In This Episode…
Yesterday I told you the story about an amazing coincidence that occurred whilst I was setting my goals for my business. Well today something else has happened that could be added to the “weird things going on right now” list. In this episode I share what that is and try and explain what might be going on.
Edited Transcript
Hi, it’s Michael Tipper and welcome to today’s episode of the Profit Productivity Podcast.
Now this episode is going to be called “Weird Stuff Is Happening – Or Is It?”
If you’ve listened to yesterday’s episode, you’ll have heard the story about how I spent a couple of hours writing down my goals about what I want to do with part of my business.
One of them was adding more humour and comedy to the presentations I do. I’m sat in a cafe writing those goals and also in the room is someone who has an event where I can go and add comedy to stuff I can teach.
I talked a lot about that yesterday so I won’t repeat the story. However, what are the chances of me being in the same place at the same time as this person?
Where did that come from? I have no idea how that happened.
And as it is, I’m now booked so in six weeks time I will deliver a 10 minute session for this lady’s Alternative Book Club.
So that was yesterday. Now today something else weird has happened.
In the mornings when I’m preparing my breakfast, I will watch motivational or educational videos from Youtube. I regularly tune into Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu. I find his interviews very motivational and I watch him regularly to give me new ideas and ways of looking at things.
I’ve got some really interesting ideas and insights and it’s a really positive way to start the day.
Most of the people who are on, I’ve never heard of. So when I choose a video to watch, I’m never sure what I’m getting. This morning I picked a video of an interview with a guy called Dame Dash.
Now, I have no idea who this person is, but the title of the video was “Being yourself is the coolest you can get. It turns out this guy is a hip hop impresario who started Roc-A-Fella records which was responsible for nine number one albums in that genre. He was voted one of the top 25 greatest A&R reps in the hip hop music scene and was responsible for kickstarting the careers of some major artists.
I’ve never heard of him but seemingly he’s extremely successful.
Whilst talking about his success Tom Bilyeu asked him a question about perspective and achieving success.
And here’s what he said:
If I want something, I go into the future in my brain, which is powerful, and I visualise it exactly what I want. I’m there. I’m in my future.
And then I think about every single thing I need to do to make that happen. And then every single thing that could stop that from happening and what I need to avoid. I have to think what would be the worst case scenario. And then I have to think what would be the best case scenario. And then I eliminate every single thing that I think could happen which I call Art Detecting.
And then I put every thing, every single attitude and person around me in my vision that’s going to make me get to where I want. And also I try to get the people around me to think about exactly the same vision. So you can inspire people and all that energy is focused on the one thing they can visualise in their head.
Then it becomes a tangible reality and I know that for a fact because it’s happened. It’s a fact for me. And I continue to do that because I know that anything I can imagine, I can make happen. So I am really careful about how small my thoughts are. Because I don’t feel like wasting time.
Damon Dash on The Impact Theory With Tom Bilyeu
In the episode two days ago, I talked about goal setting and mental contrasting. What he’s just described is exactly those two processes.
As I’m watching him speak, I’m sitting there thinking, wow, that’s a coincidence. Or is it weird stuff?
Two unrelated things have happened over the last couple of days that are confirming what I’m thinking and the plans that I’ve got.
Now, there are two ways of looking at this.
Maybe there is some weird stuff going on. Maybe the universe is looking at me and blessing me and saying “Michael, have all this good stuff”.
Maybe that’s the case or maybe it is just a coincidence.
I certainly can’t explain how I can be sat in the same room as someone who can give me an opportunity to go and try out the learning and comedy at the very moment I set a goal to do that.
Maybe that is just a coincidence.
But perhaps there was something more psychological going on.
We have something called the reticular activating system, which is a part of our brain that filters out things that we do not need. Our senses are being bombarded with literally billions of pieces of information every second and we don’t have the conscious bandwidth to be able to process all of that.
So the reticular activating system filters out things not necessary for us to process. We can decide what that is by focusing on things.
For example, where I am in my office as I write this, if I just listened quietly, I can hear the hum of a small motor attached to the air conditioning system. Now that I’ve drawn my attention to it, it’s constant in the background. But to have noticed it initially I had to search out for it.
My reticular activating system previously filtering that out. Now it’s allowing it through because I’ve made a conscious effort to focus on it. And that’s how it works.
Here’s another example.
If you’ve ever decided to buy a car, you might suddenly see examples of your chosen car on the road all over the place. They were always there but the brain only started drawing our attention to them when you primed your reticular activating system.
So back to me and my weird stuff.
What could have happened psychologically is that because I had drawn my awareness to goal setting and mental contrasting anything related to that would be immediately drawn to my attention.
Because I drawn my awareness to the prospect of standing up in front of people, teaching them and making them laugh at the same time, anything related to that would be immediately drawn to my attention.
Perhaps things that were already in my universe were drawn to my attention because my reticular activating system was primed for them.
So that’s another way of looking at it.
Though I do think being in the same room as someone who can give me an opportunity to present is REALLY weird!
Things seem to be happening that support what I’m doing and I think this concept of getting the goals right and then visualising them with the mental contrasting is key.
In yesterday’s episode, I talked about my failed attempt at using the goal setting process, and I realise now I haven’t thought about it enough.
The goals are not clear enough yet, and I’ve got to iterate through that process. And that’s what I’ll be doing.
So that’s today’s episode.
Until tomorrow.
