[MUSIC] In this lesson, we're going to begin a two part review of the thought model and why it is such an important tool for you to use and understand as a manager and coach. In part one of this lesson we'll talk about the first three elements of the thought model. Circumstance, thought, and feeling. In the next video, part two we'll talk about how these three elements of the thought model influence our actions and ultimately our results. The first step in the thought model is something we call circumstances. So things happen in the world everyday that we can't control. We get stuck in traffic, we have good or bad weather, we have meetings with people at work, we work with certain people, people say things to us, people do things. Those are all circumstances, these are things that we can prove happened. They are provable fact. So, I can prove that you were in a meeting with me. I can prove that during the meeting, John interrupted me. I can prove that there was traffic today. These are all things that are provable, so they are based in fact. And we all have them, and we all have things happen that we can't control. Now, what happens for most of us is most of us are raised to believe, this is just social, common understanding and belief systems, is that things that happen in the world drive how we feel. If I get caught in traffic this morning, I might feel nervous. If I get stuck in rainy weather, I might feel depressed. If I have to work with John on a project, he makes me so annoyed. If I have to work with Lucy on a traveling trip, I get so irritated. Meeting with my boss makes me really anxious. So what we do is we We attribute the circumstance to how we feel. Now the reason that we'd known that circumstances do not drive our feelings is because we don't all have the same feeling for the same the same circumstance. So if you take traffic for example, there could be three people sitting in traffic who are really nervous and there could be three people sitting in traffic who are totally relaxed. What's the difference? Now some people would say well if one's going to be late and the other one isn't and being late makes them nervous. Well we're going to talk about that's actually not true. There could be some people who work with John who are totally annoyed and other people who work with John who think it's really fun and he's great and awesome and funny. There could be some people who work with your boss and don't feel anxious at all, they feel inspired. While what drives how we feel is what we think about our circumstance. So things happen in the world, and then we define those experiences with our mind. We tell ourselves what circumstances mean with a thought, which is really a sentence in your mind. So if I'm traffic, I think, I'm going to be late. I feel nervous. If I'm in traffic, I think, good, I'm going to miss that ridiculous call I always have to go to on Tuesdays. I I feel relaxed. If I work for this boss, I think he's really hard on me. He doesn't understand me. I feel anxious. If I work for this boss, I think wow, he really does listen. I feel inspired. If I work with John, I think that man talks, he never stops talking, I feel annoyed. If I work with John on this project and I think wow, he has so much to contribute, he knows so much, I feel intrigued and curious. Here's the best news. We get to decide what we want to think. Human beings have an amazing capacity, unlike any other species on the plant that we know of that we can actually recognize our mind thinking. So if I say to you right now. Don't think about a polar bear. Whoops, there it is, there's that polar bear. So you can notice that you have thoughts. And so that also means that we can start to pay attention to the thoughts that we want to think on purpose. And I referred to that in the previous lesson. We have up to 60,000 thoughts that fire in our brain everyday. So this isn't about noticing everything we think, but it is about noticing those thoughts that may be getting in the way. That may be not as effective and maybe actually leading to some results that we don't want to have. So thoughts come after the circumstance. We define the circumstance in our mind with our thinking. What we think about drives how we feel. Now this is another area that I want to make sure I've really clarified because a lot of people believe that feelings come from other people or that feelings come from external experiences. But they don't, feelings actually come from our own mind. So one of the examples I like to share about this was several years ago my son came home and he was really upset because his best friend at the time laughed at him and called him weird. And he was really sad and he said I don't understand why he would say that to me. That's not very nice and he's not a good friend. And I said well let's think about this, what if you went to school tomorrow and he pointed at you again and laughed, ha ha ha ha ha, Ben, you look so funny, look at you, ha ha ha, you and your purple hair. You look so funny. And he looked at me and he laughed and he's like mom, I don't have purple hair, and I said right, but when he called you weird you believed it and that's why you have hurt feelings. It's not what he said that hurt you It's what you made it mean that drove how you feel. We've heard that for so many years. Eleanor Roosevelt's famous quote no one can make you feel inferior without your consent, right. So how you feel actually comes from your own thinking about what's going on around you. Now, this is really good news for a lot of people because it gives you an opportunity to recognize that you have some authority over and some control over your emotions, but you don't just have to wait for things to change around you so that you can feel better. But I hope you can also see what happens to so many people is if we believe that our circumstances drive how we feel. So my job makes me miserable, my boss intimidates me, my marriage makes me unhappy, or the other way to say that is people will say I'm going to be happy once I get married. I'm going to be happy once I get divorced. I'm going to be successful once I work for that company, I'm going to be relax once I don't have this job anymore. We wait for our emotional health to improve and we believe that the only way things will get better is our first circumstances change. And I know that it's not true. Do I think that's easy? No, but as a manager this is essential because things are going to be happening to you all day. Managing people is like drinking from a fire hose, man. You have stuff happening all day and really the more dialed in you can get about this that your emotions are your responsibility and not someone else's, the more effective you're always going to be as a manager and a coach.
