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The Magic of Sleep Thinking Part 1 with Eric Maisel — Transcript

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0:00Stay hungry. Stay foolish.
0:03Before we launch into the latest
0:05installment of the brains, beliefs, and
0:07biases series here on the Innovation
0:09Show, I want to thank our sponsors Zai,
0:11boldly transforming the future of
0:14financial services with a suite of
0:15embedded products and services, enabling
0:18businesses to manage multiple payment
0:21workflows and move funds with ease. You
0:23can check out Zai at helllozai.com.
0:26Let's get into the latest installment of
0:29brains, beliefs, and biases. And this
0:31one, the magic of sleep thinking.
0:34Imagine solving problems and increasing
0:37creativity while you sleep. Today's book
0:40introduces a simple but revolutionary
0:43program that shows how to do just that
0:46by learning to tune into your deepest
0:48intuitions.
0:50Case studies illustrate the effects of
0:52sleep thinking on ordinary individuals.
0:56This tool for idea generation and life
0:58purpose clarification offers answers
1:01that lead to actions and results in
1:04positive changes. All by getting clear
1:07on the real nature of a problem and
1:10learning to listen for the answers.
1:13It is a great pleasure to welcome the
1:14author of that book and a multitude of
1:16others, but the focus of today's episode
1:19in the brains, beliefs, and bias series
1:22is his book, the magic of sleep
1:24thinking, how to solve problems, reduce
1:27stress, and increase creativity all
1:30while you sleep. It is a great pleasure
1:32to welcome Eric Maisel. Eric, welcome to
1:34the show. Great to be here with you.
1:37It's funny hearing the title of the book
1:39because the book started out as just
1:41sleep thinking, then it became the power
1:44of sleep thinking, then it became the
1:46magic of sleep thinking. Publishers have
1:49their ideas about what titles should be.
1:52>> [laughter]
1:52>> Hopefully our audience is intrigued as I
1:55was. I I have to say before we even
1:57start, I am a sleep thinker, but I never
2:00had a program around it. I never had a
2:02structure around it. I've written my own
2:04book, and most of those chapters I I
2:06kind of say to people they wrote
2:07themselves while I slept because I was
2:09often waking up and kind of going, "I
2:11got it. I got it." And I'd scramble to
2:13write it, but it's so great having a
2:15structure around that. And I'm sure this
2:18happens you. You've written multitude of
2:20books, and I'm sure you've written a lot
2:22of them in your sleep. Absolutely. I
2:24hand over my current book to my sleep
2:27thinking mind, and
2:29I go directly to my work first thing
2:32every day, 5:00 in the morning.
2:34And that's why I get lots of books done.
2:38Um
2:38I'm sure we'll talk about it, but even
2:40if you do good sleep thinking,
2:43if you don't turn to your work, then
2:45this whatever you have been thinking
2:46about just evaporates.
2:49You just turn to the new day, and it's
2:50lost. So, part of the program, one of
2:53the key steps is
2:56processing the night immediately after
2:58you wake up. I know this book is going
3:00to appeal to our audience so much, Eric,
3:02cuz it's not just about becoming more
3:04creative, but it's about solving big,
3:07hairy, audacious goals, big problems
3:09that you have in your own life. And
3:11we're going to get into all that, but I
3:12thought one of the ways we'd start was
3:15to talk about the origins of this book
3:16cuz I mentioned your other books, you've
3:18studied creativity, you've studied
3:21stress reduction. But it was through
3:23many of the interviews with creative
3:25people that you discovered that they
3:26were all doing this, but they didn't
3:28necessarily have a structure around it,
3:31and this is what led to the magic of
3:33sleep thinking. That's correct. I've
3:35been working with creative and
3:36performing artists for 35 or 40 years
3:38now.
3:39I understand how they work, and also how
3:41they don't work. That is when they're
3:43not getting their work done.
3:45I can tell why they're not getting their
3:47work done, and
3:48one of the reasons is that they're not
3:50getting to their work in a daily way
3:52first thing.
3:54So, it was in working with creative and
3:55performing artists that this all came to
3:57me, but also there was a big study in
3:592004,
4:02big German [clears throat] study,
4:04where really for the first time
4:05researchers awakened people in non-REM
4:08sleep instead of REM sleep.
4:11400 years since Freud's Interpretation
4:14of Dreams in 1899, we've been waking
4:16people up in REM sleep. We've been
4:18over-curious about dreams,
4:20spent a lot of time on dreams,
4:23but not on the way in which the brain
4:24thinks during the night. And then in
4:262004, German researchers decided to wake
4:29people up in non-REM sleep when we
4:31think, and they discovered that poets
4:34were writing poetry and mathematicians
4:35were solving math puzzles. People were
4:37thinking.
4:39And so, this was a piece of breakthrough
4:41research that um
4:43buttressed my understanding of what was
4:44going on, and also um
4:47allowed the book to be published because
4:49as you probably know, everything now is
4:50supposed to be evidence-based. Even
4:52though we're perfectly clear intuitively
4:54that something's true, now we have to
4:56act like a piece of research is
4:58necessary to buttress that truth. So,
5:01fortunately that study came out just at
5:04the time I was trying to hawk this book,
5:07so that that that worked well.
5:10Let's give some of the examples because
5:11one of the most intriguing things that
5:13happened me was one of the dreams I had,
5:15and I have to I have to really dig deep
5:18at myself here to go, was that my dream
5:20or not? Because one of the things I do
5:22is I listen to affirmations as I sleep,
5:25or I listen to positive subliminal
5:28programming, and I often used to listen
5:31to the lectures of Alan Watts, and I
5:34wondered once cuz I had a I had a dream
5:37that I wrote into my own book of a snake
5:39swallowing its own tail, and then later
5:41on I read about Kekulé and his idea of
5:45the ouroboros essentially, which became
5:47DNA or or
5:49or benzene. And I you you talked about
5:53this and you talk about a multitude of
5:54examples of great inventors that come up
5:57with solutions or mathematicians that
5:58come up with solutions in their sleep. I
6:00wanted to mention them up front
6:03for two reasons. One is to give the
6:05examples of them and I'd love you to
6:06share a few, but also to say to our
6:09audience, this is not about being a
6:11genius. This is about solving problems
6:14in your life. Questions such as as Eric
6:17addresses in the book,
6:18is my partner having an affair? What
6:21should I do with my life? Should I move
6:22out from this uh person I live with
6:25who's being very noisy in the apartment?
6:26How do I address a suspicion I have that
6:29one of my children is taking drugs or
6:32alcohol? All these basic questions that
6:34go through our minds throughout life,
6:37Eric addresses those those and sleep
6:39thinking is a way to get to the
6:42solutions for those problems. Over to
6:44you, Eric, maybe to start with some of
6:46the high-level
6:47mathematician and scientific examples.
6:50Actually, I want to go sideways a little
6:52bit from what you brought up.
6:54There was a time I did a book called
6:56Life Purpose Bootcamp some years ago and
6:58I was interviewing folks
7:01who presumably had a pretty good sense
7:04of their life purposes and their
7:06meaning-making needs.
7:08And I discovered an interesting thing in
7:11doing those interviews and that was that
7:13for each of each of the folks I
7:14interviewed,
7:16there came a point where the meaning had
7:18drained out of what they were currently
7:19doing,
7:20whether it was teaching or their faith
7:24or whatever it was, it just no longer
7:26held meaning for them. But here's the
7:28interesting
7:29It's not so interesting that meaning
7:31drains away, that happens, we know that.
7:33The interesting part was that even
7:35though they knew that meaning was gone,
7:38it took them on average 5 years to to a
7:40change.
7:425 years to either give up tenure or or
7:44leave their order or whatever it was
7:46that they needed to do, it took them a
7:48long time to do it.
7:51For me, that speaks to both the
7:54possibility of change, certainly, but
7:56the difficulty of making the changes we
7:58need to make.
8:00It's why I think sleep thinking is so
8:02useful for not just problem solving in
8:05the generic sense
8:07or inventiveness in the generic sense,
8:10but
8:11in helping us make movement sooner
8:13rather than later, which is one of those
8:15things we would like to do in life
8:17so that we can move on with our lives
8:19and fill up our lives with new meaning
8:21and new life purposes.
8:23So, that's all by way of saying
8:25yes, this is about solving problems, but
8:28it's also about
8:30propelling your life forward in a in a
8:32more rapid way, in a way where you don't
8:34feel like you're just going through the
8:35motions year in and year out.
8:38To give a simple example, not a high bar
8:40example, but just a simple example pops
8:42to mind of
8:43a woman who whose husband had
8:47just gotten one of those bad cancer
8:49diagnoses.
8:53And the problem that she had was, of
8:55course, dealing with it, but the
8:59particular problem she was dealing with
9:00was how to tell the how to how to tell
9:02the kids.
9:03How to share with the adult kids
9:05the fact that their father was dying.
9:08And that's what she gave her sleep
9:11thinking mind as a sleep thinking
9:13prompt. How should I tell how can I tell
9:15them?
9:16By the way, just to say what I just said
9:19more carefully,
9:21one of the steps in the book is to go to
9:23bed with a sleep thinking prompt. That
9:25is to
9:26have a kind of wonder about something,
9:28to be wondering.
9:30My catchy phrase for that is to go to
9:32bed with a wonder rather than a worry.
9:35But to be wondering about something. So,
9:36wonder was um
9:39"What's the best way to tell the kids?"
9:43And I think you can tell that if you
9:45don't ask yourself that kind of
9:46question, you may just put off telling
9:49the kids and put off telling the kids
9:51until it's way past when you had wished
9:53you had told them. At any rate, for her,
9:57it came up for her that there was a
9:58particular park that the family loved
10:01and that she was going to prepare a
10:02picnic and take them to the park and
10:05tell them there, and that's what she
10:06did.
10:08So, it's those kinds of day in and day
10:11out ordinary problems that we put off
10:14solving
10:16that can be solved using this
10:18sleep thinking, to be fancy about it,
10:20methodology.
10:22It's really just inviting your brain to
10:24do what it wants to do.
10:26As you know, since this is your area of
10:28interest, the brain's got to be the most
10:30interesting thing in the universe.
10:33And we can reduce it to, you know, brain
10:35scans or what have you. We can reduce it
10:37to something much smaller than it than
10:39it is, but
10:40it's huge.
10:43My wife and I just watched the other day
10:45that movie about the Indian
10:47mathematician whose name I can't
10:48pronounce
10:50who in a
10:52in about the um
10:54old 1920s, I believe it was,
10:59was solving impossible mathematical
11:02problems in his mind
11:05without without doing the steps. He was
11:07just coming to the conclusions. His
11:09brain was obviously going through the
11:10steps it had to
11:12in some way go through the steps to get
11:14to the conclusions.
11:16But when he sent his notes to his
11:19favorite professor at Cambridge whom he
11:21hoped to work with, professor said, "You
11:24can't You can't know this stuff.
11:26If you're not showing me the steps of
11:28the proof, you're just making this up."
11:30To which his reply was, "No.
11:34I'm absolutely sure this is the And
11:35ultimately, all of his proofs were
11:37proven true. He had to slow down and do
11:40the proofs,
11:41which for actually a smart person is
11:43sometimes hard to do, to slow down and
11:45do the the intermediary work. But that's
11:49all by way of saying the brain is
11:50amazing,
11:52and it can provide us with our best
11:54answers to simple simple to everyday
11:57problems like "Where can I tell the kids
11:59this?" Or the biggest questions that we
12:03have, and for
12:05creative folks,
12:07there's almost always a knotty problem
12:10in the center of whatever they're
12:11working on.
12:14The kind of problem that
12:17the way I say it to myself sometimes is
12:18that the book I'm working on may not be
12:20available to me yet.
12:22There's something that I don't know
12:25that without that information, I can't
12:27really proceed, and that's absolutely
12:30sleep thinking material. That's what If
12:32you If you turn that kind of question
12:36Parenthetically, I forget the guy's
12:38name, but but the fellow who did book on
12:40slave trade, I think the book was called
12:42The Middle Passage, if I remember that
12:44correctly.
12:45Just popping into my head that
12:49he couldn't proceed with his book until
12:51he figured out how God would appear on
12:53the ship.
12:56It was a so to speak practical problem.
12:58He wanted a non-cliche way of God
13:01appearing on the ship,
13:03and he couldn't continue working on his
13:05book until So, he turned that over. He
13:10He He put it more in the realm of power
13:13napping or dreaming than sleep thinking
13:15that he Sleep thinking was not his
13:16language for what he was doing, but of
13:18course, it is what he was doing.
13:20And he came up with the answer that it
13:22would appear as a certain kind of totem
13:24in the hold. In other words, he got the
13:25answer. But without the answer, without
13:28these kinds of answers, whether they're
13:30everyday matters or creative matters, we
13:33are stuck.
13:34And creative folks find themselves
13:36stuck. They don't quite know why they're
13:38stuck. Then they have they present other
13:40reasons for why they're stuck, that
13:42they're too busy or they're too tired or
13:44they're too this or they're too that.
13:45And they don't quite realize that
13:47there's some naughty problem
13:49that they need to turn over to their
13:51sleep thinking brain. And once that
13:53problem is said, could be a plot
13:55problem. It could could be any sort of
13:56problem, but typically there are such
13:59problems and they need to be solved. You
14:01address throughout the book some
14:03questions that have obviously come to
14:05you over time from maybe keynote
14:07speeches or from your clients cuz Eric
14:10also coaches sleep thinking amidst other
14:12things to his clients. But, one of the
14:15things you say is some people ponder
14:17quite early in the process. They kind of
14:19go, "That's just plain old thinking,
14:21right?" And you address that question
14:23and then you say, "You got to look at
14:26some of the research of one of our
14:27former guests, which is Susan
14:29Greenfield." And she talked about the
14:31idea of neural Gestalts. And I thought
14:34that would be interesting to explain
14:36that to our audience as well, Eric, if
14:38you wouldn't mind. It's a it's a
14:39beautiful picture
14:42of
14:44how the brain operates and
14:47connects to ideas from Buddhism and
14:49other places of
14:53how we harm ourselves by thinking
14:55thoughts that don't serve us and how
14:57every thought grabs neurons.
14:59So, to say this simply,
15:01a thought is nothing more than a certain
15:04number of neurons, a lot of them, 100
15:06million, 200 million, 300 million,
15:08gathering together to do a certain kind
15:10of work
15:12to make a thought.
15:15And that's what she's calling a neuronal
15:17Gestalt, namely neurons coming together
15:19to do a certain kind of work for a
15:21certain amount of time.
15:25Some of our neuronal Gestalts, to to use
15:27that language, or some of our thoughts
15:30which don't serve us
15:32remain alive and pester us forever.
15:35It might be a thought like I'm not
15:36talented.
15:38I'm not talented sounds like just a
15:39cognition, so to speak, but it's a
15:41neuronal Gestalt. It's a thought
15:44that has grabbed 300 million or 3 years
15:47X number of your neurons to maintain
15:50that thought. That means that you don't
15:53have those 300 million neurons available
15:55to do some good work.
15:57And
15:59to
16:01switch metaphors, it's it's like monkey
16:03mind in Buddhism. If you're having lots
16:05of small thoughts, that's what you're
16:08having.
16:09And that's what most people are doing
16:10all day long. They're having one small
16:12thought. Not all of them are negative
16:14thoughts. It might be I need to pick up
16:16my kid at 3. Or should I saute the
16:19spinach with garlic or not? Could be
16:20that kind of thought.
16:22But even a thought like that, which is
16:24not a negative thought, grabs neurons.
16:28So we need a mechanism. We need a way of
16:30carving out at least a portion of the
16:32day where we where we release the grip
16:34of neurons on all of those small
16:36thoughts.
16:38It's really what the creative process is
16:39is releasing the grip of neurons around
16:42all the thoughts it doesn't need to be
16:43Our brain doesn't need to be thinking at
16:45that particular moment.
16:49And it's easier said than done. It's
16:50it's hard to get in in my vernacular,
16:53it's hard to get quiet enough
16:56because oddly, what releasing the grip
16:59of all of these neuronal Gestalts sounds
17:01like is silence.
17:03It's a pregnant silence because it's the
17:06silence into which ideas are going to
17:08percolate up.
17:10But to begin with, it's silence, and
17:13people hate that silence.
17:16They want to immediately fill it with
17:20the next thought. For a lot of people it
17:21feels like a near-death, really bad
17:23experience to be that quiet inside.
17:26That's why so many people have the radio
17:28on, and if anybody knows what a radio is
17:29anymore.
17:31So [snorts] many people have the radio
17:32on all day long or something on all day
17:34long.
17:35Fox News on all day long just to have
17:38just so they don't have to approach
17:40silence.
17:42So that's all by way of saying all the
17:45thoughts we think grab neurons.
17:47If we want to solve problems or think
17:50deeply, it it's that absent-minded
17:52professor image where that person just
17:55is not going to remember that the dinner
17:58bell just rang or that it's his wife's
18:01birthday or that he was supposed to have
18:03picked up the kids at 3:00. That sort of
18:05irresponsibility,
18:07that irresponsibility is about not
18:10maintaining small thoughts. Now, that's
18:12not always good to not maintain small
18:14thoughts. You do want to pick up the
18:15kids at 3:00. You don't want them
18:16standing out there in the rain.
18:19But what we're talking about here is how
18:20to maximize our brains
18:23efficiency, utility, and brilliance. And
18:26that's by
18:28maybe for the first time not thinking
18:29small thoughts.
18:31I love what you said there about the
18:33quietude, essentially, that one of the
18:36great things that happened to me during
18:37COVID. I think during the COVID
18:39lockdown, I saw it as a way of
18:41cocooning, literally, where you were
18:43becoming something new during the COVID
18:46period cuz it it made you reflect on
18:49things. You know, the when people went
18:51through a period of watching everything
18:53that was available on Netflix or Amazon
18:55Prime or Disney Plus, and they ran out
18:57of those things, and it's like, "What do
18:58I do now?" And for a lot of people, they
19:01reflected, and they wondered, "Am I in
19:03the right role? You know what? I don't
19:05really like my job. I don't like my
19:06boss. I don't like my partner." Whatever
19:08it might have been.
19:09But I thought of a quote by Blaise
19:11Pascal and it was all of men's worries
19:14or problems stem from his inability to
19:18sit quiet in a room.
19:20And this links nicely to something that
19:22you talk about in the book, which is not
19:25only do we need to prepare for sleep in
19:28order to be quiet because most of what
19:30happens and what most what percolates
19:32for most of us is the worries of the
19:34day.
19:35We revisit them during the night. But
19:37then you mention a quote in the book and
19:39I think it's by Henri Poincaré who said
19:42that
19:43that
19:44to invent is to choose. And this goes to
19:48the very core of what you talk about is
19:49that you need to be able to discern
19:53what's junk or what's just recycled
19:56thoughts in your mind and what are those
19:59wonders that you're answering and what
20:01are you actually digging into in your
20:04sleep? And this is a core aspect of
20:06sleep thinking. There's a lot of a lot
20:08of complications, a lot of complicated
20:09stuff in what you just mentioned. First,
20:12let me tease some of the ideas apart.
20:15Number one,
20:17people don't understand this. Creative
20:18people especially don't understand this.
20:21Choosing by its very nature provokes
20:23anxiety.
20:26I just want to pause there. Let people
20:27take that in because
20:29the creative process in its essence is
20:32one choice after another.
20:34Put the comma in, take the comma out,
20:35put a little red here, put a little blue
20:37there.
20:38It's choosing
20:39on and on and on ad infinitum.
20:46Since choosing provokes anxiety, what
20:49the would-be creator does is flee the
20:51encounter.
20:53That's what we do when we're made
20:55anxious by something as we get the heck
20:57out of there.
21:00So an awful lot of would-be creative
21:02folks and creative folks are fleeing
21:04their work all the time without knowing
21:08that what's going on is that they have a
21:11next choice and a next choice and a next
21:13choice to make and they don't feel up to
21:15facing that choosing.
21:18So all by way of saying we have to get
21:20very easy with choosing. Doesn't mean
21:22we're going to make the right choice. We
21:24have to make choices. We have to send
21:26our character to Paris and if 40,000
21:28words later that was the wrong thing to
21:30have done, so be it.
21:33But to to put her back where she was and
21:35send her to Zanzibar next, but we have
21:37to we have to have sent her to Paris or
21:39somewhere
21:40or else we're not writing.
21:43So we have to make those choices even
21:45though it provokes anxiety. What this
21:47means in part for me is that every
21:48creative person, every person, but every
21:50creative person needs some anxiety
21:52management skills that work, that are
21:54portable and that work.
21:56This is a separate subject. I did a book
21:57on this called Mastering Creative
21:58Anxiety in which I present, I think, 20
22:01categories of anxiety management
22:04tactics.
22:05But creative folks need some tactics,
22:07whether they're simple breathing tactics
22:09or cognitive tactics or or somatic
22:11tactics, whatever it is.
22:13Reorientation, disidentification, I can
22:15name a million things that people can
22:17try. Most people don't own
22:20an anxiety management technique that
22:22works for them.
22:24They may have read a book about it 15
22:26years ago, read the relaxation technique
22:28or something,
22:29but they don't own it. And they may have
22:31a they may have a current meditation
22:33practice or something. So they're
22:34perfectly relaxed for 20 minutes in the
22:36morning, but that's not when you need to
22:38be not anxious.
22:40You need to be not anxious when you're
22:41trying to get to the computer screen and
22:43work on your book. That's when you need
22:45to be not anxious, not in that beautiful
22:47blissful 20 minutes or hour of
22:49meditation in the morning.
22:51So that's all by way of saying choosing
22:54is a huge subject.
22:57Comma.
23:00I advocate creating a sleep thinking
23:03prompt, which is the fruit of some
23:05thought as to what might be the right
23:07prompt to get you to the conclusion
23:09you're looking for for whatever the
23:11problem is that you've posed.
23:13Your first sleep thinking prompt may not
23:15be the right one.
23:18You may have chosen something
23:20that doesn't quite generate the solution
23:24you're looking for, the solution you
23:25need.
23:27There's no exact number of days where
23:30you should stick with the same sleep
23:32thinking prompt that you've started out
23:34with, but
23:35if after two, three, four days nothing
23:38is nothing in particular is percolating,
23:41that when you wake up in the morning
23:42there's nothing in particular there,
23:44then it's time to probably choose a
23:47different sleep thinking prompt and give
23:48that a chance.
23:50There's nothing really linear here.
23:52There's nothing to say about exactitude,
23:55but in a general way that sleep thinking
23:57prompt is a choice, and like all choices
24:01it may not be the right choice.
24:03And so you don't want to throw up your
24:04hands and say, "Oh, this sleep thinking
24:06doesn't work for me."
24:08If you're not getting an answer or
24:09solution in two days,
24:12really believe in the idea that maybe
24:14the way you framed the you the way you
24:16framed your three sleep thinking prompt
24:18wasn't quite
24:20right,
24:21and now you get to try something else.
24:23The process does work,
24:26but it may take some um
24:29maneuvering, some manipulating, some
24:32rejiggering for it to work.
24:35Eric, I thought at this stage we'd tear
24:37our audience up for part two, and not
24:41that we're finished yet. I'm Eric's got
24:43a coaching client after this session, so
24:45we're going to do two parts, but I
24:47thought we'd
24:48tease our audience with a few exercises,
24:50and one to the end of discernment, as
24:53Poincaré said, "To to invent is to
24:55discern or to choose."
24:57The same thing has to be done for us,
24:59but in order to do that, the first
25:01exercise you propose is, well, you got
25:03to have a dream journal, and you need
25:06this as your piece of equipment that
25:08you're going to need throughout the
25:10whole process. This is the very, very
25:11first step. Maybe we'll take our
25:13audience through that and then we'll get
25:14into the steps itself. There's 18 in
25:16total. We're not going to get through
25:18them all, so I might chunk some of them
25:19in order for us to share as much as
25:22possible, but I highly recommend getting
25:24the book in order to see the case
25:25studies, because the case studies bring
25:27the steps to life. Yes, I'm going to
25:29respond in a slightly updated way.
25:32Um
25:33And that is
25:35whether to call it a dream journal or
25:37sleep thinking journal, I've subsequent
25:39to this book
25:41um written about and taught something I
25:44call the focus journal method.
25:47A lot of people
25:48love to journal.
25:51Um and actually acquire, accumulate 50
25:55or 100 or 150 journals and then try to
25:58mine it for their memoir or for their
26:01fiction or their nonfiction, which which
26:03becomes a difficult task, but that's a
26:05separate question.
26:08But because so many people journal, but
26:10don't, so to speak, make use of their
26:13journal, I mean, their journal serves
26:14them as expressive writing in the
26:16moment, but doesn't necessarily help
26:18them solve problems,
26:20I created something I call the focus
26:22journal method, which is an and I'm not
26:23going to go through the eight steps, cuz
26:25I probably don't even remember them, but
26:26it's an eight-step process
26:28of moving from one of these kinds of
26:32questions or problems that we've been
26:34talking about.
26:36Could be a creative problem, it could be
26:38a life problem, career problem, could be
26:40anything.
26:41Moving step by step through self-inquiry
26:44and self-awareness to the conclusion,
26:47including, and these are big deal ideas,
26:50including steps, I'm going to call them
26:52six and seven. I think that may be
26:53accurate.
26:55Aligning your thoughts with whatever
26:57intentions come out of your journaling,
26:59and aligning your behaviors with
27:01whatever intentions come out of your
27:03journaling.
27:04The point for me is that by doing this
27:07kind of self-awareness work,
27:09you end up at the end of this process
27:11not just with words on the page, but
27:13with thoughts that are worth thinking
27:16and actions that you know to take.
27:20So, I I think that whether to call this
27:22again a dream journal or sleep thinking
27:24journal or focus journal method, there's
27:26a there's a way of
27:28engaging in self-inquiry and
27:30self-awareness that can make all the
27:32difference in the world in moving from
27:35some incoate, not quite understood mass
27:38of internal information to right
27:42thinking and right acting. There's a
27:44beautiful quote, Eric, that I thought
27:46I'd share just to again encourage our
27:50audience about how much this can help.
27:52And as I mentioned, you have so many
27:54great case studies throughout the book,
27:56and maybe you might share one based on
27:57this quote that I absolutely love from
27:59the book. You said, "For many of us, so
28:01much is going on that we can't dissect
28:04our lives in a neat way or come up with
28:06a single problem that stands out from
28:08all the rest. Often, we just feel a lack
28:11or a hole in our lives without being
28:13able to articulate what that hole or
28:15lack represents.
28:17Or maybe we have so much personality
28:20changes to make, becoming more
28:22confident, more self-trusting, more
28:24disciplined, and so on, that no single
28:26change sticks out or seems more
28:28important than any of the others. Very
28:31often, we can't seem to isolate or
28:33articulate a single thing to work on.
28:36And that's a case for many people, and I
28:39work as an exact coach, I find this as
28:41well that you have to actually help the
28:44coachee find what they want to work on
28:46first. So, otherwise, you're going to be
28:47going around in circles. And this is a
28:49difficult task for so many people.
28:51There's a lot
28:52in what you're saying that makes me want
28:54to go
28:56all over the place, but we'll go over
28:58all over the place. I'm sure folks can
29:00follow. That's the very essence of this
29:02show, Eric. You're in the right place.
29:04I'm in the right place. So, first
29:07I have a very simple theory of
29:08personality or model of personality
29:11which I find robust and useful in
29:13working with folks, and I think it's
29:14actually true.
29:16And that's the personality is made up of
29:17three parts, original personality,
29:20formed personality, and available
29:22personality.
29:24The beauty and value of this little
29:26model is that it takes original
29:28personality into account as important.
29:30Psychology has nothing to say about
29:32original personality. It makes believe
29:34that we all start out as blank slates,
29:36which is ridiculous. Anybody who's had
29:38kittens or puppies or kids knows that
29:40every creature comes into the world
29:42itself, for sure.
29:45So, there is original personality which
29:46we have to deal with our lifelong.
29:49And
29:51I'm going to say a lot in a few words,
29:53but let's say that you came into the
29:55world a little sadder than the next
29:56person.
29:58That is not the clinical
30:00That's not the clinical disorder of
30:03depression.
30:05That's
30:06a built-in, baked-in sadness
30:10that we may have to live with our whole
30:11life long.
30:13Rather than getting a mental disorder
30:15diagnosis down the road and then
30:18powerful chemicals, it would be lovely
30:20if we understood if it's the case that
30:22this may be part of our original
30:24personality that we have to deal with.
30:27But that's a tangent. So, we have
30:28original personality, formed
30:30personality, that's the person we
30:31stiffen into.
30:34And then what I call available
30:35personality, which is our remaining
30:37freedom to be the person we would like
30:39to be.
30:40And I see that as a kind of a mount that
30:42shifts over time, available personality.
30:46If we're currently an active addict and
30:48running around town looking for a fix,
30:50we don't have that much available
30:51personality available.
30:53But the second we enter recovery, the
30:54second we go to a 12-step meeting,
30:57something's shifted. We have a little
30:59more available personality. We don't
31:00have all We don't have all of our
31:01personality recovered. We have some more
31:04amount recovered.
31:07So that's all by way of saying that one
31:08way to think about the thing you were
31:10talking about is in terms of a
31:12personality upgrade.
31:14That is, we can make use of the idea
31:17that we have available personality to
31:19reclaim some of our formed personality
31:22and turn ourselves into the person we
31:23would like to be.
31:25That's That's A.
31:28B.
31:32We all need a paradigm shift from the
31:33idea of the purpose of life to the idea
31:36of life purpose choosing. That That
31:38there's no singular purpose to life, but
31:40there are multiple life purposes, which
31:42we get to choose.
31:44We have for thousands of years had the
31:47the metaphor of the purpose of life,
31:49which harms people. The metaphor harms
31:51people cuz they think there's one thing
31:54that they're supposed to know or follow
31:56or do, which makes no sense, and we
31:58should know better than that by now, but
32:00we don't quite.
32:02So we need this shift to life purpose
32:04choice choosing, life purpose choices.
32:08And when we work with clients, this
32:10helps them
32:11better understand what goal setting is
32:14about. It's not just about
32:17picking something, but it's about maybe
32:19for the first time identifying their
32:21life purpose choices, maybe rank
32:23ordering them if that's possible,
32:25and understanding, again, maybe the
32:27first time what's important.
32:29And that personality upgrade from A may
32:33be one of those things that is
32:35important.
32:37So that's B, the idea of a paradigm
32:40shift from life purpose,
32:42which is a bad idea, to the to life
32:44purposes, which I think is a good idea.
32:47C, we don't understand meaning very well
32:50at all.
32:52And we have the same paradigm shift to
32:54make, the needed paradigm shift to make
32:56from seeking meaning, which is again
32:59thousands of year old metaphor, bad
33:01metaphor,
33:02man's search for meaning, nothing to
33:05search for.
33:06We need to shift that to making meaning.
33:11And when we begin to understand that
33:12meaning is just a certain kind of
33:14subjective psychological experience,
33:17that's all it is.
33:18It's a kind of special one and a weird
33:20one, but that's all it is.
33:23Then suddenly we realize it's going to
33:25come and go. Meaning is going to come
33:27and go, just like every other
33:28psychological just like joy or anger,
33:30anything.
33:32And then finally we can be not upset
33:35when meaning vanishes for a while.
33:37Right now people get awfully upset if
33:40life doesn't feel meaningful. Why should
33:41it feel meaningful all the time? If it's
33:43just a certain kind of psychological
33:45experience.
33:46So, comma, what this means in shorthand
33:49is that we should be living our life
33:51purposes, not always taking the
33:52temperature
33:54of our meaning.
33:56And if people can make that shift away
33:58from is life meaningful to what are my
34:01life purposes and am I living them,
34:05that will help them make the kinds of
34:07strong choices that you at the beginning
34:09of this question invited me to chat
34:11about. Period.
34:13>> [laughter]
34:14>> Beautifully articulated, man. Beautiful.
34:17I want to dig into that a little bit
34:19because as Aristotle said, the first
34:21thing to do is know thyself. And you
34:24start the 18 steps with know thyself
34:27essentially, what you call a commitment
34:30to self-awareness. And here you say
34:33Freud and the psychoanalysts were right
34:35to say that we're defended against
34:37knowing ourselves, and Carl Jung and the
34:39depth psychologists were right to
34:40propose the idea of blind spots, those
34:43areas of our lives that we have trouble
34:45spotting. The first step of the Sleep
34:48Thinking Program is to dispute your
34:50natural tendency to avoid knowing
34:52yourself. And under this section, and
34:54I'd love you to expand on this,
34:57you list a variety of areas in which we
34:59commonly lack self-awareness from
35:01anxiety to discipline. But one that I
35:04thought was really important, and I'd
35:06love you I'd love to highlight, is one
35:09that aligns with the very purpose of
35:10this show, which is that we are open to
35:13an understanding of our unmet dreams.
35:16Because often times people live with the
35:19regret or with the feeling of they left
35:22something on the table for their lives,
35:24and that is something that's one of the
35:26reasons I do this show. I I really want
35:28to help people make those brave
35:30decisions. So, over to you, Eric, to
35:32unpack this big one.
35:35Yeah.
35:38Again, lots to say. Let me start with
35:41one headline, and that is
35:44folks tend not to understand the extent
35:47to which they've given life a thumbs
35:49down.
35:52That they
35:54believe life to be a cheat.
35:57That the experience that they had as a
36:00child,
36:01even if it was a very positive
36:02experience,
36:07is not the same experience they have
36:09through adolescence where the shifting
36:11begins to happen into adulthood
36:14where necessary reality testing makes
36:17them understand that there are
36:19a thousand pianists for every slot and a
36:22thousand painters for every slot, etc.
36:25And somewhere along the line they get
36:27demoralized. It isn't that they're not
36:29going through the motions,
36:32but they are they get demoralized and
36:34they
36:36move to this place of I don't matter
36:39and my efforts don't matter and I'm just
36:42excited matter. The universe could
36:43excite me for a while and it did it and
36:46I'm going to pass and that's that and so
36:48what.
36:51That's the post-modern
36:53vibe in everyone.
36:56Maybe not in the most fundamental
36:58religious person, but in most secular
37:02folks, most secular humanists, let's
37:05call them, is that feeling that life is
37:08proving a cheat.
37:14I try to sell every client on the idea
37:17that their effort that they matter
37:20and that their efforts matter
37:22comma, but that they're going to have to
37:24prove the exception if they want to
37:26realize their dreams.
37:29That the ordinary result in life is to
37:31not get what you want.
37:37Unless you get lucky, you run into
37:39Francis Ford Coppola on the street
37:41corner and he says, "Let me give you a
37:42movie." Yeah, okay.
37:44That happens once in a billion times.
37:48But basically we're not going to get
37:50what we want unless we prove the
37:52exception.
37:55I I
37:56What I wanted to say was there's a
37:58reason why it's sort of one book follows
37:59another book for me
38:02because one of the ways that a human
38:04being can prove the exception
38:06is by doing something
38:08in the service of their big dreams every
38:11day.
38:12Which is why I just recently did a book
38:14called The Power of Daily Practice.
38:17Creative folks know, they don't want to
38:19admit this, but they know that if they
38:20miss three, four days a year is
38:22vanished.
38:24It's not that three days vanished. Who
38:26cares? That's okay. Maybe they were
38:28living some other of their life purposes
38:29for those three days. But the problem
38:31with three days vanishing is that month
38:33weeks months and years vanish.
38:36Which is why daily practice
38:39is so important.
38:42I think maybe I'll I'll let you lead me
38:45wherever you would like to go next with
38:47with these ideas.
38:50Um
38:51let me hand the ball back to you for a
38:52second.
38:54Although it being football, let me kick
38:56the ball back to you for a second. It
38:57was speaking of that actually. I I
39:00I had the great privilege to play a
39:0310-year career as a professional rugby
39:05player in in sports. And I wasn't that
39:07good Eric like and I I say I bring this
39:11up because
39:12I see this a lot with my friends who I
39:14grew up with who were actually talented
39:17athletes. They were better than I was,
39:19but they didn't do the daily practice.
39:21They didn't do the work. They relied on
39:23their talent over their discipline. And
39:25one of the things when you're not very
39:27good, you learn early is discipline. And
39:29it it's been such a gift to me for the
39:32entirety of my life. And it helps me I
39:35see discipline as this
39:37as this laser that I can point to
39:39something else and I can go I'm going to
39:40do that now with this gift of discipline
39:43that I Let me just amplify that just for
39:45the sake of those folks who don't like
39:47the discipline word.
39:50Um Pavarotti has a quote I like, which
39:52is people say I'm disciplined, but it's
39:53not discipline. I'm devo- it's devotion.
39:56And there's a big difference.
39:58I think if folks hold those dual ideas
40:01of discipline and devotion, that's a
40:02better model than discipline alone.
40:05Cuz discipline alone is a very
40:06white-knuckly rough kind of way of
40:09living a life.
40:10We need that love, passion, enthusiasm,
40:12curiosity, and all the other synonyms
40:14for devotion.
40:16Um so I just wanted to add that to the
40:19mix cuz I think often it's not exactly
40:21discipline you can't really white
40:23knuckle a novel into existence through
40:24discipline. There has to be something
40:26there that you're loving.
40:28I agree. And just parenthetically, I
40:30just have to share an anecdote which has
40:32nothing to do with what we're talking
40:33about but
40:34when our younger daughter was, I'm not
40:36sure what, eight or nine or 10 or 11,
40:38she fell from a horse
40:40that she was riding and fractured her
40:42shoulder
40:44in many places
40:46and by accident her orthopedic surgeon
40:50had just been
40:51that week studying rugby injuries.
40:55And this was an American orthopedic
40:57surgeon but he had just was interested
40:59in Australian rugby injuries
41:02and just by virtue of him having been
41:04studying that he he figured out what
41:06pins her shoulder needed.
41:09It's wonderful. I I I thought you were
41:10going to say like the Alan Watts story
41:13of the Chinese farmer the conscription
41:15officers came and they wouldn't take her
41:17for the army.
41:18>> [laughter]
41:18>> I
41:20I'll let our audience figure that one
41:21out. Just what I was going to say was in
41:23working with clients who have lost their
41:25enthusiasm, lost their way, lost their
41:27enthusiasm,
41:28lost their mojo.
41:31I'll talk to them about devotion and and
41:32discipline these ideas but I'll invite
41:34them to think about being five or six or
41:36seven again
41:38and the pure love they had for sitting
41:40in a corner reading a book or whatever
41:42it was they loved.
41:44That's the purest love in the universe.
41:46Sitting there in that corner reading
41:48that book at at seven or eight, nothing
41:51like it.
41:53And if you can help a client help a
41:55person, help a human being remember what
41:58that love feels like,
42:00there's no no love like it and they can
42:02remember it and that can serve them
42:05today to motivate them today. We're
42:08we're not we're we're a different person
42:11as a grownup from that 5-year-old and we
42:13can't reclaim that naivete and that
42:15beauty. Can't quite reclaim that beauty,
42:18but we can remember something about that
42:20that matters to us today. Beautiful. I
42:23love that. I love that even the image I
42:24see myself doing my LEGO in the corner
42:27of the room, the big box, no
42:29instructions at all. But um there's a
42:31Jim Rohn quote Jim Rohn quote that I
42:33absolutely love. It's like, "Do you want
42:35to live with the pain of discipline or
42:36the pain of regret?" And that's just
42:38always been etched into my brain. And I
42:42I wanted to bring up to you mentioned
42:44the duality of discipline and devotion.
42:47But there's also and it just happens I
42:49was writing about this I write a write a
42:51weekly blog and I was writing about
42:52cognitive
42:53dissonance because we had the great
42:55Elliot Aronson on the show and we talked
42:58about this term cognitive dissonance
43:00that comes from Leon Festinger. And I I
43:03thought about that because it it
43:05actually talks to
43:07one of the important aspects of this
43:09digging in and self-awareness. By the
43:11way, we're only step one of 18.
43:13>> [laughter]
43:13>> Just to
43:14say where we are on all of this because
43:17you tell us our brains know not to
43:19deliver up the truth
43:21because it knows that we don't want the
43:24truth. Because so we have to actually be
43:26very specific where our brains can go,
43:28"No, I do. I want the truth here." And I
43:31would love our audience to do the
43:33exercise that you suggest that we do
43:35here maybe in the interim between part
43:37one and part two because you say we'll
43:40gain much more than we could possibly
43:42imagine and maybe you'll elaborate on
43:44this know yourself exercise where you
43:47write a page about each of the following
43:50questions. What I don't want to know
43:52about myself and would it be so bad if I
43:55revealed my own secrets to myself? These
43:58are magical questions that can unlock
44:01ourselves and get us to experience life
44:04to the fullest.
44:06I want to do a prequel to that exercise.
44:09Um
44:10Just
44:12there's an exercise I share somewhere.
44:13I'm not exactly sure where about
44:15tolerating a difficult thought for 10
44:17seconds.
44:20And I think that's a prequel to the to
44:22the exercise you just described because
44:24in order to do the the exercise you
44:26described, we have to be able to
44:28tolerate the difficult thinking
44:31difficult thoughts that may arise from
44:33the exercise you just mentioned.
44:35So I think that's a prequel exercise of
44:38of just trying to bring up some
44:40difficult thought like
44:43maybe I need a divorce or maybe I need
44:46to
44:47change jobs or whatever it might be to
44:49bring up the difficult thought and just
44:51be with it.
44:53By the way, parenthetically,
44:56we're going to be all over the place and
44:57we'll need to stop probably abruptly,
44:59but
45:00I have a recent book out called redesign
45:02your mind, which is interesting because
45:04it it sets up the metaphor of
45:07your mind as a room that you can
45:09redesign and redecorate,
45:12which is an interesting metaphor,
45:14and I invite people to like install
45:16windows so a breeze blows through and
45:18install an easy chair so that they're
45:20not on a bed of nails any longer, etc.
45:23Different kinds of visualizations to
45:25make one's mind a more congenial place.
45:28But one of the visualizations is to
45:29install a speaker's corner like the
45:32famous speaker's corner in Hyde Park in
45:33London.
45:35Um where you can
45:37speak your truth, at least to yourself.
45:40Speaking it in the world is a different
45:42question cuz there are real safety
45:43issues. Real journalists are really
45:45assassinated in real countries. So we
45:48have to be careful about saying if if
45:50something's true, just speak it. That's
45:52a different issue, but at least we have
45:53to be able to say the truth to
45:55ourselves.
45:56And that's what that visualization of a
45:58of an internal interior speaker's corner
46:01is about.
46:03Uh I'm not sure where we are exactly, so
46:05again I'll circle back around,
46:07[laughter] but
46:08it's really about These are all
46:10different ways of saying
46:12a metaphor I use or phrase I use in the
46:15philosophy of life I've been developing
46:16called Kierism
46:18is taking a step to the side.
46:21That is we are moving through life this
46:24way, frontally, so to speak,
46:27but there are many times when we need to
46:28take a step to the side and not have
46:31that affair that's going to ruin our
46:33marriage or
46:34that's a big deal step to the side, but
46:36lots of small steps to the side where
46:39there was just about to be the thought
46:41that we should have been able to
46:42tolerate, but we don't talk we just rush
46:45on by it. If we can do this thing of
46:48taking a step to the side more often,
46:52in a more practiced way, that gives us
46:55the spaciousness so that we can think
46:58and tolerate these difficult thoughts. I
47:01love that and and it speaks to Nancy
47:03Klein who I'm sure you know with her
47:05book Time to Think where you're when
47:07you're a coach, you don't let your
47:09client off the hook. When they're on
47:11that verge of saying something, you stay
47:13quiet and you give them that space in
47:16order to step in into the discomfort as
47:18well. I I I'm going to admit something
47:20here. I did
47:22I did quite a while back and it's why
47:24the the book resonated so deeply with
47:27me. I I I did this practice of working
47:31on things when when I slept because I
47:33think I read about maybe Tesla did it or
47:36maybe
47:37um
47:38Bohm um
47:40Bohm did it where he had this like
47:42isolated chamber which sound was
47:44isolated and he would
47:47write down the question and then take a
47:49nap and and oftentimes he'd have written
47:51the answer. And uh so I was trying to do
47:53my version of that as much as I can with
47:55two young children. But one of the
47:57things that actually came up for me
47:59where I asked myself difficult questions
48:02cuz I have this uh and it'll sound
48:05it'll sound extremely optimistic, but I
48:08I asked myself a question a few years
48:09ago, Eric, where it was imagine you
48:12could live life where
48:14you always did the right thing even if
48:17it was difficult. So, you you you leaned
48:20into the dissonance of decisions you
48:23felt in your gut
48:25oh, this job is not serving me anymore
48:28and I I I asked myself, is there
48:31anything in there that that you're
48:34hiding, Aidan? And one of the things
48:36came up to me, which was
48:37am I genuinely happy for other people
48:41who
48:42achieve extraordinary success. So, if
48:45it's a friend particularly if they're
48:47close to me or a friend
48:48>> Absolutely.
48:48>> Yeah. I and and that that percolated, to
48:53use your word, once when I was asleep
48:55and I was like kind of going, "Wow." Cuz
48:57I I think I am, but then I go, "Am I
49:00really though?" And that was an
49:01extremely uncomfortable thought for me
49:03to have, but one that I was happy to
49:05explore and then lean into more and
49:08catch myself in the act of you know,
49:10celebrating for somebody else and kind
49:13of going, "Is that real?" And asking
49:15that question. I'd love your thoughts on
49:16that because this is the type of thing
49:17you're talking about.
49:19Just to
49:20uh speak to that personally,
49:23um I know that I deeply don't want other
49:26people to succeed. I know that.
49:30Um I can put on a good face about other
49:34people succeeding, but um I have my
49:39grandiose narcissistic arrogant
49:42uh
49:43inner personality
49:45and that has to be okay as long as
49:50it's dealt to it's dealt with.
49:52And my life purpose statement, even
49:55though I believe that we have multiple
49:56life purposes, I do believe we can
49:59encapsulate those many life purpose life
50:01purposes in a statement if we care to.
50:05Mine is just Mine is exactly like yours,
50:07actually. It's do the next right thing.
50:10And so even if we have these shadowy
50:13parts to our personality, and we do. We
50:15have a big trickster nature. I find the
50:16trickster archetype in world literature
50:18super interesting.
50:20We have a lot of trickster stuff in us.
50:23Mischievous stuff, but deeper than
50:24mischievous. Mean stuff in us.
50:27But if we adamantly do the next right
50:30thing, then it doesn't matter so much
50:31that we have this mean tricksterly stuff
50:34in us.
50:35It It's not that we've transcended it.
50:37It's just that we've decided
50:39We've put on the mantle of meaning
50:40maker, and we've decided
50:42to do the next right thing.
50:45But a great way to finish on on an
50:46optimistic note. By the way, you asked
50:48where we are on all this. We're just
50:50going on to step two of 18. So
50:52[laughter]
50:53one of 18 hours down, Eric. So I will
50:56let you go. I know you have a client
50:58to to attend to. So thank you so much
51:01for your time. I'm really looking
51:03forward to part two. I hope our audience
51:04got as much as I have out of it. Please
51:06buy the book because the all the steps
51:09are plotted out there. And as Eric
51:10mentioned, many of his other books are
51:12in existence in there, including
51:14reducing anxiety so you can get to sleep
51:16thinking in the first place. But for
51:18now, author of Sleep Thinking, Eric
51:22Maisel,
51:23thank you for joining us. Thanks so
51:24much, and see you again soon. Great to
51:27be with you, man. Sorry, I know you're
51:28rushing off. So perfect time in 5
51:30minutes for a mental amuse-bouche.
51:32>> [laughter]
51:33>> I hope you enjoyed that episode with
51:36Eric Maisel on his book The Magic of
51:39Sleep Thinking. I certainly got a lot
51:41out of the book. I can't believe we got
51:43through step one of 18. I thought we'd
51:46get through perhaps nine or 10 today.
51:48Anyway, absolutely fun fascinating
51:51episode and I want to thank our sponsors
51:53Zai for enabling us to do more with this
51:56show and bring you increased amount of
51:57content. Zai
52:00is boldly transforming the future of
52:01financial services with a suite of
52:03embedded products and services enabling
52:05business to manage multiple payment
52:08workflows and move funds with ease. You
52:10can check out Zai at howzai.com.
52:13I'll see you very soon.

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