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Micro wisdom delivered to your ears every morning in voice notes ranging from 3 to 15 minutes long. Wisdom on how to live a healthier and more fulfilling life. Every podcast will ground you in the present moment to ensure you know what's important, the here and now.
Hello. Good morning, everyone. Hope you're good. Another day. Remember if yesterday wasn't the best day or if it was the greatest day ever, as they say in sports, it's nil nil today.
Speaker 1:It's a fresh slate, fresh start. Keep your mind on that. And if we can tie a few good days together in a row, that's awesome. But really what your year looks like is out of the three hundred and sixty five days, you might have like two hundred really good days, like green days, maybe a 100 orange days, and then like 65 red days, and I don't want to really say red days but you know what I mean, maybe that's the mishmash you get. We never expect imperfection.
Speaker 1:To be consistent doesn't actually mean to do something every single day without stop. To me consistency and resilience are quite similar. So resilience is the ability to bounce back fairly quickly from potential setback or something that knocks you off course as we say. Being consistent with resilience is probably one of the most potent combinations. So yes, you accept that one day is not going to be great or one week won't be great, you get illness, you get an injury, you get some bad news, but your ability to bounce back consistently is what's going to set you apart from the people that don't do that.
Speaker 1:Because the people that don't bounce back with resilience, they sometimes take three, four, five, six months, sometimes a year before they try and do something again, and I just want you to remember that. So resilience, consistent resilience is the way. But I want to share some wisdom from a book called The Four Agreements and I've spoke about this book a long time ago and I'm kind of going over books that have impacted me a lot and I think it's important to go over those. We're quick to read new books all the time, but what about the books that did change your life? Why not read them again and again and again?
Speaker 1:Because when you read it again, you're a different person than you were when you first read it. So this book is basically wisdom from the ancient Toltecs. They were basically South American people, it's kind of a crossover between Stoicism and Buddhism. It's called the Four Agreements. So the first agreement is to be impeccable with your word and this sounds very simple but it's very powerful, right?
Speaker 1:The human mind, this is what it says from the book, I'm gonna read out quotes, The human mind is like a fertile ground where seeds are continually being planted. The seeds are opinions, ideas, and concepts. You plant a seed, a thought, and it grows. The word is like a seed, and the human mind is so fertile. The only problem is that too often it is fertile for the seeds of fear.
Speaker 1:Every human mind is fertile, but only those kinds of seeds it is prepared for. What is important is to see which kind of seeds our mind is fertile for and to prepare it to receive the seeds of love. You cannot go against yourself when you judge or blame yourself for anything. Being without sin is exact is exactly the opposite. Being impeccable is not going against yourself.
Speaker 1:When you are impeccable, you take responsibility for your actions, but you do not judge or blame yourself. This is very similar to the Stoics. It's not about being perfect, the Stoic Archer analogy I've mentioned before, put an effort into what you're doing, the end result is what be what it will be. So impeccability isn't like perfection, it's not perfection. So you don't want to be going down the route of, I've to be perfect and blah blah blah, no.
Speaker 1:Want to plant these seeds. I've spoken about planting seeds before. You don't expect the seed to grow overnight. You're planting seeds, you listen to these podcasts, you're looking at your conditioning of how you're thinking about food and training and movement. You're understanding the book of yourself more each day, that's the most important thing you can do.
Speaker 1:And when you're planting seeds especially concepts they're really important because a concept is flexible, so the concept you're under now if you're losing weight is I must be in a calorie deficit all the time. That's the concept. So that could potentially be the world we live in, the concept, but within that you can go into a calorie surplus sometimes, you can go into a calorie maintenance sometimes, you can go into calorie deficit some days, but as long as your calorie deficit is there on average over a longer period of time you're gonna lose weight then you can use this however you want. This is the concept, oh so I can eat any foods I want and as long as I'm in a deficit I lose fat. Yes, that's the concept and that's the truth.
Speaker 1:What you do in between that concept is up to you and this is where the flexibility comes in. Some of you might say, Scott, I don't actually want to eat like chocolate and crisps and snacks and stuff. I want to be eating the veggies and maybe lean meats or whatever. I got no interest in sweets. Fine, no problem.
Speaker 1:And some of you might say, do know what, I actually want my cup of tea with three biscuits every morning. That's my thing, that's my start of my day. I've had this since I was a kid with my mother or father, it brings me that joy, it brings me that kind of grounding, I want them in my day. Fine, that's also possible. The concept allows all of these things and once the concept grows and grows and grows and the flexibility is there and you understand you are in control and it is like a game of Tetris, know, you're just fitting in the blocks into those shapes but ultimately you can make it your own and that's the point.
Speaker 1:I don't tell you what to eat, I just don't do it. I know when you look at the research and you speak to people, thousands of people, no one wants to be told what to eat. I want to eat the foods I like. Some people's food they like luckily is only unprocessed foods. It's only veggies and fruits and lean meats, you know, and that's what they love.
Speaker 1:And you're like, oh, you're lucky's you're lucky's hard. And some people are like, do you know what? I love all the wrong foods. I love all the high calorie foods. I love crisps every day.
Speaker 1:I love biscuits. I love this. I love the full the the full sugar version of Coca Cola. I love those things. Okay.
Speaker 1:Fine. You just need a few more tweaks. You're starting from maybe a potential a a a more difficult place, but the concept remains, you know, so that's a good one. If I love you, then you will love me. If I insult you, you will insult me.
Speaker 1:If I have gratitude for you, you will have gratitude for me. If I'm selfish with you, you'll be selfish with me. If I use the word to put a spell on you, you're gonna put a spell on me. Being impeccable with your word is the correct use of your energy. It means to use your energy in the direction of truth and love Whenever we hear an opinion and believe it, we make an agreement and it becomes part of our belief system.
Speaker 1:Gossiping has become the main form of communication in human society. It has become the way we feel close to each other because it makes us feel better to see someone else feel as badly as we do. There is an old expression that says misery likes company, and people who are suffering in hell don't want to be all alone. Fear and suffering are an important part of the dream of the planet. They are how the dream of the planet keeps us down.
Speaker 1:If we adopt the first agreement and become impeccable with our word, any emotional poison will eventually be cleaned from our mind and from our communication and our personal relationships including with our pet dog or cat. You can measure the impeccability of your word by the level of self love. How much you love yourself and how much you feel about yourself are directly proportionate to the quality and integrity of your word. When you are impeccable with your word, you feel good, you feel happy, and at peace. And today, you know, what we're gonna do today?
Speaker 1:I'm gonna try my best today. Was what is the healthiest version of me, and can I be that today? Can I try at least be that today? Maybe I don't, but I'll try. That's a good place to start.
Speaker 1:The second agreement, okay, is to don't is not to take anything personally. So again, from the book, whatever happens around you, don't take it personally. Using an earlier example, if I see you on the street and I say, hey, you are stupid, without knowing you, it's not about you, it's about me. If you take it personally, then perhaps you believe you are stupid. Maybe you think to yourself, how does he know?
Speaker 1:Is he clairvoyant or can everyone see how stupid I am? And this is like Internet trolls, classic Internet people. Right? We're all Internet people, but there are some Internet people who are like anonymous and they love, you know, saying things, saying bad things. And if you take that personally, it might become part of your belief system.
Speaker 1:But yeah, most people are projecting, you know? And I think you're always gonna get insulted. Marcus Aurelius, the famous stoic and Roman emperor, he's got a brilliant quote in this, you know, they're saying like, you know, people are saying bad things about you. He's like, well, oh, I think it was Epictetus actually. They're this about you, that about you.
Speaker 1:He's like, is that all? God, if they knew everything, it'd be way worse. They're not perfect. By God, no one's saying they're perfect. So we've all got things that we do wrong.
Speaker 1:We've all got mistakes we do. If someone wants to come down on you for those, mourn them, you know. There's some things obviously to be called out. May be some things that someone someone you trust tells you and you take it seriously, you know. And you still don't take it personally, but you take it seriously.
Speaker 1:And there's a difference there. You know, if you if you know the person, it might be coming from a place of love. But, yes, the Internet will will do it to you. It'll it'll if you believe what the Internet says, it can take you down. I remember there a video about power up and some guy's like, give up, mate.
Speaker 1:And I was like, I'll reply to this. I'll reply to this because, you know, if I listen to people saying give up when I was 16 years old, when I started my first fitness website, they said, what's that silly website you're building? If I listened to them at 16, if I listened to people when I started my second business, rugby warfare, after I sold my first business, that's what's that? What a silly name. What are you doing?
Speaker 1:Printing t shirts, is that? Is that all you're doing? And if I listened to those, I would've stopped. If I listen to those, what are going to London for? What are you doing that competition for?
Speaker 1:What are you doing this for? How is that gonna work? You're gonna do this. You know, if you listen to all of this, you get nowhere. And you can't take it personally when someone doesn't believe in what you're wanting to do because that's the automatic kind of belief most people have.
Speaker 1:Saying that though, Americans tend to be more positive than the British in this regard, so it it it could be cultural as well. Okay. Moving on. Personal importance or taking things personally is the maximum expression of selfishness because we make the assumption that everything is about me. Nothing other people do is because of you.
Speaker 1:It is because of themselves. All people live in their own dream, in their own mind. They are in a completely different world from the one we live in. When we take something personally we make the assumption that they know what is in our world and we try to impose our world on their world. That person try to send poison to you, and if you take it personally, then you take that poison and it becomes yours.
Speaker 1:Taking things personally makes you easy prey for these predators, the black magicians. They can hook you easily with one one little opinion and feed you whatever poison they want. And because you take it personally, eat it up. But if you do not take it personally, you're immune in the middle of hell. Immunity to poison in the middle of hell is the gift of this agreement.
Speaker 1:It is not important to me what you think about me and I don't take what you think personally. I don't take it personally when people say, Miguel, you are the best. And I also don't take it personally when they say, Miguel, you are the worst. I know that when you are happy you will tell me, Miguel, you are such an angel. But when you are mad you will say, Oh Miguel, you're such a devil.
Speaker 1:You are so disgusting. How can you say those things? Either way it does not affect me because I know what I am. I don't have the need to be accepted. I don't have the need to have someone tell me, Miguel, you are doing so good or how dare you do that.
Speaker 1:You know? And I think that's important here, on your health and fitness journey. You've all experienced this. You start the program, you start something, your family and friends say, what are doing that for? Do this instead.
Speaker 1:That's so stupid. Don't you believe that. Very, very common health and fitness. One of the worst ones for it actually. And you've got to remember it's not about you when they're saying this.
Speaker 1:You know, if you bring up to someone in your friendship group, sometimes you don't want to say anything, you start something, you start tracking, getting steps in, getting your protein up, you're happy with it. Someone comes along and tell your friends, I'm doing this, yes, I've lost a few pounds doing this. And they go, yeah, but you should be doing this as well, and this as well, and this as well, and this as well. But you haven't doing that, you don't do that. Oh my god, you're having orange juice, it's really bad for you, all is nonsense.
Speaker 1:Right? So it says more about their world and your world. Their world is very messy, they think they've to do a thousand things that's why there's no action being taken. In your world you're crystal clear, clarity of mind, clarity of goals, you know exactly where you're going and don't take it personally when they start saying you're doing things wrong because you can just say no problem, that's your opinion, brilliant, crack on, my results will show for themselves. And again a very stoic opinion on this, an Epictetus talks about this, he goes, you know like it would be like a sheep eating grass and then going around saying look, look, look, look, look, look, all the grass I've eaten.
Speaker 1:Look, it's amazing I've eaten so much grass, I'm gonna be brilliant. It's like, I don't care how much grass you're eating. I don't care about that stuff. Just show me the results of it. Show me your fur, what I call it, not furze, what's the sheep wool, sheep wool, sheep fur, Jesus Christ.
Speaker 1:It's definitely not furze. As a Welshman I should really know my sheep. But it's like it's not about gloating about what you're saying you're doing and this and that, it's like what are the results of what you're doing? Let that reveal itself in its glory. Don't go around talking about actions you're going to do or currently doing.
Speaker 1:It's quite cheap to do it and it puts pressure on you. People just don't listen. People just don't listen. Another analogy is he talks about this like Olympian and the Olympian goes, Epictetus, look at the weights I'm using for my shoulders. And Epictetus goes, I don't care about the weights you're using for your shoulders.
Speaker 1:Show me your shoulders. Let's see the results from the weights. I don't care about the weights you're saying you're lifting. Show me the results you're getting from these things. Same with these people who say you should do this, this and this and 10 other things.
Speaker 1:Show me the results you're getting from this. Okay, well, I don't have any. Well, shut up then. Know, oh look, you should be doing this, should be like this. Show me the results.
Speaker 1:Show me the last five years of you following a similar program. What's happened? I've lost weight and gained double back. I've done a survey on this, like a mini research study, a survey 1,800 women who have done slimming clubs like Weight Watchers and Slimming World. The data is shocking.
Speaker 1:Shocking. So there's no need to listen to someone doing the same mistake over and over. Just think it's going to work. Well it worked last time but if it worked last time you wouldn't be in a worse position now. Of course it's natural that we lose weight and we maintain and maybe we gain a bit back and then we lose more but to do it so rapidly in a fashion where the mind is in trouble, mental health goes on the pan because it's like such a rise, like a rock, ethanol shoots back down, not sustainable.
Speaker 1:That's not what we're going to do. Anyway, we should be enjoying our plateaus. A lot of you worry about a plateau. It's like my weight's been stable for a bit, my strength has been stable for bit, great. It's not all about making gains every day, we know that's not possible.
Speaker 1:The third agreement is to don't make any assumptions. We have the tendency to make assumptions about everything. The problem with making assumptions is that we believe they are truth. We could swear they are real. We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking.
Speaker 1:We take it personally then we blame them and react by sending emotional poison with our word. It is always better to ask questions than to make an assumption because assumptions set us up for suffering. And here's one with health and fitness. Instead of assuming that the calories you're given are wrong, just assuming that something's not working, instead of assuming that things are like maybe not going to plan, ask better questions about it. So you say, no, no, these calories are way too high for me, I'm never gonna lose weight.
Speaker 1:Better thing to do is ask a question, why do I think these calories are too high for me? Answer that question and you'll all come back to the same route. Because someone, a PT or MyFitnessPal or Slimming World told me to eat 1,200 calories a day. I've seen it on social media a thousand times. There's even research on this by the way.
Speaker 1:The more you see a false fact, the more likely you are to believe it. So you can see a false fact, you should eat 1,200 calories a day. You see that 100 times in different places on the internet, you're likely to believe it. That's what it's down to. Instead of assuming that's right, assuming that your judgment is right about it, you should question instead.
Speaker 1:Maybe where is that assumption coming from? Is it too high, or am I have I been misinformed over the years? I'm not I'm in the calorie deficit, but I'm not losing weight. Are you? You're making the assumption you've been in the calorie deficit.
Speaker 1:Well, I've been tracking, but what have you not been tracking? You know? Or maybe what could have been wrong in your tracking? Maybe I tracked something and I thought it was 200 calories, but actually it's 900 calories. Ask questions about this first.
Speaker 1:You should have a list and then maybe I'll put one together, like a list of five or 10 questions. Before you assume something's not working, ask the questions, get those answers. I think it's vital, you know. So, yeah, direct honesty, ask good questions and the answers will come. You could do this yourself.
Speaker 1:And the fourth agreement is about the action of the first three, always do your best. This is very stoic. Doing your best, doing the way you can do each day. Regardless of the quality, keep doing your best. No more or no less than your best.
Speaker 1:If you try too hard to do more than your best, you will spend more energy than is needed and is at the end of your best. It will not be enough. When you overdo, you deplete your baldy and go against yourself, and it will take you longer to accomplish your goal. But if you do less than your best, you subject yourself to frustrations, self judgment, guilt, and regrets. Just do your best in any circumstance in your life, it doesn't matter if you're sick or tired, if you always do the best there's no way you can judge yourself.
Speaker 1:It's impossible to do your absolute best every day but you do your best with what you've got each day. And I agree with him, you overdo you deplete your body he says you'll go against yourself and it will take you longer to accomplish your goal. Think how long some have you been trying to lose weight for, think how long some have you been trying to get good health for. Think about these things because you're going against yourself, you're trying to do too much at once, you're trying to do 10 things in one day with your health and fitness, you're trying to start five workouts a week high intensity interval training, you're doing spin class, you're doing running, you're doing 1,000 calories, you're on the shakes, you're cutting out carbs, you're cutting out all sorts and you think, well, wasn't doing it all. How am I not getting results?
Speaker 1:You're doing too much. And most of that stuff's not productive for you. And you bring it down and you focus on one or two or three metrics and you do them well every day, and I promise you, boom, you're gonna do your best with those. They're manageable. My steps are manageable.
Speaker 1:My calorie intake is manageable. My protein is manageable. Don't need to do more than this with weight loss. And when it comes to people who are on maintenance or weight gain or trying to train, you think, how can I train five days a week? I want to get better at something.
Speaker 1:Start twice a week. Start once a week. You know, build up three times a week. Listen to your body. You know, when you start loving something and you start training for something, you want to do it all the time.
Speaker 1:You're going against yourself by overextending because what that means you might get injured, you don't have the energies to go well, you might get ill, your immune system gets shot, you go back 10 steps. And this is all because you've overstepped it you've gone against yourself. Exactly who he says there. So take these words on today. It's called The Four Agreements.
Speaker 1:It's a really good book. So you've got a there's a short version you can buy. It's like a tiny little booklet you can carry around with you. But I hope you have a good day. Do your best.
Speaker 1:Focus on the things that matter. I'll speak to you soon.