Dan Martell - April 19, 2021


3 Powerful Ways To Improve The Quality of Your Thoughts

Topics
gratitude
Hosted by
Dan Martell
Mentioned
Adam Brad
How A.I. Will Change The SaaS Landscape with Martin Cloake @ Raven.ai What You Need To Build a Two-Sided SaaS

Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

173.97

Word count

2,102

Sentence count

91


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk about how the quality of your thoughts determines your quality of life and how important it is to have a clear path to success. If you want to get to a place where you feel driven, certain, confident, on a rhythm, and find your flow, you need to get your thoughts into a good place.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.080 Regardless if it feels like
00:00:01.320 the whole world's falling apart,
00:00:02.400 you have a business and you know,
00:00:03.920 you had a key member quit on you
00:00:05.240 or you had to fire somebody
00:00:06.520 or your bank called you up
00:00:07.600 and pulled your line of credit
00:00:09.000 or your, you know, whatever it is,
00:00:11.200 you have a major issue.
00:00:12.800 But in that moment, you can center yourself
00:00:15.000 and truly be like grateful
00:00:16.800 for the fact that you have these problems.
00:00:18.840 I think that's a beautiful thing.
00:00:30.000 So today I'm super pumped. I want to talk about the quality of your thoughts. I want to give you
00:00:38.100 some tips on improving those thoughts and make an argument that the quality of your thoughts
00:00:44.960 will be a direct correlation to the quality of your life. Here's why, you know, growing up,
00:00:51.620 I grew up in a really challenging environment where I didn't have a lot of positive influences
00:00:58.900 on my life. I was hanging out with people that were twice my age, were addicted to drugs, were
00:01:05.500 in trouble with the law. And a lot of my reality back then when I was a teenager was based on
00:01:13.760 what I thought was normal. And I think what happens is we don't realize that when we're in
00:01:19.820 those areas of, you know, fear-based decisions, scarcity mindset, lack, concern, is that we just
00:01:29.100 think that's normal. We don't realize that not only is that not normal, it's abnormal, and it's
00:01:34.380 not even what's possible. So, you know, I want to share with you the possibility that you can do a
00:01:41.200 few small, really powerful tweaks to your habits to have a disproportionate amount of improved
00:01:49.680 clarity and quality of thoughts and the cool part is is nothing out there in the world zero has ever
00:01:56.360 been created until this inside here was good and that's been true for me in my journey the way I
00:02:03.060 think about it is our brains are kind of this special vessel right it's it's like a bowl think
00:02:09.060 of it as like a fishbowl I got this from my buddy Brad and it doesn't really matter what you put in
00:02:16.460 it's gonna hold it, okay?
00:02:18.580 So if you put high quality, positive, motivated thoughts,
00:02:23.220 then it's gonna be this beautiful, clear liquid
00:02:26.440 that it's holding, it's holding these incredible thoughts.
00:02:29.020 But if you pour in negativity, fear, scarcity,
00:02:33.420 limitations, issues, challenges, problems,
00:02:38.220 then it's kind of like pouring a glass bowl of oil
00:02:43.220 of oil into the fish bowl of clear water and this is what's crazy is that once the water's darkened
00:02:50.100 and polluted for you to revert back to get back into a point where that fish bowl of water is
00:02:56.740 clear again you need to pour even more thought so i want you to remember this analogy because
00:03:02.660 not only is it important to understand that what we feed our minds it is it it literally will let
00:03:08.500 anything in so it doesn't have a filter it will just let whatever you feed it in
00:03:12.880 that if you had a clear mind and a great mind and if you think of children
00:03:16.780 children are born into this world with possibility and excitement and
00:03:19.900 creativity and over life life kind of happens to them to where they start to
00:03:24.980 see limitations and fear and scarcity and all these things and to get back to
00:03:30.340 clear out that water is gonna take more time than it may have took for that
00:03:34.180 initial dump of bad ideas. So there's kind of three things that I look to that really helped
00:03:40.700 me with the quality of my thoughts. Because if you want to get to a place where you feel driven,
00:03:45.320 certain, confidence, feel like you're on a rhythm, that you're finding your flow,
00:03:50.720 that you've got a clear path to success, you need to get your thoughts high quality, okay?
00:03:55.580 So a few things. Number one, you got to remove the external forces. You need to audit your
00:04:01.680 consumption of information. And I will tell you, if you're listening or watching the news,
00:04:06.560 that would be the first place that I would look. If you read tabloid magazines, if you read
00:04:12.460 gossip magazines, if you read or listen to gossip podcasts, literally all these things is like
00:04:20.240 pouring dirty water into your clear bowl. And you think, oh, it's not a big deal. It's just
00:04:24.940 entertainment. No, it's not. No, it's not. It's your thoughts. It's your thoughts drive the actions.
00:04:30.420 The actions decide the quality of life you live.
00:04:33.680 So you need to make sure that you're, you know,
00:04:37.280 cutting out those external forces, you know?
00:04:38.960 And what I say to people all the time,
00:04:40.620 and I got this from my other buddy, Adam,
00:04:42.420 Adam said, it's easier to avoid the dragon than to slay it.
00:04:46.760 What he means by that is that you could say,
00:04:50.040 well, I have the ability to have willpower
00:04:51.900 to not, you know, let the news affect my thoughts.
00:04:55.460 Well, you could, or you could just avoid it
00:04:57.320 because what I've discovered,
00:04:58.340 even it comes to your health or your wealth or good business decisions is that it is easier to
00:05:03.780 not tempt yourself not put yourself in front of that situation than to try to figure out how to
00:05:10.480 overcome it once you're there so avoid the dragon don't try to slay it so that's number one just
00:05:15.960 remove the external negative opportunities to feed stuff into your mind that's how you're
00:05:22.120 going to increase the quality of your thoughts that's one number two is that we need to visualize
00:05:27.720 the future that we want why is that important well here's the way your brain works is you give
00:05:33.840 it instructions for what's important to you you may not even realize this subconsciously you're
00:05:37.900 giving it instructions you're saying that i care about these values i'm looking to get these
00:05:43.080 outcomes if you don't have a clear vision for your life and a direction even if it's just like some
00:05:49.060 pie in the sky dream if you don't visually look at it our minds don't think in words our minds
00:05:54.000 thing in pictures. So if you don't give it a picture to focus on, even if you don't believe
00:05:59.160 that you could possibly do it, that's fine. If you don't give it a vision for what's possible
00:06:04.820 in the future, you want to create, then it can't start looking for opportunities to support you
00:06:10.260 and help you. This is the cool part. It's kind of like if you decide to buy a red Honda, okay?
00:06:14.960 You may have never prior to that point, decided I'm buying a car. Now you decide you want to buy
00:06:18.620 a car. You want to buy a red Honda. The moment you decide to buy a red Honda, especially if you
00:06:22.660 go to the dealership and give it a test drive from that point on you will start to see red hondas
00:06:28.860 all around you all over the world literally like you'll start going like man i've never seen so
00:06:33.640 many hondas oh my gosh i saw another red honda why is that because this thing called the
00:06:38.840 reticulator reticular activating system your razz in your brain it's part of your your uh your brain
00:06:45.400 function its job is to filter out all the noise because if you didn't realize it there's millions
00:06:51.780 of billions of sensory information coming at you
00:06:54.360 at any one point.
00:06:55.240 There's literally things all over the place
00:06:57.920 that are happening and your brain's deciding
00:06:59.620 what's important, what's not important.
00:07:00.960 What can I discard?
00:07:02.000 What do I need to remember?
00:07:03.300 What should I put for short-term memory,
00:07:05.400 long-term memory?
00:07:06.160 How should I process all the information?
00:07:07.720 That's your reticular activating system.
00:07:09.900 So that RAS, that filter,
00:07:11.600 if you don't give it the instructions,
00:07:13.700 then it won't look for those opportunities.
00:07:16.680 So if you don't, and this is a daily activity,
00:07:19.400 a daily habit where you have to look at your future,
00:07:24.160 look for the possibility,
00:07:25.440 look at the outcome you wanna achieve.
00:07:27.480 And in looking that direction,
00:07:28.940 you're telling your mind to listen, audio, visual,
00:07:33.820 what are some opportunities around me?
00:07:35.360 The amount of times I've been sitting next to somebody
00:07:37.640 on a plane and my brain, for some reason,
00:07:39.800 out of everything that's being,
00:07:41.360 some noise going on on a plane, it hears a voice.
00:07:44.460 It hears somebody say something
00:07:45.860 about something I'm working on right now.
00:07:47.340 And for me to tap somebody on the shoulder and go,
00:07:49.840 excuse me, did you say X?
00:07:51.620 And they go, yeah, why is that?
00:07:52.840 That's so interesting you said that
00:07:54.260 because I'm actually working on something
00:07:55.600 and I've been looking to talk to somebody
00:07:57.020 who has experience in that.
00:07:58.420 If you've ever had that kind of scenario happen,
00:08:01.240 that's what's going on.
00:08:02.540 So if you wanna improve the quality of your life,
00:08:05.100 increase the quality of your thoughts by programming it,
00:08:08.000 by visualizing it, you can use a vision board,
00:08:10.460 you can use some journaling,
00:08:12.340 you can use goal cards, anything you want.
00:08:15.620 Literally, it doesn't matter the tool,
00:08:18.960 it matters the practice
00:08:20.080 and it matters the consistency of executing that practice
00:08:23.180 on a daily basis.
00:08:25.040 Number three, increase the quality of your thoughts.
00:08:29.380 It's gratitude.
00:08:31.020 I'll tell you why gratitude.
00:08:33.140 Gratitude is this beautiful feeling
00:08:35.540 that when you have it, that you can't be something else.
00:08:40.020 You can't be angry and grateful in the same moment.
00:08:42.560 You can't be sad and grateful in the same moment.
00:08:44.540 you can't be frustrated and grateful in the same moment gratitude has this it's almost like the
00:08:49.260 ability to wash away it doesn't make go away it just allows you to reset your focus and you know
00:08:55.620 for me if I'm trying to visualize possibility and visualize creation and visualize success
00:09:02.320 then gratitude for what I have today gratitude for the problems that's the next level if you can
00:09:07.980 get grateful for the quality of problems you have in your life regardless if it feels like the whole
00:09:13.400 the world's falling apart.
00:09:14.240 You have a business and you had a key member quit on you
00:09:17.860 or you had to fire somebody or your bank called you up
00:09:20.260 and pulled your line of credit or whatever it is,
00:09:24.500 you have a major issue.
00:09:26.080 But in that moment, you can center yourself
00:09:28.300 and truly be grateful for the fact
00:09:30.640 that you have these problems.
00:09:32.140 I think that's a beautiful thing.
00:09:33.740 That's gonna help you reset your mind.
00:09:36.300 And all of these strategies build on each other
00:09:40.240 To the point now where I wake up in a day
00:09:43.260 and it is very rare for me not to feel incredible,
00:09:47.340 for not me to feel energetic and excited about the future
00:09:50.300 because I've slowly built these habits, okay?
00:09:54.480 Motivation is fleeting, okay?
00:09:56.460 Habits take over where motivation stops.
00:09:59.400 And if you're not building this habit of gratitude,
00:10:02.340 I mean, I literally have this right here on my desk,
00:10:04.740 five-minute journal.
00:10:05.620 If you're not doing a gratitude journaling practice,
00:10:08.240 start here, five-minute journal's amazing.
00:10:10.240 I've been doing that for five or six years, you know?
00:10:12.880 So really think about these strategies, right?
00:10:15.760 Think about removing the external forces,
00:10:18.300 the news, negativity, you know, tabloid,
00:10:22.620 people's conversation that, you know,
00:10:25.040 your friends that are always talking
00:10:26.220 about somebody else, right?
00:10:27.700 Talk, think about visualizing what you want
00:10:30.440 so your brain can go out there and start looking
00:10:32.820 and filtering for opportunities
00:10:34.440 for you to achieve your goals.
00:10:36.360 And then finally, just get to gratitude
00:10:38.440 anytime you feel yourself drifting where you're like,
00:10:41.060 man, I'm really in a bad head funk today.
00:10:43.160 You know, I get in these bad head funks sometimes
00:10:44.960 and I'm like, I gotta get back to gratitude.
00:10:47.260 I gotta get back to service.
00:10:48.680 I gotta get back to making it about other people,
00:10:51.340 not making it about myself.
00:10:53.180 And in those habits, over time,
00:10:55.240 you habit stack yourself to a higher quality of thoughts
00:10:58.660 and those higher quality of life
00:10:59.980 or those thoughts lead to a higher quality of life.
00:11:03.620 So that's what I have for you.
00:11:04.980 If you're interested in getting my top books on mindset
00:11:09.220 and growth and business strategy,
00:11:11.640 you can click the link below.
00:11:13.320 I'm gonna leave it there for you to click on.
00:11:14.660 You can download a copy of the top books
00:11:17.380 that I wish I would have been given
00:11:19.440 when I started my entrepreneurial journey.
00:11:22.740 Hope this video finds you incredibly well.
00:11:25.120 I look forward to hearing from you soon.
00:11:27.140 Peace, later, have an amazing day.
00:11:29.180 Cheers.
00:11:34.980 Thank you.