Between the Ears

I think widespread cynicism and general distrust has broken our system of believing. I think we've become so good, like scarily good, at knowing what we don't believe or refuse to believe, that it's rotting our ability to believe in ourselves. This is a rabbit hole of a topic, so if you want to jump in, do so with curiosity and an open mind, you might not believe how valuable that can be. 

A bit of the lead-up to my Do Lectures talk and coming home.

To understand "what" the BTE Practice is, I first want to explain "why" I created it. I think this medium provides certain advantages written communication just cannot accurately relay. I stand by the feedback and believe the BTE Practice is life-changing work, if you put the work in for yourself. 

The new and improved BTE Practice will begin on September 1.

If you have questions, please send them to [email protected].

Hope to see you and work with you.

Support the show (https://www.btwntheears.com/)

It's amazing, and scary, what grows that requires zero effort. How easily the nasty stuff can get out of hand without doing anything. If you want 'that' stuff to grow, a great tactic is to do exactly nothing.

On the other hand, beautiful flowers require much more effort, intention, attention, and patience. There are no guarantees either. Just because you 'did all the right things' doesn't protect it from predators, weather, etc. 

So is the beauty of life.

This episode goes into the weeds about what is growing around us to apply inward on what is growing within us.

I'm in the world of personal development, both by my own participation and providing guidance to others. I often hear people say they want to get better at something, improve something, make a change, etc., but honestly, the stats are not good for those who actually do on their own.

In this episode, I examine the fascination with the 'hack', offer a litmus test to self-assess and dive into the thought of improving in a curious and challenging way. You might not like hearing some of my thoughts, but that's ok, as sometimes we need to hear things we don't 'want' to hear.

Towards the end, 'real life' happened while recording and I decided to roll with it and not edit it out and try to talk about what I planned on talking about. I get personal with a couple of things because I want to be honest and highlight my own humanity.

I recently gave a lecture and learned a tremendous amount as a result of it not going all that great. I'm fired up to get to work and use this opportunity as a way to improve, not just in presenting but in general. Some things I'll edit, change, and jettison. Some things I'll double down on and make even clearer. The thing I know for a fact is that my performance was not a failure. This is because I don't believe failure is a past action, rather future inaction. And I can guarantee I will be taking action.

I found an old 550 cord bracelet I made years ago and put it on to replace the nakedness of my wrist in absence of my (broken) watch. I didn't expect it to speak to me the way it has, which I finally heard as a result of an inaccurate interpretation at a rest stop. 

My whole life, fitness and the pursuit of improving it have been 'for' something, specifically soccer and the military. Now that I'm out of the military and my cleats have long been hung up, I have found myself asking 'what's it all for?'

What is it that keeps pushing my physical and mental tolerances? I understand all the benefits of health, longevity, etc., but frankly, that's not cutting it for me.

In this episode, I look back at my 'uses' for fitness to find a common theme that has been there the whole time. What I came to identify, while not the final answer, is enough to satisfy my current question and drive continued action.

"You have to trust your guy." "What does your gut say?" If you've ever had a conversation with anyone and shared a dilemma you're facing, there's a good chance one of these two phrases was thrown your way. There is something understood about the value of your instinct and intuition, your gut.

But how do we learn to trust it? 

I think we first have to look at how trust is established and how we can train trust.

Full disclosure: This is a BIG topic I would love to have a way more robust and more in-depth conversation with folks about. For purposes of this podcast, I tried to keep it relatively succinct and share a recent personal experience with this. 

As always, when the lights are turned on we each see something different in our respective rooms. I hope this can be a light source for you in yours.

I love purpose. I think it's up there with breathing in order to live a fully engaged life. There is a huge emphasis on knowing and finding your 'Why'. Yes. This is a great exercise and the likes of Nietzsche and Simon Sinek have great work on the Why.

'Why', in its popularization, has come to stand on top of the podium as the ultimate question to answer. I don't agree in this hierarchy and think primarily focussing on 'Why' can underserve and mislead. I think there is more room up there for an equally important question to answer that provides guidance and follow through in life. We just need to think about things differently.

Enter How. 

In this episode, I try to articulate what I mean by 'How' that I think misses the mark when pitted against 'Why', how when used in this context is an incredibly powerful question to answer daily through action, and some pitfalls with focussing solely on Why.