As A Speaker, What’s in Your Pocket? A Cannonball or an Egg? with Alan Carroll

Welcome back to Your Brain On Positive. All the love and support you need is residing inside of you. And we're going to make it easier to turn it on

welcome to your Brain on positive. I'm your host Jackie Semmens. Lame in, we are going where, you know, I love to go where angels fear to tread, actually, we're going to be doing a mindset chat, my favorite topic, we're going to be talking about the things that are possible and the things that are difficult, and the things that are improbable. And we're going to do it all with Alan Carroll. So Alan, thank you for being part of the show. I really appreciate you being here.

Well, I'm excited, very excited, Jackie, to be able to share with your audience some of the things that I've learned on my journey.

So tell us a little bit about your journey. Alan, what brought you to here where you're here with us

seeker would be a

way of looking at my path, thinking that there's something more to life than what I'm experiencing. And that led me to mysticism, yoga, led me to my degrees in psychology to pursue the, the inner, the inner journey. And so I've been on the inner journey, all my life. And the inner journey would be to describe it is that there's a space and consciousness. On the other side of the thoughts that you think that would be a metaphysical kind of environment, there's the physical world, the earth, air, fire, and water. But there's also the space which contains all those things. And so I would call that space, the being, I would call the things in the space, the ego. And in order to get from the ego to the being, you have to be able to observe, you have to be able to observe the thoughts that you think. And that releases you from the grip of the ego. And that's been my mission. That's been my purpose. I've been training coaching people around the world for 4040 years, major corporations, and I use the platform or the stage of public speaking, because you could develop a mindfulness way of being in the way you speak. And that's really cool, because everybody has access to that ability to speak.

Okay, everybody generic, I'm gonna say it because I know a few people who are mute. But those aside, everybody has access to the ability to speak and communicate. I love the concept of releasing the grip of the ego. Now, I'm a contrarian. So I'm going to ask you a couple of questions. What so bad about an ego grip? What's so bad about the ego having a grip on us?

When you speak? You ask yourself, all right, who am I speaking for? I'm speaking for for me. Well, then, Jackie, who is me? Well, me would be my identity. And I could list all the things all the concepts that make Allen Carol Allen Carol, my resume my personal history, from, from the color of my skin, to my religion, to my thoughts, to my beliefs, to my football team, to all the grievances and complaints I have about my life and my history, put them all together, that's, that's my concepts. Those are the concepts that make make my make my ego. And so if you speak for the ego, you will be in protecting and defending your ego, you'll be protecting and defending my identity. And so that, that is the cannonball in the ocean idea, you'll hold on to your ego, it doesn't allow you to fly, it allows you to drown yourself in a sea of thought. And you want to be able to let go of those thoughts. And when you let go of the thoughts, you create a space.

Okay, so I'm gonna provide you I got a pleasure because I got to unpack this because that was a lovely analogy, this idea that if we are speaking from our identity from who we perceive ourselves to be based on all of those things that are observable in the world, we're holding on to a cannonball in the ocean, which means we're going to sink because the cannonballs heavy, the odds are we're gonna sink, you bet. And when we can release that grip, then we can at least have the possibility of floating. And then you mentioned flying which is a whole nother thing that is near and dear to my heart. So we're going to get there. Cool. You talk about the idea of observing your thoughts. So if it's possible to observe our thoughts, is it also possible to manage them?

Absolutely,

it is possible to manage your thoughts and to manage your emotions. Challenge, though, is that your thoughts and emotions are our interior. They're happening within your body, within your experience, it's not exterior. And so you can't grab the thought you can't grab the emotion and put it there. It's there, it's bubbling up inside your consciousness. So if you're trying to manage your thoughts and emotions, what I what I say to my, my students, Jackie is you may not be able to control the thoughts that you think and the emotions that you feel. But you certainly can control the thoughts that you speak. And, and it's not the content of the thought. It's not good thoughts or bad thoughts. It's merely to ask yourself the question, How aware are you have when you speak, there's an end to a word. And then there's the beginning of another word. And there's a space

between this word and this word. And when

you ask people, How aware, are you of the ending of one word and the beginning of the other word? The answer is, No, I'm not aware of that. I don't have to be aware of that. It's not necessary for me to be aware of that, because I know how to speak.

Well, turns out that if you can control the starting of your speaking,

and the use little and the stopping of your speaking, you control the timing of your speaking. And when you control the timing of your speaking and your speaking for the ego, you're no longer an automatic speaker, because now I can turn the on and off switch of my speaking. And now I control

the tongue of the ego.

And now I can speak for joy, I can speak for love, I can speak for cat for compassion. And I don't need to attack and defend my point of view, which creates this dissatisfaction that people experience in their life.

Cool. So pausing this for just a second, because I want to make it really clear that when because not everyone's going to watch the videos, and they'll be listening to the podcast, you held up a stop sign with a light showing. And that's really cool that you have this light up sign that says stop. What if we were aware of the pauses between our words. And of course, the opposite side of your stop sign is that goes on. That makes perfect sense. So what if we're aware of the pauses between our words, the ending of one word before the beginning of the other, and we use that

awareness to go ego, not ego.

I love the idea of controlling the tongue of the ego, because the power of expressing yourself clearly.

And we have so many

words out there. Now, it's so many trainings on being a heart led entrepreneur or heart based or centered in something other than the personal need, that this gives a way for people to actually access this idea for themselves. So here,

it's really hard to do one hand, I have a ball, and then the other hand, I have a ball. And now there's no space at all between the balls. And now there's a space, we call that a pause between the two sides, you're going to make. All right, so then you take your magnifying glass, and you take your flashlight, and you shine it through the magnifying glass. And you begin to investigate what the heck is in that empty space that I never really looked at before between the sounds that I make. And what you discover is the command override switch that allows you to take the CEO from the ego and give that CEO to the being. And now I have a choice about what I want to say next. And so there's now a buffer, or a space or an observation between the event that's happening in front of me and now I have a buffer that I've created because I've been practicing pausing In my speaking and since I'm speaking for my ego, then I'm dissolving the fabric of the of the ego. And

I'm gonna put a pause here you bet because you said something that's my brain is not quite getting. So I want you to explain a little more about what you mean when you're speaking for the ego it dissolves the fabric of the ego is what I thought I heard you say? And I'm like, That's confusing to me because we started with speaking from the ego ah, the first time you said it that in what was so bad is speaking from the ego because egos got his grip on on your words. But now how about speaking for the ego, please say more about speaking for the ego.

Let's go back in time 333 BC, Alexander the Great was going into the area called Turkey. And there's a little town called Gardea. And in Gardea, they have a Gordian knot. And they said, anybody that can unravel the Gordian knot will be the leader of Asian Alexander the Great looks at the knot, and says there's no way I can do that takes his sword and slices the knot, and unravels unravels the knot. The ego is the Gordian knot, the ego is comprised of all your thoughts and all your beliefs and all your opinions that I carry with this is me, this is this is Jackie, this is Alan, this is who I am.

And when you begin to pause,

you begin to put little holes and little cuts into the ego. Because when I pause, I was going to make a sound for my ego. And when I pause, I said,

not going to make a sound. And that,

that dissolves the sound that I was going to say, which leaves an empty space, which begins to describe all the ego and you don't even know you're even, you're even raveled up, you're even even a tight little ball of tension, until you begin to practice. Mindful, spacious, speaking as just one vehicle of mindfulness. There's other ways to do it. But this is available to everybody, including

children.

I understand a little better. Now. The difference in the language was to help people understand that they can in the pause, it is in the pause, yeah, this shift starts to happen. inside your brain inside your body stress starts to dissolve. Yep. And it's a mindfulness technique that's easy to teach even to children. It's easy to learn even for children to learn. So I think I'm with you so far.

That Vicki it's the practice is creating empty spaces between the sounds to create an empty space is the fifth element. Earth air, fire, water and space space exist in the metaphysical it doesn't need. There's a space between my hands, but you can't see it. Yet, there's a space there and I consciously stuck that space in my conversation with you today. And every time I do that, it way of describing it is that the ego is like an egg. You're inside the egg. And every time you pause, it disrupts the automatic flow of the egos pattern of speaking and it puts a little hole from the outside in to the egg and when you put a little pinprick into the egg, a little beam of light shines into the darkness of the inside of the of the egg practice pausing again, another dot nother pinprick pinprick and as you begin to practice it, the integrity of the egg begins to no longer it's it shatters, it dissolves and what is released in the metaphysical or the alchemical is a bird that's able to fly, no longer hooked by the physical world, you're able to fly in that space of the being, which is where love, compassion, joy, mental equilibrium, all those things exist in that space. Cool.

All right, so I'm gonna I'm gonna bring us back to you. I'm holding a cannonball and I'm under the ocean and I decide to become willing to pause. Yep, that allows me to float and the cannonball turns into an eight. Now I'm here. Floating life is much better. And if I am willing to continue to practice posit, then beams of light start showing up inside the egg because we're Getting little holes in the automatic way of speaking. That's right. And when we come off autopilot consciously choosing to pause, yep, then we end up being able to transform into the ability to fly, that I get to choose

you, you then are able to shift from an automatic transmission Driving driving through life automatic based in your conditioning. To wait a minute, I'm going to drive manual transmission, I'm going to control the on off switch of the ego. And when we start training people, we start by driving in first gear 70 words per minute, right now the average is about 150 words per minute. Let's backtrack it down to 70 words per minute. And if you could just practice that, reducing the number of sounds that you make per minute, it would create, take the sound out, put the space in, therefore you have, you have 7050 150 words per minute you go to 75, you've created 75 sounds out 75 spaces in. And that means just more spacious. And so when upsets happen to you that energy of the upset of life happens to you, you're more like a screen door where the energy flows through, rather than a storm door, which resists what you're saying is clogged and you talk like that, I'm sick and tired of you talking like that You son of a bit, well, then you then you then you react, then you are hurting yourself. But you don't know it, you just know you're right, and you're wrong. And that's not healthy.

It's also pretty normal for us to make other people wrong in order to feel like we're right, or to assume that we're right. And that by definition makes other people wrong. And we don't like to be made wrong ourselves. And yet we do it to each other all the time. And the example that you gave of what speaking sounds like from this place of feeling righteous, and not in a healthy way. But the space of feeling right or wrong, is something that many people experience on a regular basis. And so taking a deep breath, of the sudden shift in language was triggering for anyone listening, take a deep breath, get your brain back on positive and know that life can change for you, when you embrace this, because as soon as you slow down, as soon as you pause, you are shifting into a calmer place. And because of a wonderful thing in our brain called resonance, the people around you will also have a tendency to shift into a calmer place. And those kinds of exchanges will become less likely to just highlight that for everyone because that is the effect that you're talking about. You're talking about the effect of spaciousness is a calming down of drama.

Yep. It's the reducing of see, when I speak, agitating the air, I'm vibrating the air with my voice right now. And when I pause,

there's no vibration.

That sound the sound of no vibration is stillness. And when you can consciously create stillness, it will transform your experience of life. Because stillness is the portal that allows you to get to the spaciousness of the being. And all I got to do is stop speaking, and pause. But you have to wake up to do that. You got to be awake. And most people, what do you mean, I am awake? Well, the analogy there, Jackie is, yeah, you're dreaming at night. And you wake up in the morning, and you realize that you were dreaming. But there's also I'm dreaming at night. And I wake up in the dream. And I recognize that I'm dreaming. And that's called a lucid dream. It's the same idea right now, when you begin to pause, you begin to become still and you wake up from the dream of thought, which is the way you're painting the narrative of whatever situation that you're looking at. And when you can wake up, the paintbrush is in your hand now. And I can paint it lovingly and beautiful. I no longer need to paint it based on my conditioning, which is what the ego would be doing.

Got it. So another way of looking at the ego is the conditioning that we receive from living in the culture that we live in, living in this day and age this time, and we're not even going to go into the possibilities of inherited culture. We'll just stick with what you've lived in this lifetime, and being able to choose to see the world in a kinder way to express yourself in the world and a kinder way to

allow for the pause. And the

research was they, they had two greenhouses, and they played Mozart music to the plants and one greenhouse. And they played heavy acid, heavy metal music and the other greenhouse, and they just watched which plants thrived, and how much they thrived. And it turned out that the Mozart music, the plants loved the wonder if they go and live and the heavy metal music right, and the plants didn't do so well. So when I vibrate the air, do I vibrate it with Mozart music? Or do I vibrate it with I'm writing, you're wrong, and I don't care what. So that's the heavy metal music. And so that, that, that that affects your physical body. I tell you a short story about a class I took my psychology class at San Jose State back in the 70s. Dr. Von Ebert doctor was talking about hypnosis. And he said, they brought somebody up on stage, they put them under hypnosis, they had him hold up his hand. And then he took a piece of chalk from the chalkboard. And those days, they had chalk and chalk boards. And they held the piece of chalk and they put it, they put it on his hand for three seconds, they put the chalk on the hand for three seconds, it took the chalk off, brought them out of hypnosis.

And what's on the hand? A burn mark.

So don't tell me the thoughts that you think don't affect yourself physically. Okay.

I'm going to just say that I missed something. When they did the experiment, while he was under hypnosis, they told them, they told him he was going to be touched on his hand by something hot. And they actually touched him with a piece of chalk right left, that little body was thinking actually created the burn,

there was they told it was a burning cigarette. This is a burning cigarette. And he thought that was a burning cigarette, therefore your body responded through.

And so the reality of our thinking is that it impacts our physiology. The power of the pause is that it gives us control not just over our thinking, not just over our emotions, not just over the agitation we might be putting into the air that impacts other people. But also we over our physiology of our bodies, our biology responds differently, when we pause the same way that the plant responded differently to the classical music versus the Hard Rock.

Exactly. Cool.

I think I'm starting to get this now you do this a lot with people who are speakers, I know that you work with a awareness of speaking and with influencers. When you're working with leaders, what do leaders know about speaking that most of the rest of us down?

We'll call it professional speaking versus amateur speaking.

All right, I'm all for I'm all for the amateur hour here. But you're going to take us pro what you got. Right? Right.

So what the difference is, in my world between an amateur speaker and a professional speaker, is that an amateur speaker, the total absence of space, no pauses at all, not even thinking about pausing. And when you watch a professional speaker, they are able to incorporate the pause. And politics is great, because you can watch politics, because politicians are usually pretty good speakers. I was watching Brock Obama was in Georgia, and he was doing stuff on stage, and his ability to articulate his thoughts, to be able to create the pauses to be able to stop in the middle, talk to the four year old kid in the audience, have a little conversation with a four year old kid, then come back again to the wonderful flexibility. Donald Trump, whether you like him or not, he's a great public speaker. His ability to control the timing of his audience is amazing. And that's one reason why so many people are attracted to him, because he's an amazing speaker, Ronald Reagan, the great communicator now amazing speaker, Margaret Thatcher, mazing speaker, Nelson Mandela, may

they all are able to control the timing, creation of the pause when they speak,

and that's really available to everybody. But you have to have the commitment to practice because it's not natural. If you don't even think about pausing, therefore pausing doesn't exist.

That's true and if anyone wants to see the effort that goes into a politician's ability to speak the movie about Margaret Thatcher Iron Lady has a scene where she starts taking what they call elocution lessons. It is about being able to speak well. Well, and to present well in so that your ideas have a chance to land. So it was a lovely scene in that movie. The power of observing excellent speakers this ability, as you said, you know, Barack Obama love them or hate them. He is an excellent speaker Donald Trump love them or hate them. He is an excellent speaker. The ability to manage cadence is actually one of the most powerful tools. And unfortunately, it can be used to make the world a better place. And it can be used the way that Hitler did to motivate a country towards homicide. Yep. Being aware of who are the really good speakers and then pausing your listening long enough to wander into what is their agenda? What is their purpose for mastering this kind of speaking, because you're right, it can take some time and some effort and even some professional training to become that kind of a charismatic speaker. And when you're on the receiving end of it, it's a good idea to pause and wonder what made them decide to become such a good speaker. What made you decide to become such a good speaker

Allen, early 20s

I am doing the psychology getting my notes studying psychology. And I spent a year in Paris, my 2021 years old, I was reading memories, dreams and reflections by Carl Jung. And I said boy psychology was was the thing that really excited me because I liked that inner inner journey. And I did a training program in San Francisco called the SW training is now called landmark forum. And that blew my socks off. That was like the first transpersonal conversation that I've been involved in that Werner Erhard created as like, wow. And then they had, oh, you want to participate. And the organization will make you a guest seminar leader, you'll be able to stand up in front of audiences and enroll them into the training. Now I'm I'm was raised very conservative, Ridgewood, New Jersey military, conserved Republican kind of a family. So sharing talking emotions. I've never never had those experiences. And so I was terrified of public speaking. And yet, I had something to say. And so I, I went through that psychological death, of raising my hand in front of the audience and asking the opportunity to speak was a long time before I raised my hand. And when I raised my hand, it wasn't pretty. Marcia Martin was up there on stage in San Francisco and, and I hadn't raised my hand at all three weeks have been in the program, I finally raised my hand and she immediately called on me, I took the microphone, and it sounded something like this. Good afternoon. My name is Alan, Carly got here, they got it. And I thought this topic I thought she didn't like I thought, that's why I'm here I heard totally out of control. And yet, I experienced our I tasted something that I've never tasted before. I tasted a sense of freedom, freedom from what and you'll like this one freedom from the judgment of the audience that I think they were judging me, I was free of judgment, I was no longer concerned about what they thought of me because they saw me at my worst. And Marsha acknowledged that she clapped. And that gave me courage to be able to continue to go up on the stage again, and again, and again. And as you practice, as you know, you practice speaking up becomes more natural.

Like any other muscle, the more you practice it, the more finesse you have with it. It's really fun for me this conversation about speaking and I loved your example. It is true, that when you accept what you do as good enough for who you were in the moment that you did it, you all of a sudden, it's a lot easier to improve on it. Yep. And the fear of that good enough moment. The first one not being good enough for other people is just the irrationality of our world.

It's the fear of the ego. It's the fear the ego is afraid of opening my opening myself up, exposing myself to the audience, and you're going to judge it and you're gonna judge me as wrong. Now if you judge me as right then There's No Business Like Shaw, then you come right out of your shell and you're a flower and everything's fine, but you don't know that go went in your fear that oh my god, it's not gonna turn out. And

you don't even have it as a speaker, you cannot always tell as actually, you can't tell by looking what other people are thinking, the ones in the audience, you can't, as a speaker just get used to it, you can't tell by looking what the other people are thinking. The only opinion in the room that matters is yours. And the pause gives you the ability to actually tap into that truth. The only judgment that counts is yours. And if you decide in advance that what you're going to do is good enough, doesn't that make it a little easier?

Absolutely. And you are, theoretically, you've earned the right to speak, that the knowledge you have of the subject matter and the pain the audience has, you're the subject matter expert that that heals that pain. Now, if you don't have knowledge of the subject matter, then the ice is thin under your feet. And as I push my energy out, I'm pushing off of my feet as I speak to you. And if the ice is thin, then I'm, I'm uncertain. I'm uncertain Jack, I'm afraid that I'll fall through the ice. But if I've done my 10,000 hours with the outliers book by done my 10,000 hours, then there's no question that you can ask me, that will cause me to not be able to have a response

to crisis, even if the response is, that's an thought I haven't looked at it that way before. You know, let's put that aside for the moment. And I'll ponder it while we move on to the next point. And as long as you get back to the person get back to the topic for a speaker who's confident in their knowledge, it's a lot easier to do that, to acknowledge that hadn't looked at it that that's a question I haven't pondered. Give me a minute to ponder it. Let me answer this question, I'll get back to you.

And you got to make sure you get back because you're making an agreement within the world. And now your word is on the table. And you don't want to start playing around with your word.

Be too Yeah, I have my favorite things about speaking. So one of them is the one thing is speaker cannot be because we've talked about all the charismatic speakers. The one thing is speaker cannot be in my, the way I teach is they cannot be boring. That's the one thing that cannot be boring. And the other is, if they say they're going to talk about three things, they better talk about at least three things. Because of that agreement, the audience will not necessarily consciously be aware that you broke the agreement. But on a subconscious level, they'll know.

Yep. So cool.

And part of that is also you got to be awake. In order to manage the flow, you can't be seduced by the train of thought that you're thinking. And most people are making love to the PowerPoint slides are making love to the concepts. They're not making love to the empty space. If you don't make love to the empty space, then you're in a state of sleep, or awake sleep, but you're still sleeping up here because you don't have access to creativity, because you're locked into a certain way. But when you have that space, it opens doors to creativity, things you didn't even think about all of a sudden appear in your consciousness, I stories that it's not on your PowerPoint slides. But there's a story came to mind, which is the perfect thing to say at this point in time. But you have to be able to pause to give yourself a chance to delve into that empty space in which those stories and wisdom reside.

I'm going to just wander into this. Alan, it sounds like the pause gives you a place to listen to your inspiration to your own inspiration. And that when speaking the pause also gives you the ability to listen to your audience what signals they are sending that you might miss. If there's no pause if you're focused on your PowerPoints if you're focused on your content, and your brain is over there. Yep, it keeps you from being present and the pause allows you to be present.

The pause

allows you to be present and allows you to control the instrument that's doing the speaking. And I use a flute as an example. And most people there's there's holes here on the flute you blow in the flute and makes the sound. And if I can use if I can hold the flute correctly and play just the amount of sounds. The music that comes out of the flute is better if I can control the flute. When you watch the amateurs people speak They're not, they're not even aware of controlling the flute. They're focusing on the music. I'm gonna sing talk, talk, talk, talk, talk versus ground yourself. Breathe, anchor, vocal variety, gestures, clear articulation of your thoughts, the rest, like in music, you have that pause where you can breathe and relax your body. And now you have a balance between the yang energy which is the forward thrusting of your speaking, and the Yin energy, which is the feminine, breathing in and relaxing. So you speak out the Yang.

And then you have the Yang and most

amateurs that Ying Ying Ying Ying Ying Yang refer to those as the Yang and the

Yin and the Yang.

And so for those of us who learn to pronounce it Yang and Yan, Yan and Jung, and it's gang, I mean, they, yeah, however you pronounce it, what we're talking about is the difference between sending and receiving between speaking and listening between day and night. And you need both. Yep. communication requires that. So we have gone a round this conversation, we're going to tie it up in a nice, neat bow, what is the best way for someone to practice putting a pause in their speaking, you said for them to slow down, what is the easiest way for them to actually be able to accomplish that? Well,

you want to be safe. So you want to be practicing in a safe environment. Because you're gonna try out some new moves, you don't want people judging you. So find a place where you're gonna be by yourself, bathrooms, not about bad plays, close the door, get a chair, sit in the chair,

and have a mirror in front of you. And close

your eyes sit in the chair, and you sit in that chair and you close your eyes until your body is relaxed, till every muscle in your body is relaxed, you got some nice breathing and there's no tension in your body. And when you think you've gotten rid of all the tension in your body, go check again. And so now you spend a minute or so getting your body still. Then open your eyes. Look at yourself in the mirror. And notice that your body is going to start to jiggle and jerk and funny things and playing while the neck close your eyes. Get your body out of control. Again, the body is under control, you open your eyes, until you can look at your eyes in the mirror, keeping your body relaxed, just deep breathing in and out. Keeping your body relaxed, then

start to make a couple of sounds. I am a professional speaker,

any sound you want to make. But you want to make sure there's this big gap between the sounds. And in that gap. You take a breath and relax, take a breath and relax, make the next sound breath and relaxed breath and relax until relaxing and breathing in the empty space between the sounds becomes more natural. Then when you go up on stage, you've been practicing that it will feel more natural. Awesome.

All right. So simple step by step instructions for how to accomplish what we've been talking about. Sit in a quiet place with a mirror in front of you and close your eyes and calm down. And as you're aware of your body relaxing, check in again. When you open your eyes, if your body starts twitching, close your eyes, do it for another minute or two. And then when you speak between each word, give yourself a full breath in and out before you speak the next word. And that will change how you speak. It will change how you're heard. And it will change your ability to communicate with the world in a positive way. Alan, I cannot thank you enough for bringing these very, very profoundly valuable concepts that anyone can learn even a child. That's true for all the parents, if you've got a kid who speaks a mile a minute, might be time to teach them this. Just a thought. Alan, I appreciate your time. Thank you so very much again, we will likely have you back because I know you have some things coming up, including the launch of your own podcast. So when that happens, we'll have any come back and then you can share what it's like for you as being the host of a podcast.

Yep, on this side of the mic. I like that. There we go.

All speakers are wrapped command learning to work both sides of a microphone. It's a useful skill. Thank you again.

Thank you, Jackie. Bye Bye dear audience.