Mindful Presence Mastery | How Assumptions Build Your Reality

[00:00:00] Everyone has the power to choose who they want to be. And if we own that power, we can be that person. The obstacles are not in our way. The obstacles are on our way. Sometimes we've got to lean into the cost of that safety, which we often don't do. Our thoughts can become our own echo chamber of thoughts. We build on them and we build on them. And sometimes if you find an excuse, you don't want it enough. If we can change our thoughts, then you can change you as well. You can change who we are. The reality is, does it serve you or not? Does it help you or hinder you?

[00:00:27] Harry, good to see you, my friend. You are looking fresh and fine. And actually, you've had quite an exhausting week, but you wouldn't know it, mate. You're looking good. To be honest, it's because I slept last night. And that's unusual because I didn't sleep at all the night before, I've got to say. So Saturday night was the closing party. Actually pretty cool. It was in this, I guess, natural museum. I think is what it was called, an outdoor museum. Closing party at Mindvalley. So those who didn't listen to the last episode, you've been at Mindvalley.

[00:00:52] So yeah, the last two weeks I've been here in Estonia in Tallinn and the closing party was in this big field. I haven't posted anything online about it yet, but I will do like with performances and fire performances and a DJ flown in from Ibiza, like all in the open air. And then there was an after party and I was there to the end by myself in the end, dancing. The tunes were quite good and I was feeling the rhythm that night.

[00:01:16] And so I think I finished up there around six o'clock in the morning on Sunday morning after not having really slept Friday night, which I'll tell you about for Friday. So I think I had three hours sleep on Friday night, had a little siesta on Saturday, then did the party, got back about six, just could not sleep. Then I had my morning dips that I do with people. So I went straight to that and then hung out with people for a couple of hours at my place.

[00:01:41] And actually one of the things I've been doing a bit of recently is slacklining, which I'd like to talk about from mindfulness perspective in a moment. And then we went to this amazing spa where they have 22 different rooms and like different rituals. So you can put like mud on you or shea butter, or they have a really hot sauna. There was 100 person sauna, which was a bit of a disco rave in there. So that was quite good. But then last night I just went to bed probably a bit late, probably about one o'clock in the morning.

[00:02:07] But I moved my morning workout and dips to 10 o'clock. So I slept till 9.30, which was quite good. So that's why I'm feeling fresh and I've been in a little bit of sun, I guess. And you did your cold dip I saw online on your channel every single day. Are we getting any meditation, any yoga in as well? Yeah. So the way it's structured is we do 10 minutes mobility, which is a bit of a yoga-esque type mobility routine for 10 minutes. And that's usually so 8.30 every day we've been doing it consistently.

[00:02:35] And then for 10 minutes is mobility slash yoga. Then for 10 minutes, it's strength based. They've got this amazing outdoor gym with decent leg press, decent bench press, all that sort of stuff. And then the last 10 minutes we jump in the water and it has been buried in temperature. Like at the beginning of the first week, 16, towards the end of the first week, it went down to 9.9, which is almost your ice park territory. Yeah, that was pretty cold. And then it's crept up again.

[00:03:01] And now it's hovering around 18 and in the evenings around 20 because I sometimes go in the evening. But it's been amazing that it's been quite exhausting because I set a goal, if you like, of going every day. And previously I did it every day, but I didn't do it at the same time. And this time I wanted to make sure people came along for the ride. And so you have to have a consistent time, right? Because achieving goals, setting goals, all of that. A lot of it is about consistency, right? Sticking the course. So people have come up to me. So many people come up to me saying, oh, you know, I really want to do this.

[00:03:30] And I keep joking to them as a, if I had a dollar for every time someone said, oh, I wanted to do it. I'm going to join you tomorrow, whatever. I'd have paid for my entire trip at Mindvalley. And then today this guy joined, he was flying out today and he joined. And he said that, something I said the other day because he said something similar. Like, oh, you know, I really want to do it. And I just went, bullshit. I mean, at the end of the day, if you want to do it, just do it. I'm through talking with people who are... I like this new Harry. I like this. Call it out. I've always been like that in terms of this sort of thing.

[00:03:59] If you're like, people say they've got these goals. They want to set these things. And I'm somewhat similar in certain ways. But the difference is when I, like people were asking me, oh, why don't you delay it to like 9.30? Or why don't you do this? Because I was kind of tired sometimes. I said, no, because I made a commitment. I said I was going to do it. And that's the way it is. And so if I break my own word, then you lose a little bit of self-esteem every time you break your own word. And so I have now shifted it for this week to be 10 o'clock because there's no like hub activities to go for at 10 o'clock.

[00:04:28] But before it had to be 8.30. So people would shower or whatever. But what I've loved about it is built into that bucket of community. So a lot of the time, one of my friends came every single day pretty much and come up here, shower, would make our smoothies. Well, my smoothie and he'd have some. But progressively, especially on the weekends, more and more people started coming. And a lot of them were saying, I mean, all of them were saying, oh my God, this amazing way to start the day. And this is like the best bit. And I've had so many people. I'm like, I guess I'm well known in the community because I post it. And the calendar entry is the Daily Dip with Harry.

[00:04:58] So everyone kind of knows the Daily Dip with Harry. I made sure I put that in the title of the activity. And so I have people, countless people coming up to me saying, thank you and sending nice messages. Or even if they just come once, they're like, the fact that you were so consistent, the fact that you were always posting, the fact that you were encouraging, I would never have done this without you. And even though I could only come once for X, Y, Z reason, like, you know, I've got childcare issue. People prefer doing things. It's like, there's the whole, you know, when there's someone else doing it first, we're more likely to step into the water.

[00:05:27] I don't want to repeat what we talked about last episode about manifestation, right? But we talked last time about laws of attraction, the action being the most important part of that. And you get those people going, I'd love to do it, but they don't take the action to do it, right? And it's like, everyone has the power to choose who they want to be. And if we own that power, we can be that person. But we got to take the action to do it. Like, it's too easy sometimes. I think if you find an excuse, you don't want it enough. Yeah. Like, you want to be better. You want to feel better. You want to feel fit. You got to really want it. You got to commit.

[00:05:56] I have to say, losers find an excuse, winners find a way. And that's just the reality. And the guy that came today, actually, it's interesting because what I would say about this is it's very context specific because there are things I'm quite successful in doing, which I would say hover around the health, well-being aspect of things. But there are loads of things that I'm less successful at doing, even though I know what to do. And so, for example, this guy, I won't mention his name, but he came along and we often just

[00:06:25] tread water in the water and chat. It's an opportunity. So we're not really swimming. We're just kind of chatting. And he was saying how he did one of the mastery programs for Mindvalley. So Mindvalley have different online programs, but the mastery ones are where they have lots of different teachers and there's specific cohorts. They only run them once a year and whatever. And they did, I think he did the wealth mastery one or some title similar. He said there was 105, there was either 105 or 110 people on his cohort.

[00:06:52] They all got the same information, but only five really became successful at that mastery of things. And so now he's financially free. And it's only been a couple of, a few years, but he sources deals and buys and renovates properties and none of his own money down. So they have all these amazing teachers that come on it, including the mentor, I think, of rich dad, poor dad, Robert Kiyosaki. I can't remember the mentor's name, but he's in his eighties now. So he came on and he wrote some like very famous books and he just applied that.

[00:07:21] But he was saying, you know, most of the work he does is mental. Like it's mindset related. It's not mechanics. And Tony Robbins talks about this all the time, about 80, 90% of it is mindset and the 10% is mechanics. And so he is doing that, but then he has still those limiting self-beliefs about his like workouts. So he actually didn't want to come a lot of time because often I'm posting pictures of us before and after whatever, jumping in the sea. And he didn't want to come because he didn't want to be in the pictures or whatever.

[00:07:46] And so he's got issues where he knows the theory of being in shape, but not the practice. Right. There's always a cost, right? So I love the saying that you're only six inches away from achieving what you want in life, right? The distance between your ears. But if you want, it's not saying you can't have your cake and eat it. Of course you can in many instances, but in that, you know, I don't know this guy, but if he spent all his time becoming financially free first, and that's where his attention's been, it's not that he's not into fitness and being healthy, but there's usually a cost. Something has to give up.

[00:08:13] Like maybe he goes and gets his fitness, but then his home life suffers because he's got less time with the kids. I've been there, as you know, I run a business, I've done Ironman and things like that. But when I do those two things at the same time, my family life suffers, you know, there's a cost of me not being with my kids as much. I spend more time with my kids than I'm doing at the minute. Then my health, you know, my fitness suffers. I'm still healthy and fit, but I'm not as fit an Ironman level. So as you said, he's doing, or we've spoke on this episode, this show is called Mindful Passes, doing these things with awareness and choice.

[00:08:41] And going back to the idea that everyone has the power to choose who they want to be, but make that choice with awareness rather than an excuse. Yeah. I mean, that's it. One of the things someone commented today and they were talking about how they really enjoyed the swims. And I said in the book, Super Vitality, I talk about this ABC to success, which we've talked about before on the show. Awareness for A, B for behavior change, and then C where most people fall down is consistency. And you just got to stay consistent a lot of the time with these actions that provided

[00:09:11] they're working, of course. And, you know, you've got to take a beat and see if they're working or not. But, you know, it's that consistency that really counts. And actually, you know, I was talking to a friend of mine last night. So this is why I went to bed around one in the end. I went to the spa till about 10 and then a couple of good friends of mine are leaving to go back to North Carolina, like husband and wife. And they come with their three children and they rent this nice apartment in town. So I'll stop by there. She's super successful as a dentist, but she has an online business that she teaches other

[00:09:40] dentists because her passion is helping patients. But the best way of helping patients is helping other dentists and whatever else. And she launched probably about seven years ago, she was saying a product that she invested. I think she had $50,000 that she was going to buy a car with, but instead put it all in to launching this course and whatever. Made, I think she said 75,000 from it. So she made, you know, I think she had 38 sales or whatever it was, £1,500 or something like that to get the money. But and then just kept investing.

[00:10:08] I mean, I don't know what she owns now, but she has just built the most amazing house in North Carolina. So I think she does quite well, but like she's got a very good mindset with it because also she's had the tangible benefits. And I'm kind of, I know the theory in a lot of these things. And we think, oh, it's just, it's easy. Oh, you just put a product up, you direct people to that product page and you make money. They make it sound easy. Yeah, but she's prepared to take that risk at the start. There's the risk at the start.

[00:10:34] I mean, which, you know, many people take, but then it's very unlikely that the first time you've made that risk. How many people listen to this show right now, you know, and they can ask themselves this rhetorical question, would be willing to sell their car to put into the venture that they know. Most of us have an idea at the back of our minds, the book, the venture, the business and put it all in and go all in. And not many do. I mean, you know, vision drives decision and whether that is the guy you mentioned earlier around, you know, I want to be wealthy, I want to be financially free from a mortgage or whatever.

[00:11:03] That vision will drove the decisions he took next. And if you want to be fit and healthy and you want to have a great body, then that vision should drive your next decision to get there. I guess it goes back to the manifestation piece we were talking about in our last episode. But I think, you know, in the example you gave, there's an element of risk. And sometimes we have a negative bias. Like it's within us not to take risks, to stay on the side of caution and safety. And as you know, I talk a lot about fear. That's my passion. Sometimes we've got to lean into the cost of that safety, which we often don't do.

[00:11:33] You know, sometimes by staying safe, we don't realize there's a cost attached to that safety, which is, you know, you sometimes live a life and you look back and go, 10 years ago, I wish I'd done this. Or why didn't I take that risk? I've got my car, but what does it mean to me? Like often we know that the Joneses will buy a house, they'll get a better income, a pay rise in five years. They'll buy a bigger house, a better car. You just need a car and a roof over your head, but you don't have to keep going up the ladder that way. I've got a friend, I think we talked about it last time or a couple of episodes ago,

[00:12:00] being in the same job, same company, 25 years. He's planning early retirement at 55. But that's his decision. That's his vision. Exactly. I mean, whether it's a 100% conscious decision or not, because I wonder if he was exposed to say the realities that I'm seeing in places, whether he would have different vision for his life or not. I don't know that. But I think one of the things I heard, I don't think we mentioned it last week, but one of the things I heard you talked about risk now, one of the speakers say is that, yeah, all

[00:12:27] successful people are risk takers, but not all risk takers are successful. And I think that's an important distinction because I think about people like Elon Musk, they took a risk, right? Love him or hate him. And he's got his issues, but he made a killing out of his PayPal sale. But then he took that $100 million and invested 80% into SpaceX and 20% into Tesla and was sleeping on the couch of someone's house. So he's taken massive risks to get to where he is. You've taken risks when you started your business and you constantly take risks.

[00:12:56] I think I take risks in certain other areas, but actually talking about risk, maybe we'll talk about Friday night. So Saturday night was a closing party. Friday was the closing ceremony, which happens in the middle of the day. And then a bunch of us came for a swim after here. But then there was different competing parties. I went to something which has been running for a few years here at Mindvalley University called Liberation, which I've never been to one except for the tail end of ones. But previously they had separate cohorts, like a woman's cohort and a men's cohort.

[00:13:26] And it just got them into their masculine, into their feminine, whatever. This was slightly different. It was mixed from the beginning. And it was like a stage show, I want to call it. Basically, striptease. There's no two ways about it. They asked me to do one years ago. And I said, no. And then this time I was playing this game that one of the speakers on the first day said, which was the not me game. So whenever you come across an opportunity, that's not me. Yeah, I'm not the kind of person that's going to do that. You split the switch. It's a bit like when I did public standup comedy 15 years ago.

[00:13:55] As soon as I got that email, I was like, there's no way. I think John Grinder from the founder of NLP said, if you can't, then you must. And so I thought, yeah, there's no way I can do that. Then I must do it. I agreed on the Wednesday. And the Wednesday is when I did my backing, actually. And so maybe it was self-conscious. I was trying to get out of it. And then I did my toe in, I think, on the Thursday, potentially slacklining, which actually quite quick sidebar before I get into the Friday night story. I don't know if you've done much slacklining. You've got some slacklines. You just haven't set up my garden. Yeah, what I've found about it, it's literally down the bottom of my balcony.

[00:14:25] I haven't done it today, actually, because my mate wasn't around. But it's very meditative and very mindful. And what I've noticed is that when I've been most successful at doing it, it's when I'm not, obviously, you'll have to go through the awkward or conscious learning aspect of it before you become unconsciously competent. But I find that as a very mindful practice, right? Almost like, you know, if I'm really in the flow in yoga, things disappear, right? Same with this. When I did my free diving, I think we talked about free diving. Yeah, we have, yeah. Very meditative. It was similar with that.

[00:14:54] I mean, the stakes aren't as dramatic with that compared to free diving if you muck up. But I'm thinking maybe I should get a slackline, actually, for the garden because I found it quite therapeutic to just walk across. And also, you build the confidence quite quickly because it's not like really, really a long time for you to get reasonably good at it. So anyway, that's a sidebar. So come Friday, I go, you know what? I've got a couple of excuses why I can't do this. But then I was thinking, like I said before, right? Winners find a way. Losers find an excuse. I could have found an excuse.

[00:15:24] And it would have been a justified excuse because I was not really on form. And I thought, you know what? I'll do it anyway. And so I did it. And I must admit, I had some people ask me, they go, what did you drink before? And I was like, to be fair, I had three double tequilas before I went on. That's courage. But I was originally going to come on just in a waistcoat and trousers. And then my friend said, oh, look, you know, why don't you put a shirt over the waistcoat and a jacket? So I thought, you know, and string it out because I was never going to take off my trousers. That wasn't like my factor.

[00:15:51] Because also with this, it's largely about performance. It's largely about stepping out of the comfort zone. It's not about, I mean, a few people got down boxes. There was a couple of guys who took the whole thing off and just covered. I want to leave a little bit to the imagination, right? Yeah, I think it, because I was quite late on and I saw some of those guys do that. And it didn't look very good because they weren't the trousers that you rip off there. So you're kind of feeling about there. And then you're just in like, well, it just looks weird. And then the girls stripped. I mean, a couple of girls stripped to like bra and undie type things, I think.

[00:16:20] But honestly, I wasn't really paying attention to any of that because I was focused on my own nerves or whatever, drinking the tequilas. But as I got on and I was dancing to the one from Magic Mike, you know, that song Pony? Oh yeah, I know, yeah. It's the only song I was going to do it to. And so I have to say, there is a video. I'm not going to share it, but maybe when we next meet, I'll show you on my phone because you weren't allowed to record, obviously, except for your friend could record your own performance. And mine was not too bad.

[00:16:46] But the problem I had was that the song was really long. In the end, it was four minutes plus. So you were thankful for the extra layers? Well, I was, except for they got quite, they came off reasonably quickly. And then the DJ didn't know what was going on. So they started talking about, oh, ladies take his trousers off and they took my belt off. And I was like, dude, man, that's further than I was going to go with a belt. And so I had to effectively fudge it a little bit. So I brought a couple of girls up on stage, dance with them. And then I still was like, this is not ending.

[00:17:16] So I brought someone else. It was really painful to watch back if I'm honest, but I think I did an okay job. I think people saw it. They said it was quite good. And like I said, it was mainly a dance and performative and you went out into the crowd and I had a hat on and so you can't really see what I'm doing, but it looks like I'm kissing some of the girls or whatever, but I'm not. And they were all okay with it because if you were in certain rows, you were okay with having interaction. Now you've done it. Are you glad you did it? Well, yeah. So the idea is called liberation. And so this is the point I was going to make about taking risks and, you know, taking

[00:17:46] yourself outside of your comfort zone. And that was massive stretch outside of my comfort zone, of course. I mean, I'm not with my shirt off. I'm on the beach all the time with that off, whatever. But it's a little bit different when you're on stage and more that you're performing. And I hadn't rehearsed. I hadn't practiced what I was going to do. And it was all off the cuff, but it was very liberating and it was freeing. And nothing bad came of it, right? Like maybe some good even came of it, right?

[00:18:13] From my personal perspective, maybe more good would have come if I had liberated myself even further to like, you know, other things. But yeah, it was good. And there was a few other people there who most of them were first-time performers. It makes me think of being the idea that, as you know, my view, I don't really believe in luck. I believe in being prepared for opportunity. And there's other people, ways that people put it. You took the opportunity, right? And if something does come off it, that's not lucky that you've secured that. It's because you put yourself out there, took a risk. And let's see where it goes. If nothing else, people view differently now and go, you know what?

[00:18:43] I was liberated. He didn't mind. He wasn't bothered what people think of him. And there's a confidence that comes across. Some people don't think that. I'm trying to teach my kids, my son in particular. I don't want to dance because it's embarrassing and people laugh at me. I was like, you don't realize, in my opinion, I'm not saying the ways of how what people find necessarily attractive or not. But my personal view is you're more attractive doing the thing that you're passionate about doing that you want to do on the dance floor. Even if you're a terrible dancer, if you go in 100% and go all out and commit to what

[00:19:10] you're passionate about, I think you'll win more hearts and minds than being stuck on the side of it when you want to be on the dance floor, but you're too nervous for what everybody else thinks. Whereas you could be the geekiest, nerdiest, worst dancer in the world, right? If you do it with complete conviction, I think you win the hearts and minds of everyone around you. And there's a level of respect. They go, you know what? Because most people in their own size reflect and go, I want to feel like that. Yeah. I want to be able to act like he does or she does.

[00:19:37] I think it's interesting to say that because I was showing the video on Saturday night to a few of my friends who weren't at the event and I've known them several years and maybe a couple of them are like friends of friends, closer friends of friends rather than friends of mine. But this time there was a switch. I think once they watched the video, cause they were like, Oh my God, my man, Harry. That was cool. And I originally, before they sort of watched the video, they were saying, there's nothing, no way I could do that sort of stuff. But then afterwards they're like, yeah, maybe I'll do that. And they're inviting me to their home country as well to come and visit.

[00:20:07] And I've known some of these people for years, but it hasn't been as close. And then suddenly I think they realized, Oh, he's even more cool than I realized or something like that. Right. And he just went for it. And so it was very liberating to do that. And I think for those listening, there's probably something, obviously you don't have to go and strip on stage. That's not what I'm saying here, but there's something that's going to make you feel uncomfortable. There's something that you're going to feel like I can't do it. Then, you know, provided it's somewhat safe, right?

[00:20:33] You know, just maybe just do it and think about, I wouldn't even necessarily think about what the worst that could happen is. I know that's a stoic practice is to think about the worst. And we've talked about this before, I think on the show where you picture, you know, negative, yeah, catastrophized, negative visualization, which can work as well. It wouldn't have worked for me in this particular case, but I don't know if I thought of the worst thing, I probably wouldn't have done it. I think this brings into focus more the three principles element of Sydney banks. I would say the idea that we often have what is an inside out problem, right?

[00:21:02] So we often feel our thinking, not our circumstances. We let our thinking dictate how we act. If we change our thinking, you can change how you feel instantly. And actually we think something is an issue because we get so in our own heads. That's what I said. There's six inches between our ears. It's the most powerful opportunity for us to make a difference. Your circumstances, though, were different. And actually you just embraced it. You've come out and potentially you've changed your circumstance on the back of a brave or courageous decision for many.

[00:21:29] I think, and also, you know, going back to what you were talking about, what did you say about Sydney banks? What did he say? I quite like that. Well, he was the three principles where he talks about many people suffer as an inside out problem. Yeah. Right. So we focus all of our attentions on the outside, what people think of us. You said something about our feeling or our thoughts become... Yeah. So if you change what you think, you change what you feel. But yeah, so... We're feeling our thinking, not our circumstances. Yeah, that's it. So we're feeling our thinking, not our circumstances. So this really resonates with me over this last week.

[00:21:59] And since we kind of spoke a little bit off air, but so I won't go into it again now, but where my thinking on Saturday night, and so just to bring listeners up to date, I'm not going to tell you everything, but yeah, I did meet someone. On, you know, one of the days, a different person. You always meet lots of people here. And we were vibing really well and had lots of chat and whatever else. At the party though, she, after, I think she'd done stuff in the past, but she decided

[00:22:26] to take some certain substances, let's just say, which were somehow available to her. And then she changed a little bit, as you would expect, but also kind of disappeared off with another guy into a special kind of speaker only area most of the night. And I thought after three days of us vibing together, we'd spend more time there. And she seemed keen when she got there and kind of meeting me and hanging out a bit. I have no idea what happened, right? Maybe she was just zonked out, whatever.

[00:22:53] I've got so many stories in my head about what happened. It was like driving me crazy. I've no idea. I still have no idea because I'm not going to, you know, it's gone now. She's gone back to her home country. We had very loose texts on Sunday and I'm not going to ask her what happened with the guy or not the guy or whatever, but it does eat you up a bit because you're like, I have no idea. And so for all I know, nothing, right? Maybe she threw up, passed out, went home, whatever. I know that she was knackered, but I've created a whole thing.

[00:23:21] So the circumstance isn't detaining my experience at all. My feelings, my thinking has determined it. And I think this is the case for, you know, for lots of people. It is. Yeah. For most people, in fact. So I have no idea what happened. And it's also about what you focus on because I'm thinking, okay, I like this girl, but you know, there are lots of girls here I got on with and I know lots more probably liked me. And when people sometimes ask me why I'm single, whatever, one of the things I share, I need to find the meme.

[00:23:48] I don't know if you've seen the meme, but Seinfeld, the character, George Costanza, I don't watch Seinfeld that much, but he's the short, bald one. And there's a meme and it says, you know, why you're single or something. And he sort of, he says, when I like them, they don't like me. When they like me, I don't like them. And it's, and I was like, well, that's basically it really, isn't it? But interestingly, so on Thursday night, there was this VIP party, which I decided to gate crash because I wasn't paying for VIP effectively.

[00:24:18] It's ridiculous. It's like an extra thousand dollars to do VIP. And all you get is front row seating or not even front row because they have a different class of front row, but higher priority seating and then two parties. So $500 for a party. I couldn't crash the first one for whatever reason. I think the security was a bit too tight, but the second one, it was a bit easier. So I kind of crashed that. But before we did that, we were having a rooftop drinks at my mate's house, which is quite good. And my friends, without me knowing, I was chatting to some people there.

[00:24:44] Within about five minutes, this guy, he has some AI app or whatever, but they created this song and I'm going to send it to you later because I think you'll get out of it. It sounds interesting. But it was about me, obviously. And it was done with a couple of prompts. And it's actually got quite a good beat, but it's so appropriate possibly to me. I think it was talking about you're gripping on too tight, let it go. And then something about stop talking, don't block your own cock, as you were. Sorry for those listening. And it was kind of funny.

[00:25:12] And my friend, she's got it at home and she was playing it on repeat. She said like all a Saturday afternoon. She just loved it. There's probably some learnings in there though. Maybe some self-reflections in the band. Self-reflections. But what I sort of feel is that like, especially this last week, like I say, it always takes me a couple of weeks to get into it, but I really felt more of the connection. And this is the point is that, you know, people know me well enough as well. I know that I can take a little bit of a ribbon, a little bit of a joke. But also if they don't care about you, they're not going to go to the effort of even making

[00:25:41] up a funny song or whatever else. And so I love that connection that we have. Unfortunately, next year, it's only going to be one week long, but we'll probably. Given a couple of insights around how, and as you said, a lot of people struggle with this. I'd say everyone probably does, right? And so bringing it back to Sydney Bank slightly, I think it's relevant. So here's three principles. I don't want to sort of say his three principles without people knowing what they are. Three principles of our mind, which is the source of all of our thoughts and experiences, the consciousness, which is our awareness of the world around us. And then the thought, which is the power that creates our experience of reality.

[00:26:10] And that's the bit, if we can change the way we think about something, we can change our whole experience of the reality around us. And I think when you've got that awareness and you understand it, it allows you to shift and pivot much more easily and not maybe go so far down the well when we think, you know, because our thoughts can become our own echo chamber of thoughts. And we build on them and we build on them. And suddenly what was an acorn of a problem becomes a tree of issues by the end of it with his own branches. And well, then there's this, and she's probably doing this where he's doing that.

[00:26:38] And actually we just have, you know, it's understanding that our thought is the power that creates that experience. If we can change the way we think, we can change the way we feel. We can change the way that we experience the world with our conscious mind, because that's our awareness of the world around us, right? It allows us to experience our thoughts and our feelings. So how we can be present in the moment. I just think that's so interconnected. I'm just listening to you chat there and you're sort of different thoughts are popping in as you're talking and where it's led you into different spaces. Everyone, including myself, were the same.

[00:27:06] And you were talking about memes and the reason I wanted to bring it up, as I mentioned in the last episode, we celebrated our 19th wedding anniversary. Yeah. And I saw a post on Instagram and it resonated with me. Oh, well, I should say a couple of things. First is we gave each other the same card, which I thought was really interesting. Of all the cards in the world. And we've done it two years running. We've brought the same anniversary card, two years running, which maybe was just in sync with those things. We both saw the same Instagram post and I brought it up to my wife, Lucy at dinner. And she's like, oh my God, I saw the same post because she finished the conversation for me. So she knew about it. But the post was quite simple.

[00:27:36] There's along the lines of Instagram, a kind of a scrolling carousel of images where an old guy is telling his granddaughter the success of why he's been able to be married and in love with his partner for so long. And he's like, the person I love now is not the person I fell in love with. The beauty of the reason I have so much love for the partner now is because I have to continually re-fall in love with the person they become. Because every five, 10 years or whatever, they're a different person. The beliefs change. The hobbies change. The passions change. Hormones change.

[00:28:06] Values change. Kids grow up change. And the person you marry isn't the same person 10 years on, 20 years on, 30 years on every anniversary that you go through. And I thought it was really true. I was like, so the beauty of it, of never giving up, of always making an effort with your partner is because you're always re-falling in love. You're always showing that individual that you love them who they are now rather than who they were when you met. And not getting stuck in the person you met and always getting used to be different. We used to be like this and all these things. And I watched this and I thought it was a really lovely moment.

[00:28:34] I was thinking, yeah, Lucy's changed a lot since we've been together and I love the person she is now as much as I love the person she was then. But they're not the same person. They are, but they're not, if that makes sense. No, we're not. And she was like, oh my God, I saw the same post. And she finished the story and it's like, we're falling in love again and we're a 19-year ready anniversary and what are we going to be like on our 20th? And it's, you know, we had a chance to share the people we are now. But bring that back. It'd be very easy for my thoughts to have got the better of me and gone, she's different now. You know, she's gone through perimenopause, homo and she's different. Things have changed.

[00:29:04] Our hobbies have changed. And the same the other way around. Very easy to get into my own head and go, it's not working. Or, you know, this morning, the person that's gone maybe and not celebrating the person that's now here. Our mind is so powerful. Our thoughts are so powerful. And it's just being aware. They're powerful in the fact that we give them, as you were talking a little bit earlier, I knew you were talking about the tree and everything. It's like everything, right? If you, and we've talked about the two wolves before that story about the one that you feed. And it's the same with your thoughts.

[00:29:34] And the thoughts are temporary. And often when I close, I've kind of given up teaching yoga now. But when I was teaching yoga, I tended to tell people, right? That the thoughts just treat them like clouds in the sky that are passing through your window frame, right? They're coming in and they're going out. And you just like, you can't hold onto the clouds. Try not to hold onto those thoughts, right? I recognize they're not really you and that they're just there entering and let them exit as effortlessly as they came in.

[00:30:02] And we are not our thoughts any more than the radio that you listen to is the radio station that you happen to be playing. It's just what you're tuned into at that particular time. And I think I get caught up. I'm a big thinker, as you probably know. And it's somewhat obvious if Virgos tend to be thinkers. I don't know much about star stars, but I know that whenever I read what a Virgo typically is, I'm a typical Virgo in many ways, which is actually not a bad thing at all.

[00:30:29] I make great loyal friends for one, but we are somewhat thinkers, right? We are people that like to serve other people as well. Not necessarily people that are at the limelight, but where the person is supporting the person in a way, but we are thinkers. And one of the ways to get out of thinking, and I was thinking about it ironically today is it's now post Mindvalley. So most people have gone. There's a few that still remain and I've created a little group for us to find out who, but as I was here today, I was pottering around the flat a little bit more and I wasn't really hanging out with people.

[00:30:58] And that gave me more opportunity to think and not all thinking is good thinking. And so what I was going to say is the best way out of thinking for most people from what I've seen, experienced and read is action, doing something, just doing something physical. And I don't mean going and working out. I mean, just doing something right. You might volunteer at a soup kitchen. You might get on the photo and you might get on a podcast with someone, whatever the thing is, do something to take the brain out of the equation. And more you sit around doing nothing, the more you feed it. That's the key.

[00:31:28] We are the thinker, not the sum of our thoughts. And I think we often believe whether those two things are the same and they're not. You're the thinker, not the thought, right? And the thoughts, as you said, can be a cloud that goes past the window. You can think something else instantaneously if you want to. You can see a new cloud pass by. You taught me how to meditate initially and that was very much focused on the cloud idea to begin with. That was how I started my meditative journey was you saying to me, let's just imagine clouds and passing by. And so I can resonate with that.

[00:31:55] But the idea being, if we can change our thoughts, then you can change you as well. You can change who we are. We don't have to always adhere to the first thought that comes in or even the second, the third or the fourth. We have the ability to think whatever we want and we can change our thinking process. So we are always the thinker, but we're not the thoughts. And they're not, they are different things. Yeah. And we can separate from that. That's why you and I could be in the same space looking at the same thing, but we're thinking totally different things, right? But our experience that we're feeling are the thoughts, right?

[00:32:25] That's why our thoughts create our experience of reality. And it only takes one word for me to go, Nick, you do realize that's fake, right? Suddenly I'm thinking something completely different. It's like, oh my God, I didn't know that. And it shifts it. It's also not even just the thoughts that you're thinking. It's so, as I talk about in definitely Super Vitality, but other books as well, probably the three things that dictate your state, right? Is what you pay attention to, but which is the thoughts that are happening or what you're observing.

[00:32:52] But then the second bit is the meaning or language that you assign to those things, right? So we can both be at the same party. We're having that different experience because one of you, you're listening to the music, saying it's awesome. I'll be at that same party going, that girl's gone off with that guy. All right. And so I'm going to pay attention to different things, create a different meaning from things. And I'm going to feel very differently. And so the third bit of it being action as well, taking action to change your state. So, you know, just dancing, for example, is going to change your state from being maybe

[00:33:19] depressed about the girl to actually enjoying time with your friends on the final night that you're going to see them. And so I was going to jump in on the thinking part as in where the thinker, because I'm not even 100% sure that's true. I don't even think we're the thinker, like who's doing the thinking. This is going to get quite metaphysical and esoteric, but I'm not 100% sure where the thinker either. I don't know who the thinker is. I would have, but that's fine. I believe that I am the thinker, but I'm not some of my thoughts. That's okay. But I understand where you go with this because you've been coming, you've come from

[00:33:47] a mind value element of the universe as well. But I mean, I guess it's through this idea of ego, soul, spirit, mind. It's like when talking about the mind, where is the mind? People will point to the brain, but that's not the mind. That's the brain. And there's an intelligence throughout the body, but also in my experience, the body is some kind of... I would classify the mind as the source of all our experiences and thoughts.

[00:34:15] Now, it doesn't have to be the mind because you can experience things in the body. So it doesn't have to be as, you know, so specific as an order. Who is the self? I don't know. This is all kind of deep stuff. Probably not for... Question for another show. Although that made me think of something which we've talked about a lot. And actually you talked about how sometimes we can disrupt, I think it's the right word, our negative thought patterns often, which is what we're referring to really when we're feeling low or whatever. And we catastrophize with an action, which is absolutely right. Go and do something. But also I think there's something that we've talked about a lot on every episode, pretty

[00:34:43] much we've ever delivered, whatever hundred of this we've done, which is reminding yourself that this too shall pass. That, okay, yeah, I'm catastrophizing now. This is the worst thing, but this too shall pass. So it'll pass. You know, time will heal all things and you just got to trust the process. Even last week where I said at the beginning of the week, I had, you know, I was a little bit miffed and heartbroken that someone had dissed me. But then I was somewhat saying this too shall pass as well. And then the next day met someone who I thought was even better. That was short-lived because she was only here for a few days. Nothing happened.

[00:35:13] But then someone else, you know, you meet people all the time. And even the feeling that I've got with the girl that dissed me on Saturday night, it's like, it's starting to ebb away or it has really ebbed away. And I've got it as well. You've helped me. Thank you. So I remind myself and actually I tell a lot of students, my main stress coping mechanism is to understand that this too shall pass. My backache right now, it was a bit worse today. I went for a massage. It feels a lot better actually. But either way, good or bad, it's going to pass. Yeah.

[00:35:41] So the reason I got lost is because I mentioned what we were talking about, which is neuroinclusion, which has very little to do with what I was going to bring up. But we got into conversation around lessons. What's the greatest lesson you've discovered? I finished with a vault where I asked four short-shot questions. And it's like the life is tough. And when we realize life is tough, weirdly, it becomes a lot easier. Like it's really hard all the way up to the point until you realize that it's hard. Does that make sense? And when we accept it, there's a level of acceptance in here.

[00:36:09] You're not just thinking that we were born to be great. The minute we're born and we're the center of the universe and everything's around us and the ego you mentioned earlier. When certain things happen and life experience will throw things at us. And I think that creates depth of character anyway, because we go through these challenges, these small T traumas, these bigger T traumas, whatever they are. And I'd be very surprised if anyone listening to this hasn't been through something that's challenged them somewhere. It's the acceptance that life is a real challenge. It's difficult.

[00:36:39] It's why we often think negatively about all kinds of things, because we know that around the corner, there's going to be another challenge thrown at us. But I do think there's an element where sooner we come to that point of acceptance, that doesn't mean giving up or anything like that, just the acceptance that there are going to be more challenges, that it is going to be difficult. And we have to navigate our way through that this too shall pass, whether that's injury, mental, something outside of our sphere of control. I think we can enjoy it a little bit more.

[00:37:05] You can come to terms with having an impact on it and being able to navigate it more effectively. I believe that to be true. I didn't raise that as the response, but I reflected on it when she gave it to me. I think it's interesting. I think it's true and not true at the same time. So what I mean by that is that your language defines your reality as well. And there's usually... I remember listening to Tony Robbins' audio 15 years ago, and he talked about some really interesting concepts. One being a primary question, which is there's a question that we ask ourselves over and over and over again.

[00:37:35] We don't realize we're asking it, but we're asking it. For example, I think his was, I think, how can I make this better? And mine is somewhat similar. Whenever I see something, there's inherently, how can I make this better approach to it? Right? It could be anything from cooking a dish to the layout of a house to whatever. But there's also a primary way how we see life. So in your example, that woman, she says, life is tough, right? Mine is somewhat different.

[00:38:03] I don't want to say a mission, but like adventure slash mission, which obviously, if you watch a romance in the stone adventure mission, there's always problems, right? There's always challenges that arise. And so yes, life is tough, but it might be that really what you mean by that is there's going to be obstacles. There's going to be challenges. But if you're a problem thing is like, okay, I see life like a video game, right? There's going to be challenges. You're going to get killed. You have to reset. You enter those challenges in a somewhat different frame of mind than saying life is tough. No, I agree.

[00:38:31] Look, not saying we have our life's mantra needs to be that life's going to be difficult because that's just not good energy, right? And I accept that as well. I had a client, I think I talked about that before, coaching client. He said, you know, Nick, I just always thought I'd have a life of a princess and a Disney movie and it hasn't worked out. I haven't found that princess shining armor. I was like, when was the last time you really watched any kind of Disney movie? Like it's full of witches and poison and loss and going right back to Bambi where the mother dies at the start or Lion King, whatever it is, like they are full. It's only we just remember the happy ending at the end.

[00:39:01] That's the bit that sticks in the mind of the happy wedding, the princess and the ball. But usually to make those stories work, you forget all that. And I don't know where you are in your Disney story right now. I'm not here to answer that question, but I'm here for you as I'm coaching you to reflect on you're just on that journey of challenge. But that doesn't mean the happy ending isn't there yet. Like let's strive towards that 100%. And your whole ethos around the thought gym is the yin-yang signal. I know you've changed it around, right?

[00:39:26] But you can't enjoy the beauty in the world and the happiness bit without understanding there's a darker side to it because that's what makes it great. It's like getting to the top of Everest. I talk about many times. It looks amazing at the top, not just because it's the highest mountain in the world, because it's a real journey to get there. It's a real struggle. That's what makes it so breathtaking at the top. Like if I meet you at the top and you flow in there, it's not the same thing. And I think you need that yin and yang, that challenge in order to really enjoy the brighter side of it. I'm sure we've mentioned Ryan Holiday before his book, The Obstacle is the Way, right?

[00:39:56] Yeah. And I remember thinking, I heard the speaker say this once and it really resonated with me. You've probably heard it before. But as we go through life, we keep thinking that, you know, life, the universe throws obstacles in our way, but they're not throwing obstacles in our way. The obstacles are not in our way. The obstacles are on our way. And that shifted something. That's shifted something to me. It's like the obstacles aren't in the way. They're on the way. They're on the way. And when it comes to, I think we've talked about this before, but forgive me if we haven't,

[00:40:26] or forgive me if we have, but I mentioned it to someone in conversation about a week ago, where we were talking about challenge right now. I'd mentioned it in Super Vitality as well, which is the biosphere too, where they create this habitat where it was to mimic living on Mars. And the scientist has to live in there for 180 days or two years or whatever it was without any contact from the outside world. They put everything in they needed, plants and food and whatever. But what they found was that not the plants, the trees, when the trees grew, they kept falling over and they couldn't figure it out.

[00:40:55] They had the right soil. They were watering it. They had sunlight. They had all the things and they couldn't figure out why the trees, when they got to a certain height, just kept collapsing. And then they realized that there was no wind in the biosphere. And so they added wind to create stress, to create resistance, to force the roots to grow strong, right? It's a beautiful example. T. Harbecker talks about it's the roots create the fruits, right?

[00:41:22] And you need to have strong roots and strong foundations in order to build something substantial on the surface. And I found that as to be a real example of life, right? It's the stress that creates. And I know we've talked about you stress. And resilience. Yeah. To overcome it. And so that's what I'm saying. The obstacle is not in the way. It's on the way. It's there for a reason. But if you do see life as, and I'm not saying you do or this woman does, but that's just the words described, as tough, you might feel that everything is piling on you.

[00:41:51] If you see it as a mission or an adventure or whatever thing is for you as a person, you might see those challenges and obstacles as another thing that you need to beat on the computer game of life. Yeah. I've taken back a Disney movie. You just don't know where you are in the movie. Maybe you've just bitten the poison apple, right? But things will come later. You just got to roll with the punches. Loads of cliches in there. You might see life as a Disney movie, right?

[00:42:17] And then the ending that you get, the happily ever after, it may well be for all we know in the next life, right? In the next transition. You don't know. I know from my experience, if I go there briefly, there is something beautiful awaiting people. But again, I think that sometimes that all might be reflecting on how you want it to be. Just like I was explaining this the other day to someone about one of my plant experiences where I think we've talked about it, but you know, that transitional point to different states of dimensions and realities.

[00:42:46] But one of the things that I understood from that journey as well is at the next level of reality, which is where we would typically call what death is, where things go to. And there's still an idea of somewhat separation there because they're different entities, but people can experience that differently. Just like we're on one planet right now and we're all on the same planet, but we're having vastly different experiences. Some people are stuck in war zones. Some people are crushing it. Some people, whatever. It's the same in other planes of existence to a certain degree. There's a mindset that comes in.

[00:43:15] I always remind myself of, I think you've read some of his work. I don't think you've read the book, but Dr. David Hawkins wrote Letting Go, which you know is one of my favorite. I've read that book and his other one, Power Versus Force, which is quite a part of it. Probably to surrender is what I'm thinking about. But he talks in there about those that are closed off to what comes next. You can be atheist or whatever. He has them on a lower score in terms of a happiness score and he scores everything differently. And actually, it's like, it doesn't matter what faith you follow, but if you're agnostic

[00:43:43] and you believe this, it's having the open-mindedness to believe there's more. You don't have to have the confirmation. It's an open-mindedness challenge. And it's easier to let go of things, that pathway to surrender when you have that open-mindedness rather than that closed, fixed mindset. We talk about growth mindset, fixed mindset of there is nothing else. I need it proven. I need it fixed. I need evidence all the time. Actually, that mentality pulls you down because you end up trying to convince everyone else

[00:44:11] of your mindset as well because it's so fixed. But as an open mindset, and I'm sure you've been surrounded by people with that kind of the growth mindset and mind values. No, I don't know what comes next. I'm not here to say to you that your vision or view is wrong. Just like we've had conversations about whether granite rock stores memories because of vibrate. Who knows? Like, let's just be open-minded and go, maybe it doesn't. Like, that's okay. We don't have to be definitive all the time, but I think it's a happier place to be open-minded. To those people that are often thinking, okay, it is what it is and that's that.

[00:44:39] I would say, let's bring it back to a science perspective, is what do we now know about stuff in the world that we believe to be untrue or didn't know 15 years ago or 30 years ago or 100 years ago? Because we are constantly being proven wrong or at least incomplete in our thinking all the time. That's why there's a magazine called New Scientist, right? Yeah.

[00:45:04] I mean, science is literally the process of saying that we don't know if you do it right because everything we believe to that point was either incomplete or maybe actually wrong. That's the whole point, right? And there's a very famous quote, I think is, I don't know if it was Francis Bacon or something like that in the 1850s or 1860s, whatever it was, but he said that everything that needs to be discovered has been discovered. And this is before electromagnetic frequencies and quarks and protons and atoms and whatever.

[00:45:33] It's like ludicrous to think that we know things definitively. Like even my experiences, which a lived experience is kind of the most definitive convincer for people, but even my experiences are somewhat potentially made up, right? And like we say- Well, all your experiences will be dictated by what you were thinking in the moment as well. Right. Because that's how we live on experience. Nothing has any meaning except for the meaning you choose to give it, which we say all the time.

[00:46:04] And I've created some rather core meanings about certain experiences over the last few days, but I've also created some good meanings. And so let's say my experiences in otherworldly dimensions, let's say they're all in my head, all made up, but they create a different meaning for me. And the reality is, does it serve you or not? Does it help you or hinder you? And that's what I say to people all the time, right? That's the key. Is the belief that you're holding helping you in some way or is it not?

[00:46:30] And we talked about, you know, beliefs being big stories surrounding lies. If we choose to accept that as a concept, then we can choose to change that and create other stories that maybe support a better narrative. And again, those might be made up and untrue as well, but the reality is, does it help you or not? That closed mindset, that fixed mindset, you'll often get people that say, this is what I believe as if it's completely fixed and unchangeable. But our beliefs change all the time. I mean, you mentioned a moment ago, you know, belief, just to make it clear for those who haven't heard it before, you said there's a lie surrounded by BS, which I love. Beliefs, right?

[00:47:00] And it's, we've changed our beliefs. The things I believe in now are very different things I believed in when I was 18. You know, how I saw the world. About when you were five and it was the Superberry and Santa Claus and everything else. Good place to finish. We were supposed to have a slightly shorter episode today. We've managed to wrap it on for 54 minutes, but it's been a good conversation. I've enjoyed it. Hopefully some things for people to have a really good think about and reflect, you know, what are the beliefs that you're holding onto? What are the thoughts that aren't serving you? Can you change the way you think and change the way you feel? What are the things that you can't do that maybe you must do?

[00:47:30] There you go. I think there's a few things for people to... Liberate you. Yeah, to reflect on to be liberated and you don't have to get naked on a stage to do it, right? No, the risks that... Probably can help. Yeah, it can help. And it doesn't matter what shape you're in because it's not about being in shape. It's about putting 100% in and, you know, giving it... Owning it. Yeah, owning it. Harry, it's been a pleasure. I'm glad to see you back. Enjoyed today's episode very much. And I hope that our listeners have too. Keep following us. Leave us with you if you can. Most importantly, share this episode with your colleagues and friends if you've enjoyed it. We're trying to get the message out there that we can be more mindful

[00:47:59] and have more fun doing it along the way and not get so caught up in our thoughts to live life and enjoy it. And hopefully this episode is going to help you a little bit more on your journey. So yeah, cheers, Harry. Nice to chat as ever. And yeah, see you next time.