Focus On What You Want, Most People Focus On The Obstacles

Welcome to The Missing Secret Podcast. I'm

Kelly Hatfield, hey and

I'm John Mitchell. So we've got a pretty

cool little thing we're going to show you today or talk about our

topic is focus on what you want, not the obstacles and and I

think we've talked about this before, but this sort of comes

from a Simon Sinek video that he talks about the, I guess it's

the four or five lessons of life. And the first one with is

this idea of focusing on what you want, which is what most

people do not do. I think about two thirds of the American

public focuses on the obstacles, which is a lousy way to live, in

my opinion, but, but I think let's listen to it. And Kelly,

I'd love to hear your takes on

This perfect All right, I'll get this queued up,

and we'll come back to you in just a second.

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The first is to go after the things that you want.

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Let me tell you a story. So a friend of mine and I, we went

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for a run in Central Park. The Roadrunners organization. On the

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weekends, they host races, and it's very common at the end of

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the race, they'll have a sponsor who will give away something,

Speaker 1 00:01:32

apples or bagels or something. And on this particular day, when

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we got to the end of the run, there were some free bagels, and

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they had picnic tables set up, and on one side was a group of

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volunteers. On the table were boxes of bagels, and on the

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other side was a long line of runners waiting to get their

Speaker 1 00:01:51

free bagel. So I said to my friend, let's let's get a bagel.

Speaker 1 00:01:55

And he looked at me and said, that line's too long. And I

Speaker 1 00:01:59

said, free bagel. And he said, I don't want to wait in line. And

Speaker 1 00:02:06

I was like, free bagel. And he says, not, let's it's too long.

Speaker 1 00:02:12

And that's when I realized that there's two ways to see the

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world. Some people see the thing that they want, and some people

Speaker 1 00:02:20

see the thing that prevents them from getting the thing that they

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want. I could only see the bagels. He could only see the

Speaker 1 00:02:27

line. And so I walked up to the line, I leaned in between two

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people, put my hand in the box and pulled out two bagels, and

Speaker 1 00:02:41

no one got mad at me, because the rule is, you can go after

Speaker 1 00:02:45

whatever you want. You just cannot deny anyone else to go

Speaker 1 00:02:49

after whatever they want. Now I had to sacrifice choice. I

Speaker 1 00:02:53

didn't get to choose which bagel I got. I got whatever I pulled

Speaker 1 00:02:56

out, but I didn't have to wait in line. So the point is is you

Speaker 1 00:02:59

don't have to wait in line. You don't have to do it the way

Speaker 1 00:03:02

everybody else has done it. You can do it your way. You can

Speaker 1 00:03:06

break the rules. You just can't get in the way of somebody else

Speaker 1 00:03:09

getting what they want. That's rule number one.

So there's so much truth in there that in

there,

Yeah, absolutely, there's so much

truth in that. Isn't that interesting? We talked about a

lot, like the kind of the lens that you look through,

Right, right? So, so pontificate about what you're

how that hits you at all that,

For me, again, it is always about how the lens

you're looking through again, is life happening for you, or is

life happening to you? You know? Yeah, yeah. Good point. Is it

the full, you know? I'll say this sometime when I'm trying to

help people understand what I what it is I'm trying to get at.

Is it, you know, you know, gosh, what next, you know? Or is it

okay? What's next? Yeah, you know? Yeah, it is, to me, it's

that. It is, again, just another way of, kind of demonstrating

that way of looking at the world and the lens that you're looking

through and filtering things through,

Right, right? Well, this is maybe the essence

of it. If you're just winging life, you're wired for his

arrival, and you're focused on the problems that's you're

naturally inclined to do that, and what a lousy way to live

you. I think both you and me have been blessed to be wired,

to be optimistic and to look at the possibilities, not the

obstacles, but two thirds of the people are not and but let's,

let's verify this. Let's, let's talk to our friend, chat GPT,

and see what she says about this. I. G, are you there?

Right here, John, what's on your mind?

So some people in the world focus on the

obstacles, and some people focus on their goals and what they

want. And I want you to help us figure out what percentage of

people in general in the United States focus on the obstacles.

And as you help us figure that out, factor in that most people,

that all people, are innately wired for survival, which makes

them fear based. And let's also factor in that probably in

surveys, people want to make themselves look good, so I'm not

so sure they would be honest that they look at the the

obstacles, but but considering those two factors, give us a

guess at what percentage of the American public focuses on the

obstacles.

We don't have a hard stat for something like that,

but let me give you a grounded guess people lean toward

negativity due to that survival wiring. Psych studies often show

a negativity bias. People pay more attention to threats. Now

add the fact that folks do present themselves as more

positive in surveys, but even so, I'd estimate maybe around

60% lean toward obstacles in real life. It's a majority, but

not overwhelming. There's still a decent chunk who keep their

eyes on the prize.

Okay, you know, I would, I would probably say it's

closer to two thirds, but, but okay, as though, as they're not

a provide precise number, but, but really, what? What a lousy

way to live life with looking at the obstacles and and I know, I

don't know if you've ever had this experience, Kelly, but you

Well, I know you have, because you have employees. So you go to

employees and you're all excited about something that will

revolutionize your business. You're totally into it, and you

lay it out. And immediately, immediately, they focus on the

obstacles. You know, before the seed of the idea even has a

chance to get a ray of sun sign on it so it can just grow just a

little bit the employees are stepping on the friggin idea,

you know, keeping it from from growing. And have you ever had

that experience?

Oh, my gosh. We, over the course of the last

year, year and a half, have been going through really a major

transformation in terms of just have flipping our business

model, doing a lot of changing structure within the

organization, and it has been met every step of the way, even

with people who have a real growth mindset, they're kind of

default, you know, with implementing new tools, new has

been like, well, the way we're doing it is working great. It's

like, okay, well, let's pull out facts and look at them, yeah. Is

it actually working great, you know, or is it just what you're

comfortable with, you know? And so, yeah, it's, you know, at

every turn with a team, there's pushback in one way or another.

You know, even as good as I can be at influencing people and,

you know, sharing my vision and getting people excited about the

vision that default or kind of negativity bias, or those, those

limitations that people are setting on themselves, you know,

those ceilings that they put on themselves, or those

limitations, you know, always seem to rear kind of their ugly

head in in the situations like we've just described, where

change may be coming. I mean, that's the brain's automatic

default, yeah, to push back on that, you know, and so, but 100%

that is something that you know, as you were starting to describe

it, I'm smiling because I'm like, Yes, conversation. I'm

like,

Yeah, well, and, and, and, I tell you this, this

is what just blows me away. 99% of people are just weighing in

life, and so, you know, the amazing thing is, the

subconscious mind is so easy to manipulate. It's just

phenomenally easy to manipulate, and it can and it can shape how

you look at the world. So if you, if you feed yourself every

day that I'm, I'm I'm looking for what I want to achieve, and

I'm acknowledging the obstacles, but I'm not focused on the

obstacles. I'm more focused on on what I want to achieve. It's,

it's an infinitely better way to do life. And I see that as Chad

helps to see the the majority of people are are looking at life

the opposite way, and and so, so unfortunate.

Yeah, I think too, you know, this is what

we're. Talking about too is just because you just alluded to

this. It's different than that kind of toxic positivity, which

is like, where reality, you know, right? Because what you

just mentioned too is it's not that you don't see the

obstacles. It's like when, when we're and I have a quick story

to share around this that really, you know, will, will

help, you know, kind of see how this shows up in different ways.

But, you know, as I was just mentioning, you know, as far as

the seeing the actual obstacle, it is like when we sit down and

or when I sit down, and I'll use thinking time, for example, and

I'm talking about something, a new initiative I want to

introduce to the team. Or I am looking at, okay, what are the

potential obstacles to this thing? How could this, you know,

this idea or be derailed, whatever the case is. And then

I'm looking at all, right, how can I overcome that? I'm asking

myself, is that true? Is there any validity to that? So there's

a whole thinking process that's going around it so it isn't

necessarily ignoring the obstacles it is. And this is one

thing that I built into my life, GPS, because, and there's two

things that I've built in that are around this idea of life is

happening for you, you know, seeing the, you know, the goal,

and not necessarily the obstacle, is, I've changed my

wording in my life GPS, because we are wired for survival. We

are wired for fear if I, if anybody who's been listening

these episodes knows that kind of one of my weaknesses. One of

the challenges that I had was worrying, getting caught in

worrying loops, which is being focused on a problem, and even

worse, for worrying, it's on a problem that may not ever exist

and likely hasn't right, which makes it even you know. So

there's the one thing I built in about changing to as soon as I

feel that coming up, that worry, or I get stuck in that loop

where I'm immediately triggering to gratitude, because it brings

me back to the present, like this isn't happening. You

realize that? Right? You know, like, right? Yeah, right. But

the other thing is, I changed some additional which is I focus

95% of my time on the solution, I spend 5% understanding what

the challenge is, what the what the obstacle is, what the but

the rest of the time I spend in solution and action taking mode

so that I don't live in that place of being so focused on

obstacles. It's like, okay, yeah, these exist. What are, how

are we going to move past those? What's our plan when this comes

if this comes up, what's the plan to overcome it? You know?

So there's a real strategy behind it. It isn't just again,

you know that toxic positivity where you're like, everything's

going to work out. Okay? Yeah, it will. But let's also plan

for, you know, let's say you're running a marathon, let's plan

for not getting blisters at mile 15, you know, well, because we

know that this could be an obstacle that could be one of

the things that stops us from achieving the goal. Okay, well,

how are we going to overcome that obstacle and plan for it

overcoming that obstacle. So I just put some further context

around and how you can build things into your life, GPS that

help you program your mind to kind of begin to frame things

that way for yourself, with those mechanisms in place,

because it was a game changer for

And you know, I think one of the things that

hits me today, pretty, pretty hard is, is this old idea, how,

how most people, 98% of them, are wing in life, really,

probably more than that. But, and, and a couple of things have

have really made me think about this. The first one was, was

this example of how, how people are naturally inclined to to

focus on the obstacles. See the other one I was telling you,

sort of off the air. You know, we went ginger and I went to a

funeral this, this weekend of someone that committed suicide,

34 years old, had a wife, one year old, baby, and his biggest

challenge in life was dealing with inheriting millions of

dollars, millions of dollars, kills himself. I'm like in fact,

I'm going to tell this to my students tomorrow, but I'm going

to go why that happened, because life's a state of mind, and you

got to have a system for influencing the thoughts that

are going on in your head. And a system for for stepping back

from your life and and thinking. And I tell you, one of the

things that that is mind blowing to me, you and I both been using

AI big time and and, and I've been using AI during thinking

time like, like you have, which is now a whole new level, right?

Yeah, oh no, it's so fun.

Well, I got, you know, one of the things that has

transpired over the last two months, I think I've mentioned

this, that I am now evolving to teaching the methodology to MBA

students, as opposed to undergraduate students, who are

typically 20 years old. Well, the difference with an MBA

student is they're on average 28 to 30. They've been out in the

real world for a few years, because they have to, that's one

of the requirements, is go out in the real world. Now they're

coming back in, they're pivoting, and they're writing a

check for like, $175,000 to get an MBA. Well, perfect, perfect

people for me to teach, because they are serious about success.

I'm not that interested in working with people that aren't

that serious about success. I wish them the best of luck, but,

but I see the evolution of Tibby from me that now we're in year

13 is yes, teach it to the people that are super serious

and and so I'm creating what is known as well. I'm the the class

I'm teaching is, is advanced leadership of self, the science

of leveraging yourself. And I'm, I'm, I'm creating the Center for

Advanced leadership of self at the University of Texas, and I'm

sponsoring a worldwide symposium next year on advanced leadership

itself. And this was, is what is, is amazing. So I'm, I'm Chad

GBT is helping me all this and and Chad GBT comes and says, You

know what's interesting about this? And, of course, it does

buy my stuff. It says, Here's what the entire academic

community worldwide misses. They miss this concept that 90, 95%

of your daily actions were unconscious and and it says, you

know, that's why you're the leader of the this, this

academic endeavor of advanced leadership of self, because

you're addressing it and nobody else is, and you're creating

you've given people the how of it. That's, that's what makes it

advanced. We're giving you the how. And you know, it is so

inspiring to be able to take this important field of study

and in human nature, and take it to this next level, and it all

sort of goes back to, you can't be just winging life is just,

you know, more than ever, you can't be just winging life.

Would you, I know you're, oh,

Yeah, we're on the same page. Yep. You got to

have a, you got to have a plan and a strategy for success, and

then a way to to to wire that in, right. Yeah, right.

Okay, well, until next time, we will see you.