5 Steps to a super powered mindset

Overview

 5 steps to a superpowered mindset

1. A worthy opponent 

2. Plan your day

3. Read Philosophy 

4. Look for the green shoots

5. The role model mindset

Full transcript:

5 steps to a powerful mindset during turbulent times:

So what I'm going to do now is take you through five steps to a powerful mindset during turbulent times and as you can see I’ve whipped out the whiteboard! When I get the whiteboard out that means I am serious, I mean business there is no mucking about now; this is serious stuff for serious times with a whiteboard and everything because now is the time to fire up our mindset, so here there's five points here but there could be 50 so I'll work through various points over the coming days and weeks because the more of this I think that you can take on board the better it is for you and for myself because I think these are turbulent times and it's now more important than ever to be on top of your psychology and your physiology to be that rock and to be that strong person within your community and within your family.

 Now is the time more than ever to be all over this stuff and maybe is it the first time in a long time that you've had the time because maybe your social calendars have been diminished somewhat or maybe you haven't got as many of those demands on you through the working week because you're at home but there might be an opportunity and we will come to the green shoots of opportunity a bit later in these five steps; it really is just to start to give you some ideas that might help you through this because ultimately we want to come out the other side of this stronger than we went into it. But that's the name of the game, maybe there's an opportunity here. I'm going to cover that through these points as we move along and when I say opportunity I want to be really clear. This is not opportunity as in all we can sell some face masks to make some money, not that low stuff, I'm talking about the opportunity to grow as people through the challenge. I think it's really important more now than ever to be on our a game so I'm going to keep sharing stuff like this because, one, it’s helping me learn and grow myself, and two, if I can give a little bit back to you guys then ultimately it’s a win win. On top of that, bigger and broader than that, I think now is the time to give to receive. I think it's really important that we're all out there doing our bit, as much as we can anyway. Anyway, let’s get stuck into it. So, the five steps to a powerful mindset during turbulent times…

1. A worthy opponent.

 This is really important, I was reading Seneca this morning ,Seneca was great stoic philosopher and I’ll  come to that on point four, what I was reading from Seneca and I'll paraphrase this, is that he was suggesting that through turbulent times and through hardship, very often is when we face a worthy enough opponent to bring the best out in us. That's really important I think to get our heads around. I think for many people, that worthy opponent doesn't show up here. There's the traumas and the ebbs and flows of life, but very often there is not a big enough opponent that shows up to really find out what you’re made of. It’s a little bit like if you compare it to sport, If you compare it to all the great footballing teams, some of the greatest ever games are in those moments when there's a worthy opponent. The elite play the elite and it just pushes them all to a new level and I think that's the same in life. Sometimes we need an opponent that's worthy enough, that we can wrestle with, that actually brings the best out in us. To actually shows us who we can really be and who we really are. I might be lost now but maybe that's what's going to come out the other side of this for

many of us because the truth is this; we will prevail and we will come through this. That is a fact and maybe this is the test, this is the opponent, that many of us haven't gone consciously looking for but has appeared and it's there in front of us and now is our opportunity to do our bit, to be that role model. The broad picture is maybe this is our opportunity to do something really powerful. To meet that foe, that opponent , that's worthy enough to draw the very best out of our soul. To show who we’re worth, and on the other side of that, is unbelievable growth and unbelievable confidence and courage that flows from that experience. So maybe this is that opponent.

2. Plan your day.

 I do love a bit of planning. I love a bit of planning because planning is key, especially in turbulent time. That sense of control over what you don't have control over. What I mean by that is, back to philosophy again. Epectetus the great stoic philosopher, teaches that we only have control over one thing and one thing only. That's our belief’s. I totally believe in that, and that is so true when you think about it. That's one of the most powerful things you will ever hear and much of modern day self-help psychiatry cognitive behavioral therapy, is pretty much based around those type of concepts. That you only have control over one thing and one thing only, your beliefs. And ultimately what you believe determines how you act, writes your belief in your actions. That is so true, you don't really have control over your loved ones. You don't have full control over them. You can’t have full control over health, we certainly don't have control over this virus that's out there at the moment.

But all we can do is control our beliefs through this. We can't control other things and much of life’s stress, worry and concern’s are trying to control things outside of our control. So one of the most powerful things that you can connect with is planning your day, because it gives you a sense of control but at the same time you realise that even if you meticulously plan out your day from 7:00 AM till 10:00 PM things will go wrong. And that plan will get thrown out the window at times, but it's so important to plan because it builds on this sense of control and then alongside that, you know that you only have control over one thing and one thing only that's your beliefs. Get into that mindset, stop trying to control everything else around you because that will drive you nuts. That's where much of the stress is and the anxiety and the concern is.

Control yourself, control your beliefs and then you’ll create that strength, that posture, within your family. It's really important. When I say plan, let’s just broaden that quickly. Journal, every morning just journal out what your day looks like as best you can. I spoke about this this morning, plan for your trigger moments. If you've got events in that day that are going to really test you more than others; it could be when the kids wake up and they start running riot between 11:50, or it could be that moment when you know you've got fufill your work online and try and look after the kids. Plan around those moments as best you can. It's not a perfect solution to any of this stuff at the moment, but giving that sense of planning will give you a broader sense of control. But again, always run it back into that you only have one control over one thing and one thing only, that is your beliefs. Use that planning of your day to give you a bit more space to control your own beliefs, that's all you can do in this testing time, but plan, plan, plan it makes such a difference. Adding to that, part of your plan is to reconnect with who you are on a daily basis. I teach this in let's do this, in the book , in the masterminds that I run constantly, connect with who you are because we're going to forget in these stressful times. Who you are as a person, do that work, connect with that, then plan your day and remind yourself you have control over one thing and one thing only that’s your beliefs .

3. Read Philosophy

Moving on from that, read philosophy, number three. If you get opportunity to read philosophy stoicism is the perfect philosophy in turbulent times. That was why it was written, that was why was created 2000 years ago when these great philosopher started to spring up in stoicism. Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, is amazing. If you read their works, if you read the meditations by Marcus Aurelius, it’s only a short book, who was the emperor of Rome at the time it's his personal diary. It’s just stunning, it's all based on the principles of stoicism. Epictetus was a slave that was freed and that went on to become one of the greatest philosophers, in my opinion,of all time. Then Seneca is another one, just to come back to Epictetus, his book is called the  Encheiridion, It is a really short book, it's about 60 pages. Marcus Aurelius’ meditations is also short,  you can get through these books really quickly. Really worth reading in the current climate it's really powerful. Seneca then, who's the master in my opinion, read anything and everything you can by Seneca.

The reason I think you should in these times is because when they were writing, times were also turbulent, unbelievably turbulent. Famine was around the corner, there were barbarians at the gate, they could be exiled, there was death all around them.  The rate of children that didn't make it past about 8 and I was horrifically high, so imagine that within their sphere, they were going through the most traumatic times over and over again so they had to learn to deal with that. Stoicism really sprung up from that, and that is back to one of those concepts I mentioned earlier, learning to control what you have control over so I think stoicism in particular at the moment, is worth really getting into because it's like a mind gym for the present turbulent times. It really is, all the stuff that they went through is very similar to what we're going through now only probably a lot worse in truth. I know things could go a bit wonky down the line but in general, what they went through was pretty horrific and unbelievably unsettling and chaotic and unnerving yet they had this philosophy that allowed them to stay strong through those turbulent times. Since I will cover a lot more on Stoicism in the coming weeks, I think it's really important 

4. Look for Green shoots.

This I think is really important, to look for the green shoots. There are green shoots in amongst the chaos, there always is, and maybe this is an opportunity for you to spend more time with your loved ones and to really talk. Maybe this is an opportunity to study and learn and grow, maybe this is an opportunity to really get to know your children a bit better. You have to spend real quality time with them, I know you can't get out the house necessarily or do any of those fun things that sort of distract them, but maybe this is an opportunity maybe there are opportunities like little green shoots of opportunity in amongst this unsettled. They're always there and I think, even metaphorically, if you're in the UK it is spring outside and it is beautiful. When you go out and run and the daffodils are coming up and the bluebells are going to be coming up soon I think it's really reassuring that the world, nature and everything else just carries on. Just carries on, I'll carry on believing that we are starting to see that around the world.  Well done trying to see the world here a little bit, these are maybe some green shoots from the chaos that actually the earth itself and our climate is getting a chance to recover. There are green shoots, there's not going to be loads of them, but they are there if you look for them and I think if you can cling to them,  I think that creates a sort of forward thinking mindset that's going to help you through this turbulent time. And again, to follow up so that by time we get through this and we will, you come out the other side stronger. I think it's really important.

5. The role model mindset

This is the final one. I've been talking about this a fair bit lately, this is you becoming the hero, becoming that leader, and everything we're talking about here is going to help with that that mindset of you being the rock in the family. Maybe you're the one who's calm when around you, other people are starting to ,not lose their mind, but they start to become very unsettled and I think your opportunity now is to be that rock. To be that solid role model, hero like character within your community, within your family, within your friendship groups. The person that is standing strong in this thing and actually in doing so, it's incredible powerful to your own mindset because you have to adopt that structure of someone who’s going to be strong someone who’s going to be able to stand tall through these testing times, but also people feed off that energy. We give out so much energy that people can sense it.  If they can feel it, your children, your partners, your family, your loved ones can sense it when someone strong and there's something incredibly powerful about that. I don't mean in a physical sense, I just mean that emotional energy sense of you know we can deal with this, we can get through this and that flows outwards.

We know through research that our emotions ebb and flow to our friends, friends and friends friend’s and it's unbelievably powerful. So I think the role model mindset works in two ways: one, it puts you in a place where you have to stand up and be strong and I think that's incredibly settling for us as individuals, and then the energy that that gives off will flow out to those people that you love. So that's five things you can do to power up your mindset in turbulent times I just wanted to share this as a bit of an experiment with a live and a video at the same time and I can do more of this if and when it works. I'll give you a bit of advance warning in the future as I know this is a bit impromptu but I'll keep coming on and doing these things, I'll give you the advance warning this is just the tip of the iceberg. I just wanted to share a couple of things just to sort of get us thinking along those lines that there's a lot more that we can do within these turbulent times, and the number one thing we can do is work on our mindset because maybe our physical limitations are being hampered slightly by the fact that maybe we can't move as freely as we once were but it doesn't stop us doing that inner work. Now is the time to do the inner work, if you change your beliefs on the inside, you will transform everything you see on the outside. 

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