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When I ask a question, either on the phone or on a webinar, I feel where the person I am asking is looking for an answer.
99% of the time the person is looking in their mind. As if that were the only place to look.
When I ask people if they ever knew the answer to my question, they don’t hesitate to tell me that no, they had never met the question or the answer. And yet… they look in their mind.
What is the connection between TLB and mind?
I have had this question for some time: what made me have a high TLB that is getting higher all the time. Because if I knew that, I would be able to teach it. Toughening up hasn’t been the answer!
I didn’t look for the answer in my mind. I knew I didn’t know the answer. In fact, I am probably the first person to ask this exact question.
I patiently waited for the answer to come to me. Of course, I expected it to be dressed in disguise… but come anyway.
I subscribe to a lot of article aggregator sites, pocket, feedspot, scoopit, medium, digg, to mention a few.
I know reading articles, in general, is not a good idea for you, given that you have no foundation of knowing… but someone who has read, consciously, thousands of books, like me, having a specific question, articles can be a good resource.
Sometimes I find some stuff… and then I read the book from where it was taken.
This morning I found a few interesting resources, one of them, I think answers my question.
I used to be very pessimisti… A Virgo characteristic. I always looked for what is wrong, what is off, what is missing.
Useful in some contexts, very bad for your mood… lol.
And then, some 20 years ago, I heard or read somewhere that humans are very amusing. That observing human behavior is very entertaining if you can just watch it with wonderment.
Yay, I liked that. And then I began to train myself in earnest.
I trained myself to find the amusing, to find the entertaining, the interesting, the curious.
I laugh now often and loud. Whether I am alone or not.
I laugh at myself, I laugh when I find an unusual combination of words, I am delighted.
I have noticed in my weekly exercise class: the people who laugh when losing their balance, or when making a mistake, are the people who are younger than their chronological age. And when I muscletest them, their TLB is higher than the TLB of the ones that don’t laugh.
There are leaders and there are followers in everything. The leaders in the laughter test with the highest TLB. But even the ones that just follow start raising their TLB.
This is not a rule… I don’t laugh when I lose my balance… correct it… And my TLB is 70%… But having fun depends a lot on your TLB.
There is a book (Love 2.0) that I am not going to read. instead I’ll read a book of a conversation the author has about the book. Why that book, why that researcher? Because the article said: the more fun moments you have in your life results in greater overall well-being. here is the link to the article,
Most mornings as I leave the Y after my swim and shower, I cross paths with a coterie of toddlers entering with their caregivers for a kid-oriented activity. I can’t resist saying hello, requesting a high-five, and wishing them a fun time. I leave the Y grinning from ear to ear, uplifted not just by my own workout but even more so by my interaction with these darling representatives of the next generation.
What a great way to start the day!
I am going to read the conversation, because of the gratitude I owe to the researcher:
I’ve been raising my TLB, but now I know how.
Yesterday’s article where I point out that unless you know what exactly worked after you accomplished something, you cannot repeat it, or sustain it, is probably a watershed moment for me.
I have been teaching, for about 20 years, that unless you acknowledge the source of your results, you can’t really repeat your results…
Why? Because you do so many things… and if you don’t know what of those things worked you won’t repeat the result.
It’s not that you are stupid (although you may be), it is more that you are stingy.
Why stingy? Sparing your energy, sparing your efforts.
Here it is in simple terms: what gets you to where you are, where you start, is some action, and your how. Combined.
Then some new idea comes from the outside and alters your actions, including the how.
You attain results, often dramatic results.
But what you would need to acknowledge is that idea and often a person who carries it, as the source of the different results.
But you want to feel smart, and you don’t. You don’t want to acknowledge anyone, because of the dreaded “relative devaluation” You don’t even want to be compared to a billionaire… As if it made you automatically be worth less… and maybe it does. Money-wise for sure. lol.
But you want to live in your tiny bubble of delusion that you are as good as anyone else.
Every time Tai says: I am not as smart as Bill Gates, but almost… or something like that, he signals that he is a low TLB.
There is that devaluation monster…
Here is what I think would be healthy: becoming the best version of yourself, comparing yourself to your own potential… to your realistic potential.
First: come from your strength and build on that. Build a life on your strength.
The Relative Devaluation always compares apples to oranges. Their strength to your weakness…
And this is where stupid wins… when you can’t see that.
But if you could see that receiving a gift from somebody’s strength does not devalue you… and acknowledging it neither.
It actually allows you to lean on their strength while you build your life on YOUR strength.
In the What Gives You Juice? conversations the main job I have is to find your hidden strength that has enough energy in it to take you to your best.
In that conversation I need to allow you to say what you think, and only “listen” to the underlying feelings, the amount of energy that is hidden in it.
Yesterday I read that
…some seeds are so tough that you need to burn the forest before they are willing and able to germinate.
Some of your strengths are like that. And often I need to burn your forest to get them to germinate.
- But if you treat what you get from me as my opinion, it will not work for you.
- If you treat what you get from me as irrelevant, and only what comes from your mind is relevant… you’ll remain the same.
To the degree that you can laugh, laugh at yourself, laugh at others, laugh from joy, laugh from funny… your TLB can be high and can start you to climb the Tree of Life.
Remaining at TLB 1? No climbing.
PS: Acknowledging the source of your result is, in common parlance, called : appreciation and gratitude. But how people use that, non-specific, non-precise, vague, foggy, too general… isn’t going to cut it.
When people tell me how great I am, I know they just bought the ticket to ignore everything I say.
Had they said: the thing you said about X made me follow it, and this is what happened… they would be able to know that X was valuable. Not me! X. And that is the point.
Acknowledging what you get, not the person.
