I've had other friends who uh who were drug and alcohol addicts who quit after one conversation never went back that's awesome that means they they W it yeah just one one guy I won't out him but walked up to me at a party in 2019 July Fourth party and said uh I'm a pile and I go what and he goes I'm a pile look at me I'm 60 lbs overweight I go do you drink he goes every day I go how much he goes a case he goes I smoke a lot of weed but he's successful in other areas of his life and so I said well here's what I know quit alcohol and weed for you you know I'm not telling people what to do don't eat until 2: p.m. get on the exercise bike and pedal in the morning like someone's chasing you with a poison dart till you want to puke and I was kind of half joking right and then uh two months later he was like I haven't had a drink I lost 30 lb he lost that 60 lb he never went back now he's he's super fit it's amazing so some people flip the switch he is very self-critical by Nature that's what flip he super self-critical yep that's what flips the switch Yeah think about it man we know what to do we don't need Angie huberman to tell us what to do we know what to do every one of us that's why he flipped it so fast cuz he knew what to do he didn't go by your exact protocol he didn't go by the exact no he knew exactly what to do and you just saying some [ __ ] to him it woke something up he knew what to do and that's the thing that people need to get that you know what to do why aren't you doing it and I'm talking about myself now you know those modes of just kind of passive consumption they're so easy to wash over us I used to have this thing and I'm fighting this now cuz I knew we were going to have this conversation today where I like to start things on the hour the half hour right worst practice in the world for me because if I miss that half hour I'm like ah it's 12:33 I'll start at 12:45 right ah it's 12:45 I'll start at 1 I just lost time right and then and so this is so stupid right and the other day I was like man I got to tell David about this cuz my new thing is I start no matter what time it is right if I wake up in the middle of the night I got a friendy Paints in the middle the night I'm like you're an insomniac he's like I don't know I just do it then sometimes he goes back to sleep sometimes he doesn't everyone's got their thing but I thought about this I'm like I'm no more or am I going to say I'm starting at 1 cuz I I know me if I miss the 1:00 Ding and my Pen's not hitting the paper not typing the on the keyboard I'm not going to do it like that that's a self- admitted weakness I love it man um I had that for a lot of years um I know I'm going to do it that's the haunting part is that it's going to happen it has to happen and that's a fact like there's no get out of Ja free car bro none like that is a life that I don't know I don't I don't have that ability or I have the ability I don't have the um I'm not good enough smart enough I'm not talented enough to do that some people are some people can start at one some people don't have to start it all if you lack Talent you can't sit back and say I start in half an hour I can't do that I got to start now and after I get back from starting I got to start again and then when I get done with that run or that study session if it wasn't good enough I got to go back again because repetition is what is is is what taught me everything I had hubman on the show a few months ago and he told me about bringing you into his lab and putting you in VR underwater with sharks right give me your experience with huberman he's great he he knows his stuff he knows his stuff um yeah he's just a he's a very knowledgeable man on what he's doing what's being in VR with sharks like it's nothing no no no because one thing about me is I deal in reality you put me in VR as VR it's a fake thing and I work in reality I only work in reality I don't work in fake situations so that's why it didn't work on me you put me in a real ocean with real sharks you'll get your real reaction you put me in a room that I when you walk in the door and you sit down in the chair and you put some on youring face I know I'm in aing chair I know I'm in a room if you get that psyched the out you need to study that more than that you know what I'm saying yeah why are you so sensitive why you so if you are on a high wire cuz you're afraid of heights but you're sitting firmly on the ground you need to study the fact that you're doing something wrong don't study the freight of heights study why the do I know I'm on the ground in aing chair but I'm afraid of what's on this screen so I don't allow anything to go beyond the truth he said that um obviously you didn't know this in advance it could have been the most lifelike VR in the history of the world and apparently it was a group of you guys and someone had to go first someone had to go first you're not that good with water not sure how you feel about sharks but can't imagine you're a fan um and you would just like me mhm me please I'm first yeah I'm like that with everything because why sit back in the back and think about let me watch you go first you can watch me go first is there anything that you'd like to study with hberman would there be any like cool tests is there anything that you've been thinking about to do with performance or anything like that at the moment no you've just got your own mental lab you're doing everything mental lab every everything I need is in my mental lab everything because I'm in constant study of myself that's and I know what needs to be conquered because I'm constantly going through what I don't like what I'm not comfortable with you know like I'm I know and only I can fix these problems because I have to face these problems so I have a rolling a rolling log on what needs to happen so I'm I'm really good about being accountable about okay you need to be better here you need be better here you need to overcome this overcome that and I do a good job of doing that you talk about performance without a purpose mhm what's that so like for instance let's say you have no races let's say you have no classes no nothing you have there's no purpose in your life you know people need to have purpose to get up they need purpose to perform you need to get to a point in your life where there's nothing on the docket there's no 5K there's no there's no um I'm going to get into school to be this or that and still perform to the highest level because what people don't get is one day that thing is going to come up and if you're not constantly performing without purpose you're not going to be ready when the time comes it's this magical thing purpose that we're all looking for but what's funny about it all is that we need these things to perform but we don't take a second to realize the purpose is always there the purpose never leaves us cuz the very purpose is you you are always the purpose there may be another purpose like being a seal or going to college or whatever but the main purpose in life is you so if you wake up in the morning and you don't want to do something you don't care enough about yourself and that's what you need to really research is man why why am I not doing this for myself because that is that is the number one purpose in life is to better oneself so that's the only purpose I can need so the reason I get up every day even though there's no RAC or there's no school there's nothing in front of me is because I have pride in myself the law of grandiosity we humans have a deep need to think highly of ourselves if that opinion of our goodness greatness and Brilliance diverges enough from real it we become grandiose we imagine our superiority often a small measure of success will Elevate our natural grandiosity to even more dangerous levels our high self- opinion has now been confirmed by events we forget the role that luck may have played in the success or the contributions of others we imagine we have the Golden Touch losing contact with reality we make irrational decisions that is why our success often does not last look for the signs of elevated osity in yourself and in others overbearing certainty in the positive outcome of your plans excessive touchiness if criticized a disdain for any form of authority counteract the pull of grandiosity by maintaining a realist assessment of yourself and your limits tie any feelings of greatness to your work your achievements and your contributions to society keys to human nature let us say that you have a project to realize or an individual or group of people you wish to persuade to do something you can think of the project or task ahead of you as a block of marble you must sculpt into something precise and beautiful the block is much larger than you and the material is quite resistant but the task is not impossible with enough effort focus and resiliency you can slowly carve it into what you need you must begin however with a proper sense of proportion goals are hard to reach people are resistant and you have limits to what you can do with such a realistic attitude you can summon up the requisite patience and get to work imagine however that your brain has succumbed to a psychological disease that affects your perception of size and proportion instead of seeing the task you are facing is rather large and the material resistant under the influence of this disease you perceive the block of marble as relatively small and malleable losing your sense of proportion you believe it won't take long to Fashion the block into the image you have in your mind of the finished product you imagine the the people you are trying to reach are not naturally resistant but quite predictable the emphasis is not on what you need to do to succeed but on what you feel you deserve we can call this psychological disease grandiosity as you feel its effects the normal realist proportions are reversed your self becomes larger and greater than anything else around it that is the lens through which you view the task and the people you need to reach this is not merely n nism in which everything must revolve around you it is a feeling of being not merely human but Godlike your task as a student of human nature is three-fold first you must understand the phenomenon of grandiosity itself why it is so embedded in human nature and why you will find many more grandiose people in the world today than ever before second you need to recognize the signs of grandiosity and know how to manage the people who display them and third and most important you must see the signs of the the disease in yourself and learn not only how to control your grandio Tendencies but also how to channel this energy into something productive grandiosity has its roots in the earliest years of our life in our first months most of us bonded completely with our mother we came to believe that the breast that gave us food was actually a part of ourselves we were omnipotent all we had to do was feel hungry or feel any need and the mother was there to meet as if we had magical powers to control her but then slowly we had to go through a second phase of life in which we were forced to confront the reality our mother was a separate being who had other people to attend to we were not omnipotent but rather weak quite small and dependent this realization was painful and the source of much of our acting out we had a deep need to assert ourselves to show we were not so helpless and to fantasize about Powers we did not possess some children do not go through that second phase in early childhood in which they must confront their relative smallness and these children are more vulnerable to deeper forms of grandiosity later in life they are the Pampered spoiled ones the mother and the father continue to make such children feel like they are the center of the universe shielding them from the pain of confronting the reality the early pampering marks them for life they need to be adored they become Masters at manipulating others to pamper them and shower them with attention they naturally feel greater than anyone above them if they have any Talent they might rise quite far as their sense of being born with a crown on their head becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy in the past we humans were able to channel our grandiose needs into religion gods and Spirits represented these elemental powers of nature that dwarfed our own by worshiping them we could gain their protection connect to something much larger than ourselves we felt enlarged many centuries later in a similar manner we channeled this energy into worshiping leaders who represented a great cause and promoted a future Utopia such as Napoleon bonamar and the French Revolution today in the western world religions and great causes have lost their binding power we find it hard to believe in them and to satisfy our grandio energy through identification with a greater power the need to feel larger and significant however does not simply disappear it is stronger than ever and absent any other channels people will tend to direct this energy toward themselves because of this we find more and more grandio individuals Among Us other factors have also contributed to increases in grandiosity first we find more people who experienced pampering attention in their childhood than ever in the past second we find increasing numbers of people who have little or no respect for authority or Experts of any kind no matter the the experts level of training and experience which they themselves lack without a sense of anyone rightly being above them and deserving Authority they can position themselves among the highest in looking at the people around you you must realize that their grandiosity and yours can come in many different forms most commonly people will try to satisfy the need by gaining social Prestige people may claim they are interested in the work itself or in contributing to humanity but often deep down what is really motiva them is the desire to have attention to have their high self opinion confirmed by others who admire them to feel powerful and inflated people still tend to idealize leaders and worship them and you must see this as a form of grandiosity by believing someone else will make everything great followers can feel something of this greatness on a more personal level people will often idealize those they love elevating them to god or goddess status and by extension feeling some of this power reflected back on them in the world today you will also notice the prevalence of negative forms of grandiosity many people feel the need to disguise their grandio urges not only from others but also from themselves they will frequently make a show of their humility they are not interested in power or feeling important or so they say but you will notice they have a need to display this humility in a public manner it is grandiose humility their way to get tension and to feel morally Superior A variation on this is the grandiose victim they have suffered a lot and been the victim numerous times in essence they are compelled to create the drama that will turn them into a victim feeling and expressing their Misfortune gives them their sense of importance of being Superior in suffering you can measure the levels of grandiosity in people in several simple ways for instance notice how people respond to criticism of them or their work some people become enraged and hysterical because we have called into doubt their sense of greatness you can be sure that such a person has high levels of grandiosity similarly such types might conceal their rage behind a martyred pain expression meant to make you feel guilty grandiose people are generally big talkers they take credit for anything that is even tangential to their work they invent past successes higher grandiose types generally display low levels of empathy they are not good listeners when the attention is not on them they have a far away look in their eyes and their fingers twitch with impatience finally they exhibit non-verbal behavior that can only be described as grandiose their gestures are big and dramatic their voice tends to be louder than others and they speak at a fast pace giving no one else time to interrupt if such types happen to be your Rivals consider yourself lucky they are easy to taunt and bait into overreaction finally you will need to manage your own grandiose Tendencies the greatest protection you can have against grandiosity is to maintain a realistic attitude you know what subjects and activities you are naturally attracted to you need to play to your strengths and not imagine you can be great at whatever you put your mind to you must have a thorough understanding of your energy levels of how far you can reasonably push yourself and of how this changes with age this self-awareness has a physical component to it that you must be sensitive to when you are doing activities that mesh with your natural inclinations you feel ease in the effort when you take on too much more than you can handle you feel not only exhausted but also irritable and nervous you are prone to headaches when you have success in life you will naturally feel a touch of fear as if the good fortune could disappear you sense with this Fear The Dangers that can come from rising too high and feeling too Superior your anxiety is telling you to come back down to earth the grandiose leader if people with high levels of grandiosity also possess some talent and a lot of assertive energy they can rise to positions of great power mesmerized by their image we often fail to see the underlying irrationality in their decision-making process and so follow them straight into some disaster they can be very destructive to awe us and distract us from the reality they employ certain theatrical devices it is imperative for us to see through their stage tricks to demythologize them and scale them back down to human size the following are six common Illusions they like to create I destined grandiose leaders often try to give the impression that they were somehow destined for greatness they tell stories of their childhood and youth that indicate their uniqueness as if fate had singled them out they highlight events that showed from early on their unusual toughness or creativity either making such stories up or reinterpreting the past the future great leader was already in gestation at a young age or so they make it seem when you hear such things you must become skeptical look for the more mundane facts behind the Tales of Destiny and if possible publicize them I'm the common man woman in some cases grandiose leaders may have risen from the lower classes but in general they either come from relatively privileged backgrounds or because of their success have lived removed from the cares of Everyday People for quite some time nevertheless it is absolutely essential to present themselves to the public as highly representative of the average man and woman out there only through such a presentation can they attract the attention and the Adoration of large enough numbers to satisfy themselves the trick grandiose leaders play is to place the emphasis on their cultural tastes not on the actual class they come from the public can now identify with them despite the obvious contradiction but the grandiosity of this goes beyond merely gaining more attention these leaders become vastly enlarged by this identification with the masses they are not merely one man or woman but embody an entire nation or interest group to criticize them is to want to crucify the leader and betray the cause if you notice such paradoxes and primitive forms of popular Association stand back and analyze the reality of what is going on I will deliver you these types often rise to power in times of trouble and crisis they will be the ones to deliver the people from the many problems they are facing in order to pull this off their promises have to be large yet vague the message must be simple to digest reducible to a slogan and promising something large that stirs the emotions what you will find mind here is that they are creating a cult more than leading a political movement or a business you will see that their name image and slogans must be reproduced in large numbers and assume a Godlike ubiquity people who now believe in the cult are doubly mesmerized and ready to excuse any kind of action at such a point nothing will dissuade True Believers but you must maintain your internal distance and analytic Powers I rewrite the rules a secret wish of humans is to do without the usual rules and conventions in place in any field to gain power just by following our own Inner Light When grandio leaders claim to have such Powers we are secretly excited and wish to believe them as a variation on this grandiose leaders will often rely on their intuitions disregarding the need for focus groups or any form of scientific feedback they like to create the myth that their hunches have led to Fantastic successes but close scrutiny will reveal their hunches Miss as often as they hit when you hear leaders present themselves as the consumate Maverick able to do away with rules and science you must see this only as a sign of Madness not divine inspiration I have the Golden Touch those with heightened grandiosity will try to create the legend that they have never really failed if there were failures or setbacks in their career it was always the fault of others who betrayed them related to this is the belief that they can easily transfer their skills this is often a fatal move on their part as they attempt things beyond their expertise and quickly become overwhelmed with the complexity and Chaos that come from their lack of experience in dealing with such types look carefully at their record and notice how many glaring failures they have had although people under the influence of their grandiosity will probably not listen publicize the truth of their record in as neutral a manner as possible I'm vulnerable the grandiose leader takes risks but this boldness is not really under control these daring activities make them feel alive and on edge it becomes a drug they need bigger stakes and rewards to maintain the feeling of Godlike invulnerability in fact they are rather invulnerable until that fatal hubristic maneuver in which they finally go too far and it all crashes down suddenly the aor of being invulnerable is shattered this occurs because their decisions are determined not by rational conc considerations but by the need for attention and glory and eventually reality catches up in one hard blow practical grandiosity grandiosity is a form of Primal energy we all possess normally grandiosity makes us imagine we are greater and more Superior than is actually the case we can call this Fantastical grandiosity because it is based on our fantasies and the skewed impression we get from any attention we receive the other form which we shall call practical grandiosity is not easy to achieve and does not come naturally to us but it can be the source of tremendous power and self fulfillment practical grandiosity is based not on fantasy but on reality the energy is channeled into our work and our desire to achieve our goals to solve problems or to improve relationships although the the precise way to channel the energy will depend on your field and skill level the following are five basic principles that are essential for attaining the high level of fulfillment that can come from this reality based form of grandiosity come to terms with your grandiose needs you need to begin from a position of honesty you must admit to yourself that you do want to feel important and be the center of attention only with this self-awareness can you begin to transform the energy into something practical and productive concentrate the energy Fantastical grandiosity will make you flp from one fantastic idea to another imagining all the accolades and attention you'll receive but never realizing any of them you must do the opposite you want to get into the habit of focusing deeply and completely on a single project or problem you want the goal to be relatively simple to reach and within a time frame of months and not years you will want to break this down into many steps and goals along the way your objective here is to enter a state of flow in which your mind becomes increasingly absorbed in the work to the point at which ideas come to you at odd hours this feeling of flow should be pleasurable and addicting related to this you want this project to involve skills you already have are in the process of developing your goal is to see continual Improvement in your skill level which will certainly come from the depth of your focus your confidence will rise that should be enough to keep you advancing maintain a dialogue with reality your project begins with an idea and as you try to hone this idea you let your imagination take flight being open to various possibilities at some point you move from the planning phase to execution now you must actively search for feedback and criticism from people you respect or from your natural audience you want to hear about the flaws and inadequacies in your plan for that is the only way to improve your skill if the project fails to have the results you imagined or the problem is not solved Embrace this as the best way to learn analyze what you did wrong in depth being as brutal as possible once you have feedback and have analyzed the results you then return to this project or start a new one letting your imagination loose again but incorporating what you have learned from the experience by maintaining a continual dialogue between reality feedback and your imagination you will create something practical and powerful if you have any success with your projects that is when you must step back from the attention you are receiving look at the role that luck may have played or the help you received from others as you now focus on the next idea see yourself back at square one never rest on your laurels or let up in your intensity seek out calibrated challenges your goal with practical grandiosity is to continually look for challenges just above your skill level if the projects you attempt are below or at your skill level you will become easily bored and less focused if they are too ambitious you will feel crushed by your failure however if they are calibrated to be more challenging than last project but to a moderate degree you will find yourself excited and energized let loose your grandiose energy once you have tamed this energy made it serve your Ambitions and goals you should feel safe to let it loose upon occasion think of it as a wild animal that needs to roam free now then or it will go mad from restlessness what this means is that you occasionally allow yourself to entertain ideas or projects that represent greater challenges than you have considered in the past you feel increasingly confident and you want to test yourself consider developing a new skill in an unrelated field or writing that novel you once considered a distraction from the real work or simply give freeer Reign to your imagination when in the planning process [Music]