In the current global challenges we all face it is easy to become overwhelmed by the complex realities of daily life. In this video I want to share some simply steps you can take to dial down the stress and anxiety and stay focused on what is most important. We can learn to take mental control over whatever we face.
Transcript
Well, Hey everybody, Jonathan, with you here for the semi daily podcast, where
Speaker:your listeners know the joke, I get these done as often as possible, but I'm doing
Speaker:some interesting stuff at the moment.
Speaker:I'm doing a lot of stuff in global macro finance and central banking.
Speaker:As you do COVID is.
Speaker:Sort of raise my interest in a few new areas.
Speaker:So I'm doing some stuff in that space with a different podcast, and I'm still doing
Speaker:a lot of stuff in the education space.
Speaker:I, I still love doing this.
Speaker:I hope it's a blessing to the many of you still listening.
Speaker:And I really appreciate that you do that.
Speaker:So friends back here in Australia, we are deep down the rabbit hole of lockdown.
Speaker:I'm going to try really hard, not to give my opinion.
Speaker:I'm what I think about it.
Speaker:Can sense how hard I'm trying right now.
Speaker:And, uh, so I've gone back on Twitter and you know, 30 seconds
Speaker:on Twitter is basically you just, it's just so polarizing, right?
Speaker:There's so much anger you're in darkness out there.
Speaker:So I think my position is what it's always been.
Speaker:That any content I produce, I just want it to be an encouragement
Speaker:and a blessing to people.
Speaker:Cause life's hard enough.
Speaker:We need the truth, but, uh, it seems like a lot of social
Speaker:media does do doesn't do that.
Speaker:It sort of just makes us want to do terrible things to strangers
Speaker:that we're never going to meet.
Speaker:So let's not do that.
Speaker:Let me give you some encouragement for those of us in lockdown, uh, for those
Speaker:of us around the world, you know, we're not all in lockdown, obviously many of
Speaker:you listening to this in the U S won't be we're all facing difficult times, right?
Speaker:There's a huge amount of.
Speaker:Uncertainty.
Speaker:There's a huge amount of instability in the world.
Speaker:And I was saying yesterday that really the lessons of history are crucial.
Speaker:I think it's something in our very short media timeframes that
Speaker:we forget super easily, right.
Speaker:That the lessons of history are really important.
Speaker:One of the important things to think about in this season, we're all going through.
Speaker:Is that the piece that we've lived under the relative piece since about 1945,
Speaker:since the end of the second world war.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:We had the Korean war.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:We had the Vietnam war.
Speaker:We had the cold war.
Speaker:So if you look at, say the Cuban missile crisis, you can see a time,
Speaker:um, you know, back in the sixties where we came genuinely relatively close
Speaker:to nuclear annihilation, but we did.
Speaker:So the experience for most people in the world for close to the
Speaker:last kind of, you know, you'd probably say 70 years, 75 years.
Speaker:Has been one of relative pace, which is historically unprecedented.
Speaker:You know, the human experience has been one of, a lot of conflict and a lot
Speaker:of tribalism and a lot of difficulty.
Speaker:And the life that we encounter right now is relatively new in human history.
Speaker:So let's start from a position of gratitude, right?
Speaker:Things are different.
Speaker:But they're nothing like as difficult as they were at different times.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:We're going through COVID.
Speaker:But if you look at the Bee-Bots play back in the 16th century, you know,
Speaker:that a third of Europe's population was wiped out one third of the population.
Speaker:So yes, things are challenging.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Things are difficult, but.
Speaker:We're still living in pretty good times.
Speaker:So let's start from that position.
Speaker:I guess what might be useful in this episode is to simply talk about how do
Speaker:we really navigate difficulty, right?
Speaker:How do we navigate difficult seasons in life?
Speaker:Uh, Karen and I were saying recently that, you know, we look back over this
Speaker:last 18 months, two years, and it's probably been the hardest in our life.
Speaker:It started with, uh, my accident.
Speaker:Uh, I don't know if you can see these.
Speaker:Camera, but, uh, you know, I got a whole bunch of metal in both sides.
Speaker:You can probably see the scars on my head still that's, you
Speaker:know, near death experience.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:And, um, they put me in hospital for a long time and then COVID happened.
Speaker:And then we lost the ability to travel, which hugely affected, you know,
Speaker:what we were doing around the world.
Speaker:And then we had homeschooling and we had, you know, uh, challenges
Speaker:in our personal family lives.
Speaker:Uh, you know, that were really quite.
Speaker:Quite significant and, you know, sufferings kind of relative, right.
Speaker:So we've been through difficult times and you have to, and anybody listening
Speaker:to this or watching this we've all been through difficult seasons, right?
Speaker:So we were talking yesterday saying, what do you do?
Speaker:What are you doing?
Speaker:Things are really difficult.
Speaker:Um, you know, we lost, um, one of the kids of some family, friends, um, tragically
Speaker:took their own life recently in that.
Speaker:Hugely impacted us.
Speaker:And then we received some news this week that another, uh, another young
Speaker:person had, had, uh, been lost as well in the same way, which hugely impacted.
Speaker:So it's kind of like waves for us, right?
Speaker:Like going through this season where just waves and waves, you know,
Speaker:there's times you've ever been at the ocean and you're, you're diving under
Speaker:waves and the next one and the next one, and the next one, you wonder how
Speaker:long you can keep coming up for air.
Speaker:So that was the context of our conversation yesterday.
Speaker:And maybe some of you listening have been through something similar.
Speaker:So what do you do?
Speaker:So a lot of people have all sorts of different systems
Speaker:of coping with difficulty.
Speaker:I've often said.
Speaker:On the show that, uh, the standard ones are avoidance.
Speaker:So people avoid either through avoiding difficult conversations or
Speaker:people or situations are they avoid through drugs, alcohol, internet
Speaker:addiction, social media addiction.
Speaker:Avoidance is one blame is the other.
Speaker:So when we're going through difficulties, we blame and attack the people that we
Speaker:feel, uh, uh, causing our own happiness.
Speaker:So these are the standard human responses.
Speaker:So, is there a better way?
Speaker:And here's what I'm going to suggest that I, the first thing I want to do is
Speaker:just switch to our daily quote, which I've been sending out to everybody.
Speaker:This is again from Adler, from Alfred Adler.
Speaker:Who's my favorite, uh, psychologist and thinker at the moment.
Speaker:Really quite brilliant.
Speaker:And, uh, he's quite as this meanings are not determined by situations,
Speaker:but we determine ourselves by the meanings that we give to situations.
Speaker:Meanings are not determined by situations, but we determine ourselves by the
Speaker:meanings that we give to situations.
Speaker:So.
Speaker:This is this basic psychological principle that it's, it's never
Speaker:what's happening around us.
Speaker:That is the most important fact.
Speaker:Dad feels that way.
Speaker:Doesn't it like when we're going through difficulty locked down,
Speaker:relationship problems, financial problems, health problems.
Speaker:We're all pretty convinced that the most significant aspect is the event itself.
Speaker:And I get it right on one level.
Speaker:It is like, you know, you're not worried about a car accident until you have one.
Speaker:And then that becomes the biggest thing I get it.
Speaker:But what adults trying to remind us is that.
Speaker:It's not just the situations that we face.
Speaker:It's the meaning that we apply to them.
Speaker:So as I go through this season, I am trying to say to myself, you know,
Speaker:look, this is an invitation for trust.
Speaker:It's an invitation for growth.
Speaker:There's been some positives I've been able to do some study
Speaker:in some really interesting.
Speaker:So I have to apply a good meaning to it.
Speaker:I have to apply useful.
Speaker:Meaning Tony Robbins used to talk about this a lot, you know, I mean, I'm not
Speaker:saying there's no objective truth.
Speaker:I'm just saying that whatever we're facing.
Speaker:We can find an empowering meaning.
Speaker:And the ultimate example is always is Victor Frankl.
Speaker:If you go back to his book, man's search for meaning, you know, when he survived
Speaker:Auschwitz and recently reading that other book are the happiest man in the world.
Speaker:That just was amazing.
Speaker:This guy went through probably worse in a way than, than Victor
Speaker:Frankel did in our streets and found some empowering ways out.
Speaker:So just take some confidence.
Speaker:So whenever you're dealing with in life, You can find a meaning.
Speaker:And I guess you're listening to me going somewhere.
Speaker:What do you do?
Speaker:You just magically go, well, I'm going to believe this.
Speaker:I think you look, you're going to believe something, right?
Speaker:Like you're going to give meaning, I mean, humans are meaning
Speaker:giving, giving, uh, creatures.
Speaker:You're gonna have to pre-history you look at our ancestors, you look at the
Speaker:ancient stuff in, um, you know, even in the earliest cave paintings, going
Speaker:back hundreds of thousands of years.
Speaker:We see humans trying to give meaning and narrative to what
Speaker:was happening around them.
Speaker:So I'm here in Australia and you look at our indigenous cultures here, like
Speaker:many indigenous cultures in the world.
Speaker:They have these rich layers of meaning.
Speaker:In terms of how they explain the world around them.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:So they have these foundational mythologies about how they, so
Speaker:there's something about us in terms of evolutionary psychology that
Speaker:we are meaning giving creatures.
Speaker:We give meaning to the circumstances around us.
Speaker:So if that's true, if I'm right, which I think I am, at least you
Speaker:can look at the historical record.
Speaker:Then the question simply becomes, we need to apply meanings
Speaker:that are useful and impact.
Speaker:It's not always easy to do, is it, it's not always easy in the midst of
Speaker:the difficulties to find that meaning.
Speaker:And maybe that's the price tag of a superior life.
Speaker:And by superior as always, I don't mean better than other people.
Speaker:I just mean an enhanced quality of life.
Speaker:So are the limits to this.
Speaker:Uh, you know, at what point do you say this is just terrible, you know, even
Speaker:if you get to the point of experiencing something in your life, maybe at the
Speaker:moment that is really terrible, then you can give it a meaning such as this
Speaker:can no longer be tolerated and I need to change and I need to change the situation.
Speaker:So that's one big thing, right?
Speaker:I want to say two things in this short message today.
Speaker:I hope it's short.
Speaker:I haven't got a timer in front of me, but, uh, first one is
Speaker:to let's give good meaning.
Speaker:To whatever we're going through.
Speaker:You know, Karen's freaking out because she's worried that we're going to get
Speaker:in, locked down here again next week.
Speaker:And then our three young kids are going to be back home for homeschool.
Speaker:And I'm like, okay, well, you know what, first thing of it's going to happen.
Speaker:It's going to happen.
Speaker:We can't control it.
Speaker:What we can control.
Speaker:It's the meaning that we give to it and the structure we put around
Speaker:it and just make the best of it.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So it's this, this decision, it's this, this, you know, we all have habits, right?
Speaker:So it's this habit of whatever's happening to me.
Speaker:I'm going to find.
Speaker:An impairing meeting and I have had to train myself to do this.
Speaker:I haven't quite mastered it yet, but I'm definitely somebody
Speaker:that didn't start out this way.
Speaker:I've had to really learn how to do this.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Last thing is if you're in lockdown or you're somewhere else in the world, and
Speaker:life's difficult, really what I want to offer you is this 24 hour mentality.
Speaker:I'm just a big believer in this.
Speaker:That fear is fundamentally related to perceptions of something happens.
Speaker:In a future that hasn't happened, obviously that we can't control.
Speaker:So there's a real paradigm here.
Speaker:There's a balancing act.
Speaker:We need to keep one eye on the future.
Speaker:You know, all the work that I'm doing in finance and, and global macro finance,
Speaker:I can spend a lot of time looking at the global macro financial outlook, right.
Speaker:So yes, I have one eye on the future, but only get to make choices while I'm
Speaker:alive while I'm awake or any given day.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:We haven't yet mastered how to make choices while we're sleeping.
Speaker:So one of the best ways to get out of anxiety and fear, I'll
Speaker:give you two tips at the moment.
Speaker:One is stop reading too many news websites.
Speaker:They just, the psychology behind most of them.
Speaker:I mean, I try and really locate high quality journalism and I pay for it.
Speaker:So I'm finding some really high quality writers on sub stack and.
Speaker:And other places.
Speaker:So you want to dial down your anxiety, dial down your access.
Speaker:So I haven't watched television news in probably 15, 20 years.
Speaker:You know, mainstream news, websites and TV is pitching to
Speaker:the broadest possible demographic.
Speaker:And it's pitching to that huge demographic, mostly through fear.
Speaker:So then one of the basic ways that you get attention and people's concentration is
Speaker:fear will do it more than anything else.
Speaker:So if you want to dial in the stress in your life, the anxiety in your life,
Speaker:dial down the access to clickbait news.
Speaker:Go looking for better new sources and it really is some great journalism out there.
Speaker:And I think that the real shift at the moment is we're moving from
Speaker:a, uh, free access new system to a more user pays based new system.
Speaker:The upside of that is that it releases journalists to write some really
Speaker:good stuff and to be rewarded for it.
Speaker:The downside is that tends to silo everything.
Speaker:So we tend to end up with.
Speaker:We all tend to draw our news from what we would call trusted sources.
Speaker:It's interesting.
Speaker:Today I was watching the white house press secretary, Jen Saki, talking about
Speaker:how the U S federal government wants to deal with what it deems as fake news
Speaker:about, uh, you know, COVID, and they're sort of said that we're going to.
Speaker:They're going to help Facebook by drawing to Facebook's
Speaker:attention, inappropriate posts.
Speaker:So wherever you stand on this stuff, it's just not a good idea.
Speaker:When the government gets in the business of, uh, I guess of approving
Speaker:and disapproving of different, uh, information out there, you know,
Speaker:the best thing for bad information is better information, right?
Speaker:Not canceling and blocking everything, but I digress.
Speaker:So let's summarize.
Speaker:Number one, give good meanings to difficult circumstances.
Speaker:Find an impairing, meaning number two, dial down your access to anxiety
Speaker:causing media content and three try and live in 24 hour blocks.
Speaker:Just get into that paradox of one eye on the future.
Speaker:It's Friday here when I'm recording.
Speaker:Um, A hundred K training ride.
Speaker:I'm planning in the morning.
Speaker:Um, I'm going to do some stuff with my daughters.
Speaker:So I've got this kind of, I know what roughly tomorrow is going
Speaker:to look like, but I, they, you know, I'm just enjoying today.
Speaker:I've got some friends coming over later.
Speaker:It's a, it's terrible weather.
Speaker:It's all my snowing here in Australia today.
Speaker:Tomorrow is a maximum of six degrees.
Speaker:And, uh, so.
Speaker:Put the fire on this afternoon and just enjoy today.
Speaker:Just enjoy seeing a couple of friends cause we're not in lockdown just yet.
Speaker:So I hope that's useful to you one day at a time.
Speaker:Empowering folks.
Speaker:Reduce anxiety causing elements.
Speaker:All right, housekeeping.
Speaker:Uh, I'm back on YouTube.
Speaker:So you have you seen this on YouTube, please?
Speaker:Subscribe, hit the notification icon, uh, everything else on the website.
Speaker:Jonathan doyle.co dot C O uh, if you're stuck with something,
Speaker:if there's a topic you'd like me to cover, just send me an email.
Speaker:Jonathan at Jonathan Doyle.
Speaker:Co hope.
Speaker:This is a blessing to you.
Speaker:Please make sure you've subscribed wherever you're watching or listening.
Speaker:And I'll have another message for you very soon.
