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In THE FOUR AGREEMENTS, don Miguel Ruiz reveals the source of self-limiting beliefs that rob us of joy and create needless suffering. Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love. 'Don Miguel Ruiz'a book is a roadmap to enlightenment and freedom.' - Deepak Chopra, Author
BE IMPECCABLE WITH YOUR WORD - DON'T TAKE ANYTHING PERSONALLY - DON'T MAKE ASSUMPTIONS - ALWAYS DO YOUR BEST
'Don Miguel Ruiz'a book is a roadmap to enlightenment and freedom.' - Deepak Chopra, AuthorThanks to our monthly supporters
The Moonshots Podcast goes behind the scenes of the world's greatest superstars, thinkers and entrepreneurs to discover the secrets to their success. We deconstruct their success from mindset to daily habits so that we can apply it to our lives. Join us as we 'learn out loud' from Elon Musk, Brene Brown to emerging talents like David Goggins.
Hello and welcome to the Moonshot Podcast. It's episode 208. I'm your cohost, Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm joined by Mark Pearson Freeland. Good morning, mark.
Good morning, Mike, and good morning listeners and subscribers. We. Not just an action packed episode today, Mike, but we are kicking off an action packed and quite wisdom a series as we embark through show number 208 and onwards.
I'm pretty excited. How are you feeling,
mark? I'm just so glad to hear the wise dulce tones coming from you as we contemplate a whole series on wisdom and boy wisdom. It sounds so heavy. So I think, mark, we wanna try and make this series, and in particular this show not too heavy duty, but super practical and incredibly useful as we go on to be the best version of ourselves, right?
Yeah, that's right. And I think that's a great proposition as we try and kick off this wisdom series with a Bang a Wiz and all that sort of good stuff. And we're really putting the Wiz into wisdom with this first episode with Don Miguel Rees, who wrote The Four Agreements Wisdom book. And I'm like, this was a book.
Going back to the mid to late nineties. This was published in 1997, and Don Miguel is from Mexico, and now over 25 years later, he's released a number of other books, including the Voice of Knowledge, the Circle of Fire, and even the Fifth Agreement. But starting with his first book, the Four Agreements, I think it's a great launchpad for you and I, our listeners and members to start getting into this idea of wisdom, this idea of what we can do to combat self-limiting beliefs or ideas that sometimes hold us back from going out and trying to be that best version of ourselves.
Maybe it's confidence, maybe it's just living with integrity, I think. There's so much that we can dig into and learn from this whole entire series. But really starting with Don Miguel today and creating that as a foundation, I think it's gonna really help us set the tone over how we can behave and how we can interpret things in our day to day lives.
Yeah, and the promise on the book cover is it's a practical guide to personal freedom, which is pretty interesting. He has some huge fans, the Aldo Mcg. Oprah's a fan, a Deepak Chopra is a fan. And I think, the, this idea of ha experiencing some freedom, I think it is all about choice.
It's about satisfaction and fulfillment, doing things that matter in the right way. And for me, I think what we're all battling against is the kind of challenges of modern life. Fatigue, stress, anxiety social dynamics. There is so much going on that we have to work with. And particularly if you look at the role of technology that life moves so fast, it's like this book that was written 20 years ago and is one of the most successful books on Amazon.
I think there are certain underlying truths that are embedded in this book. It's like tapping into the ancient philosophers. What we have in the work of Don Mcg McGuire is four agreements, four ideas that can combat the challenges that we face in our everyday life. I think we all need a little bit of help overcoming the craziness of life, don't
you, mark?
Yeah, I really do. And as Deepak Chopra would say, this book is a roadmap to enlightenment and freedom. So really, Mike, I think that's a call to all of us, isn't it? If we're looking for that little bit of enlightenment in our lives or maybe that little bit of extra freedom, that bit of bandwidth to maybe go and try something new in our lives or separate work and home life, or even just go out and pick up a new habit and be maybe a little bit healthier or otherwise, I think this is a great moment in our.
Time to take a moment, take a breath, particularly as we come up for quite a busy time at the end of the year for all of us around the globe. I think now's the time to really dig into this idea of wisdom and find that little bit of balance so that we can go out and try and be that, that best version.
I'm pretty excited. Mike, are you raring to go? I am
totally ready to get stuck in and we've got a lot of themes to cover. We've got judgment, we've got integrity. We've got how we think about others and effort and results. It's all in front of us. So Mark, unlock the freedom, unlock the enlightenment roadmap.
Where are we gonna.
Look, it was, it would only be appropriate to hear from the author himself, Don McWell res, to open up the show for us, and he's gonna call out exactly why these four agreements can be so beneficial. Before you and I and our listeners really lean into each of them, we wanna hear from Don first, explain to us why these four agreements are still so valid and so timeless, and how we might be able to go out and change our reality.
If you can change your world, don't try to change the secondary characters, change the main character, and just like magic, the whole story will change. Geez. Can you imagine living your life with unconditional love without any expectation with applications, just by being what you are? What you really are because you have to understand something that is extremely important.
You don't have to be you. If you can leave that, wow, she becomes right away a master.
You become a wise human. You don't have to be the main character of your story. You don't have to be the way you see yourself. You don't have to speak anything from you. If you reach that point, all your problems we live behind. And for the first time, perhaps you can really live in the moment as the artist that is creating this story right now and right here.
And wherever you go will be right now. And right here, Tim, I'm talking with all my heart to all this beautiful artist because yes, you can change your world, you can help you to change the world by changing your own world like magic. Everybody around you will also change. One more time. Please help me to change
the world.
Mark, what I really picked up on there is, apart from what? A soft, gentle voice, huh? He just sounds like some guy you wanna sit down with in the cafe, , and just chat with. What a sweet man.
Yeah, lovely to listen to. Very peaceful. Reminds me of Kar with the power of now, when we were hearing his voice and his tone and pace unlike you and I, Mike, who maybe we're a little bit fast, over caffeinated.
We're hearing this level of this approach. I suppose you could say this piece, it reminds me of Dan Millman as well, doesn't it? With the way Yeah,
he has, yeah, he's got definitely some Dan Millman. Maybe he could call the the book the Four Ways to Chill Out. I don't know. Yeah, . But he sounds like he's been drinking his own koolaid.
He's on the bus. I think, the interesting thing is these. Wise thoughts and philosophies that we're gonna get into these mindful ways of being are not only for your own benefit, I thought that struck me, mark. But if you behave in this way, you will not only affect yourself, but you'll affect those around you.
And I think that's a very good thing to remember. When we talk about values, we talk about principles and how you behave in the world. How you go about being the best version of yourself is it's not just for you, Isma.
No. And you know what is quite interesting, as we kick off this wisdom series, I'm now reminded of all of our Achieving Your Goals series, whereby we were learning about measuring what matters and radical focus strategies for getting up to speed with new teams and so on.
What's interesting as we. Compare the idea of wisdom and getting our own house in order to be that best version of ourselves. So changing yourself in order to change the world and so on. You have to start with the thing that you can actually take ownership of, which is you, your mindset, and therefore your behavior.
It then naturally drags us or brings us into the practicality of putting productivity into question, doesn't it? In order to go out and be a great leader to go out and be a great colleague or teammate or a parent perhaps. I think what Don Miguel's really making the case for already, and that's only the first clip, Mike, is if you work on yourself, you internalize, you see how you react to things and you are going out every day with an intentionality around you to go out and be good and will explore what that means later in the show as well.
It's the series, I think, but it's actually. Than beneficial for those around us because you can inspire others. You can help them pick up the phone, pick up, reach out for help, or maybe just smile at each other in the street. I think this is a great moment for us to, remember that we're all in this together and we're all part of the same team, aren't we?
Yeah. And I think a great way to teach is to demonstrate. A great way to lead is to practice what you preach. And so it's all about sharing the best of yourself to help and inspire others to be the best of themselves. And I gotta say, Mike, that's exactly what we're trying to do with our members and subscribers.
And boy, is there a lot going on over.
Look, it's a busy time with our Patreon members. Not only Mike are we celebrating the annual moonshot's, birthday . For many members. But also every week we're welcoming new. Family members into our moonshots circle. So first of all, giving out a special celebration to our members who have been with us for over 12 months now, including Bob, John, Terry Marlin, Ken dma, Byron Marja, and Connor, who, Mike.
That's a growing list every single week, which is amazing. And shortly to follow will be Yasmin and Lizza. Sid and Mr. Boner, Paul Berg Cowman, and David Joe Crystal, Ivo Christian, hurricane Brain, and Samoa, Kelly, Barbara, Andre, and Matthew. Eric and Abby Hoy and Joshua, Chris, Deborah Lase. Steve and Craig.
Lauren, Javier, Daniel and Andrew, Ravi, eVet, LGV and Karen, Raul, pj, Nico, Oola, Ingram. Sarah Dirk, Emily, H B N R, brand New Patreon members. Greg and Kath, welcome to the Moonshot family and thank you for supporting us and being a member.
Thank you very much indeed. We're really grateful for your support.
And of course, our members receive a whole second additional podcast, the Moonshot Master Series. You can get hold of that if you are our Patreon member. So head over to moonshot io, click on the big, become a Member button, and there's a whole world of goodness in front of you to enjoy. And now we turn into these four agreements.
We've said four. I think it's a pretty good place to start, and that's the first one. It's be impeccable with your word. The
word impeccable comes from the Latin word. Im impetus, which means, without sin, the biggest sin you can commit. Arthur, Don Miguel to he says, is self-rejection. When you repeatedly judge yourself for making a mistake, habitually think I'm an idiot.
You're engaging in the mortal sin of self-rejection. When you agree to be impeccable with your word, you agree to stop repeating words that make you feel worse for something you did. Berating yourself is pointless and just distracts you from taking corrective action. It's like taking an exam for a second time and having someone behind you saying, you know you screwed up last time, right?
Why did you screw up? If you merely set the intention to be aware of the words you're using to harm yourself and others, you'll start to see significant changes in your life. It's like when a person sets an intention to eat less sugar and takes pictures of what he eats, so he's more aware of what he's eating.
He ends up producing the amount of sugar he eats and feels better. It's not enough to stop judging yourself. You need to stop judging others because the more you judge others, the more you will judge yourself. Judging others is like throwing a boomerang that returns to hit you in the back of the head.
So when you go to bed each night, reflect on the quality of the words you said to yourself and others during the day. Imagine every word you said to yourself and others was broadcast to every phone in the world for everyone to hear and ask yourself, did my words uplift people or did they depress
people?
Mike, before we dig into that practical element and that practical layer that we can apply for ourselves daily with regards to this lesson, this agreement that Don MCGs is, is calling out. I really like. What we heard in that first clip sorry, the the first section of that clip, a productivity game was breaking down for us, which is how the biggest sin that Don Miguel experiences and calls out is this idea of self-rejection.
This self-rejection being, how much we punish ourselves, perhaps daily or even more regularly than daily, perhaps when we screw up or we seemingly screw up. And I think that's a really big idea, isn't it? Rather than, first of all, leaning in towards how we can utilize our words and what we say to other people, first of which, what Don McGill's calling out is actually, you've gotta internalize it too.
You've gotta be able to tell yourself and be impeccable with yourself, the words that you are utilizing in order to keep yourself, feeling positive. Confident or hold yourself accountable. I think that's quite an interesting build, isn't it?
Yeah. Look, I think the thing that I've discovered, and I think there's another book think and Grow Rich talks a lot about positive self talk.
And here once again, we see another great author Don McGold, as really bringing to our attention that it is critical if you have negative thoughts that takes a toll on you, whether it's self-rejection, whether it's negativity, whether you lose hope or like I'm always talking about mate, whether you just have a bad vibe going on.
And I think that the whole thing here that I try is to literally continually, habitually. Have positive mental visions, mantras that I repeat daily. And here's the other thing is I try to make a promise to myself not to think and speak negatively, not to rush to judgment. And when I do, I get like a big virtual wooden spoon and I like myself with it.
No, don't do it. And what I mean by that is like there is nothing to gain from judging others being negative on yourself or others. There's just nothing to gain. And I try to create a very binary situation where I just refuse to have negative thought. And that starts with calling yourself out when you do.
When you do have those negative thoughts. So for me, I think it's always tempting. I think that like when you don't achieve something the best when you don't achieve something, it's so tempting to go, ah, man, I can't believe it. But I think if you can go, okay. Yuko willing problems, good Carol's work growth mindset.
I will grow through the adversity. Joe Rogan, I'm gonna be comfortable with the uncomfortable. Yeah. It's if, it's almost like catching ourselves, like on triggers don't allow yourself to go down that rabbit hole. Don't go down that spiral. Refuse to engage in negative thought. Like for me, there is no and actually I need to reinforce myself.
There's nothing to gain from negative thought. There is. It is the worst investment you can ever make because nothing good will come of it. So just stop it now. That's easily said. Harder to do. . How do you I think we all experience this, don't we, mark? So like how do you try and, prevent yourself from going down that path.
Yeah I think this is the big cracks and big question, isn't it? Because we all do it for me, I think I was guilty of sitting around with negative thoughts in my mind for too long, like percolating away like coffee. And what I found was quite helpful was to gradually recognize when my mindset or the things that I was thinking of were starting to affect my body.
And what I mean by that is maybe feeling like a little bit of un knees in my stomach, maybe a desire to, a physi, a physical desire to move rather than sit in front of a screen or some work. Something that I was feeling a little bit negative about instead of thinking, oh wow, this is really bad.
I'm useless of whatever it is that I'm trying to do instead trying. Inject a little bit of movement, a little bit of a change of scenery to try and then, physically shift my brain from a visual and sound perspective. Because then I was, if I'm walking the dog, let's say, or going outside or maybe just changing rooms, making a cup of tea, boiling the kettle, just changing that little simple thing, that's ultimately what it isn't it?
Simple, just moving rooms. I was then able to put into practice the same behavior of trying to move my brain, putting it onto something else. And what we've always spoken about on the show before is if you've got a problem, you look at it, you think about it, maybe you write it down. Ideally you take notes, you prepare, maybe a skeleton, maybe you think about it, but then you come back.
You don't try and figure it out all in all at once, because at least for me, my personal. Decisions in that heat of the moment. Maybe a bit emotional. We've all been there, we've all sent maybe a short winded email when given half an hour. We might have been a little bit nicer. Yeah. I think that's what I try and do.
I try and inject essentially a bit of a break so that I can come back to it later with a little bit more of a clear head.
So what you're talking about is when you feel that you're gonna go down the path of negative self-talk or Saying negative things to others, you almost try and remove your, remove yourself from that situation and cool.
The jets a bit. Is that right?
Yeah, exactly. Cool. The Jets by utilizing similar to if your mantras are the way to pick up your day, get you started and hold you accountable to some of those core practices and behaviors that you want to inject into your behavior. For me it's very similar.
It's just moving it's getting that physical movement and distraction. Yes. I suppose you could call it. Yeah.
And another thing is like a good. Walk around the block can solve so many problems, can't it?
I, it really can. The amount of problems that I've cracked while walking or talking to my dog.
She should be a member of the Moonshot Show as well, Mike .
But is she a member? Is she entitled to the master series? That's what I'm
no she's not yet ,
so she will be. So a really good starting point here is agreement number one, be impeccable with your word. And it's not just your word with others, but how you talk to yourself.
And like for me, There is such an easy win in every day, starting with positive mantras, positive manifestation, really focusing on what you will do and how you will do it in a way that lines up with your values. And it might sound a little silly, it might sound a little over the top, but for me, there is space in our lives and that can either be filled in by negative or power or negative or positive forces.
And I think choosing to lean into the positive frame fundamentally means that you create less space for negativity. Yes. And think, how can you not? Just sign up for that. Be impeccable with your word. Don't fall into the trap of rejecting yourself over others. Don't fall into the trap of being hostile with others or yourself.
Be impeccable with your word and you'll be on the right way. Now here's the thing, mark, as we go out into the world and we're loaded up with that positive frame, and we're impeccable with our words, adversity will come, challenge will come. Failure and problems will come. And I think one of our greatest problems is that we feel these failures, these problems.
Way too emotional way. And what we often do is interpret them as a judgment upon ourselves as if they're casting a vote on us. I didn't manage to get that deal. I didn't manage to hit that number. I am not only bad, incapable, not good enough, but then it is about me that things are coming after me. The world is conspiring against me, and the good news is that Don McWell has some thoughts on this, so let's listen to his second agreement.
Don't take anything personally. When a person
insults you, imagine that person is full of poison and their words are poison being thrown at you. If you take their insults personally, you will ingest that poison. Once ingested, the poison will take over your emotional operating system and make it hard to think clearly.
You will be enraged and feel like a victim. Stop feeling like a victim. By remembering that nothing people do is personal. Even if someone takes out a gun and shoots you, it's not personal. They did not shoot you because of who you are. They shot you because of who they are. They would've not shot you if they weren't full of hatred.
They wouldn't have shot you if they didn't have a horrible childhood and suffered constant abuse or repeatedly fed lies that made them hate people who look like you. When you agree to not take things personally, you choose to see other people suffering and realize that their judgements and their hatred and their harmful words are just a reflection of the pain they are experiencing.
Instead of thinking, why me? Why me think poor them choose to be compassionate instead of choosing to be a victim. Now, this doesn't mean you live a passive life. If a person shoots you, and sure they go to prison, but not because you want revenge, but because it's for the greater good. This person is dangerous to themselves and others.
Seek justice without being outraged and hating the person who wronged you. Because when you're full of hate and feel like a victim, you'll allow your inner judge to beat up on you. That's why it's imperative to never take anything
personally. I think this is a great extension from the first agreement we were hearing, Mike, where Don Miguel was calling us out and encouraging us to really think about the words that we choose not only for ourselves, but also outward facing those individuals that we see each day.
When I think about this second agreement, the idea of don't take anything personally, what strikes me as interesting is just how timeless this agreement is. Bearing in mind, Dogo wrote it way before all of us were utilizing the internet texting calls, slack, emails, whatever it is, the instant messaging element, it's become in my mind, Conversation and feedback has almost become so disposable that people almost deliver it with because they want to say something.
And I think what's really interesting to think about this second agreement where we choose not to take anything personally is how we also, it also reflects on the behavior that we can start doing for others. And again, rather than me interpreting some feedback in a negative light, that makes me question my abilities.
It equally, I think is, this is a cool to arms about being sensible about how you give comments and feedback to others as well, because it might be that they are not ready to not take anything personally themselves. Does that make sense?
Yeah. . So here's the thing, right? If you sat down with most people, and let's say they did a tweet or a Facebook post and people they didn't know took exception to it and were like saying crazy stuff, you'd just ignore it, right?
Everyone would to go, ah, yeah, that's just, the Internet's being weird, right? Yep. Yeah, exactly. So here's the thing though, as soon as things get a little closer, we are far less Teflon. . Yes. As things get a little closer into our sphere, like friends and colleagues and family members, we do start to take things personally.
And when we take things personally, I think the massive miscalculation is you really think that people are casting. Judgment upon you. But the reality is most people are so called up in their own lives, they don't have enough time to really think about you. Like we way overestimate how importance in the world.
And I think the other thing here is it's, you can take feedback. And here's the interesting thing. When someone gives you feedback and your objective and you are not emotional about it, actually, if there's some truth to it, you can work with it so much better. For example, if someone says to you, mark, look, the way you are swimming when you go and swim out in the Great Pacific Ocean your your, the technique you're using with your arms is really inefficient.
You could choose to go, oh my God, they're criticizing me. I'm such a terrible swimmer. I'm hopeless. Or you could say, Really well, how might I do it more efficiently? Oh if you actually cut your hands in a different way and roll the wrists and use your show shoulders in a different way, you'll be able to go 10% faster and you'd be like, okay, how do I do that?
Okay, try rolling your arms like this. Okay. Wow. Now, there were two paths set. You could be objective or you could be emotional. As soon as you were perceiving that feedback as a personal attack and judgment, you are never on the path to self-improvement there because you are so emotionally aroused, you're so hurt by this criticism that you're not a, actually able to do anything constructive with it, are you?
No I totally agree. And this is something that I think is possibly easier and therefore harder to. Deal with nowadays, because I would argue that a lot of us are now in positions of management more so than perhaps any other time in business history. And what I mean by that is with the rise of being online all the time, the ability to have video calls with anybody in the world as quickly as you want with different time zones and so on and so forth, I think people are therefore thrust into either a powers of responsibility or B, you're thrust into a situation where you are going to receive that type of feedback, more criticism
or Mark.
Mark. You just get more feedback, more messages, more
notifications. Exactly right. See, and I think the, to build on what you are saying there, Mike is what we were learning from Ron Holiday with Ego is the enemy. You can choose how you are going to interpret. The way that others interact with you.
Yeah. And the feedback that you receive, whether it's a bit of a snotty email or whether it's, a little bit of quiet criticism from a colleague, a trusted individual, we can all choose how we want to interpret it. Now, the word, take it personally, for me, when I hear Don McGill's agreement there is I'm taking offense.
And I think the area, or the split, or the divide that I'm trying to utilize this agreement and how I can apply it into my own life is removing the emotion. So if I take a piece of advice, a piece of criticism, I can do that exactly as you've just said objectively. I don't have to see it as an attack.
If I can remove the emotion that I inject into what others are telling me
think about it this way, mark, who are the best investors? Objective ones or emotional ones. Exactly. Yeah. Who are the best clutch players when they have to score almost at the full-time buzzer? Do you go to the crazy erratic, over energized person who's shouting and screaming?
Or do you go to that mumba, Kobe Bryant? Do you go to mj who's cool as a cucumber? Yeah. Who do you go
to? Exactly right. You'd go to the levelheaded. Yes. Cool. Calm individual,
wouldn't you? And so they talk about like the art being a great investor is to not be emotional. Because when you're emotional as an investor, you sell when it's down and you buy when it's up.
Great investors buy when it's down and they scale. Like the thing here is that to say things another way when I take this on board is, I think people are so busy with themselves that what we perceive as people being unkind or unfair to us is really just them not having any idea. They didn't, they're not intentionally doing anything.
Yes. To you or me, or any of our listeners members subscribe. They're just, everyone's just doing their own thing and got rough elbows and they bump into some people on the way, and it's our choice to take it personally. That's our
choice. Yep. You're totally right. You're
totally right. I feel like this is just like the most efficient way to live life, don't you?
Yeah. . Yeah. I think it is and efficient from a bandwidth perspective. You know what? I'm already learning from just those first two agreements. Be impeccable with your word. Don't take anything personally is just how I choose to interpret, but also pass out comments, feedback. Moments of conversation and so on, because as we've, as we learned from that first one, if you are interpreting things emotionally, you are using up your own bandwidth of your day, let's think about your day and how much time probably moves onto areas that are fundamentally wasted, energy that you could have utilized to being maybe more creative or, or just, being a little bit, let's say, happy or calmer.
Instead, it's taken up because you're taking things personally or you are perhaps using your word in a negative way for others. It is leading to an inefficiency, isn't it? It's leading to wasted time and wasted opportunities to be that little bit more efficient. So I think that's already this transformational message that Dom McGill Res is really teaching us here.
Mike is about efficiency, which I find quite interesting.
It is. And I'll tell you who won't take things personally is you and me when our listeners and our members. And leave a rating or a review of our show, either in Spotify, apple Podcasts, or any of the other apps. You can listen to our show on Mike.
We would certainly love that, wouldn't we?
I think Mike, it's a clear sign and clarify way to get the moonshots message and the moonshots message being the ability to learn out loud, share things that we've learned from the books and the superstars and the entrepreneurs that we dig into on the Moonshot Show with the four corners of the globe.
And really that comes down to you, our listeners and subscribers, you individuals who have gone into your apps, left us. That rating or review really helps the algorithms work in the background and get the show into the four corners of the globe. And Mike, as we call out regularly on the show, we do get listeners from all four corners of the globe, which is just fantastic.
And as we see our members increasing volume week on week, I think it only. Is down to the hard work and the diligence of you, our listeners. It really does make all the difference for the show getting out into the world. Yep.
Yep. It's something that is critical. I think as we're all part of this thing together, give us a, like a review, a rating, a share.
Go into your app just as you're listening to us right now. Just flick it open, give us a thumbs up, some stars, leave us a review. If you're on Apple Podcast, we'd really appreciate it. Super grateful because that's how we build this moonshot community. The other way we do that, mark, is sharing big ideas.
And this next one from Don McWell who has, it's big
isn. Yeah, that's right. This one. If we've heard about being impeccable with our word and not taking anything personally, this next one, Mike, is another slam dunk. So let's hear about Dom mcg, RS third agreement. Don't make assumptions
a good rule of thumb.
If you need to make assumptions, always assume the positive. So as humans, we have the tendency to make assumptions about everything. And here's a quote from the book. We make assumptions about what others are doing or thinking. We take it personally, then we blame them and react by sending emotional poison with our word.
That is why whenever we make assumptions, we're asking for problems. So if you're someone that usually operates in a negative state of mind, or you're always in negative environments, your assumptions will tend to be negative. However, the more empowered you become as a human, the more proactively you live your life.
And when you begin to love yourself and the others around you, the more your assumptions will become positive. Positive. Short story, you're in a relationship. Your partner hasn't replied for a few hours. Now you could make positive assumptions. Maybe his phone battery is dead. He got caught up in a video game, or he has an important deadline at work.
But you are not someone who makes positive assumptions. You tend to make negative assumptions. So you know he's out doing something behind my back, or he's out with another woman. I know it. So you start to believe your assumptions as the truth, and you start looking for ways to validate this negative thinking.
Maybe you start searching his social media for clues to where he might be, or who this mysterious woman is that he's seeing when all along, you could have just saved yourself all this drama. By just assuming the positive negative assumptions lead to blaming and resentment, which is another form of the emotional poison we spoke about earlier.
And the more you think about it, the more it compounds positive assumptions on the other hand, put you in a position of power and you can see things more clearly and you are better able to overcome and handle situations. The next insight why we shouldn't make assumptions. So quote from the book, all the sadness and drama in your life was rooted in making assumptions and taking things personally.
So that's a pretty powerful statement. Think about any time in your life where you've had drama, maybe in a relationship or at work with a coworker, and the drama can be rooted in one of these, either taking something personally, so maybe someone said something to you that hurt your feelings and made you emotional, or you made assumptions, which led to drama.
So by at least being aware and honing these two agreements, you can eliminate a lot of the drama that occurs
in your life. I love this thought, mark, that we let our assumptions, which I just guesses, they sneakily and cunningly become our truths. And when he said that, I might, ah, that is so true. If you are not careful and don't think objectively and if you are not careful and you rush to judgment before, it's some fictional assumption has just become a reality.
I think that's massive. I think we I do that. I think we all fall victim of letting assumptions become our truths and then we're very far from the truth. Aren.
I think this is a huge bit of wisdom. Obviously we're learning and benefiting from these first agreements that we've already heard from Don Mcg.
But this one here, I think is, I don't wanna spoil the surprise, Mike, because we always revisit at the end of the show , which one is our, which one is our key takeaway. But this has blown me away because it is so true. I believe when we are making and allowing our assumptions in our world, our life, our interpretation of not only the things around us, but also the people around us.
So whether that's success means driving a sports car or success means waking up and feeling happy immediately, all these assumptions therefore impact and create that negative frame of mind, which then leads to, as we're hearing the suffering, I think this is one of those pieces of wisdom pieces of.
Thinking that can absolutely influence so much once you figure it out. Because me, Mike I've certainly been victim of this before, living in a bit of a negative frame of mind because I've made assumptions whether those assumptions are about my own skills. I don't really know how to do this project at work, therefore I'm no good.
Or whether it's, oh, I assume so and so is doing this bit of work, I assume it's his job. I assume he's gonna do it for me. It then leads me to anxiety, uncertainty, maybe even frustration when the individual doesn't then deliver that bit of work that I assumed wrongly that they understood it. It's a.
It's quite a practical tip. This, I think, and I think where I'm trying to lead us towards is just how beneficial it can be. If you take the proactivity that was in that agreement, which is talk to the other person, have the courage to, and in fact follow the first agreement, be impeccable with your world, speak with integrity.
Ask the questions of the individual or the colleague or family member or whoever it is that right now you've interpreted what they've done or what they've said in one particular way. Maybe that way is pretty negative. If you are unsure, raise a hand. Have the courage to ask the question. Try and communicate with that person as much and as clearly as he can, because it will lead to a more positive frame of mind.
It'll lead to less stress, less anxiety, less uncertainty, and hopefully lead you to something where you are not wasting your energy and your time and your mindset on something that doesn't even take place. That hasn't even happened. Yeah.
Isn't that the craziest thing that you can spend so much time and effort worrying or dwelling on things that have yet to actually take place?
. And when we studied Del Kane's book How to Stop Worrying, he talked about what you do is if some, something you're assuming about the future, something that potentially could happen, should always ask yourself what's the worst that could happen? And then take a very pragmatic step.
To start addressing that problem in order to arrive at a better than the worst case situation. . Yeah. And invariably the worst case scenario never happens, but we spend time beforehand worrying about that. So if you can shift from the like court in a sea of worry to like moving forward and then putting it in a box once you've done what you can for today, no use worrying about it, wake up tomorrow and get started again on it again tomorrow.
Whilst, I'm, I am making that sound fairly transactional. I think you know this assuming the intention of others, assuming the worst case scenario is so dangerous and those assumptions, I thought that idea that they somehow transform in your mind and become truths, then you've just made a, a mountain out of a mole hill, haven't
you?
This is exactly it. And actually this reminds me of the work of Dan Harris and who wrote the book, 10% Happier. And the key, one of the key lessons for him, apart from going into productivity and a similar lesson with James Clear and Habits and so on, was he, his path to being that 10% happier was taming the voice in his head because the voice in his head was pushing him to either work too hard or judge other people unfairly.
And what ended up happening was as we might remember, he had that, that that moment of being frozen on live television, national television. That's right. And what I think is quite interesting here, When I'm thinking back to quite a practical life moment, like Dan Harris for example, if he was able to remove and not make assumptions and quiet that voice in his head that those inner battles that we all, regularly face, it might be that he'd be that little bit happier sooner.
And I think this is the great ability that we have on this show, Mike, to learn from these individuals who either have either A, gone through it or b, written the guides and the agreements to help us get away from it. I think there's so much to, to learn here,
isn't there? There is. And I think much taking things personally, making assumptions about things, it's just wasted energy.
I think this is just one big practical play. Forget the wisdom for a moment, mark. Like we only have finite attention and effort and energy to give. So spend it on the good
stuff, that's right. That's right. It's our brains. Even though we heard from the checklist manifesto, ATO Gandhi, how our brains are not very good computers, Mike.
I think when it comes to happiness and how we interpret the behaviors or the actions of others, it's still exactly the same, isn't it? We can only process so much. So when we are assuming and making assumptions and therefore wasting our energy, and I do it too, Mike it, it means that we can't go out and be creative.
We can't be strategic. We can't focus on that business that we're trying to create or that book we're trying to write, or maybe it's just sticking to a marathon training plan, whatever it might be. When we are worried about all of these unnecessary elements in our lives, what happens is, yeah, it does.
It takes away not only the time we have, but also the fun. It takes away the ability to just enjoy yourself and what you're doing right here, right now. For example, if I'm on, you and I are recording and we are thinking about the work that we've gotta do, what happens? The show might suffer. And instead what we're able to do is remove assumptions over what others are doing and so on.
And it's a daily practice, but that helps strive quality, doesn't it? Because you are removing the wasted bandwidth. Yes.
And I think what you can do is don't rush to judgment. Don't take things personally, don't make those assumptions. And what can fill that void is do the right thing. Be impeccable with your word, like we spoke about that.
That's things like speak with integrity. Say what you mean. Don't confuse or mislead people, but more importantly, always do your best. Sign up. Go out there and give 100%. And mark. As always, we're gonna close out the show with a really strong thought. So this is the productivity game really framing for us what is important, maybe what is even most essential of all the four agreements, and that is to always do your best honor.
This agreement, inner judge, will have no basis to judge you on. In the book, author Don Miguel Reese says, if you've done your best and the judge tries to judge you according to your book of law, you've got the answer I did my best. Think of times you've walked away from a performance not knowing if you'd won or lost, but knowing deep down that you did your best.
Remember that piece that you felt even after you failed to get the reward, you expected the job or the trophy, you still had no reason to judge yourself. I've learned to do my best in two ways. First, I do my best when I give my full attention to an activity and don't overexert myself. Many people believe that to do their best, they need to go all out.
But if you push yourself too hard, you'll kill the joy you have for an activity and exhaust yourself, which will increase the time needed to complete your goal. And second, I do my best when I forget about the rewards or punishments I expect afterwards. And just focus on getting better. If you have a hard time knowing what your best is, it's helpful to picture the main character in the movie for Jump.
Whatever Gump did, he applied himself fully, whether it was playing football, fighting in Vietnam, playing table tennis, captain Dean, a shrimp boat or running, he simply immersed himself and seemed to enjoy what he was doing. Like Gump, do your best by doing your best to enjoy the process.
Mike, this is a great way of closing, isn't it?
Because I think it's building nicely on where you and I and our listeners were starting to uncover within the first three agreements. And what I'm, really interpreting from that final, or let's say fourth agreement, is this ability to try and give absolutely everything that you are working on and that you care about.
You're full a. Focus, give it your full attention. Maintain a bit of the joy by being able to look back and say, oh, did I work hard enough on that thing I did. No matter what the outcome was, I know that I put in a hundred percent and therefore nobody else can judge me. If they do, judge, that's okay. That's up to them.
I'm not gonna take it personally. Instead, I'll be able to hold my own head up high knowing that I've tried, I've learnt, and actually as we heard from the end of that clip, enjoyed the journey of getting to that moment rather than the reward itself.
Let's do something fun to, to wrap up the show.
Let's see if we can think of evidence in our own lives where always doing your best really matters, particularly when you didn't get the result that you wanted. So here's my question for you, mark. I'll answer it after you. Okay. Can you think of a time. Perhaps recently where you have not got the result you wanted, but you got, but you still felt satisfied because you did your best.
You still felt fulfilled because you did your best, even though the result was not what you wanted.
Yeah, absolutely. And I think I'll choose a work related one because those for me have, when I don't achieve a target or a goal at work, I'll take them a little bit more personally because I'm quite proud and I want to succeed in the business space and make my colleagues and so I'm proud.
So I'll choose this one. It was a couple of years ago we had worked really hard on a particular project. Lots of team members involved. Lots of effort many hours, and. By the end, it was clear that we didn't quite have enough closeness and alignment with the the partner that we were working with.
So it didn't quite land in a really positive way. It wasn't quite the success that I think we'd all hoped and dreamed of. But what I think was fantastic was after the event, being able to look back and say you know what? We gave it a very good effort and I'm certainly pleased with the work that we put in because we tried really hard.
Yes, it didn't quite work. Yes, there was a misalignment with the individuals involved and, maybe the businesses just weren't ready to collaborate at that time, and that's okay. Not gonna take it personally. But the crux of it was that we had all walked away holding our heads high, knowing that the content, the work, and the time that we had in invested was in fact worth it because all of us had gone along the journey, not only together, but as individuals and we had learned stuff.
I think that was a key moment for me that really, I think, tested the ability to look at. Let's call it an inverted coms failure because in this regard it's not really a failure cuz we've learned from it and every experience is good. But it didn't succeed. It wasn't the smash hit that I think we were hoping for, but looking back at it afterwards, it was that great feeling of, wow, we, we certainly tried our best, didn't we?
That for me, Mike was probably one of those moments where always trying our best led me to enjoy the the process, even though it was, let's be honest, pretty difficult. What about you? What comes to mind when I turn this mirror back on you?
Before we do that I just wanna double click on this a Do you, can you feel satisfied with the effort even though You didn't get the result you wanted. Was that, because if you go back and look at it how hard that you worked and your teammates worked that we are you saying we couldn't have worked any harder. We did the best we could.
And do you think it was that characteristic which made you more comfortable with the outcome?
Actually I think it was the lessons that we learned from the process as well. Okay. I think we certainly had worked very hard and there was a comfort that came with having applied ourselves so diligently.
But at the same time, what I think was interesting after the event was being able to look at it and think we certainly tried our best as we were. So through every event in our lives, there's opportunities to obviously grow and learn. So the best, my best ability now. Is probably better than it was a couple of years ago.
So I would say at the time, yes, it was definitely the best that we could do and. Therefore it felt pretty, pretty good. But now being able to look back at it, the presence of time, the lessons that were learned, yeah. From that event have therefore made us better communicators, collaborators better at dealing with unforeseen events and so on.
. . So I think, yeah, in, in, in answer to your question, the benefit really came from not only being able to hold our heads up high and say, yeah, we tried really hard, but it was also being able to look at it objectively afterwards and say This is how we can learn from it. This is how we can shift this negativity into something more productive and proactive and something that benefits us in the long run.
Yeah. So it's really interesting. So you've really, which is very good for our moonshots host focused on the learning and the personal growth. My one is a bit more basic, and that was when I ran the, my first ever marathon this year I was a bit tired due to some international travel.
I was well prepared, but I certainly hit a bit of a wall. I couldn't run faster than what I was. And so my time for the marathon was fair, bit slower, probably 10, 15% slower than what I had hoped for. But I will tell you this, mark, like I gave it everything I had I honestly had not one fraction.
More speed than I had because I was just done. I got the race completed 42 kilometers, 26 miles, and the feeling I had at the end was it didn't really matter on my time. I really didn't care. I was like, my gosh, I worked as hard as I possibly could. I fought against the fatigue as hard as I could, and I just got it done and it really didn't matter.
It was so funny how time obsessed I was in my preparation and training for the marathon, but in the end, because I did the best I could all of that times and splits, they didn't matter at all. Mark isn't that
crazy? Isn't it funny how you assume, again, it's coming back to this idea, isn't it? You assume that in an event whether that event is a marathon or a key meeting, you assume you, you try and second guess your reaction to moments.
You are hoping, oh, sorry, not hoping you are assuming that you will look at your your laps and your stages and judge it. But actually when you're in the arena, as Brene Brown would say, when you're physically there, it doesn't necessarily matter as much because you know that you've done all the training.
Now it's just about going out and doing the activity rather than trying to second guess how you're gonna react. It's getting into it and seeing firsthand, I think you are right. I think that's a really interesting little story. There you go. We had one from work and one from an exercise perspective.
good combination. Rounded, just like our show. And so Mark, I have to ask you, we've done the four agreements from Don Riaz. My question to you is, as you go to get and apply this out in your morning today, here in Sydney, Australia, as you go out this week and to close out the year, which one of these is going to be playing on your mind?
Which one will get your consider?
Look, Mike I've gotta be honest, there's a reason why the four agreements is still such a best selling hit, and it's still in Amazon's top 20, even since 1997. And that's because all four of them are so valuable. So actually the truth is I'll be taking all four and scribbling them down as mantra to remember.
But actually the one that hit me the hardest today as we were going through them was number three. Don't make assumptions. This idea of suffering and, oh, sorry. The idea that your assumptions create the suffering that's around you is a big idea for me. And that's the thing that I'm gonna, challenge myself to not sink into.
What about you? Which of the four are you going to, spark up and, continue going on for the day?
Mark? I think we're strangely aligned on this one. I think the assumptions is a really big piece. Just don't rush to judgment of yourself or others and avoid, miscommunications where you perceive someone is acting and thinking in a way, but it's just a misunderstanding.
Just hold back on all of that judgment and just liberate yourself and your time. That one is huge, isn't it?
Huge. Huge. It's big. And that's been such a joy to, to learn from today.
Mark, thank you to you for. Sharing that joy with me on this show. Show 208 Don Wue s the Four Agreements, and thank you to you, our members, subscribers, and listeners to what an adventure we have had into the four agree four agreements, which really did kick off our with.
In series. And it started with the idea of changing your reality. Change it for yourself and change it for others. And words really matter. So be impeccable with them. Don't take anything personally, get over it because assumptions are not the truth. Don't fall into that terrible conundrum where all those little voices in your mind become the truth when they certainly are not.
And when in doubt, go out into the world every single day and do your best. And that is the perfect thought for a team of people all around the world who are learning out loud together to be the best version of themselves. When in doubt, do your best. You will get to the moon and some extra. So that's it for the Moonshot Podcast.
That's a wrap.