to call this the snowball effect. It's like having a snowball and then rolling it down the hill, it gathers more and more evidence and becomes a bigger and bigger snowball. And this is the story of our lives. We keep on reinforcing these beliefs. And our brain is designed to maintain that consistency because too much dissonance, too much change, it finds very difficult to cope with. So the more we can understand these processes and rise above them, and the more we can meditate and be mindful and see what's going on, the freer we are to make the changes that we want.

You mentioned that there are five common characteristics to the conditioned self, and we're not going to have time to go through all of them. I'm going to read what the five are, and then I'll let you pick the one that you want to elaborate on. So these are the five common characteristics of our conditioned self. And you say entitlement, approval, insecurity, dependency, and control. So I'll leave it to you to pick your current favorite to elaborate upon. Well, I'll pick approval because it's always been my challenge. So, you know, I felt as a child I didn't get the approval I expected or wanted. And probably like, you know, millions of others, I had a desperate need to be liked, to be recognized, to be approved of. And I realized that I was doing things for the wrong reasons. I think some of your guests have talked about this.

And this is a well-known system, again, in psychology, the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. When we seek approval, we do things for extrinsic reasons. We do it to win awards, to get more money, to be liked, to get qualifications. And of course, we do need those to an extent. But we can get on this hamster wheel where we never get off. We're always looking for the next thing, the next achievement. And it's not necessarily because we want those things, but we want people to like us and we want people to think we're great. But I spent the first 40 to 50 years of my life as completely dominated. This was my default system for looking at everything.

Do people like me and if they don't like me what can i do to make them like and admire me and that guided everything and that's an exhausting way to live so each of these five um characteristics as you say i you know whether it be control whether it be approval these are like your default dominant belief system that guides you both consciously more important unconsciously through your life. In the movie, Phil was dominated by a need for approval to be liked, but also a sense of entitlement. He wanted everything to go his own way in the town to say, oh, you're amazing and stay at the best hotel, et cetera. He wanted to control people as well.

And again, in the movie, he recognizes this and then starts to eliminate this and not be dominated by this belief. But every one of us has a core belief that can, to some extent, empower us, but more often hold us back. And the quicker we can figure out what it is and really try and overcome it and challenge ourselves the better. And it comes back to experimentation again and again. Try looking at things from a new way. Try acting without the need for approval. The great thing is, as you get older, it doesn't matter as much. You realize most people don't care anyway, and not in a negative way. But we spend so much of our time worried about what other people think, and it's a complete waste of time most of the time.

Yeah, I agree. I think that is – approval is a big one. I've been looking at control for myself lately, how much I think that I need to control things. And it's interesting because I'm not typically what you would think of as a controlling person in an external way. I'm not usually like, you need to be this way, or I don't try and ratchet everything down. But I think that my, the level of control I've been exploring more is trying to control my internal state. And I've done that, obviously, over the years in lots of different ways. You know, I was a I was a drug addict for a long time. So that's a pretty extreme and not real useful way to try and control. And then obviously, the show and everything that I do with it in the learning all

has this desire to control the inner state to a certain extent. And so what I've been working with, and I've said this on the show lately, is where are the limits of that? I do think that trying to improve my internal state, trying to improve our lives, all that are really important and critical things. And like anything taken too far, it can become pathological. And so I've just been kind of looking at like, where are the limits to what control is? Where does it become too much? It's an interesting point. I think maybe part of it is letting go of outcomes.

I think often when you want to control things, you have a specific result. So, for example, you might act in a certain way to somebody. And if they don't respond in a way you expect you know the idea of givers and takers looks at this you know you give give give and you expect the person to reciprocate but that doesn't always happen but we're doing that all the time setting up these expectations and i think just letting go of that um is a great start and doing it for the intrinsic reasons not the extrinsic which sounds you know counterintuitive to controlling. But in a way, it's what is the state you want to be in? What will control give you? That's the deeper question

for me. And is there a more direct and a more healthy way of reaching that state? Well, we are at the end of our time here, Paul. You and I are going to have a post-show conversation where we're going to explore a concept in your book that I love, which is about how you compare one moment of your life to another moment of your life and how the way that we normally do this sets us up to be perpetually unhappy. It's a really great idea. We'll explore it in the post-show conversation. Listeners, if you're interested in that, you can get access to this post-show conversation and all of them at oneufeed.net support. You can become a contributor and you can listen to those and the many episodes that come along also right in your podcast player,

like everything else. So oneufeed.net support if you're interested. Paul, thank you so much for taking the time to come on and sharing your work with us. Well, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. Okay. Take care. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to the One You Feed podcast. Head over to oneyoufeed.net slash support. The One You Feed podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting the show.