A few strands of thought came together over the past few days that inspired today’s episode. The idea that we kind of know what we need to know already but don’t always DO what we need to do. Why is that?
Very often, it’s our own thoughts and behaviour that holds us back. Patterns or triggers that are often unconscious to us step in to try and keep us safe, when in fact they can hold us back.
Today, I unravel a few of these limiting thoughts and actions and quite some very smart people that have not only identified these patterns but have also come up with some of the tools and solutions to help overcome them too.
Are you your own worst enemy..?
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Resources:
Positive Intelligence, including a 'saboteur rest'
Psychologist Dr. Nicole LePera Uncovers Ways to End Your Self-Sabotaging Habits
The Holistic Psychologits, Dr Nicole LePera
The Almanack of Naval Ravikant
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Transcription of the show
A few strands of thought came together over the past few days that inspired today’s episode. The idea that we kind of know what we need to know already but don’t always DO what we need to do. Why is that?
Very often, it’s our own thoughts and behaviour that holds us back. Patterns or triggers that are often unconscious to us step in to try and keep us safe, when in fact they can hold us back.
Today, I unravel a few of these limiting thoughts and actions and quite some very smart people that have not only identified these patterns but have also come up with some of the tools and solutions to help overcome them too.
Are you your own worst enemy..?
Property Chatter
Hello, and welcome to another episode of the property voice podcast. My name is Richard Brown. And as always, it's a pleasure to have you join me again on the show today. Well, I'm sorry to hear it's, it's 930. Its podcast recording deadline day. And I was just thinking to myself, well, in fact, I've been thinking to myself all day, what am I going to say today? What I'm going to share with you? And I kind of be wrestling with a couple of thoughts. I was actually thinking of doing a podcast episode on due diligence. Wow, that's exciting, isn't it?
So what I was thinking of doing that I'm actually writing an article for YPO magazine actually on the very subject, so it is top of mind. And I was gonna cheat a bit and basically share some of that content with you today. But something's been niggling at me, actually. And so what I thought I'd do is return to a general theme, I guess the general theme is his mindset. But in particular, what's been really on my mind is this idea that we can be our own worst enemy at times, really. And there's a few, two, three threads, if you like that have come together over the last week or so which have encouraged me to share about this today rather than the due diligence subject.
So if you wanted to hear about due diligence, you better just, you know, write in or connect with me in some way and say, Can we hear that bit, please, Richard, because this mindset stuff was a bit too woowoo for us. But equally, this is completely unscripted. There are just a few thoughts in my mind that coming together with different strands, which are also being pieced together from different elements. And I just thought I'd try and make some sense of it, and share it with you because I think we can be our own worst enemy. And I think what really tipped it for me and wanting to share this is that there was an article shared within our mastermind group, an article shared on the medium platform. And it was a quotation from navall. Ravi Kant, who is a serial entrepreneur is a creative Angel list isn't it is an angel investor himself, is worth probably hundreds, if not billions, you know, founder or co-founder, he was an early-stage investor is a phrase I'm looking for in, in businesses like Uber, for example, and many others, so so very successful man. And he's quoted as being both wealthy and happy, which is actually quite interesting itself.
So I didn't really know that much about him. But I'm, I'm learning more about it. I'm quite interested to hear more. But needless to say, the quotation, which I'm just gonna read, is free education is abundant all over the internet, is the desire to learn that scarce. And I say that's from navall raava Khan. And he talks about a couple of things, it doesn't want free education is abundant. Well, this is an example of that. This is free education. But it's the desire to learn that scares. And I dare say that you will be probably shaking your heads. That idea when you've heard was not me, you know, I, I'm listening to this free content. And I'm, I have the desire to learn. So I'm different. And you may well be. And I actually think there's a couple of missing ingredients. When I read that quotation, who am I to challenge what Navarre might be thinking? But I was just wondering to myself, it's not just as simple as that. It's not that, you know, that we don't have a desire to learn. And of course, there's lots of free content that we can learn from. I think there's more to it than that. And I think maybe there's more to it than I'm about to say
even but I think there are two main things, which are, you know, worthy of further exploration if you like. And the first one is, it's what we can learn. But unless we apply what we learn, then there's no point, you know, we might win, you know, a fictitious game of eggheads or something like that. We pay along with mastermind and do well in quizzes and, and that kind of thing. But are we doing well in life?
Are we winning life, so to speak, if we have that kind of general knowledge, and we're not applying what we're learning? So I think that's one thing that's potentially missing. And so, you know, just to know, and not to do is not to know, I think Rob Moore said that, actually. So, here I am quoting Rob more. But I believe he said that, and I believe it was his quotation rather than quoting somebody else. So there we go Rob, a shout out to you. But, you know, to, to know and not to do is not to know. So there's lots of information out there is lots of free content, and we might have the desire to learn but without the application without the doing part of it, then there's going to be a disconnect. So that's, that probably sounds quite obvious, right? So okay, well, let's get the information. Let's have a desire to learn. And then let's apply what we've learned. All sounds pretty reasonable.
So Fine doesn't need to, you know, join those dots up together, find the content, learn it, and then actually apply it. And that's absolutely true as well. And yet, you know, we still don't always win out, do we, we don't always make a success in life. and myself included, and in fact, it was reflecting on myself. And you know, how, sometimes I don't always do what I know I should be doing. That kind of led me to share with you today. And what brought it really to the fore was in the tpv book club, we've, we've just, we just had Book of the Month, for the month of what it would have been October, of course, it would have been the book of the month for October. And the book was Think and Grow Rich, which is a bit of a personal development classic. It was written in 1937, I believe it was a Napoleon Hill. And it was a four runner or the first of a short setting, you know, landmark book really containing some success principles. So it's been around for approximately eight years now. And we have we read it again in I want to say read it as the tpv book of the month, I read it again, I've read it in the past. And when I was reading it, I was really thinking to myself, and all this.
You know, I wasn't saying in an arrogant way. I was just saying, I know all this. So what you know, and I've asked myself this question. So what? And the so what the answer to this question is I'm not applying all of this. I'm not doing all of this. So for example, there are things in there talk about affirmations, I think they use the phrase of Napoleon Hill, he uses the phrase, autosuggestion, which is really affirmations. And you can have literally repeating phrases, you can write things down. You can add it into a visualization that you have repeating images that are flashed before you and it's something I really wanted to get into. I've tried this before, but I haven't really stuck with it. And, and so I'm drifting away a little bit from the point but I'm going to make the point by doing so. And so we've got the book thinking Grow Rich, we've got other books like it which outline many of the success principles, really, that we need to adopt, or clearly to be successful in life. There are lots of classics, there's you know, seeds of greatness, there is Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Poor million if you're listening, there's a book you've given a shout out to called the Midas touch. There's, there's a plethora of really of fantastic books out there. And they all you know, contain sort of common ingredients, or overlapping ingredients. So it the knowledge is out there. So you know, free education is abundant. Well, and low-cost education, the form of books, is also abundant. So and yet we know we read the books, we don't necessarily apply.
You know what we've learned? And that's the thing that really stuck with me. Why is it for example, that I didn't really stick with affirmations, something I tried in the past, I read you know, thinking Grow Rich, I think I'm gonna I'm gonna get back onto the affirmations sort of bandwagon and reintroduce them doing a very light touch were the moment in my morning routine, but it's not really big, and I'm definitely not doing the heavy visualization stuff. And I've really kind of struggled with that. And so I asked myself, why is it? Why is it I struggled with that? And I guess the answer, it came to me in a number of different ways, really. So just recently, we had a guest speaker come and talk at our mastermind group. And his name is Roberto Basha vecino, for short, really, or his nickname. And vaccinia is, is a former volleyball player represented Brazil, and is a coach, as a sports coach is released. an NGO is also a
business coach, now a personal coach. And he came to talk to us and you know about you know, how to overcome difficulties and challenges in life. And really, the central theme that I asked him to speak about was happiness, but that translates as mindset motivation.
So he came in, he gave a great talk. And if you followed me on social media, you heard me probably give a bit of a shout out to some of the things that he covered. And one of the things he covered was this idea, he shared this idea of positive intelligence. It's not his own idea. In fact, shirzad sharmeen, I believe I'm saying his name correctly, was the author of a New York Times bestselling book called positive intelligence, and I'd never heard of it before. vecino shared it with us. But the concept of of positive intelligence is a sector effectively, we literally have two minds, and you probably, you know, think of yourself as Sometimes I'm in two minds about that. And we have this Sage mindset. But we also have this saboteur mindset. That's where I'm going. So I believe, you know,, there's this saboteur mindset that is just seeking to undo the good things that we're going about doing. And if you read shows ads, work on positive intelligence, which I haven't read the full book, but I'm just looking at a website. Now. He talks about mental fitness, and to build this sort of sage mindset so that we can combat and confront this saboteur mindset.
So this habitare mindset, what is that? What is it all about? Why would our own mind wants to sabotage ourselves, that was really struggling and just thinking about this and mulling it over. I hope you're with me so far with this sort of a little bit of a rambling, unscripted, meandering path, through this, this whole concept. And I'm weaving these threads together, you see, you know, why did I not do things? Why did I not follow through and all the principles of thinking Grow Rich, which actually read a couple of decades ago, and thought about affirmations and tried it for a while, but then gave up? And why? You know, when I read about the positive intelligence and the sage mindset, versus the saboteur mindset, you know, what, why, why is it that our brains, our minds, sabotage ourselves, and then that led me to think about the work, if you like, of the doctor, Nicole Lapera, you might know more popularly as the holistic psychologist. And if you haven't, then I suggest you look her up. She's got a great YouTube channel, she's got massive following on Instagram. And she's giving away if you like a lot of secrets to self-healing in terms of psychology. My wife is a psychologist, and she first alerted me to to Dr. Nicola Perez work, and I've been following her and she's got some really fascinating shares, just follow our Instagram account, thoughts of the day type of thing. And she really gets to the heart of the matter, I believe. And I think, you know, I'm probably joining a few dots here, and maybe jumping the odd one. But what Dr. Nikolas is saying is that we have patterns, we have patterns of thought, we have patterns of emotion. And we have patterns of behaviour, which are formed out of a habit, but also what we developed in childhood, and that's really picking up the psychology angle, I suppose. And so I don't want to get too deep into you know, child psychology and how we can overcome, you know, the flaws of the inner child.
Here, because I'm not a psychologist. I'm not trained to be in that area. But I'm really fascinated by that sort of topic. I think the point I'm getting at is this. And it's the you know, we have a saboteur, we and the saboteur, by the way, is really just trying to keep us safe. It does things in order to keep us safe. It doesn't do things to you know, make us fail, it doesn't do things to make us quit or not apply things or follow through on things. It does things or, you know, brings things into our mind or our thinking, to try and keep us safe. That's the purpose of our subconscious. And our subconscious is where we hold our habits, and our habits of thought, in particular. And so this is something I was really thinking about. I hope you're with me, I'm 13 minutes in, as I'm recording this, you know, and I'm wondering if I've lost you yet. But so, where am I going? So we this, there's the knowledge that is out there, this is an example This podcast is YouTube videos, as books as all sorts of material, there are courses, lots of different material out there, that gives us the head knowledge,
then we if we've got the desire to learn, of course, will immerse yourself in more and more of that knowledge. Then there's the application and the application, you know, it takes more than just try it once. Or just try and lean on willpower.
I believe part of the reason that we don't always apply, what we've learned is because of this sabotage, self-sabotaging thought process that we might have, and maybe to quote somebody else in this sort of the same vein is Mel Robbins again if you look up Mel Robbins she's written a couple of books, I think, you know, really good and the one in particular that I'm going to reference is what's called the five-second rule. And what Mel Robbins is talking about with the five-second rule is that we are undone by procrastination often, and the purpose spoiler alert, By the way, the five-second rule is just a quickfire. the process to overcome procrastination. So I use it for example I go running, sometimes I don't feel like it. But if you apply the five-second rule, which is you basically count down from five to one and then go or you do something in, you know, which propels you towards the goal. So in my case, I want to go for a run, not really feeling it 54321 go and go and put my trainers on. Well, once I put my trainers on the amazing go for the run.
So I think that's the teaching that Mel's trying to get over there with the five-second rule. And it's really just to overcome that initial inertia. Literally, you know, just being lazy and stopping doing something. And that's the simplest definition of procrastination. It's just to be a little bit lazy or be a little bit ineffective or unproductive. We see as productivity, issue, procrastination. But interestingly, Mel Robbins goes a bit further than that. And she actually says that there's another kind of procrastination. And one of those types of procrastination is is where we've, we've got anxiety, we've got something that you know, we've got a stressor, we've got something that's really deeply troubling us. And so the procrastination is just our way of avoiding dealing with that stress, dealing with anxiety dealing with that worry.
So it's actually a clue that I'll have a deeper problem, in fact, is what she says. And you know, it's just listening to her work on in the five-second rule. And also in the book, I think it's called kick ass actually, which is a really good book, because she does live coaching with about eight different people, including a real estate investor. So maybe that's another thing for you to check out. So you see, I'm piecing together different elements of, of my thought process. It's been emerging over the last week. And yes, I could have talked to you about due diligence and giving you checklists, and taking you through a simple process, which I wrote about for YPN. Maybe I'll do that next week. But instead, this has been what's on my mind. And it's really because, you know, sometimes we can be our own worst enemy, quite literally. But it's not, it's like we're a Silent Assassin to ourselves, we can't see what we're doing to ourselves, because it's in our subconscious. And then going back to Dr. Nicole Lapera, what she was saying was that we we've got these patterns of behaviour, we've got these patterns of thoughts and patterns of emotion, if you like, and patterns of habit or routine. And she said the very first step to overcoming them is to observe them. And, you know, I've been doing a lot of mindfulness practice at the moment going for a mini mindfulness course, practicing meditation. And I think I've kind of cracked it. I was doing different forms of meditation in the past. And, you know, as using the headspace app, for example, guided meditations, and they kind of couldn't really stick with it. I mean, maybe there's a clue there about, it's a pattern, and I was sabotaging myself. But I think it was the process, I think it was the actual way I was doing it, I think I've now found a way that works for me. And there are lots of different types of meditation and mindfulness practices, you can adopt. So you probably can find one that works for you. But I think the point of mindfulness is just to stop. And just to observe, and to be more aware. And that's what's brought me to think about this topic today. Because I've been stopping. And I've been observing, and I've been becoming more aware. And so when I was thinking, for example, about the idea of why didn't I apply what I learned from reading the book thinking Grow Rich, a couple of decades ago, with these 13 principles in there.
I know if I just applied those principles out of being you know, I'd had a head start and made a lot more progress, if you like, along my own journey. And I would have got out of my own way, and been successful, despite myself.
And yet, I couldn't, I couldn't quite apply it. So I knew it, I had the head knowledge. It was available to me, it was there right in front of me, but I couldn't apply it. And I think where I'm going is, I think sometimes we can sabotage ourselves unknowingly, unconsciously we can get in in our own way we become we can become our own worst enemy. And so that's the point of today's share really, is just to highlight that fact, I've given a number of references there to some bigger brains and the May that you might want to look up or you might want to look into. But no matter what, all the knowledge that we're taking on board. And thank you so much for listening, by the way to this podcast regularly. It's been for over five years now of this podcast. And if you listen, if you read my YPO magazine articles, that's great. And my books and other things like that, that obviously share and I try to put out there. That's the knowledge, okay, some of it. In fact, most of its free, some of its low cost if it's not free.
So there's plenty of information. There's plenty of knowledge for you to consume just from this resource that problem To voice So, go and go and you know, fill your boots so to speak, it's all there free or low cost available, but try and apply it. And if you feel that you're struggling in the application, then I suggest you perhaps think about if you're sabotaging yourself in some way, if you're procrastinating in some way, which might give clues to patterns of thought patterns of feeling, patterns of behaviour, patterns of habit, which are not serving you. Well, and that's getting you to know, I talk, I was talking recently to my wife about roots and fruits, you know, in terms of problems and identifying how to deal with problems.
Now, a problem manifests itself or shows itself as a fruit, you know, just like a fruit on a tree. It's obvious, it's there, it's hanging, you can see it. But what you can't see is the root of the tree, well, if the fruit is bad than the root is bad. And so to fix the fruit, you need to get to the root and then create a healthy root. So that's where I'm going with all of this rambling, I hope it's making some sense. I'm probably going to draw a line under this episode very shortly, so you don't have to enjoy it too much longer. But there's a couple of things to point out to you. I've added positive intelligence to my reading list as a result of this there's a test actually, if you go to the positive intelligence.com website, there is you know, you can discover your top saboteur apparently, and when to do that straight after I've recorded this and find out what mine is. And check out the Mel Robbins five-second rule to overcome procrastination. I suggest you look up the holistic psychologist, particularly on Instagram, Dr. Nicola para, and the by Chino Bhatia, Roberta Bosch.
I'm going to try and put a link to him in the show notes because he's the one who kind of sparked a lot of this thought process and process when he came to share with our mastermind group as well. So if if you feel that you've got a lot of head knowledge, if you feel that you're just pounding on and on and on, for, you know, months, or years, or even a decade or so at a time, and not really getting the results not really getting the breakthrough, then it could well be there's a pattern there. That pattern might come from childhood, it might be our thought process, we might be actually our own worst enemy and sabotaging ourselves. So that's the thought I wanted to leave you today.
I know it's a little bit out there, maybe a little bit woowoo. Hopefully, it's been helpful. I'll add as many of the links that I've been referring to into the show notes, you'll find them over the website, thepropertyvoice.net. So please go over there and check that out. We're doing transcriptions as well. So all the notes you can read as well of this discussion. They should all be over there. Of course, if you'd like to talk to me about anything from today's show, or indeed about property investing, or perhaps even self-sabotage, you know, you know, you can always reach me podcast at thepropertyvoice.net and I'd be delighted to hear from you. But I guess for now that's all I wanted to say this week and until next time,
on the property voice podcast
is cha cha
That's all from me this week, remember if you want to talk about anything from today’s show, or just talk property investing more generally, email me at podcast@thepropertyvoice.net, I would be happy to hear from you! The show notes can be found at our website www.thepropertyvoice.net
Thanks very much for listening again this week, so all that left to say is ciao ciao!