The Groundhog Day Roadmap for Changing Your Life
Episode Stats
Summary
Do you feel stuck in life? Do you keep repeating the same thoughts outwardly? You keep repeating a cycle of unhappy disappointment? To break the cycle, maybe what you need to do is watch a film that has become synonymous with this kind stuckness, Groundhog day, which my guest says contains the roadmap to escaping a life lived on autopilot. His name is Paul Hannum, and he s the author of The Wisdom of Groundhog Day: How to improve your life One Day at a Time, and today on the show, he unpacks the deeper philosophical layers of what s considered one of the best movies of all time.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast
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do you feel stuck in life inwardly you keep repeating the same thoughts outwardly you keep
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repeating the same routine and on and on a cycle of unhappy disappointment goes to break the cycle
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maybe what you need to do is watch a film that has become synonymous with this kind of stuckness
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groundhog day which my guest says contains the roadmap to escaping a life lived on autopilot
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his name is paul hannum he's the author of the wisdom of groundhog day how to improve your life
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one day at a time and today on the show paul unpacks the deeper philosophical layers of what's
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considered one of the best movies of all time paul explains how the film teaches us that to escape
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the ruts of what he calls the groundhog day condition we must first make an interchange
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where we learn to approach life in a more grateful present focused engaged way from there we can
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embrace the film's unique strategy for change which is to experiment with doing something new
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every day thereby refining and improving our lives through the process of trial error and progressive
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improvement after the show's over check out our show notes at aom.is slash groundhog
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well thank you it's a pleasure to be here brett so you are a speaker you're an entrepreneur you're
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an academic who taught about organizational behavior and entrepreneurship at oxford university
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you've also written a book about the surprising wisdom that can be found from the 1993 cult classic
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bill murray film groundhog day i'm curious when did you start thinking about the life-changing insights
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contained in groundhog day i mean what was going on going on in your life when you thought
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this movie resonates well you know i first watched this film in 1993 the year it came out and i thought
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wow what a what a brilliant comedy it was hilarious and magical but it also had a profound effect on me
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unlike any other movie and you know when i talk about this half the people i talk to think i'm mad and
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half the people i talk to get it straight away because there's something so much deeper when you go below
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the surface of what is really a deceptively simple romantic comedy and what it did for me was it
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really i felt that phil was my story i was very ambitious i i was very self-centered a classic only
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child and at the beginning of the film i recognized him maybe not as bad as him this is bill murray's
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character phil connors but by the end i saw a vision of how my life could be
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and like phil i had hit rock bottom in my life and i really had to find my true self i've always
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suffered acutely from anxiety and some depression and for me the way he changes and transforms himself
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in the movie was a real path for me that i was able to escape from a lot of my anxiety and depression
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and help my clients with too because i was on a career path where i was motivated by financial
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success status you know popularity but now after this movie i switched to really focusing on my inner
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life rather than my outer life to really focus on my health my mental health my well-being because for
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me this is a story groundhog day is a story of somebody who turns the worst day of his life into the best
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day of his life by changing his story about himself and what it means to be a human being and about
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what matters the most in life so i used the ideas in the book in the 1990s in my leadership training i
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got my students to watch it at oxford and other universities i taught at and 20 years ago i met
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danny rubin who's a screenwriter and came up the initial idea of groundhog day and we became good friends
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and he actually wrote the introduction to my book and when through my conversations with him i really
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understood the deep spirituality and philosophy underneath this book and the reason that has
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been chosen as one of the most spiritual movies ever made which unless you can understand what danny
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was talking about and the real meaning of the transformation in this movie is quite difficult to
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get but it's a profound metaphor for the human nature and you know you're when i think about the art of
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manliness a lot of self-help books are written for an audience which is men and women and i would say
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i don't have exact numbers say 75 80 percent of self-help books are bought by women but what i found
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with my book and groundhog day it appealed particularly to men because it was almost like a comedy gave them
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permission to think about their inner life think about and talk about their feelings so it's a great
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way of opening a conversation about a whole range of personal development areas okay for those who
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aren't familiar familiar with the basic plot of the movie i mean it's become such a cultural touchstone
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i mean when you talk about you know something that happens over and over again people just say oh it's
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like groundhog day it's become that embedded in our culture but for those who aren't familiar maybe a
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refresher what's the the reader's digest version of the plot of the movie sure well
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it's a tale groundhog day is a tale about a very cynical ambitious weatherman phil connors who's
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played by bill murray and how he becomes trapped in the small town of punksutoni and reliving the exact
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same day february the 2nd over and over again now there's a lot of debate about how long he was there
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and danny is never going to tell me maybe he's not sure but we reckon around about 20 to 30 years
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will give you a good idea of repeating the same day and through this he goes through the whole
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spectrum of emotions at first he has fun with it he's stuck in time then he goes into shifts into a
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real sense of despair and he tries to kill himself again and again but then he reframes his whole
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attitude to what's happened and he discovers that actually there's real joy to be found in this small
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town which he despised at first and he learns to love it and he turns his life around and he learns
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through perseverance resilience resourcefulness to gradually adapt cope and ultimately triumph over
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this adversity and he turns this this very cold bitter february day when all hope had seemed lost into
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really a perfect day and you see him at the end he falls in love with rita who is producer is his
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producer and they wake up together on a new day the 3rd of february and phil has escaped the time
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trap and is free at last yeah so okay phil starts out cynical and through this this refining process
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becomes less selfish more engaged with the world around him and love i mean it's like love is like
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what saved him it got him out of the time loop absolutely he he really shifted and we'll talk about
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this more i'm sure from this idea of living through his personality and his goals and his desires and
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his self-centeredness to learning to really transcend his ego and move to this much higher state of
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consciousness where he was able to find that he had everything he needed in a town that he had
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previously despised on a day that he had loathed and with people he hadn't cared about he discovered
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his true self and i feel that this is a beautiful allegory a parable for how we can all live and how
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we can find what's most meaningful and significant in our lives and as you said uh this is considered
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one of the most spiritual films i mean if you just look at that basic plot you can see the the
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influences of buddhism like buddhism has the same sort of idea you reincarnate until you kind of
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figure things out and you can escape reincarnation and reach nirvana there's philosophical implications
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you know nietzsche also kind of did some thought experiments about if if you could live your life
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over and over again for eternity like would you want to live this life so it makes you think like
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well how do i want to live this life right now that's a very good point brett and you know these
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philosophical questions are not just dry abstract questions it's a superb question to look at your life
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and see it from different perspectives just as phil was forced to do in groundhog day and with this
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new perspective you can see where am i going in this life is this the life i want to be living and
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you can look back at the past and say would i have done things differently then imagine yourself in the
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future looking at you today saying what would i do differently now and this also accords with salvation
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in christianity with enlightenment in buddhism with you know other major religions in fact danny who
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who wrote the screenplay still gets letters from spiritual leaders from around the world claiming
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to have the definitive interpretation of what this movie is like all works of genius it has multiple
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interpretations so you argue that a lot of people live their lives like phil stuck in groundhog day they
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might not be in a literal time loop but they live the same day over and over again you call it the
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groundhog day condition what is that and how does it manifest itself well i've been um working as a
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you know a coach and an academic for nearly 40 years now and i noticed something in the thousands of
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people i work with that they could be uh in london today and oklahoma tomorrow in japan the next day
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but in their inner life they were replaying the same thoughts and feelings and emotional patterns
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often going all the way back to childhood and i call this the groundhog day condition
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it's the sense that every day you're having very similar thoughts and feelings some neuroscientists
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say that about 80 to 90 percent of what we think about today is the same as yesterday and we are
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creatures of habit and we tend to get stuck in these grooves sometimes it can really help us but often
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we get stuck in a state of worrying or multitasking or busyness and distraction and we can feel
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disconnected from a direct experience of life and from real joy and for me when i thought about this
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idea of groundhog day in its broader psychological meaning it seemed to answer offer answers to the
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questions like why do we feel stuck why is change so hard why do i feel unfulfilled why do i feel that
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life is passing me by and why is it but often what we think we want turns out to be disappointing
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and with groundhog day it allows you to excavate below the surface and see what's really going on
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in your habitual thinking and feeling which most of us never do most of us when we feel sad or unhappy
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we try and change something outside of us you know we we go away we go on vacation we might change
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job partner or where we live but it rarely fixes the issue or the problem it's only when we change
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from the inside out that we make real change and that's what phil does in this movie okay so you
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highlight in the book you some of the symptoms that you've noticed in people who you have this
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groundhog day condition uh feeling that you're stuck i know i'm sure a lot of people felt like that
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compulsive thoughts and feelings that that's a big that's a symptom of you know anxiety and depression
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you kind of have these reoccurring ruminating thoughts that aren't productive living on autopilot
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a sense of meaningless i'm sure everyone listening has had those moments when they're lying in bed and
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thinking what's the point of it all what am i doing and then yeah the powerlessness to change like you
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think everything is determined by your outside conditions absolutely and you know those compulsive
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thoughts and feelings are very very powerful in fact one of the best pieces of advice i can ever give
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someone is is to say you are not your thoughts is and a lot of therapeutic techniques have this
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where you separate yourself from your thinking and realize that it's not you often it's just noise
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but when you suffer from depression anxiety you take your thoughts far more seriously and you
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ruminate on them as you mentioned and i sense that in groundhog day he learned to break away from
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thinking all the time and just experience life more in being mode rather than thinking mode and that's
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something i feel we've we all need to do because we're in we live in a civilization where everything
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is around our thinking and and about constantly being distracted it's the reason you know the world
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health organization has said by 2030 depression is going to be the biggest health problem in the world
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now a lot of it's down to the pandemic you know political problems wars economic crises but i feel
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at its root is in our civilization we've become disconnected from ourselves and we are caught we
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get caught in these thinking loops where we're fixated on what we don't have on what we believe
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will make us happy and a psychologist taught with a hedonic treadmill once you get on that you can never
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get off because you're never going to be able to satisfy this this constant hunger for more and groundhog
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day is a great story for illustrating this in my view well you also highlight the you know the the
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causes or of groundhog day condition we talked about your mind you need these cognitive processes
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and preferences for you know rumination that aren't healthy or productive but you also talk about just
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your life history can cause it the way you're parented your education you're the type of career you
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choose and like you're surrounded by people who they're all pursuing a particular goal and you think
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well i need to do that because everyone else is doing it but that might not be good for you
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very much so you know my my view and i think this is becoming more prevalent amongst psychologists
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is that we have multiple personalities at some level or sub personalities they're different parts of us
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we're one person with our partner or spouse we're another person with our parents another person with
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our friends or at work or with a ceo we change but we are often governed by these personality
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patterns that we can trace back to childhood and our conditioning the way we were parented the way
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we were schooled whether we're the eldest youngest or like me an only child our friends then our
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workplace our culture our social media and you know and the countries we live in you know living in
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i've lived in britain i've lived in the states and they can have a different impact and influence on
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your personality but the problem is we our personality becomes our identity and we feel
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it's fixed we feel it's as real as the microphone i'm speaking into but it's not it's fluid it's
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dynamic and again in groundhog day we see how it can change but the problem is but we get stuck in
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our ego and these stories we tell ourselves we get stuck in our roles our conditioning our neediness
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and our unconscious drives and it's only when you can get out of those and rise above them and see
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them for what they are that they're not you they're only part of you and they're fleeting and often
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they're not very helpful that's when the real change happens now it took phil in the movie you know
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20 30 years to get there what i tried to do in the book was come up with a framework to use the same
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process which i think is very valid but applied in your life to cut through all these
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different versions of yourself which can hold you back well you also argue this this groundhog day
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condition creates what's called the conditioned self and this is the self that's just created by
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all these conditions that we find ourselves in like we're we're controlled from the outside i mean
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what are the like how does the condition self manifest itself like what are the characteristics like
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where how do you see those in phil in groundhog day well with phil i identify five core
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characteristics but there are all versions of the conditioned self for phil the dominant one that
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came across at the beginning was a sense of entitlement he was selfish proud self-centered
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almost narcissistic you know when he came into town he wanted the best hotel he called himself
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the talent he wanted to find a phone line for celebrities because he believed he was one and he
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believed that the more he focused on satisfying his own needs the happier he would become and it took the
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whole experience of a film to to eliminate that very negative and erroneous attitude so that's
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fulfill the sense of entitlement is stronger for me my dominant conditioned self has been the need for
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approval i wanted my parents approval especially my dad my friends recognition i went to a school where
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your whole self-esteem was based on how well you did in tests or whether you were good at sport
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you were called by your surname there was no joy there was no friendliness or amicability you were
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just a number and you were measured in business it was very much the same now i've really managed to
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overcome that drive it's taken me many many years but we have a need for approval others could be a need
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for security or dependency or control perfectionism but i believe based on my experience that everyone
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listening to this podcast will know that there's some part of them going back to their childhood that
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could be limiting their potential for happiness and it could be sabotaging them in some way and these
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are stories which go back to our childhood which we buy into often to cope to survive a playground
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survive bad parenting to help us get through life but what can be useful as a coping mechanism in the
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playground can be very damaging in adulthood and can ruin our relationships too okay so phil started
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off the movie arrogant the conditioned self uh how did he become aware that he was a conditioned self
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in the movie and then how do you think we become aware of our condition so that's the first thing you
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have to know that you you are this thing before you can make a change right exactly well one of the
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reasons i wanted to write about groundhog day rather than do a more academic book or a more traditional
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self-help book was i believe groundhog day is so accurate to how we live our life in that phil doesn't
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have a guru there's no magic wizard or or mentor helping him through here he has to find out everything
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through trial and error through learning by doing learning through experience and through the film
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he tries out every possible strategy to be happy he sleeps with different women he he commits crimes
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he eats till he's obese he does anything he wants and gradually he eliminates these these needs from
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his conditioned self he lets go the entitlement he lets go of the the need for control he lets go of
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his need to be admired by everybody and he just lets go and naturally becomes a more loving kind
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person and i feel that when you cut through the conditioned self and you go to what i call the authentic
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self you can touch who you really are and and you're so much more than your personality but to answer
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your question but it gets there through trial and error and that's the only way ultimately we can learn
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we can have therapists we can have coaches but we learn from observing our own experience and acknowledging
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it and trying something new every day that's the essence of the movie he tries something new every day
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well it's not like phil kind of follows the buddha and is that right so like his buddha goes out there
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he's looking for enlightenment the first way he tries to like find it through sensuality right
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trying to like hook up with a lot of women and he's like that didn't work and then he found an aesthetic
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who is kind of life denying and i'm just going to live in this cloistered world not eat and that
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didn't get it like that phil you know basically becomes life denying the most extreme way killing
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himself trying to kill himself and then he finds this middle middle path basically like the buddha no
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you're spot on there are a lot of parallels to the story of buddha but you know i if um i'd encourage
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everyone to stop and think for a moment about what is their story about what will make them happy
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what do you think will make you happy because in the movie phil has this unique opportunity through
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the time loop to test out every possible strategy for living everything because he's got infinite
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time and as far as he knows he's trapped in time forever for eternity and through trying out
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everything he discovers what the great religious leaders have told us what many of the great psychologists
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have told us what we're now learning from positive psychology from neuroscience is the way to live
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which is to be in the present which is to be loving kind find meaning help others you know this is the
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beauty of the film is that through this this incredible story he's actually summarizing what we're now
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learning from modern science modern psychology as well as what we've known for thousands of years from
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ancient wisdom like buddhism we're gonna take a quick break for your word from our sponsors
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and now back to the show well yeah and i think that's the one of the big takeaways the thing that
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the transformation that happened in phil there's a couple transformations by being stuck in the time
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loop one he realized okay he can't change the outside world right everything's just going to happen
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the same thing over and over and he can't change that so he has to change himself but the other one his
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his relationship to time changed by being stuck in the time loop and it shifted him from that
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past and future orientation to a present orientation and you talk about in the book oftentimes like
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most of our thoughts are about the past and the future and thinking about that can make us happy
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sometimes right if you think about a good memory from the past that makes us feel good if you think
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about you're looking forward to a trip you're going to that can make us happy but oftentimes we when we're
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focused on the past and the future it often makes us miserable why is that well that's an extremely
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important point and you know right when i was writing this book and before i've been practicing
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mindfulness so i've always been interested both professionally and personally in how we can spend
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more time in the present moment you know i love books like the power of now michael singer's work i you
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know but again in groundhog day what's fascinating is how his relationship to time changes throughout the
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movie at first time is an irritation to be endured he's waiting there impatiently to in in the town
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he doesn't want to be in to return to his former life as a celebrity weatherman in the city you know
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there's a contrast between this slow dull what he calls hicksville and the exciting vibrant city
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then time becomes a resource where he can use it to exploit other people so he uses the time loop
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to seduce women as i said and do other things which are not really helping anyone next though it becomes
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it's terrible onerous burden to be suffered for eternity there's that wonderful point in the movie when
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the clock turns around very slowly and there's this loud crash as it comes to six o'clock and time is a
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weight pinning him down but then finally when he goes to the present moment and he stops thinking about
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the past and the future and he realizes he is in an eternal present then become time becomes a great
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gift where he can learn new skills like us sculpting he's got the time to learn piano to help others and
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ultimately to find happiness and when he becomes aware that time's a gift he really learns how to
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master time and he slows right down and pays attention to the present and he reframes what had become a
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terrible where previously been a terrible day when he was just focused on the the past what he'd lost
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in the future how he could get out of there and became grounded in the present moment and that's
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where his happiness lied and ironically it's only when his future was removed that he could really
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recognize the gift of the present moment and he says to rita at one point no matter what happens
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tomorrow or for the rest of my life i'm happy now and you you argue that you know that that shift
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that he makes from not being focused on the future to this being focused on the present and the world
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around him like he achieves going back to sort of the religious motifs in this movie he achieves a state
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of grace in this time loop very much so for me a state of grace it's a phrase um it's not a common
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phrase but it to me it means being in the present it's a peak state when you feel most calm most present
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and most alive it's when you're in the flow or maybe what maslow calls self-actualization if you
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look at the characteristics of that it's about being present and alive and phil achieves this state when
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he changes his story about what's happened to him and the key moments in the movie the real pivotal
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moment is when he's trapped in the time loop and he's teaching rita to flick cards into a hat another
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useless thing he's learned in the time and she asks him is this what you want to do with eternity
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then she suggests that eternity could be a blessing in disguise she says to him i don't know phil maybe
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it's not a curse it just depends on how you look at it now he begins to realize that the time loop is a
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blessing and he shifts to this state of grace he shifts to a higher level of consciousness you could
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call this enlightenment um but whatever your views he fundamentally changes the way he looks the way
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he acts everything about him shifts and he's in this state of grace and this higher level of consciousness
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which is just extraordinary to watch and i think we all have this grace this innate well-being
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this appreciation this love this wisdom and that one of the key goals of our life is to connect to
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it or reconnect to it maybe we had it as children before education got hold of us maybe we had it
00:26:13.280
when we weren't just thinking all the time and we were just being um so i think it's a very powerful
00:26:18.800
moment in the movie yeah and i for me like a state of grace is kind of like you realize what you do
00:26:23.720
doesn't matter but it does matter at the same time right i mean i think phil realizes that there's
00:26:29.540
that really powerful moment where phil you know he's making that shift from selfishness to selflessness
00:26:35.180
and there's that homeless guy the old homeless guy and he dies every every day and phil at first tries
00:26:42.200
to save him and you can tell that he's like i gotta save this guy and he gets really frustrated that he
00:26:47.580
can never save this guy this guy will just keep dying and then he realizes i'm not going to be able to
00:26:52.740
save him he's i can't do anything about that but what i can do in the meantime i can just i give this
00:26:58.400
guy a warm meal i can be kind to him that's what i can do and once you let go of that i mean that's i
00:27:05.940
think that's that state of grace like he knew he couldn't change anything but he knew he could do
00:27:08.980
something now yeah that is um again a very important part of the movie where i think several things are
00:27:16.560
going on here everything you say is absolutely true he realizes it's not not everything is going
00:27:23.440
to have an end goal or an end state he's not going to be successful in everything but it's the actual
00:27:28.220
act of doing it it's the quality of his moment to moment life that's more important in a way than
00:27:35.880
actually what happens and we live in a a culture where everybody's focused on goals and achieving
00:27:41.940
things and and end states we're all working towards these these end states we think will make us
00:27:47.540
happy but it's the true truly happy people are people who enjoy the journey i know this is a
00:27:53.960
cliche but the movie really brings that out but there's something else about the old man that i think
00:27:59.200
is critical here and that is at some point phil could almost believe that he was divine but he was a
00:28:05.240
god he had almighty power but when he realizes he can't save the old man he lets go of a lot about
00:28:11.740
hubris and a lot about pride and has an even deeper compassion for other people because it's a compassion
00:28:18.520
that we are all you know he he can't save everyone and that people are going to die and not even he can
00:28:25.080
fix that and that gives him a deeper appreciation of human nature and a deeper compassion in my view
00:28:31.440
so how do you think we can make that shift from to this present focus and get into that state of
00:28:36.920
grace without having to be stuck in a literal time loop like what do you what does that look like on
00:28:41.380
a day-to-day basis well i think there's a number of things i think mindfulness is incredibly important
00:28:46.880
and i'm sure you've had many guests who talk about mindfulness but mindfulness allows you even
00:28:51.540
momentarily to escape from the noise escape from all the future projections and just be for me being out
00:28:58.980
in nature is critical we have forgotten that this world is a miracle groundhog day is a story of how
00:29:07.340
he discovers that his life is a miracle but even in this town which he hated at first with these people
00:29:13.920
he was contemptuous of he has everything he needs to be happy and so whether it be through mindfulness
00:29:21.300
through gratitude practices through being in nature through volunteering there's many different roads to get
00:29:28.000
there i encourage everyone to spend far less time focusing on what you don't have or what you think
00:29:34.460
will make you happy and far more time focusing on what you do have we've known this for thousands of
00:29:40.520
years and but now we know you know places like the university of berkeley have a massive department
00:29:45.380
dedicated to the study of gratitude and we know from many studies that the people of the most grateful
00:29:50.780
are also the happiest and also that people who might be billionaires but they worried why they've got
00:29:57.320
less billions than their main competitor are going to be miserable in many ways but the whole of our
00:30:03.040
society is set up for scarcity for focusing on what we don't have and what we do have so we need to have
00:30:09.840
rituals and behaviors to counteract these social and economic forces which are always based on scarcity
00:30:16.660
and lack yeah so okay mindfulness i think just paying attention more to the world around you that's the
00:30:22.200
big shift that happens with philly he actually starts engaging with this small town and he realized well
00:30:27.640
here's this homeless guy and then here's this person this person has a story i mean he just instead of
00:30:33.520
seeing these people as means to an end he starts seeing the world around him as an end that's very true
00:30:40.820
and you know in the work i do with leaders we have a model called transactional leadership and
00:30:45.520
transformational leadership transactional leadership is where you lead or manage people as a means to an end
00:30:51.700
you treat people almost like pawns on a chessboard to control them to achieve your goals increase productivity
00:30:57.220
and it it takes all the emotion out of it transformational leadership is a view that everybody you come across
00:31:04.060
you can transform you can improve their life it's about giving not taking it's about helping people feel
00:31:10.520
good about themselves and phil goes from being very transactional to being transformational and he does
00:31:16.480
that by letting go of his ego and reconnecting to his deeper self well you argue and you mentioned this
00:31:21.920
earlier that one of the most powerful lessons from groundhog day is that all of life consists of skills
00:31:27.960
that you must practice to master how did this idea show up in the movie well i think the unique
00:31:35.340
if you like model or strategy coming out of groundhog day if you're looking at groundhog day as a template or as a blueprint
00:31:41.920
for your life a lot of what i've said you can find in other books probably find in other movies but what i think is
00:31:50.020
unique about groundhog day is this concept of practice is establishing what skills do you need and i think that phil learns
00:31:58.500
a whole range of skills through resourcefulness resilience appreciation how to change each day
00:32:06.040
a growth mindset you know how to grow through learning how to create a positive intention at the beginning of
00:32:11.980
the day and how to find meaning but these are all skills and not just attitudes they're skills and
00:32:17.640
the genius of groundhog day is how he learns he learns by changing something small every day through
00:32:26.380
incremental small daily changes now we know from psychotherapy we know from coaching we know from
00:32:34.180
health interventions but the best way to bring about a behavioral change is through small incremental
00:32:40.460
changes and groundhog day is a beautiful parable about how he does that so the end of every day he can
00:32:48.620
reset he knows tomorrow everybody's going to be doing exactly the same they're going to be going to the
00:32:54.300
same places the same activities saying the same things with the same people the only thing that changes is him
00:33:00.580
so he can try something new every day until he gets it right and my feeling is from working as i say with
00:33:09.360
thousands of people coaching and leadership is those people maybe about 10 or 20 percent of people who really
00:33:15.780
get the big changes in their life it's not because of knowledge it's not because of desire it's not because of
00:33:21.420
personality it's because they change their behavior they do the work they do the practice and groundhog day is all
00:33:28.220
about somebody who does the work and and so i think that's the absolute key to this you know in terms of if you want to
00:33:35.900
change your life and the biggest message of a movie is that daily practice okay yeah so with this try and something new
00:33:41.940
every day doesn't have to be anything big i mean just try doing little things in your behavior or your daily routine
00:33:48.820
something of some examples here like you know try doing an active service for your wife every day
00:33:52.840
see what happens say no to people when they ask you to do something you don't want to do
00:33:57.680
instead of you know looking at your phone first thing in the morning try meditating for five minutes before
00:34:03.220
you pick up your phone or you could try if you if you watch netflix at night before you go to bed
00:34:07.960
try reading a book instead but as you say the key is just to pick one thing you don't have to pick
00:34:13.180
multiple things at the same time just focus on one thing at a time and then see what happens
00:34:18.360
no absolutely and you know with phil he learns to play the piano he learns ice sculpture he learns other
00:34:25.440
skills but he also learns the art of living now he doesn't even learn that consciously he doesn't sit
00:34:31.460
down with a self-help book but he just learns it through his experience my view is we should approach
00:34:37.160
living in the same way we approach learning how to read and write or drive a car or play golf and
00:34:43.000
through practice all the skills are out there there are free courses all over the internet from some of
00:34:48.420
the best universities in the world but it's how you practice that is the absolute key here yeah so like
00:34:54.380
big life skills you know the quality you talk about the quality of your life is determined by the
00:34:57.940
quality of the small decisions you make so get better at decision making that can be a big game changer
00:35:02.640
yeah and in um again in groundhog day he can see how his decisions work out now because he can try
00:35:09.960
something on a thursday and the next day he'll know whether it's worked or not and he can make these
00:35:16.060
small little changes and and monitor results but we can do this too if you've got a difficult boss
00:35:21.680
try saying something new to them tomorrow try a new approach try smiling more and just notice what
00:35:27.520
happens the worst thing is we get stuck and this is a groundhog day condition we get stuck in these
00:35:32.420
habitual default reactions and responses to things but we can only change through trying something
00:35:39.040
new which he does again and again well i think what's empowering about this movie helps you realize
00:35:43.840
okay i might not be stuck in a literal time loop but i've got you know hopefully 20 30 years to live
00:35:50.380
you know 40 years left of life i can make the most of that time i can i can start the changes that
00:35:56.860
will accumulate over time today absolutely and you know there's one sentence that i take away from my
00:36:05.900
my book and the movie it's this this concept that he turns the worst day of his life when he tries to
00:36:11.400
kill himself again and again into the best day of his life when he's in love and he's happy he's joyful
00:36:17.380
and passionate and the only thing that changes is him he doesn't move to a new place he doesn't have a
00:36:24.840
new job he doesn't become a billionaire win the lottery he doesn't you know win mvp he just changes
00:36:31.400
his inner life and his outer life becomes magnificent and there is achievable for absolutely everyone
00:36:38.200
anybody can follow that you don't need to be in a time loop all the tools are out there all the
00:36:43.360
ingredients and the recipe are there i think groundhog day is a beautiful recipe but the ingredients are
00:36:48.820
all there well paul is there something like if you there's like one thing someone could start doing
00:36:52.720
today that's from your book and from the groundhog day that could start getting them on this path of
00:36:58.300
escaping the groundhog day condition what would that thing be you think as a practical technique
00:37:03.360
brett i think there's nothing better than journaling i insist on everyone i work with journaling because
00:37:08.800
journaling allows you to capture and record what's happened today to investigate what's happened today to
00:37:17.160
write in your total privacy complete confidentiality about how you feel about it and then set an intention
00:37:24.040
that tomorrow you're going to try something new so whether it be in a relationship or something to do with
00:37:30.180
your mental health or a new skill you're learning just take one behavior and for a few weeks just record
00:37:37.320
the experience of trying something new every day notice what works what doesn't work when you journal
00:37:43.980
the actual act of getting it out of your head onto paper is profoundly liberating and it means it's
00:37:50.200
far more likely that you're going to follow through on those behavior it's a form of commitment it also
00:37:55.300
allows you to declutter your mind and it can make you feel calmer and happier this is why so many
00:38:01.620
therapists and in positive psychology people use journaling in research it's used because it works it works
00:38:07.820
brilliantly it's a simple technique um there are there are many many others but that was the one i would
00:38:13.080
encourage you if you want if you like this idea of groundhog day and this daily change start recording
00:38:18.720
your day and see each day almost as a lifetime and when you wake up tomorrow you can be reborn you can
00:38:24.980
reinvent yourself you can wipe the slate clean from yesterday and reinvent yourself today and journaling
00:38:31.640
is the mechanism to do that yeah i think this whole idea of treating your life like an experiment is
00:38:37.660
powerful but i only think it works if when you're testing out these different hypotheses to see you know if
00:38:44.120
it'll improve your life you have to record the results of your experiments i mean even if it's not like a
00:38:49.280
formal journal you just kind of make a note for yourself maybe on your your phone in the notes app
00:38:53.640
because i you think okay i know this about myself now and i'm going to remember this in the future but you
00:39:01.260
don't i mean here's here's some examples from my own life whenever i get invited to a social event i think
00:39:05.400
oh geez i don't like this thing i get ready got to go there and do the small talk but then afterwards
00:39:10.800
after i've gone to the thing i'm like man i really had a great time i'm so glad i did that
00:39:14.120
or i mean here's another thing i've i've learned i have to keep re-realizing that i don't like to go
00:39:19.820
on vacation somewhere where i'll be doing things in crowds of people i mean you weirdly have to record
00:39:26.880
that kind of stuff so you remember it so you don't end up in that groundhog day condition the
00:39:32.200
journaling can also help you figure out if you are in the groundhog day condition because you you
00:39:35.840
mentioned this in the book i had this similar experience with journaling i've i don't journal
00:39:40.080
anymore regularly but i was a regular journaler and one thing i noticed that okay stuff would
00:39:45.800
different stuff would happen and i'd write about it but there's this underlying current of just
00:39:50.840
pessimism and negativity that i could see that would happen you know 20 years ago 15 years is the same
00:39:59.220
thing i was like okay i'm repeating these thought patterns over and over again i need to do something
00:40:03.560
about this and i think you mentioned you had the similar experience oh absolutely again one of the
00:40:08.360
reasons i wrote the book was i was living what most people say was an amazing lifestyle i lived in a
00:40:13.200
you know 9 000 square foot house in one of the you know most luxurious real estate in in california
00:40:19.900
i had very successful businesses i was flying first class around the world but when i looked at my
00:40:24.700
journals it was the same anxieties the same insecurities the same resentments the same fears
00:40:31.080
day after day after day and i suddenly realized i can't carry on doing this this is this is insane
00:40:38.600
i've spent my whole life on this flawed strategy of going outside to fix these inner problems and
00:40:45.020
through journaling and looking at my journal and seeing this year after year i realized i thought well
00:40:50.600
i'm either insane i've got to there's something going on here and uh it really woke me up because
00:40:56.380
a journal is a record and we forget things you know we easily forget how we feel we forget our moods
00:41:03.520
we can we can remember dates we can remember people but we lose sight of our feelings and experience
00:41:09.080
but when you look back at it and investigate it and learn techniques for questioning it you know like
00:41:15.060
what else could this mean what else could cause this what could i do next to help me get through this
00:41:20.000
there's some beautiful questions you can learn from cognitive therapy acceptance commitment therapy
00:41:24.460
and many different techniques it's all available on the web and in very good books but just the act
00:41:30.200
of journaling makes yourself your own coach your own mentor well paul this has been a great
00:41:35.740
conversation where can people go to learn more about the book and your work well sure well on my
00:41:40.160
website i have um excerpts for book and more about me which is paulhannam.com www.paulhannam.com my book is
00:41:47.620
the wisdom of groundhog day most of my time now i'm doing a lot of work around mental health i have
00:41:52.840
been for years which i think is the you know one of my serious issues in the world right now
00:41:57.440
and you know find out more about me there most definitely well paul hannam thanks for your time
00:42:02.920
it's been a pleasure thank you very much my guest is paul hannam he's the author of the book the
00:42:07.840
wisdom of groundhog day it's available on amazon.com also check out his website paulhannam.com
00:42:12.900
and check out our show notes at awim.is slash groundhog we find links to resources we delve
00:42:17.060
deeper into this topic well that wraps up another edition of the awim podcast make sure to check out
00:42:28.340
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00:42:32.400
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