Welcome back to Useful Thinking.
I'm Laura.
I wanna take a second right at the
beginning here to check in with why you
are actually here, why you are tuning
into a podcast about how your mind works.
Because what we do in this
space, I believe is the most
important work there is.
I do not say that lightly.
Everything you experience in your
life, every relationship, every
opportunity, every fear you have,
every win that arrives, every ceiling,
everything runs through your mind.
First, your mind is the lens that
everything else must pass through.
And I am here to make sure that you do
not live your entire life without learning
how that lens works and how you operate
it deliberately with intention on purpose.
showing up here means you are choosing
to learn that week after week.
, And I believe in the world we live
in today, dedicating a portion of
your life to that training puts you
in a very small group of people who
will actually be able to shape how
they think instead of being shaped by
the information and the environment
that is being presented to them.
So today I wanna give you a
tool we are going to talk about.
Negotiating.
Negotiating with ourselves, especially
in the moments that really matter,
the moments where we've decided
to do something and then we find
ourselves talking ourselves out of it.
And I'm going to give you a highly
effective tool to end that negotiation.
But before we get into that,
let's start with our intention.
By the end of this episode, you're
going to understand the biology behind
why this negotiation happens, and
you are going to walk away with a.
Potent tool that you can use for
the rest of your life in any season
for any decision you're gonna face.
So let's get into it.
I wanna start with a
moment we all know so well.
The moment where we have committed
to do something and we are watching
ourselves actively not doing the thing
we said we were gonna do, we said we were
gonna go have that hard conversation or
we're gonna start a new fitness plan.
We're gonna work on
building a new business.
We're going to take on a new project.
We're gonna take a big
risk in life, right?
You already decided to do this thing, and
then that moment of negotiation arrives.
And you start telling yourself
all the reasons why you're not
going to do that thing right now.
Everybody's negotiation sounds different.
Some of us tell ourselves we're gonna
need more information, or we don't have
enough time, or we're we really wanna
give it the focus that it deserves and so
we're gonna save it for when we can really
dedicate and allocate more time to it.
We need to think about it more, or
we're not feeling well, or somebody
needs us for something, or we didn't
realize we were gonna need this component
or that resource in order to do it.
The negotiation, whatever it is,
it always sounds very reasonable
because the reasons your brain
comes up with are really good ones.
They are well constructed.
They are intelligent, they are
persuasive, and they are all
designed on a biological level.
To get you to not do the thing you
know you should be doing and we all
do this, the reason we negotiate
in that moment is because our
brain feels like it's at capacity.
And taking that action would
require you to expand beyond
how you currently operate.
To use more resources than you currently
have available, and that expansion,
even when it's super positive, right?
That expansion to your
brain registers as a risk.
A risk to available resources.
We've talked about this across
the whole podcast season.
Your brain always and forever wants to
keep you safe and conserve your energy,
your expansion, your growth costs energy.
So that carries uncertainty.
Therefore, your brain is going to do
what it is biologically designed to do.
It generates resistance,
and that resistance generally
shows up in one of three areas.
It's either gonna be physical,
mental, or intellectual.
If it's physical.
Maybe the thing is really uncomfortable.
It could be highly strenuous.
Maybe it does feel a
little unsafe to your body.
Or if it's emotional, there might be heavy
feelings attached to doing this thing.
Maybe you have some kind of emotional
history with it, or there's a
possibility of conflict with
someone to some kind of emotional.
Charge that you know is going to be
uncomfortable if you have to deal with it.
And sometimes it's intellectual because
if you are learning to do something new,
that thing is gonna require learning
new skills, which requires processing
new information, figuring out all of the
mechanics that you haven't mastered yet.
If you're going to try to build muscle.
The desire to have a very strong body is
one thing, but actually learning to lift
heavy weights means understanding all
the angles, where your feet have to go,
where your hands have to go, how you're
supposed to brace, how you're supposed to
breathe, all of the different positioning
cues that you need to remember.
It's a huge intellectual load.
It's completely separate from
your desire to have the outcome.
And the same is true with
anything you're trying to build.
The wanting part is easy.
The desire to have it is easy.
The expansion of who you are, the
expansion that is required to get to that
place is what triggers the negotiation
. And most of the time your resistance,
your negotiation is not gonna be
just one little isolated reason
from one of these three things.
It's usually a sophisticated blend of
them hitting you in a very effective way
that your brain knows is going to have
the highest chance of getting you to quit.
And the reasons your brain generates this
airtight case for why staying exactly
where you are is the smart move is very
sophisticated, and that's the whole
problem, that's what you're up against.
You cannot out argue your brain in the
moment, especially when your mental,
emotional, physical capacity is already
being used, that's the reason you're
having resistance in the first place.
The answer is not to get better
at winning these negotiations.
The answer is to not have
the negotiation at all.
Think about easy.
That would be, and the way you do that is
by deciding how it's gonna be in advance.
You install a standard ahead of time.
So that when the moment comes,
there's nothing to debate.
I want you to think of it
like appointing a judge.
A personal predetermined decision maker
who already knows how you are going to
show up, so you do not have to rely on
yourself to summon your resolve or your
clarity or tap into your big why in
that moment when your brain is actively
trying to convince you to negotiate.
The tool I use for this, the
judge I appoint, is something
I call my at least I statement.
And before I tell you how to build
it, I wanna remind you about something
we've talked about previously,
how your brain experiences time.
Remember that your brain
only really knows one moment.
Your brain knows what's
happening right now.
Whatever's happening in your present
is what your brain treats as reality.
And on some level it means it's
treating the present as permanent.
This is how time now exists for me.
This is why saying life is short
never actually changes how we live.
Even though every single one
of us knows that's 100% true.
We don't feel it in the moment.
It feels like we're gonna have
plenty of time to put this thing off.
'cause the brain isn't built to feel it.
The brain is built to experience
your current moment as the way things
are and will continue to be to look
at what happens to people who have
had near-death experiences, NDEs,
. Those people genuinely
believed for a window of time
that they were about to die.
In many cases, they felt themselves die.
And the thing that happens to so many
of them afterward when they recover is
this profound lasting change in how they
live, because they got really clear very
quickly on what actually matters to them
in their life, and why does that happen?
Because for a moment, for a window,
their brain time saw death, their
present moment became a moment of death.
. The only thing their brain could
see in that present moment was
their own mortality and once death.
Was presented in the current
reality, everything was able
to be reorganized around it.
Now most of us are not gonna have near
death experiences to get that kind of
clarity, and we, we don't want them.
But you can do a manual
version of the same thing.
You can deliberately pull a future
point into your present moment
and make a decision from there.
That's exactly what the, what I call the
at least I statement will do for you.
You're gonna pick a horizon.
It doesn't have to be the
end of your life, though.
That is the most extreme version.
pick a horizon that works for you.
It could be three years from now.
It could be the end of some season, the
end of this project, the end of this year.
You pick a point in the future and
you ask yourself between now and then.
What do I want to be able to
say about how I showed up?
If everything else fell apart, if
nothing worked out the way I hoped?
What is the one thing I would still
be able to say that would give me
a complete sense of satisfaction
that nobody could take from me?
And that becomes your,
at least I statement.
At least I did this.
At least I was that.
I wanna go through a few examples of
these because everybody's, at least I
statement is gonna be different 'cause
it's derived from your own values.
Okay?
So for some people it's
going to be tied to effort.
At least I gave it everything I had.
At least I never stopped trying.
No matter what life threw at me.
At least I always stood back up.
Maybe that feels very
internally satisfying to you.
For some people, it's gonna be how
they love or connect with others.
At least my family always knew they
were the most important thing to me.
At least.
The people in my life felt
seen and held by me at least.
I always showed up for
the people who needed me.
Or maybe it's more about courage, at
least I was always willing to go for it.
At least I was one of the
people willing to take a risk.
At least I never let
fear make my decisions.
. For some people it's gonna be about
integrity, personal integrity.
At least I stayed true to what I believe.
At least.
I never sold myself out.
At least I determined what my
metrics for success were gonna be.
At least I can look myself
in the eye and know my value.
Maybe it's about adventure for you at
least I saw the world at least I traveled
and went everywhere I wanted to go.
At least I said yes to things.
At least I didn't play it safe.
So notice which one of these
flavors kind of landed with you
Again, there's no right answer.
The point is that your, at least
I statement is the one that if
everything else in your life went
to crap, you would still be able to.
At least I blank and
nothing else would matter.
That would give you a
sense of satisfaction.
I'll tell you mine, because it
really threads through my whole life.
Mine is about willingness.
At least I was always one of the ones
willing to go for it, willing to put
myself out there, willing to get in
the arena and get a little bloodied
up and not care whether or not I won,
because at least I always know I tried.
I went for it.
That's the thing for me, that
no matter what happens, no
one can take that from me.
Now, like I said, you don't
have to have one statement to
represent your entire life.
You can have one for a specific season.
I have had several across my
life when my son was very young.
We went through a season, I'll never
forget he had some medical issues.
I'm not gonna go into the whole
story here, but I remember thinking
when we got all the testing back.
It felt like an emotional tsunami,
like this thing was gonna overtake
us and swallow us, and there was
so much grief and so many questions
about what his future could hold.
And I remember thinking my mother actually
helped me find a framework in that moment.
What do I need to commit to right now
so that years from now when I look back
on this time, I don't have any regrets.
Whatever happens, whatever the
outcome is, I want to be able to
say that I don't have any regrets.
About how I showed up during this time.
So I made a decision in that moment.
I set a three year timeframe, and
I said, for the next three years I
was going to set aside every worry,
every what if, every fear about the
future, and pour myself completely
into doing everything within my power.
I knew there might be a cost to that.
I knew there would probably be a cost
to my energy, possibly to my health, to
my relationships, maybe to my marriage.
But I knew that I would rather
pay that cost than spend the rest
of my life wondering if there was
something more I could have done.
So for me, my at least I statement
for that season was very simple.
At least I know I gave it everything.
And 20 years from now, if he is
still in the same state he is today,
I will have peace in my heart.
And I woke up every single day for
those next three years, treating it
like it was an emergency, like it was
the most important thing in the world.
And then I got my full attention.
I was devoting all my time, focus and
energy into learning what I could do to
help him into finding the resources into
pouring myself into everything I could do.
And I'll tell you, we
had a very happy ending.
That little boy is now
pursuing his PhD in theoretical
mathematics at a top institution.
But , that was never even on my
radar, my at least I statement.
Wasn't.
Powerful because it all
worked out in the end.
It was powerful because it
gave me a way to show up every
single day with no negotiation.
The days I wanted to sit in my
closet and sob, I said, there's
not time for that right now.
You're gonna have to
figure that out later.
In three years.
You can cry all you want in three
years, but these next three years you.
You have to show up because you can always
say, at least you gave it everything.
So there was no debating about
how I was gonna show up every day.
I had already decided who I
was gonna be in that season.
I've used this in other seasons too.
When I committed to transforming my body
in 2020, I gave it a full year all in
my, at least I statement was, at least
I'll know it wasn't for lack of trying.
At least I at least I'll
know that it wasn't because.
I didn't track my macros
or I didn't do a workout.
Those won't be the reasons I fail.
And that was how I wanted to live.
And then whatever the outcome
was, I was kind of okay with it.
It's like I was gonna focus on making
sure I executed everything I could for
one year, and then the rest of my life
I would know I had given it my all.
And again, the outcome blew me away.
Right now, in this current season of
my life, building this work, building
my visibility, trying to get it in
front of more people, my statement is.
That at least I'm one of the people
who is willing to wake up every day
and do the most important work of my
life and put it out there even when
it feels like nothing's growing.
At least I'm devoted to
doing my life's work.
I can't control the outcome, but
that feels very satisfying to me.
It pulls me through all
these other moments.
I use this with my graduate
students all the time.
Much of my teaching as a clinical
professor happens in our university
clinic where our students
have to treat real patients
they all have to earn 375 supervised
clinical hours before they can graduate.
So they're learning to do all kinds
of things, deliver hard news, plan
assessments, give evaluations,
build out treatment plans, take
data, adjust things in real time.
It's a lot of work, especially when
you're new to it and they get overwhelmed.
They get in their head about it.
So I ask them, what is your, at
least I statement for this session.
When you are done seeing this
patient, what do you wanna
be able to tell yourself?
One of the favorite things
I offer them is this.
At least I went in there with a plan.
Because we can't control whether
or not the plan is gonna work.
But if you can walk out and say, I had
a plan, I had a clinical rationale, I
had a hypothesis I was gonna test, then
no matter what happened, you showed
up as a master's level clinician.
You had a rationale that you
thought about, and you went in
there with a well reasoned plan.
Nobody can take that away from you.
That's the whole power of this.
You get to decide in advance what would
allow you to feel proud and at peace,
regardless of the outcome, and then that
becomes your personal judge in the moment.
So when you're about to negotiate,
when you feel that, I'm not
sure if this is gonna work out,
maybe I should do this later.
What was I thinking?
Is this the right time?
Instead of trying to argue
with that, run it through.
The judge would doing this task
that I'm avoiding right now align
with my at least I statement?
Would it support that?
Or does backing out of this
actually align with my statement?
If your statement is that you are always
willing to go for it and you're about to
talk yourself out of going for it, then
the negotiation's over it because you
are the kind of person who at no matter
what, at least you always went for it.
So there's nothing left to debate.
You already decided who you are.
So, here's your practice for this week.
Decide what your statement is for the
season of life that you are in right now.
Don't have to do your whole life.
You can just pick this one
season, pick your horizon.
Maybe it's just a few
months away or a few years.
To give yourself a definite timeline
and ask yourself if everything else
fell apart between now and then.
What would I want to be able to say
that no one could ever take from me?
Maybe go back through and listen
to the examples I gave you,
if you need a starting point.
But I want you to say
these statements out loud.
I want you to write them and really
feel into them because you want to
feel a sense of physical activation
when you say that you, you're looking
for an energetic match of pride,
of accomplishment, of satisfaction.
When you say these statements,
that's how you're gonna know.
It represents a part of who you are, okay?
And when you get into a situation where
you're negotiating with yourself, you
just turn to the judge does this thing
you're about to avoid, does this thing
you're considering not doing, does it
support your statement or would not
doing it actually support your statement?
Okay, and let that be the thing
that decides instead of trying to
have an argument with yourself and
then feeling like crap for quitting.
At least you'll have a reason, right?
At least you'll have a reason for
why you can or cannot do something.
So this clarity is a gift that
only you can give yourself.
And once you have learned to use this,
you're going to be amazed at how much
energy you stop spending with these
internal negotiations and battles.
And how proud you feel that you
are the kind of person that can
always know that no matter what
happens, at least you get your blank.
Okay.
That's our episode for the week.
I want to also just give a very
genuine thank you to everyone
who is out there listening.
I truly think about what tools will
help you connect with the power that
you are here to hold in this world?
I believe we continue to get the same
curriculums, the same lessons, the
same experiences as opportunities
to increase our sense of what
we're capable of managing, holding
and navigating in this world.
And nothing makes me happier than sharing
this journey with you and being on
the path with other humans out there.
Who are deliberately training their mind
to open up all that is possible for them.
So thank you for sharing
your amazing mind with me.
I'll see you next week.