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Hey, what's up? This is Leo here for actualised.org. And today, I want to cover the important topic of positive versus negative motivation, and why the negative motivation that you're using is not going to get you ultimately to where you want to be. So let's dig into this. What is positive? And what is negative motivation? Well, I think that a lot of people can really relate to negative motivation very easily, because this is how they accomplish a lot of change in their life. And it's not that negative motivation doesn't get you any results, it gets you results. The problem though, is that once you get to a certain level, negative motivation stops having the effect on you that you want to have. So let's dig into the details here and really make this distinction between positive and negative. Traditional psychology likes to say that there are two types of personalities out there, they get motivated in different ways. The one personality type is the one that gets motivated by avoiding pain. So this is someone that gets motivated by things like your electricity is about to be turned off, and so you're motivated to go pay the bill. Or you don't like the idea of being poor. So you go out and you find a good job so that you can become financially well off, you don't like the idea of being bossed around at work. So you go and you start your own business, you don't like the idea of a fighting in your relationship. So you go and you find a new relationship. So that's the one side of the equation, right? It's trying to avoid pain or discomfort in your life. And this can be a pretty powerful motivating force. So I call this negative, because it's like the stick. If we compare the carrot and the stick analogy, then this is the stick that you're getting hit with, that's telling you that what you're doing is wrong, what you're doing is painful, what is what you're doing is not something that's making you satisfied. So you had to change your behavior. And that's a signal that you use to then go off and create some sort of change in your life. So that's the negative, what about the positive? Well, the positive is the opposite of that, it's you being drawn to something. So it's what you're moving towards. So let's say that you've really got a passion for art, and you love painting, and that that's something that's deeply fulfilling for you. So that's going to be a positive motivation that goes out there. And it has you taking action, learning how to paint learning how to draw, and then ultimately becoming a professional artist in that case. So that's one example of positive motivation. What's another example, let's say you love you love the way your body looks when you're ripped, and you love the muscles, and you love being at a low body fat percentage, and you just love that look, and you're just excited about new, you're really eager to get into the gym every day, and work and work out and just have a nice bodybuilder type of physique. Again, that's a positive motivation. How about another positive motivation? What if you like contributing, and you like providing value to people? So maybe you like doing volunteer work, or maybe you just like doing your job really well, because it gives you a certain fulfillment and a certain joy, then that's positive motivation. How about if you're motivated to, to, to do something that you really enjoy doing, like maybe playing a sport, or to have some sort of craft or hobby, just because you really love it? Something that you do anyways, like, maybe you really like reading a certain genre of book, maybe you like mystery books. And so you do that. And you're positively motivated, because you're always excited about the next book that's coming out in the series, and you want to read it, that's something that's great for you. Or maybe you love movies, and you love to go and you'd like to see indie art flicks or whatever, again, positive motivation. So So here we have the contrast between positive and negative, where in one case, you're moving away from things you don't want things that displease you things that you're uncomfortable with. And then in the other case, you're moving towards things that you do want. So it's like the positive negative pull of a magnet, right? Now, these seem like they're two sides of the same coin, right? You can be motivated by the negative event mode by the positive, motivated by the positive. And the two are, are kind of part of the same piece. Like the Yang, the yin and the yang, right, like there's a balance there. Sometimes you're motivated by the positive sometimes by the negative. Well, what I will submit to you is that if you really want to get the success that you're thirsting, after, and if you really want to get the kind of results that are atypical, from from normal from normal folks from normal society kind of results that average people get, if you want to kind of rise above the mediocrity, then you have to start shifting away from the negative into the positive, because there's a huge difference even though they seem like they're, they're equal and balanced. There's a huge difference in results that you're gonna get from going from negative to positive and being driven by a fuel that's part positive rather than negative. So let's go into some of the reasons as to why this is. There, there's a multitude of reasons and we're gonna go into them, some of them are deeper than others. But what I really want to what I want to stress here is something that was talked about in the book called path of least resistance by Robert Fritz. And this entire book is about creating, it's really about creating, actually, and how to cultivate a creative mindset, and how to pursue creative pursuits. And creative here doesn't mean that you're artistic in any way. Creative here means that you're actually using the process of creation to make whatever it is that you want to make in your life, whether it's how you look, how you feel, what kind of job you have, what kind of family you have, all of that is creation of some sort, right? So it doesn't necessarily just have to be that you're a creative person in kind of the stereotypical way like we think of an artist as being creative. Creativity is much more broad than that. And what path of least resistance talks about is the fact that there are really two structures that you can use towards living your life. There's the problem solving structure, or paradigm that you use, which is when you're going about your day and going about your life, trying to fix problems. So you're looking for problems that pop up in your life, situations that you're not quite pleased with that you want to improve. And then you go out there and you work on them, and you try to improve them. There's that paradigm or structure, as Robert Fritz calls it. Then there's the other structure, which is the creative structure. And this structure is not about focusing on the problems or focusing on the things that you want to improve. The creative structure is about what do you want to create? It's like you have a blank slate. Think of yourself as an artist and your life as that blank canvas. And it's like, what do you want to draw on there? Because you have all these tools, you have all these possibilities. You have all this, these opportunities at your disposal? And the question now is, what do you want to create. And so these two, I equate with the positive and the negative, right? The problem solving mindset is really the negative motivation. Because what you're motivated by is the problem, you want to fix the problem. And when and the way that your mind is thinking is like when I fix this problem, I'm going to feel better. And I'm not going to have that thorn in my son anymore. So that's something I should get to work on. So maybe you're not happy with your weight. And you look in the mirror, you're really you're bummed out about it, every time you look in the mirror, you think yourself, you know, I could easily drop 20 pounds, I would be so much happier. If I did that I'd look so much better, I'd be so much more attractive, whatever. Let's say you've got that mindset. Well, that's the problem mindset, right? Because you've not you noticed a problem about yourself. And now there's some pain there, there's a twinge of pain, a twinge of guilt, about not following through not taking action, not living up to your full potential. And so now you're driven by that to make some sort of change. So you're gonna go to the gym, you're gonna change your diet, whatever it takes. That's the negative, the positive. And this is the creative mindset is like, what do you want? What is your vision for yourself? So in the case of, of your physique, if you're trying to improve your looks, it's not about, oh, I want to improve my looks, because I'm dissatisfied, it's about what do I want? What do I want to be? Who do I want to be? What do I want to create in my life, and in this case, it's like, you have a vision, you have a positive vision of what you look like. So maybe you picture yourself ripped, or sexier, lean, or maybe you're picture yourself at the gym, being in that top 10% that go there consistently, maybe you picture yourself very healthy. And it's not so much about the looks, but it's more about the health and the energy that you now have, and that vitality that you have with being active, and eating healthy foods, so that they're nourishing your body and you feel good about that. Not even because you look good. And not even because you feel good. But it's just because you're kind of living up to your own standards, right, you have a vision of what you want to look like you have a vision of who you want to be. And that's something that you want to work towards, and something that you literally want to manifest create in your life. And then again, you do that by going to the gym, lifting weights, changing your diet up, whatever. Now on the surface, it seems like you know, what's the difference, because in both cases, the actions are the same. In both cases, whether you hate how you look, or you have some vision of how you want to look, in both cases, you're you're gonna have to go to the gym anyways, you're gonna have to change your diet anyways, and it doesn't really matter. Well, this is really the inner game side of things, and the inner game of success. And even though the outer game here is the same, you're going to the gym, you're doing the diet stuff. The inner game is very different. And the inner game is where your motivation stems from. Because here's the problem, especially with the gym is that are you going to have the motivation to stick with it? Are you going to have the motivation to achieve what you ultimately want? The problem with the problem solving mindset and the negative mindset is that if you're motivated by that negative motivation, you're going to start to notice a certain yo yo effect where that motivation might be powerful at first, it'll get you going. And in fact, a lot of times people will cite examples of like extreme negative leverage, where they have some sort of really painful event in their life, sort of painful experience. And they use that as fuel to get them somewhere new. And a lot of times that will lead to a pretty big transformation. And that's great, you can definitely do that that strategy. The problem is, though, that you've if you've already made some of that transition, and now you're looking to get to that next level, that negative leverage no longer starts to work on you. Because here's the problem with negative leverage is that when you're in a real deficit of whatever it is that you want, and there's a big gap between what you want and what you have, right now, there's a certain tension that's created, right? There's like pressure there. And so like, let's say that you're really miserable at your job right now. You get paid very little, you don't get respected, you hate what you do. You just hate it. And then you have this vision of something awesome that you really want to do maybe some dream, dream career that you've always imagined yourself doing. But you're not sure how to get there yet. And it seems like the gap is huge. That huge gap, even though that can be a problem. It's also nice, because now that creates motivation, right? You see the disparity, you see how much better your life could be here than it is right now. And that makes you start to want to move towards it, that gets you that motivation. The problem, though, is if you're driven by that negativity, then what happens is as you close that gap, right, your drive is proportional to that to that gap that's there. So as you're closing it, you're closing, you're closing it, closing it, the motivation wanes, and wanes and wanes, because all of a sudden, the pain that was there that was pushing you isn't as painful anymore. So let's say you hate your job right now. And so there's a lot of pain and you quit, and you go off, and you find a new job. But let's say that job isn't quite what you want, it's maybe only 30% of what you really feel like you're capable of. And so you're working at that job. But you're doing all right, this job is much better than your previous job, you're getting paid much better, your boss respects you more, you'd like your co workers, you're having a good time, you're doing something valuable with with, with the effort that you're putting in there. But still, it's not like, it's not the thing that you really feel that you could be doing. It's not your full potential, it's only 30%. So in this case, what's happening is that gap has now narrowed, it's much smaller gap. But now you're not really motivated to go out there and achieve your full 100% potential, because you've already achieved 30% of it, the gap has closed, and now you're less driven, you start to become complacent, it's like you know, I'm pretty comfortable here, I'm pretty comfortable going off finding that job, that's 100% of my potential, well, that's pretty risky, you know, I'm gonna have to quit this job, it might involve getting less pay in the short run, it might involve a time where I won't be able to find a job where I'll be unemployed, maybe for six months, that's gonna be a painful period, I don't want to go through that. And so see what happens is if you're driven by pain, you're always using the scale of assessing what's more painful, what's less painful, and you're always trying to find that path and bring you the least discomfort, least pain. You can definitely use the strategy, the problem is that you're not going to be be really great using the strategy, nothing great really gets accomplished by avoiding pain or discomfort, you can accomplish certain things, but it limits you. Whereas with the creative mindset, well, there's almost no limit to what that can do, what positive motion motivation can do. Because once you have that drive, once you set up a vision for yourself of where you want to be, and you're really inspired by that, and you It connects with your values, and you really feel this is something that's deeply important to you. That motivation is there. And it's never ending. In fact, what it does, if you set this up properly, then it just keeps amplifying and building up and building up and building up on itself. And that's when you can get like 100,000 10,000 times the results that you would get with the negative motivation approach. Because you have a vision, and you are where you are now. And there's that gap and there's that same tension. But this is now a positive tension. And as the gap closes, you're getting more excited about it. You're not getting less excited, not getting demotivated, the fuel is still there, because you're getting closer and closer to the vision. And what happens is ultimately, your vision enlarges and expands and deepens. And so your vision always rises. And you go along for the ride. And as that gap is closing, you're just thrilled about it, you're more motivated, because once you reach that vision, then the vision expands to the next level. And suddenly it evolves and transforms to something new. And then you go on to the next thing, and then the next thing and the next thing and you're feeling good about yourself, right? So this is the key difference between positive and negative and why You should make that transition from negative to positive. Now, what I want to say about this, I think the profound thing to understand here is that, you know, I was asking myself, this has anything, has anything really great, anything really awesome been achieved by people or organizations that were simply driven to avoid discomfort or pain? And I thought about this, and I thought about some like prototypical examples, maybe, let's say, the pyramids, you know, how were the pyramids built? What was the intellect that was behind that? What was the motivation required to create that kind of achievement? Or how about a billion dollar company, you know, founding a billion dollar company that provides a lot of value to society and helps a lot of people maybe, you know, common technology companies, common examples, Microsoft? How about a company like Apple? How about a company like Google? So these kinds of innovative visionary companies that create a lot of positive impact in the world? Is it possible to start a company like that, if you're trying just to avoid discomfort, or you're trying to simply solve problems? Well, what I would submit is that that's not possible to have the kind of drive you need to have to create that kind of greatness, there's something more there and you need to tap into your higher self, you can't do that, by being stuck in low consciousness thinking, you can't do that by being reactive, you can only do that by being proactive. And by having a vision of what you want, because otherwise, what would happen is, well, basically, you can think about like this is that these grand, lofty visions of starting a billion dollar company, or helping the world to cure a disease, or building a monument like a like a pyramid, or the Eiffel Tower, or something great like this, this is this is like an inspired and inspired drive, right? Because you can easily have a lot of money, and just be comfortable, you know, you could have everything that you basically need in life, you can have a nice house, a nice car, you can have a nice family, you can have good friends, you can set your life up to have all those things. But that's never going to lead you to create something amazing, something great. That is just going to make you comfortable, maybe happy. If that. And in fact, what's going to do is if you put yourself in that position, you don't have that vision, most likely, you're just going to get complacent, you're going to get lazy, and actually what's going to happen, you're going to start to stagnate, you're going to stop learning, you're gonna stop working hard, and you're not really going to achieve a lot in your life. But to achieve something big, right? Think about what it took to build the pyramids. That's not simply a matter of like survival. That's way beyond survival, survival is just getting your basic needs met. This is like getting your highest ideals met. Right? For the Egyptians, it was obviously tied to their religion and their spirituality. But that was something that was deep to them. That was a deep value. For them. It was really important, you know, for how about a founder of a company like maybe like Google or Apple or Microsoft? Well, what would someone like that have to have to believe in? What kind of drive would they have to have to want to put in the energy that it takes the massive expenditure of energy that it takes to make that a reality? Because make no mistake about it, it wasn't easy. It wasn't. It wasn't simple to build the pyramids, there's a lot of toil hard work put into that it wasn't easy to build a billion dollar company like Microsoft or Google, or Apple, there's a lot of a lot of struggle there to create it, right, certain things had to happen, certain energy has to be invested. And there's no way that energy would have been invested. If the person that was behind that effort. If the intellect the mind that was behind that effort, was simply motivated by avoiding a problem or finding a comfortable place for themselves. And make no mistake about it, these companies and the pyramids, and a lot of human achievement. Literally everything that you see around, you can just look around the house that you're sitting in, you know, the computer that you're looking at the car that you're driving in the city that you're in, all of that was created by human intellect and and they had to start with some sort of figment of imagination of idea, right, someone had to think about wanting to create an LCD screen that you're now watching this video on. Someone had to think about how to code, the website that you're now looking at. Someone had to think about how to structure the internet, how to lay the cables through the through the ground so that you could receive the electronic signals that you need to be receiving, in order to look into listen this right now, you know, someone had to come up with the algorithms to code for the audio that's coming through this video. Someone had to create the infrastructure in your city so that you have water and electricity. And someone had to create a government that would allow you to have the stability and the luxury to sit where you're sitting right now without worrying about somebody's ambition. You and hitting you in the head over the head with a with a rock, like in caveman days, might happen without a stable government to protect you and to ensure a certain stability and order in society. So all of these things didn't exist 100,000 years ago, none of that existed 100,000 years ago, right? And how did that come about, because ultimately, it was a figment of someone's idea, someone's imagination. And then because they had the vision, they thought it was important to them, that they went out. And they started doing that. And they accomplished these amazing things. So if this is something that you like, if you like being accomplished, and you feel like you have something to contribute to society, and you have that kind of drive, whether it's with your work or something else, then I would submit to you that you need to get on the positive motivation, track, right, not be driven by the problems, be driven by your vision. Because ice cream truck is coming by so it's playing in the background. Here's the thing, if you're driven by negative motivation, as Robert Fritz talked about it, a lot of the problems that you have, are not even going to be solved, if you're coming at it from the problem solving mindset. Because what's happening is you're solving one problem, and another problem pops up, you're solving that one and another one pops up, instead of doing it that way, What's better is to go out and simply focus on what you want, not what you don't want. So this is classic law of attraction, right? The idea that you want to shift your attention on the things you do want rather than what you don't want. Because if you focus on what you don't want, paradoxically, what's gonna happen is actually going to get that by moving towards it, because your mind is on it so much, that you're going to look at that so much, you're going to worry about it so much, this can become a self fulfilling prophecy. Whereas in the opposite example, if you're focused on what you do want, even though there are obstacles and problems, nobody's denying that there are those, your focus is avoiding them, right, so you're not distracted, you're not demoralized, by all the problems and obstacles in your way. Because you've got that vision that's driving you. And you're always focusing on what you can do what you want. The problem with the problem solving mindset is that makes you a victim, you're always looking at things that are problems, things that are obstacles, and so a lot of times you'll get demoralized, just by the fact that you have so many obstacles in your way. And what's gonna happen is you're gonna, you're gonna think about, oh, you know, I'd like to start a business. But there's this problem. And there's that problem. And another problem, another problem, I don't have the funding for it, I don't have the time, I can't quit my job, I've got a family to support. So all these problems and obstacles come in the way. And if you're thinking about it like that, then you're not going to be very motivated to start that business. Unless there's some really negative, harsh kick in the ass, that just kind of forces you to do it. So maybe you get fired from work. And that's going to be enough to start getting you to start your business. But that's not ideal. The better scenario is to focus on really the business, you want to start, why you want to start it, why it's important to you. And then as you're focusing on that, you're so excited about all the potential and all the movement progress you're making towards that business, those problems are still there, you still have a family that you need to support, you still have money you got to make, you still need capital for your business. So all these problems are still there, but you're not focusing on them, you're focusing on the solutions. And ultimately, what's happens is that you end up finding those solutions, because your mind is focused on looking for them. And right, what you focus on is what you tend to see. So we have this tendency as human beings, our human mind tends to seek validation. So whatever you think, should be the case, a lot of times, you will discount all the contrary evidence. And so a lot of times, that's why you see if you read biographies about people that start some of these amazing businesses, and that accomplish a lot in their life, they go through a lot of adversity, but they're always looking for that crack that crack in the wall that they can squeeze through, right, and then the next crack and the next crack. And so they're very opportunistic about how they do that. And that's what allows them to be persistent and successful. Whereas people that are focused on the problems, well, there's always a problem. There's always an obstacle. If you look for one, there's always a reason not to do something. Right? And there's always a reason to do something. So it's really a question of inner game and what you want for yourself. The other problem, the the thing that I hate about negative motivation, is that it leads to a certain yo yo effect. And this is what Robert Fritz called and oscillating structure. So think about there are two structures here. One structure is that you're solving problems and avoiding pain. The other structure is that you're moving towards a greater vision that you have the structure where you're avoiding pain, right? The problem with that is that you probably can find experiences, instances of this in your life is that as soon as you reach your goal, what happens is you get satisfied and so then you want to drop back down to where you were, and then as soon as dropped back down to where you were the pain pain of being at, at that bad condition will want you to rise above again. But then as soon as you rise above and you reach that goal, then you'll yo yo back down. So this is what I call the yo yo effect, where I've really seen this very, very evident was with, with maintaining my weight, right? A long time ago, I was overweight, that was about seven years ago. And then I dropped about 65 pounds in in five months. And so that was something that I was spurred on to do. Actually, as I was preparing for this video, I was thinking about what it was, that really motivated me to do that. And initially, I thought there was a lot of negative leverage there. That like I just got really tired of being fat. And because I was overweight for most of my life, and I got tired of how I look, I got tired of not being attractive to the opposite sex. And I got tired of my self confidence issues and all that. And so one day, I just kind of snapped and decided to change. But actually what that snap was, it wasn't a negative, it was a positive. Because what happened was that I saw a vision of myself as being very lean, toned, fit healthy, being attracted to the opposite sex being very confident, I saw a vision of myself of that, and I talk about that another video where I talk more about exactly all the steps that I took to lose 65 pounds in five months. But in that case, it wasn't that I was set up and experience a lot of pain. And therefore I changed it was because I saw a vision of myself. And I really felt it. It wasn't just like a logical, like, oh yeah, I could be fit, I could I could drop 65 pounds, it was like I saw myself and I saw how I would feel I felt like how I would feel if I had already done it. And it was such a captivating vision that the next day, changes started to happen, right. And that was an inner game shift, because I tried going to the gym. Before that I tried dieting for a long time before that many times. And it always failed. And that was because I didn't have a strong enough vision. All I was doing is I was running from the discomfort and the pain of being overweight. And so that was how I lost 35 pounds. But getting back to this idea of the yo yo effect after I did lose that those 65 pounds, 65 pounds, and I wasn't my target weight, which was about 170 pounds. That's what I wanted to be at. And I stayed there for about a year. And then I found it difficult to maintain that weight. Because what happened was that my motivation had waned, right, I no longer had that vision, that vision of being at 170 pounds, I've already achieved that. And so I had it. And then at that point, all I felt like I was doing was that I was maintaining, right and I was going to the gym, I was working just as hard. But all I was doing was maintaining, I was getting the results. And so it became challenging, because what would happen is I wanted to say at about 170. And so what I would do is I would go to the gym, I'd hit 170. And then I would feel pretty good about myself. And then I would still want to snack and you know, have some tasty stuff, have some desserts, ice cream, burgers, etc. And so I was still eating pretty unhealthy at that time. And so what I did is I would go to, you know, I'd go I eat i I'd splurge a little bit. And then all of a sudden, over the course of the next week, I would notice myself gaining like three or four pounds off of that. And then I would weigh myself. And then as soon as I saw myself hitting that 173 174 mark on the scale. Immediately, like the stab the thorn kicked in, and it was that negative motivation. And it was telling me that, oh, if you if you keep this up, you're gonna, you're gonna gain all that weight back that you lost, you didn't really make a sustainable change, I feel really bad about myself, I would get myself into basically then going on the diet again. And then I'll get myself back down to 170 over the next week or two. And then once I was at 170, I became pretty happy again. And I was motivated by the pleasure of going out and eating a little bit of this little bit of that and getting lacks, again in my diet and getting lacs on the gym. And then all of a sudden, I would notice that over the next week or two I would rise back up 173 174 And then again, I would freak out and then go on a diet and go back to 170. And so this yo yo effect was happening, happen for for a long time. It's happened for months, even a few years really because I lost my vision and I was just being motivated by comfort or lack of comfort and discomfort and trying to avoid the pain. Right? I tried to on the one hand avoid the pain of going to the gym and eating healthy. And then on the other hand, I was avoiding the pain of of being overweight. So I was trying to try to Yo Yo my way back and forth. And so what happened was that there was a plateau there for me a couple of years, but really I didn't get I didn't really get any he gains the gym, even though I put in so much work. And I always felt bad about myself, because there was like guilt there, right, I was guilting myself into doing things. So I think this is such a common example. And one of the biggest problems with the negative motivation is that it will lead to this oscillating Yo yo, yo yo effect, where you become stuck, and you start, you stop getting the results that you want to get you stop achieving. And of course, that means that your fuel kind of ran out. So that's what I mean by negative motivation not being enough to get you to where you ultimately want to be. If you want to accomplish great things. Instead, what you need is positive. And what it took for me to move beyond that yo yo effect was exactly that it took a vision. So after a lot of a lot of frustration, a lot of struggle with this Yo yo, feeling bad about myself, ultimately, I somehow got into bodybuilding, sort of researching it got interested in it. And you know, I started getting an image of myself of being very fit, not just at a certain weight at 170, I started setting higher ambitions for myself, I started thinking about, you know, what would it be like if my body was really healthy? What if I actually was eating not simply to maintain my weight, but I was eating to maintain my health? Because I care about my body? What if I lived up to that value? And then I also thought, you know, what, if I get ripped, you know, I liked the idea of just getting ripped, like just very low body fat percentage, like I wanted to be at 8%. And what if I put on some some nice bulk put on some muscle at the same time. And I actually went online and looked for images of the kind of body that I wanted to have. And I found some some like inspiring images, I printed them out as posters, I posted them around my room. And that created a lot of motivation for me. And this was positive motivation, right? It was no longer about avoiding this or avoiding that. I was really looking towards my vision, there was something that I wanted to create, I wanted to create a certain body, I wanted to create a certain physique, I wanted to create a certain feeling I wanted more energy. And I also wanted to live up to those higher values of just being healthy, and treating my body well. And so once I put that in place, and son, I started seeing a lot of gains the gym, I started to put on muscle, I started to shred fat, I started to look for techniques, I started researching and started watching videos, providing me a lot of motivation to really get me to that next level at the gym. And that was really great. And I'm still working through that right now, I'm still trying to get to my six pack, still trying to get to like 8% body fat, it's really a struggle, when you're at about 1211 10% to get down those last few percent are can be really, really difficult. And I think one of the challenges is that if you don't have a strong enough reason, strong enough vision, you'll never get there. Because at that point, you know, what are you really trying to do, you're putting in a lot of effort, you know, you're really monitoring your diet, to be very careful about how your diet is it, you have to be very careful about what kind of exercises you do, and what times during the day you eat, etc, etc. And you're just not going to do that if all you're trying to do is avoid discomfort, because quite frankly, there's a certain discomfort involved with with getting to that kind of level of physique, to building your body, you know, go to the gym. That's not, that's not always a comfortable experience. But if you have that vision, then the discomfort kind of melts away. So that's the beauty of it is that if you're always motivated by the pain, you're always in a kind of reactive mode, you're always in lower consciousness thinking because you're always trying to avoid something, it's just like, you're always dissatisfied. Because you're you're dissatisfied with that thing. So you try to avoid it. And then all of a sudden, your mind finds another thing that you're dissatisfied in your life. And another thing, another thing, you're always dissatisfied, you're never really content, you're never fulfilled or happy. Whereas if you're working towards a vision, even though going to the gym is still painful, because you're not focusing on it, because you're so excited about what you're going to the muscles you're gonna put on in this example, then you don't really care about the pain. And that pain becomes just part of the journey. And you can even learn to appreciate it in certain sense. So that was my weight loss example. And, and I like this point at the end here about how you feel because if you're motivated by the negative motivation, I just find it very difficult to imagine a scenario where someone motivated by negative motivation is ever going to be content in their life. Right? Can you can you picture how that would work? Because you're always solving problems and problems always keep coming up. They're never gonna, you're never gonna run out of problems to solve. So you're always going to be looking, you're always gonna be reacting, you're always going to be in a negative mood. Whereas if you're creating a lot of the obstacles that are there are simply going to dissolve for you. Those problems are not going to be solved. They're just literally going to be resolved or just kind of navigated around And so that is an important element of why you want to transition yourself away from the negative into the positive. Now, to answer a few objections, I think one objection might be, and this is kind of a case, in self help. I think Tony Robbins, a big supporter, proponent of this, and some other heavy hitters in the self help arena, is that negative leverage can be a powerful way to get yourself to transform, right? Let's say you are on the brink of of losing your job. And so that fear gets you motivated to go out there and, and do better perform better and ultimately make some sort of drastic improvement in your life there. Or maybe, you know, maybe you have a death in the family. And that's a really painful experience. And all of a sudden, that makes you realize something that you should be doing with your life, that you should be doing more. And also, now you're driven by that, by that negative emotion that you have. So examples like this, I think all of us have points in our lives, where we experienced something very painful, that then told us that we would never want to experience that again. And so therefore we're driven away from that, from that thing, and so we're driven to change. You know, I've done that many times myself. And so I think that is, that's definitely a way to motivate yourself. And if that's something if you're not motivated at all, and you have the option between not me being motivated at all, and being motivated by pain, or fear, or anger, or whatever it is, go ahead and use that, you know, if you're gonna get positive benefit from it, if you hate your boss, and you want to use that, as leverage to start a business, go ahead and do that. If you hate your weight, and you want to use that as leverage to, to get healthy and eat healthy, go ahead and do that, you know, if you're, if you're on your third, if you're about to have your third heart attack, and because you're eating so sloppily, that and you're so overweight, that you got to fix that you know, and you're afraid of dying, then then maybe that's what you got to do, and you got to work on. But that's like the first step, right? That's not a very high quality way to, to run your life, you can do that in the short run, and get some good benefit out of it. But it's going to be hard to sustain that. And ultimately, what is your life about you want to experience joy and happiness, and it'd be a piece, right, you don't want to always be driven by these negative negative experiences in your life. And quite frankly, those negative experiences, it's enough to shift you away from that thing. But it's not enough to really shift you into excellence in anything else. So maybe, if you're afraid of having that third heart attack, you will start going to the gym, exercise a little bit washing your health, but you're doing it for the wrong reason you're doing it for this reason that you're worried that you're going to die prematurely. And so you're going to be taking the outer actions that you need to be taking, but inside you're going to be resistant, you're gonna be struggling it, you're always going to be down on yourself, you know, why do I have to monitor my health? Why do I have to eat these certain things? I hate eating these things, why do I have to go to the gym, I hate going to the gym. And so there's going to be a constant struggle, even if you do manage to do it, and make times you won't manage to do it, you'll fall off. Whereas if you actually make an internal shift in why you're doing it, maybe all the sudden, what you do is you use that pain to then create a vision for yourself. Right? The vision is now that you're healthy, that you've had a lot of energy that you love going to the gym, that you like monitoring the stuff that you put in your body that you actually are interested in, in your own health, and you're you're reading about health, and you're reading about taking supplements and, and taking yourself off medications and looking for alternative medicines, whatever, then that might be a positive vision, that will get you much further right, because now all of a sudden, you're on board, your brain is on board with your body. It's on board with what your doctor is telling you. It's on board with what your friends and your family are telling you. And what's most important to get yourself on board with what you want to accomplish, not your body. Because your body can always do the actions go through the motions. But if your motivation isn't there, and that motivation comes from, from a division of what you want, then you're really always going to struggle. So I would ask you right now, what in your life? Do you have a strong vision for that you're pursuing? And what areas in your life are you doing? Simply because you're trying to avoid something, you're trying to avoid some negative reaction from somebody else, like maybe a boss or a family member or a spouse. Or maybe you're trying to avoid some negative situation like you're trying to avoid getting your electricity cut off by the electric company. So you go on your pay your bill, or you're trying to avoid looking looking fat. So you're going to the gym and you're struggling through that. And think about how you can shift that from the negative motivation to the positive. Think about what a positive vision for yourself might mean there and draft it out actually write it out what that positive vision is. Try To get connected with it, try to review that vision on a daily basis. Right? It's important that if you create a vision, you don't just look at it once, it's something that you come back to repeatedly, because that's something that you have to work towards over the course of the next weeks and months and years. And so, seek for that vision, because I promise you, once you have the right vision, and that vision is aligned with your deepest values, the action becomes effortless, right. And you start reaching new levels, you start reaching new plateaus that you have not been able to overcome before now you start overcoming them, because that's what it takes, you're probably on a plateau, because you're going through that yo yo effect, and the pain that you use to get you to where you are right now. Well, it's kind of run its course that fuel has burned out. And now you need a new source of fuel. And so that new source of fuel is vision, I encourage you to create a vision, create a vision right now for one thing in your life that you want to improve. And then that will be positive motivation that will fuel you much better than the negative motivation that you've used in the past. I wanted to add a couple more points that I forgot to add that I thought were important for this idea of positive negative motivation. So I started talking about personality types than traditional psychology. They like to say that there's some people that are pain avoiders, and then others that are pleasure seekers, and that some have a tendency towards one more than the other. Here, my thoughts on that is that I don't want that to limit you in what you think you can accomplish, and who you are. Because even though you might be the kind of person that is, that has so far in your life been motivated by pain, I don't want you to think that that is like fundamental or core to who you are like that's your identity, and that that cannot be changed. I think that's total nonsense. And that even if there is this divide between like half the population is more driven by avoiding pain and half is more driven by voting pleasure. I don't think that's in any way inherent biological or any of that kind of nonsense. This is something that can be shifted. And it's important to realize the benefit of making that shift. So if you're heavily heavily motivated by negativity, by pain by discomfort, you're always solving problems, you want to shift away from that, because that can only get you so far. And if you want better results. So you got to have to make a deeper shift within yourself from positive I mean from negative to positive right. Now, one example that I use with this is that psychology also has this personality type distinction between introvert and extrovert. And so something that goes back all the way into like Carl Jung, talking about that there are people out there general population, some people are very introverted, some people are very extroverted. And then there's, there's some radiant in there. So it's kind of like a range. But ultimately, that this is, this is something that's inherent to human beings is that you're either introverted, which means that you're very in your head about things. And that reality for you, is about not what's out there. It's more about how you perceive it, and how you think about it. So all the time you're scanning, you're looking you're taking stuff in, but it's not real for you until you can analyze it and process it and chunk it down for yourself. That's how an introvert sees the world and interact with the world. Whereas the extrovert is more about just being in the external environment, the real world is out there for them. Right? They don't need to process things as much, they're more likely to just say something without thinking about it. Because for them saying it is what's real thinking about it, that's, that's like a secondary, secondary function. Whereas for the introvert, they have to be very careful about what they say, because they want to make sure it's right. It's true to their real inner models of reality, and then they'll say it, the extrovert, exactly the opposite. And so this is why the extrovert, interestingly enough, always has seems to have a lot more energy and gets charged by the environment is charged by being around people is because they're not expending a lot of energy processing. They're soaking up energy from the environment. And they're just in it, they're more present to the moment. Whereas the introvert is always analyzing, and that takes a lot of mental energy to do. And so what happens is that they become fatigued when they're in high stimulus environments, when they're around people talking to people, that sort of thing. So they like to retreat into themselves, they like to have private time they like to sit at home, they like to do quiet things, so that they can recharge their batteries. So that when they do go out into the world, they need that energy to be able to interact in with it and process it. So these are two distinctions. I think they're generally valid. But I think this idea that you're an introvert or an extrovert, and that you're somewhere along this range, and that you're just stuck there. And maybe that's how you were born, or that's how you grew up, and now that you're stuck with that, but that's total nonsense. In fact, I've really proven to myself that that is not the case. Because I consider myself an extreme introvert. I very much like my private time very much my life alone time. In the past, I've had real difficulty interacting with people being being outspoken, being around people. It's just not something that I enjoyed. It's not something that it's something definitely something that that drain me of energy. And so I always considered myself an extreme introvert. But then what I what I realized is that, that this was not something that I was happy with, because it was limiting me in my life. I was an introvert and even though I liked being an introvert, you know, I don't, it's not that I want to change because I don't like being introvert, it's just that I saw that there are certain things that I couldn't accomplish. Being an introvert, like I couldn't do public speaking well, I could not run a business successfully by being an introvert, I could not, I could not have the kind of impact that I want in the world. Really, without going out there and interacting with people, I couldn't have the relationships, that intimate relationships that I wanted, unless I got this part of my life taken care of. And so what I did is I resolved to really take a lot of action to start to shift my my brain wiring and my chemistry and my brain chemistry to to go more extreme extrovert. And it was challenging, let me tell you, because first of all, I doubted whether it was possible to do. And I didn't want to just do it on a superficial level, where it's like, I'm able to chat people up and do small talk and be out there. But still feel inside. Like I'm an introvert, just acting and doing going through the motions of extraversion. But, you know, I went through this through this crazy process of cold approach pickup, if you read the Game by Neil Strauss, then you might have an idea of what I'm talking about, although that's a very caricature eyes kind of cartoon version of what called approach pickup really is. But basically, it's going out and pushing yourself to do a lot of approaching in bars and noisy bars and clubs, to get very comfortable flirting with the opposite sex and, and handling logistics, and just understanding female psychology, that sort of thing. So for me, that was a really big and very dramatic experience back to it was probably the most challenging thing that I've ever done in my life. And I've done some challenging things, you know, I've like I've lost a lot, 65 pounds, in five months, I've started, I started six figure businesses. So those things, all those things were much easier for me then than mastering called approach pickup. And getting this introversion extroversion thing shift. Because I think it was something that I was changing really deep within myself, you know, I realized that I need to change some something about how I interact with people. And so I took two going out for hours and hours and hours every single night for over the course of years, over the course of months and years, in order to get myself comfortable, and it was really excruciating, because the body wants to react against it, right? My brain was just wired in such a way where I'm much more comfortable staying home and reading a book than I am going out to some last night club and approaching random strangers and flirting with them. That was something that's totally uncomfortable for me. And so it took a lot of just kind of brute force, brute force, brute force, brute force night and night and night again, until finally, like my brain started coming around. And I won't say that I made that that full transition by no means I still consider myself a pretty hardcore introvert. But I've definitely made a shift. I've been doing it for about a year and a half, and going out so much. spending so much time doing it. It's just like the, the the trauma of doing that, that at the events, the experience I've had was so traumatic, so exhilarating. so eye opening. So just like mind blowing, that it just there's no way that it's not going to shift the neurons in your head to rewire and to start to see things differently. So I've noticed myself inching over more towards the extrovert from the introvert that I was at. And I definitely see that if I keep doing that for like another five years that I will really make some, some like, I can make probably a really solid, full transition to extrovert, and I'm not talking about just through outer motions, I'm talking about a deep interchange, right? Your psychology is actually changing when you're doing this, your personality, your identity, what you think you are, is changing, because you're just so open to the experience, you're not holding yourself back, you're not clinging to who you are. And these events are coming in and you're starting to see new perspectives on the world. And your brain is changing along coming along for the ride. So basically, the bottom line of why I'm talking about this is that I just wanted to use this as an example to say that things that you think are fundamental to you are not necessarily as fundamental as you think they are. And this idea of personality types that you're this type of that type I think is total nonsense. You might lean towards one or the other. But ultimately you are what you create yourself to be and what you want to be so if you're not happy if you're not happy with the results that you're getting in your life, if some aspect of you is holding you back and you want to change Just go ahead and change it don't let any kind of limiting beliefs hold you back. Like it's not possible. I like to approach every everything I do with personal development as that it's possible for me to become whoever I want to be, it's just a matter of who do I want to be, and putting the effort forward to do that. So if you are identifying with this idea of being driven by, by pain, by being driven by negative emotions all the time by negative motivation, then don't let that limit you. And don't say to yourself that well, I'm just, I'm just that kind of person. And that I can't shift to a positive I'm not I'm not a positive thinking person. It has nothing to do about positive thinking. It's about the vision that you have, can you create a vision for yourself? Are you empowered by that vision, if you start creating visions for yourself, and you start acting on those visions, and you're always focusing, using law of attraction, always focusing on the things that you want, or the things that you don't want, you're going to start to make that progress. And if you do that long enough, and you do that diligently enough, you're going to make that shift, and I'm talking about you're going to go from negative motivation to positive motivation. And that's not just going to be some outward, superficial change, it might start that way. But eventually you will internalize it, right. It's that fake it till you make it mindset. So at first, you might have to fake it. But eventually you fake it long enough, you start to believe in it, you start to adapt, it starts to become real for you start to internalize it, your brain chemistry literally starts to change, and to formulate a new identity for you. So if you find yourself stuck where you are, you're not happy with the yo yo effect that you've been having. You don't like the frustration of being motivated by negativity, and fear and pain and anger, then, now you see that there's this new avenue for you positive motivation. Go ahead and take the actions necessary to make that shift for yourself. Start by creating a vision. And maybe the vision for you right now is that you're going to be positively motivated instead of negatively motivated and that from now on, that you're committed to looking only at the things that you want to create in your life and not the things that you don't want