WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.240 people ascribe positive and negatives to things without understanding what the deep 2 00:00:06.240 --> 00:00:11.920 ramifications of those things are. Welcome to the game where we talk about how to get 3 00:00:11.920 --> 00:00:15.440 more customers, how to make more customers, and how to keep them longer, and the many failures 4 00:00:15.440 --> 00:00:18.320 and lessons we have learned along the way. I hope you enjoy and subscribe. 5 00:00:20.160 --> 00:00:26.560 I want to talk to you about how to eliminate problems in your life without taking any action. 6 00:00:26.640 --> 00:00:30.720 And as crazy as that may sound, I think that what I will share with you may sound even 7 00:00:30.720 --> 00:00:33.280 crazier. If you don't know who I am, my name is AuctionMozzi, I'm an acquisition.com. 8 00:00:33.280 --> 00:00:36.000 It's a portfolio of companies that is over $100 million a year. So yesterday I was having a 9 00:00:36.000 --> 00:00:41.200 conversation with an old friend of mine, and we have different beliefs around the topic of 10 00:00:41.200 --> 00:00:46.800 problems, especially when it comes to the human condition. And I went on somewhat of a rant 11 00:00:46.800 --> 00:00:52.560 about this topic, and I figured I would encapsulate it here for you guys. And so the problem that 12 00:00:52.560 --> 00:00:58.160 this individual was talking about was a lot of stuff that has to do with mental illness and mental 13 00:00:58.160 --> 00:01:04.400 health. And I think that this is an interesting topic because the entire industry didn't even 14 00:01:04.400 --> 00:01:10.000 exist until a few hundred years ago, and humans have existed for a long period of time. And one of 15 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:17.280 the more interesting things about the mental quote illness category is the importance of labeling. 16 00:01:17.280 --> 00:01:22.080 And if you followed me for any period of time, you'll know that labeling, to me, is one of the 17 00:01:22.080 --> 00:01:30.720 strongest powers that exists in the mind. And I'll give you a reason why. Our minds are meaning 18 00:01:30.720 --> 00:01:37.280 making machines. And so what that means is we determine what is meaningful and what it's not. 19 00:01:37.280 --> 00:01:42.400 And then we ascribe labels to them in terms of positive and negative because that is how we survive. 20 00:01:42.480 --> 00:01:47.920 Now, that being said, our brains are meant to keep us alive, not meant to help us thrive, 21 00:01:47.920 --> 00:01:54.400 right? To use a rhyming word for you. Now, that being said, with this whole concept around labeling, 22 00:01:54.400 --> 00:01:58.720 it's something that I'm probably most passionate about, like the concept of labeling as a whole. 23 00:01:58.720 --> 00:02:04.080 It's unbelievably powerful when it comes to persuading people to do things. It's unbelievably 24 00:02:04.080 --> 00:02:09.200 powerful when it comes to changing people's worldviews and their perspectives on life. And I will 25 00:02:09.280 --> 00:02:12.960 share a few of those examples with you. So I'll give you a quick persuasion example for how powerful 26 00:02:12.960 --> 00:02:18.080 this is. If I wanted to persuade someone to do something, then what I would do was I would create 27 00:02:18.080 --> 00:02:23.200 a positive label that I would associate them with. So I would say, you are probably a loving and 28 00:02:23.200 --> 00:02:28.080 caring man for, you know, you want to provide support for your family. Is that true? They're like, 29 00:02:28.080 --> 00:02:32.160 yes. And I'm like, yeah, you definitely seem like one of those types of people. And since you are one 30 00:02:32.160 --> 00:02:36.640 of those types of people, I think that you should invest in this program that we have because that 31 00:02:36.640 --> 00:02:42.400 would be an alignment with this ideal that we just labeled the person with. And so what happens 32 00:02:42.400 --> 00:02:47.440 is it creates cognitive dissonance because for the person, in order for them to stay in accordance 33 00:02:47.440 --> 00:02:53.120 with the label that they would like to have, they then feel obligated to then act in accordance with 34 00:02:53.120 --> 00:02:58.000 that label that we just prescribed. Now, that's a very simplistic example. You can wave that into 35 00:02:58.000 --> 00:03:02.160 narratives and sales scripts so that people become psychologically labeled and then want to act 36 00:03:02.160 --> 00:03:06.560 in accordance with that label because they see it as positive, right? The thing is is that it can 37 00:03:06.560 --> 00:03:12.880 also work in reverse in terms of how you can harm someone. And the reason that this is so viscerally 38 00:03:12.880 --> 00:03:18.000 upsetting to me is that I have had members of my family extended it and whatnot who have, 39 00:03:18.000 --> 00:03:22.400 I would say, debilitated themselves in large part because of what they believe to be mental illness 40 00:03:22.400 --> 00:03:26.880 and I disagree. Now, many people will get triggered at this. And so I will say my big disclaimer, 41 00:03:26.880 --> 00:03:30.240 which is this is not financial advice, this is not grammatical advice, this is not spiritual advice, 42 00:03:30.240 --> 00:03:35.920 this is not even advice. This is guy making YouTube video about stuff that pisses me off. And 43 00:03:35.920 --> 00:03:40.800 hopefully some of the things that serve me well. Now, let's talk about the labels that are negative. 44 00:03:41.520 --> 00:03:47.840 One of the things, one of the most pernicious acts that exists negative bad stuff is when we take 45 00:03:47.840 --> 00:03:54.080 the human experience that has ups and downs, that has extremes that exist on continuums and we label 46 00:03:54.080 --> 00:03:58.560 one side of the continuum as bad and the other side of the continuum as good. For example, 47 00:03:59.600 --> 00:04:08.000 happy, sad, energized, or weak, tired, right? We have equal opposites. Now, 48 00:04:09.040 --> 00:04:14.000 you know, relaxed, stressed, right? There's lots of examples of these. The reason that 49 00:04:14.880 --> 00:04:20.480 this is so dangerous when we give a positive or negative label is that people think that they have 50 00:04:20.480 --> 00:04:28.240 a problem when they are not feeling happy or energized or relaxed or clear-minded versus foggy, 51 00:04:28.240 --> 00:04:34.800 you know what I mean? Whatever. And the thing is is, in order for there to be light, there must be 52 00:04:34.800 --> 00:04:41.760 darkness. Think about that for a second. In order for there to be good, there must also be bad. 53 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:47.280 If you want to admit the existence of one, there must also be the existence of the other. 54 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:54.960 Right. Awesome. Now, the problem, this is why we have to be careful with labels, the problem 55 00:04:55.680 --> 00:05:00.560 that most people suffer from is that the label normal variations in the human condition 56 00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:06.960 with negative experiences. And so they see themselves as tired and say, this is bad. Where is 57 00:05:06.960 --> 00:05:13.600 it really just part of the human condition? They see them as sad rather than happy and see that 58 00:05:13.600 --> 00:05:20.960 as bad, right? And so what happens is you start to upgrade a finite emotional condition into a long 59 00:05:20.960 --> 00:05:27.920 standing emotional disturbance because you think it's a problem. And the thing is, it's very 60 00:05:27.920 --> 00:05:34.480 easy to sell people on why these things are problems. Big pharma is the king of this. Are you feeling tired, 61 00:05:35.280 --> 00:05:42.800 stressed? Are you hungry? Are you horny? Well, you are suffering from being a human being. 62 00:05:43.920 --> 00:05:50.560 It's being human. Hey guys, real quick, if you're new to the podcast, I have a book on Amazon. 63 00:05:50.560 --> 00:05:54.880 It's called 100 million dollar offers that over 8,000 five star reviews and has almost a perfect 64 00:05:54.880 --> 00:05:59.040 score. You can get it for 99 cents on Kindle. The reason I bring it up is that I put over a thousand 65 00:05:59.040 --> 00:06:03.760 hours into writing that book. And it's my biggest gift to our community. So it's my very shameless 66 00:06:03.760 --> 00:06:08.800 way of trying to get you to like me more and ultimately make more dollars to that later on in your 67 00:06:08.800 --> 00:06:13.520 business career. I can finish the part with you. So that's my gift. Go check it out. Amazon and 68 00:06:13.520 --> 00:06:19.680 back to the show. And so I think a lot of this and the reason that it wraps into the original part of 69 00:06:19.680 --> 00:06:24.720 the prompt of this video is that if we want to be enduring entrepreneurs, we want to be people 70 00:06:24.720 --> 00:06:29.840 who have resilience, we want to people who have mental fortitude, we must be careful about the 71 00:06:29.840 --> 00:06:35.120 things that we label. And there's also the good bad label, which is the simplest label that a lot 72 00:06:35.120 --> 00:06:39.520 of people have described to conditions that are ephemeral, right? They're they're brief, right? 73 00:06:39.520 --> 00:06:47.920 And then they change. But there's also the shoulds have musts need to etc. that we say in our 74 00:06:47.920 --> 00:06:53.440 lives that we have to do these things. We must do these things. And if we do not or else we put out 75 00:06:53.440 --> 00:06:59.840 a threat towards the universe. If I don't get my coffee, I must get my coffee. I need to have coffee 76 00:07:00.720 --> 00:07:06.080 before I start my day. What happens is that we create these implied threats to ourselves in the 77 00:07:06.080 --> 00:07:12.400 universe. If we don't, then what? Right? And so I see this. And this is probably the number one 78 00:07:12.400 --> 00:07:18.560 thing that people, when I'm having conversations with them, it's teaching yourself to listen for 79 00:07:18.560 --> 00:07:23.840 these language patterns because they are indications of, in my opinion, broken thought patterns. 80 00:07:24.800 --> 00:07:31.840 People ascribe positive and negatives to things without understanding what the deep 81 00:07:31.840 --> 00:07:41.920 ramifications of those things are. And so if you are unhappy, awesome. You're human. This is the 82 00:07:41.920 --> 00:07:49.040 human existence. If you are tired, awesome. It will create more contrast for when you are awake. 83 00:07:49.760 --> 00:07:55.200 If you are stressed, amazing. It will give you contrast for when you are relaxed. 84 00:07:56.080 --> 00:08:01.600 If we constantly want to eliminate one side of the continuum, what often happens is that we get 85 00:08:01.600 --> 00:08:07.360 neither side and we become numb to the continuum as a whole. And so we end up missing out on some 86 00:08:07.360 --> 00:08:11.600 of the human experience. And that's okay if that's what you want to do. But the reason I'm making 87 00:08:11.600 --> 00:08:15.280 this video is that a lot of people think they have problems that are not actually problems at all. 88 00:08:15.280 --> 00:08:19.920 They're just part of being human. And I think the biggest problem that most people have is that 89 00:08:19.920 --> 00:08:26.240 they define being human as the problem, which inherently is why they suffer so much. And I'll 90 00:08:26.240 --> 00:08:30.640 say something else that was pissing this person off yesterday that I will reinforce with you, 91 00:08:30.640 --> 00:08:41.920 which is suffering is optional. And an easy story to reinforce this point or a string example. 92 00:08:41.920 --> 00:08:47.680 This is if you read Victor Franco's man search for meaning. And it's very visceral description, 93 00:08:47.680 --> 00:08:52.240 if you haven't read it, of Auschwitz and the prison camps during World War II. 94 00:08:54.480 --> 00:08:59.920 He basically posits in the book, and this is a one-line summary that's doing a massive injustice 95 00:08:59.920 --> 00:09:08.480 to the book, that between circumstance and response is choice. And that is the power that all 96 00:09:08.480 --> 00:09:12.960 of us have. Even when he was stripped of everything that he possibly could have, he still had 97 00:09:12.960 --> 00:09:19.440 choice. And so in that gap is where I believe we find the human experience, we find how we define 98 00:09:19.440 --> 00:09:26.160 how we choose to live. And it drives me up a wall because I feel like a lot of people suffer 99 00:09:26.160 --> 00:09:31.520 because they feel like the way that they are living is somehow wrong or bad or non-optimal, 100 00:09:31.520 --> 00:09:37.840 or they need to take a pill or an injection to solve being human. And I think if we can simply 101 00:09:37.840 --> 00:09:42.560 change our expectations about what being human really means, and I say this passionately, 102 00:09:42.560 --> 00:09:48.640 because I very much suffered from this for a very long period of time. I was obsessed with being 103 00:09:48.640 --> 00:09:54.560 happy. And in being obsessed with being happy, anytime I was not happy, I saw it as bad, 104 00:09:55.120 --> 00:10:04.000 rather than a part of being human. And I drove myself nuts. And I think I made myself more unhappy. 105 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:09.040 Now, I say this now, not as though the being more unhappy is better good, but I think that most 106 00:10:09.040 --> 00:10:15.600 people want to decrease their emotional disturbances that they experience. And so I think a key 107 00:10:16.400 --> 00:10:22.080 to not suffering is a, understanding that the human experience has peaks and troughs, 108 00:10:22.080 --> 00:10:27.200 and it is normal and it is okay. And as a side note, one of the strongest mental health things 109 00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:31.680 that I did for myself, I don't share with you things that worked for me, is that I created a 110 00:10:31.680 --> 00:10:35.840 mental refrain. It's just a simple thing that I can say to myself in my mind over and over and 111 00:10:35.840 --> 00:10:42.160 over again, is that when I'm experiencing a negative, quotes here, negative, part of the human 112 00:10:42.160 --> 00:10:49.120 experience, I'll say, and that's okay. That's all. I'd be like, I'm really annoyed right now. 113 00:10:49.120 --> 00:10:54.000 I'd be like, and that's okay. Rather than then casting judgment on the emotion, because a lot 114 00:10:54.000 --> 00:10:57.760 of times you don't have control over your emotions, but you do have control over the judgment with 115 00:10:57.760 --> 00:11:02.240 which you apply to the emotion that you experience and the response that you have as a result. 116 00:11:03.440 --> 00:11:11.680 And so I think this is where power is formed as humans, is that some people, two people are 117 00:11:11.680 --> 00:11:16.400 exposed to the same stimulus, right? Same circumstances and one person perseveres and the other 118 00:11:16.400 --> 00:11:21.680 person does not. And a lot of it is because of the choices that we make between circumstance 119 00:11:21.760 --> 00:11:29.440 and response. And that's kind of back to Victor Franco's thing. And I'll wrap off this final 120 00:11:29.440 --> 00:11:35.040 little thing here, this rant, with a quote from, I think it was, I think it's Socrates. He said, 121 00:11:35.040 --> 00:11:43.680 wisdom begins with a definition of terms. And so most arguments or disagreements can be resolved 122 00:11:43.680 --> 00:11:50.640 if both people come to an agreement on terms. And it's because we say things like happy, we say 123 00:11:50.640 --> 00:11:57.440 things like healthy, we say things like wealthy, we say things like success, right? And we haven't 124 00:11:57.440 --> 00:12:02.320 defined the terms yet. And then two people will have different definitions of what those terms mean, 125 00:12:02.320 --> 00:12:06.640 or more likely nonexistent definitions, because they've never even thought about it, right? Some 126 00:12:06.640 --> 00:12:13.360 amorphous word that they throw out to bucket some general ideas and disagree, but they have very 127 00:12:13.360 --> 00:12:18.160 different definitions of those things. And the way that you define the outcomes that you want to 128 00:12:18.160 --> 00:12:25.840 experience will help you achieve them if that is what you so desire. And I think that there's 129 00:12:25.840 --> 00:12:30.400 a tremendous amount of wisdom in that concept, because, you know, in Socrates' quote, because 130 00:12:30.400 --> 00:12:36.160 like, for example, when we sold our three of the companies that we sold last year, right? 131 00:12:37.440 --> 00:12:43.120 Jim Wont's prestigious labs in Allen, we sold those to different buyers. And what was interesting 132 00:12:43.200 --> 00:12:49.280 to me was when I read through the contracts, the first half of like 50 plus page contracts were 133 00:12:49.280 --> 00:12:54.480 just defining the terms. And I thought that was just so interesting that in order to come to an 134 00:12:54.480 --> 00:13:01.120 agreement, we must first agree on terms, right? What is the scope or territory of a non-compete? 135 00:13:01.120 --> 00:13:05.120 And then there'd be a paragraph, and then that word non-compete would be put somewhere else. 136 00:13:05.120 --> 00:13:11.520 And the actual agreements themselves oftentimes are very simplistic. It's like party A as defined by, 137 00:13:11.520 --> 00:13:17.760 you know, appendix one, agrees to sell, right? Sell being defined, you know, in appendix two, 138 00:13:17.760 --> 00:13:23.680 to party B, right? As defined by said asset, said assets defined it. You know what I mean? And so 139 00:13:23.680 --> 00:13:30.960 what happens is when you become clear about the words you say, you can communicate and think more 140 00:13:30.960 --> 00:13:34.880 clearly. And a lot of times, I think that this resolves a lot of the emotional disturbances that 141 00:13:34.880 --> 00:13:39.040 we experience as humans, because we realize that they were never problems to begin with only 142 00:13:39.040 --> 00:13:44.880 that we define them that way. And they're in, lie the problem of how we experience them. And so 143 00:13:45.680 --> 00:13:50.240 this is something that very, very passionate about. Hopefully the topic was not as amorphous as 144 00:13:50.240 --> 00:13:56.880 hopefully it sounded to you. But people suffer because they choose to define their experience 145 00:13:56.880 --> 00:14:04.000 as suffering. And I think that many of us can experience fewer emotional disturbances or not 146 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:10.160 upgrade them to long standing emotional disturbances by simply saying, A, I'm experiencing this 147 00:14:10.160 --> 00:14:17.920 emotion which will pass, comma, and it's okay. And B, subset, this is part of being human. 148 00:14:18.880 --> 00:14:23.680 And then what happens is we can start redefining what the human experience should be. And if we say, 149 00:14:23.680 --> 00:14:29.840 for example, that experiencing the full spectrum of the human experience is a life well lived, 150 00:14:30.560 --> 00:14:36.720 and we desire to have a life well lived, then we are doing a good thing when we suffer, 151 00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:44.640 when we are sad, when we are stressed. Because we are living our life to both extremes at different 152 00:14:44.640 --> 00:14:48.480 times in different seasons to the fullest degree so that we can look back on our lives and say, 153 00:14:48.480 --> 00:14:57.040 I was a human being, I lived this life. And anyways, these are things that keep me up when I think 154 00:14:57.040 --> 00:15:03.360 about what it means to be human. And I think Buddha had a really interesting concept around this, 155 00:15:03.360 --> 00:15:07.200 which is, he talks about the middle path in life, which is, by the way, a lot of people don't 156 00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:10.880 know this, but Buddha was a prince beforehand. So he had all the riches, he had all the comforts, 157 00:15:10.880 --> 00:15:14.480 and then he went to extreme poverty on the other side of the spectrum. And he was like the 158 00:15:14.480 --> 00:15:19.760 middle path. So it's understanding both sides of the human experience and not saying either one 159 00:15:19.760 --> 00:15:25.440 is good or bad, but they just are. And then I think when we do that, we remove the judgment of 160 00:15:25.440 --> 00:15:31.360 self, which is where a lot of the suffering occurs, rather than simply being present for the experience 161 00:15:31.360 --> 00:15:37.200 and enjoying it for what it is, which is just being human. And we don't fall prey to the narrative 162 00:15:37.200 --> 00:15:43.360 of the big farmers that say that being human is wrong, being human is bad, experiencing emotions 163 00:15:43.360 --> 00:15:50.400 is not normal. It's the most normal thing. It's the most normal thing for people to be unhappy 164 00:15:51.360 --> 00:15:56.800 sometimes. It's the most normal thing for people to be tired sometimes. It's normal to be hungry. 165 00:15:56.800 --> 00:16:03.280 It's normal to be horny. It is part of being human. And we create so much suffering for ourselves 166 00:16:03.920 --> 00:16:09.520 by saying that there is a problem with simply existing during a period of time on a continuum. 167 00:16:10.160 --> 00:16:15.920 And then that problem that we label then becomes longstanding rather than something that passes 168 00:16:15.920 --> 00:16:21.040 with time. So lots of love, everyone. Most of the nation appreciate you if you're new to the 169 00:16:21.040 --> 00:16:26.240 channel. Welcome. Lots of love, either way. I have nothing to sell you. Keep being awesome. Bye.