Here is the complete transcript of the podcast
Over the last few months ever since this podcast has become a daily podcast, I have come here and talked about multiple things in multiple areas of life. And one area that I really highlighted a lot over the months is how to have a morning routine, why routines are important, how to set goals, how to block time, how to get things done within those time blocks, and different principles, and different structures. I kept on driving the point that predictability is the key to success.
Now, just a few days ago, I don’t remember the exact date. But I did a podcast episode where I talked about how we are compulsively engaged with the day-to-day happenings, and predictability is good. But then if you become compulsive, about what you want, how you want, and when you want those things to happen, it could create hindrance, the most important thing, when you set a schedule when you follow a structure is to be flexible. Things always do not happen. As you want them to happen as we want them to happen, things have a life of their own. And there are controls that are invisible to us, we think we are in control. But there are so many invisible forces. I also did some podcast episodes, highlighting these things also in the past. But today, what I want to share with you is if your day-to-day existence is becoming boring, you follow a schedule, you do things, but then somehow somewhere, there is no freshness, there is no excitement, there is no newness, and but you still want some newness, some, all of that some excitement, all that to happen. Yet you want to follow a schedule, which I think is possible, you can have both sides of the equation, and I want to share some thoughts with you. There is a principle in self-improvement called Creative Spirit. And I see, I listen, I follow I study a lot of experts, but very few talk about this concept, the society, the traditions, and also due to some of our own self-imposed limitations. We have created different barriers that surround us when it comes to developing ourselves and specifically developing creativity.
Now, creativity is a learnable skill. I talked about this yesterday also, you know, there’s all these things, all the principles of self-improvement, they’re all you know, of course, there is a gift to you know, some element of gift is there into everything in life. But then nature has blessed people differently. But most of the stuff can be learned if you surrender yourself and say I want to be a good student. So let’s talk about why people are not creative, why people fall into this psychosis where they want to do things in a certain way in a certain set pattern and expect set results. And every time there is any deviation. They get worried they get annoyed, angry, and all that the reason why people want to do things in a set way is that the core underlying fear is, what if I make a mistake? Ask yourself, have you ever stopped yourself from doing something different? Even though you knew you could do it, you did not attempt. And if you ask that question, why would you not attempt the truth if you don’t want to make a mistake? Now, the older you get, this fear is even more dominant.
As a youngster, you may accommodate some mistakes, because you don’t know. Hence, you don’t know what’s gonna happen. So you take your chances, some things work out, some things don’t. But as you grow older, and as you get closer to, to, you know, those big numbers like the 40s 50s 60s, you don’t have enough room to make mistakes. So, because you don’t want to make mistakes, you want set predictability into your existence, and set predictability creates unwanted stress on the far end of the equation, which is you don’t feel excited anymore. Sometimes people say they don’t want to be seen as a fool. That’s why they don’t want to take any, any. They don’t make any changes. Sometimes they don’t want to feel like oh, they don’t want to allow anybody to criticize them. That’s why they don’t want to change anything. Sometimes, if I change something, okay, what if somebody and sub misuse my time? You know, my intent, there’s a fear of that.
So they don’t want to change anything, they want to do things in a safe manner. If I change something, what if I find myself alone happens when you change something, suddenly you are alone. Let’s say you carpool all the time, you choose not to carpool. Now you’re alone. Sometimes people don’t want to change anything, because it has become a tradition. Sometimes things provide some subtle amount of security. And losing that security is perceived as a failure or perceived as a risk. So they don’t want to change anything. Sometimes, people want to hang on to the love of the group they’re part of. So if there’s a group activity involved, they don’t want to group. And sometimes individuality is also a problem. Sometimes people don’t want to change something, because changing will put them in a lonely zone. There are so many different reasons why people don’t want to, you know, change something that they think and they know, is predictable. Now, I made this point early, as we started the podcast today, which is, in order for you to have excitement, some level of fun, and some level of a different kind of engagement, you need to change the default psychosis. So, everyday morning, exactly how to wake up at 4:30. And exactly, I have to get breakfast done by 730. And exactly at 845 need to show up at work and have to get flushed. And yes, I can all change it. Great, congratulations. But it’s boring. I wake up at 430. But sometimes I wake up at 6:30 too. There are exceptions. Why? Because if with my night gets delayed, I don’t want to compromise the depth of my sleep. So I woke up late, nothing wrong with it. Now, if I do wake up at 430, which I do, by the way, but I go back to sleep, I do wake up at 430, let’s say sleep at 130, I wake up at 430, then I know my day gets compromised. So it’s just not about the schedule. It’s not about the discipline. It’s also the energy, the productivity, and the impact. All of them go for a toss. So if you don’t become creative, and you are dealing with the tasks of the day, you don’t become creative in how you pursue your goals. This becomes a boring thing. Once life becomes boring, it’s very difficult to recover it. People choose not to do anything eventually. Because they know everything, whatever I do is boring anyway, so I let go.
So many, many years ago, I was at a seminar the very first time I was sharing this principle, you know, how do you bring creativity into your thinking, that was the point and I said four a mind to mind creates the results. But at the same time, the mind is in itself taking all the hits. So for the mind to really come out of this zone where it is feeling the stress anxiety in in boredom and all that it has to come out of it. So you have to train the mind to come out. So you have to tell the mind to think differently. Very simple. So that’s what we call mindset. So this was nearly about 12 years ago, I was doing a seminar and I was talking to a group of people, a small set of people. And I said I was demonstrating how to change the mindset. And I said, Hey, how do you go from this room to the next room? And it was just having an individual in the front?
I asked him I said, How do you How will you go? Oh, I’ll just go from here to there. I’ll take the, you know, I’ll just walk. And I said, Can you tell me how many different ways can you go from this room to the other room? There is so I can go by running. I can walk there, I can jump, I can hop, and said Wow. Okay, I could go from the back of the window of this room and enter through the back of the boondock data room. Well, I said that’s interesting. Can you think a little bit deeper about this? And tell me a few other ways you can do this. No, I don’t think there is any other way to do this. I said what if you get out of this room and go out of the door. Go to the front of the building. Take a taxi to the airport, and buy a ticket. Go to Chicago, New York, London, India, and Hong Kong. Then come back to San Jose, and then take a limo and then show up in the front of the building and then go Walk into the other room. Is it possible? Yeah, it’s possible. Then I said, now that I’ve said that, what do you think? What are some other ways you can go there? Well, I can go out and swim and then go to the ocean, then come back as wonderful as this, then I can simply slide on my stomach all the way from this room to the other room was that wonderful like it.
So the problem with us humans is we limit ourselves by thinking unimaginatively. And sometimes you have to stretch your mind beyond the usual beyond the customary, so that that new thinking will yield some new experiences, to new ideas. And this new thinking will take us to some unchartered territories that otherwise we cannot go. Now, this, the story, this principle of this concept of going from one donkey up to the other, it’s not my idea. This was one of the legends, somebody who I studied very deeply, whose ideas and principles I follow very deep in my life, and have been doing for the last 15 years now. And this concept was first put forward by this, this genius Milton Erickson. And he was a world-famous hypnotherapist, he could literally solve human problems by talking to people using conversations only in some something that I started to practice myself, and I’m nowhere any which were closer to what Milton Erickson did. But I consider him to be one of those legendary, one of those really gifted people who walked the face of the earth and changed the lives of many, many people with his work. And his work even today is something that people are not able to understand, even though people claim that they’re very good when it comes to Ericksonian. hypnosis. I also sometimes claim that but we are nowhere close to a legend domain.
So the message of today’s podcast is to bring some creativity to what you’re doing. Do the same thing. But do it with some difference. inject some freshness into what you’re doing. And freshness is only possible when you think differently. Hopefully, this episode excites you, motivates you inspires you to think differently and do differently.