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So this happy picc of me was taken in one thousand nineninety nine a senior in collece
And it was whaever dance practice
I was really really happy
And i remember exactly where i was about we can half later
I was sitting in the back of my used minivan in a campus parking lot
When i decided that i was going to commit suicide
And i went from deciding to a full loan planning very quickly
And i came this close to the edge of the precipice
It's the closest i've ever come
And the only reason i took my finger off the trigger was thancked to a few lucky coincidences
And after the fact that's what scared me the most the element of chance
So i became very methodical about testing different ways that i could manage my ups and downs
Which has proven to be a good investment
Many normal people might have safe six to ten major depresss of episodes in their lives
I have bipolar depression ones in my family
I've had fifty plus at this point
And i've learned a lot
I've had a lot of at batmany rounds in the ring of darkness
Taking good notes
So i thought rather than get up and give any type of recipe for success or highlight
Real i would share my recipe for avoiding self destruction and certainly self paralysis
And the tool i found which has proved to be the most relilisasafenenet for emotional free fall is actually the same tool that has helped me to make my best business decisions
But that is secondary
And it is stiusism
That sounds boring my think of spock or my congiant image
Like this a cow standing in the rain
It's not sad
It's not particularly to happy
It's just an impassive creature taking whatever life sensends its way
You might not think of the ultiate competitor say bill
Dollecheehehecocoach and newing and patriots has the all time nfl record for superbowl
Ttles and stosiism has spread like wildfire in the top of the nfl ranks as a means of mental toughness training in the last few years
You might not think of the founding fathers
Thomas
Jefferson
John adams
George washington to name but three students of stowacism
George washington actually had a play about astolic
This was keeto a tragedy performed for his troops at valley forge to keep them motivated
So why would people of action focus so much on an ancient philosopy that seems very academic
And i would encourage you to think about stouusm a little bit differently as an operating system for thriving in high stress environments for making better decisions
And it all started here kind of on a porch so around three hundred bc in athens
Someone named zino of city
Um taught many lectures walking around a painporporch a stoa that later became stouism and in the gicker roman worlds
People use stoisism as a comprehensive system for doing many many things
But for our purposes chief among them was training yourself to separate what you can control from what you cannot control
And then doing exercises to focus exclusively on the former this decreases emotional reactivity which can be a superpower
Conversely let's say your a quarter back
You miss a pass
You get furious with yourself
That could cost you again game your ceo
And you fly off the handle at a very valued employee because of a minor infraction
That could cost you the employee
If you're a college student
Who say is in a downward iral
And you feel help us and hopeless unobaated that could cost you your life
So the stakes are very very high
And thethere 're many tools in the tk ket to get you there
I'm going to focus on one
That completely changed my life in two thousand four
And it found me
Then because of two things
A very close friend
Young guy
My age died of pancradtic cancer are unexpectevely
And then my girlfriend who i thought i was going to marry
Walked out
She'd had enough
And she didn't give me a dear john letter
But she did give give me a dear john pluack not making this up
I'kept it business hours are over at five o'clock
She gave this to me
To put on my desk for personal health
Because the time i was working on my first real business
I had no idea what i was doing
I was working fourteen plus houraddays seven days a week
I was using stimulants to get going
I was using depressants to wind down
To go
To sleep
It was a disaster felt completely trapped
And i bought a book on simplicity to try to find answers
And i did find a quote that made a big difference in my life
Which was we suffer more often in imagination than in reality
By sannaka the younger who was a famous stooric writer
That took me to his letters
Which took me to the exercise premited atatoo malorum
Which means the premeditation of evis and in simple terms
This is visualizing the worst case scenarios in detail that you fear
Preventing you from taking actions
That you can take action to overcome that paralysis
My problem was monkey mind
Superloud very incessant
Just thinking my way through problems doesn't work
I needed to capture my thoughts on paper
So i created a written exercise that i called fear setting like goals setting for myself
And it consists of three pages
Supersimple the first page
It's right here
What if i got
Got that question mark this is whatever you fear
Whatever is causing you anxiety
Whatever you're putting off
Could be asking someone out ending a relationship
Asking for promotion
Quitting a job
Starting a company could be anything for me
It was taking my first vacation in four years
And stepping away from my business for a month to go to london
Where i could stay in a friendch room for free to either remove myself as a bottom
That in the business were shutit down in the first column
Define you're writing down all of the worst things
You can imagine happening if you take that step
And you want ten to twenty
I'm not going to go through all of them
But i give two
Two examples
So one was i'll go to london
You'll be rainy
I'll get depressed the whole thing
I'be a huge waste of time number two i'll miss a letter from the iss
I'll get audited or raided or shut down or susuch such
Then you go to the prevent column in that column write down the answer too
What could i do to prevent each of these balls from happening or at the very least decreased the likelihood even a little bit
So for getting depressed in london
I could take a portable blue light with me
And use it for fifteen minutes in the morning
I knew that helped to stay off
Dedepressed episodes for the ios bit
I could change the mailing address on file
The i os so the paper work would go to my account
Instead of my ups address
Easy busy
Then we go to repair
So if the worst case in areas happened what could you do to repair the damage even a little bit or who could you ask for help
So in the first case london
Well i could fok over over some money fly to span get some sun undo the damage
If i got into a funk in the case to have missing letter from the irs
I could call a friend who is a lawyer or ask say a professor of law
What they would recommend who i should talk to how had people handle this in the past so one question to keep in mind as 're doing
This first page is has anyone else in the history of time
Less intelligent or less driven figured this out chances are the answer is yes
The second page is simple
What might be the benefits of an attempt or a partial success
So you can see we're playing up the fears in really taking conservative look at the upside
So if you attempted
Whatever you're considering
Might you build confidence
Develop skills
Emotionally
Financially
Otherwise
What might be the benefits of saa base hit spent ten to fifty minutes on this page three
This might be the most important so don't skip it
The cost of inaction humans are very good at considering what might go wrong
If we try something new say asked for a rase
What we don't often consider is the atrocious cost of the status fone not changing anything
So you should ask yourself
If i avoid this action or decision and actions and decisions like it
What might my life look like in say six months
Prove months
Three years
Any further out
It starts to seem intensible and really get detailed again
Emotionally
Financially
Physically
Whatever
And when i did this
It painted a terrifying picture
I was self medicating my business was going to eplode it at any moment at all times
But instead away my relationships were franying or failling
And i realized that inaction was no longer an option for me
Those are the three pages
That's
That's fear setting
And after this
I realized that on a scale of one to ten
One being minimal impact
Ten being maximum impact
If i took the trip as risking a one to three of temporary and reversible pain for an eight to ten of positive life changing impact that could be semi permanent
So i took the trip
None of the disasters came to pass there were some hickups
Sure
I was able to extrcate myself from the business
I ended up extending that trip for a year and half around the world
And that that became the basis for my first book
That leads me here today
And i can trace all of my biggest wins
And all of my biggest disasters averted back to doing fear setting at least
Once a quarter
It's not a penancia
You'll find that
Some of your fears are very well founded
But you shouldn't conclude that without first putting them under a microscope
And it doesn't make all the hard times
The hard choice is easy
But it can make a lot of them easier so like to close with a profile of on my favorite modern day ystoics
This is jersey gregoric
He is a four time world champion
The olympicate lifting political refuge published poet sixty two years old
He can still kick my
Us and probably most assets in this room
Easn't imppress of guy
I spent a lot of time on his stoa
His porch asking life and training advice
He was part of the solidarity in poland
Which was a nonviolent movement for social changes
That was violensuppressed by the government
He lost his carereas a firefighter
Then his mentor a priest was kidnapped
Torture killed and thrown into a river
He was then threatened
He and his wife had to flepple and bounce from country to country
Until they landed in the us with next to nothing sleeping on floors
He now lives in woodccalifornia in a very nice place and of ten
Ten thousand plus people i've met in my life
I would put him in the top
In terterms susucand happiness
And there's a punchline coming
It's a pay attention
I sent him a text few weeks ago
Asking him hehe ever read any his stock philosophy
And he replied with two pages of text
This is very unlike him
He is a tourist dude and not only was he familiar restnoticism
But he pointed out for all of his most important decisions
His inflection points
When he stood up for his principles and ethics
How he had used stosiism and something it kin defear setting which blee my mind
And he closed with two things
Number one
He couldn't imagine any life more beautiful than that at astostolic in the last was montrtrwhich she applies to everything
And you can apply to everything
Easy choices
Hard life
Hard choices
Easy life
The hard choices
What we most fear doing
Asking saying these are very often
Exactly what we most need to do
And the biggest challenges and problems
We face will never be solved with comfortable conversations
Whether it's in your own head or with other people so encourage you to ask yourselves
Where ing your lives right now might defining your fears be more important
Than defining your goals keeping in mind
All the while
The words of synica we suffer more often in imagination than in reality
Thank you very much
