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hey this is Leo for actualised org and welcome to this profound quotes segment so this kind of segment what we do is we take a major quote from somebody great in human history and we dissect it and we take a look at how it can have a profound effect in your life if you just think about it and apply it all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone so this is one of my favorite quotes because it goes to the heart of the problem that so many of us have today especially in this overly stimulated interconnected entertained world that we're living in where everything is convenient and it's easy to plug into the matrix so to speak and get your quick hit of stimulation and then to stay plugged in and to not do the mental work that people use to do that we now take for granted so what does Pascal really saying here when he's talking about all of humanity's problems stemming from the fact that men are unable to sit alone in a room and I might add women as well and maybe even especially women should be doing more of this that Blaise Pascal here is advocating so what we're talking about here is the idea that you need to do more contemplation this is something that when you say it in our modern times it sounds a contemplation like what the hell is this this is something philosophical something abstract something theoretical something not something that's cool or hip right nobody really tells you to be doing this stuff in the past actually this is where great ideas have come from this is how great people accomplish great things all the greats that you know of from from history all the people that have really influenced culture and society and science I'm talking about philosophers mathematicians scientists humanitarians psychologists even political figures great leaders in current society and past society if they've contributed anything meaningful to us they've done it because they've taken time solitude where they were able to sit down and come up with something new something original or at least something that's more honest and more authentic something that is profound that they can then take back and share with the rest of us that's how some of these quotes come about that's how great ideas come about so whether you think about Aristotle and Plato Marcus Aurelius the Buddha or moving closer to modern times with Isaac Newton Albert Einstein great novelists Henry David Thoreau Emerson and then moving into current modern times people from Gandhi to whis and Churchill all of these individuals what did they do they took time to sit down to think there's something very magical about this period of solitude and contemplation where you pull yourself completely out of the world and you become a hermit at least for a little bit maybe for just thirty minutes maybe for just an hour maybe for a whole day maybe for a whole weekend you can decide on the length of time here but the idea is that you pull yourself out so that you can let your thoughts and your creative juices kind of percolate and you just let your brain marinate in your own creative goodness you think about all the stuff that you have accumulated throughout your life and throughout your day all the information all the knowledge and then you let something just happen with that right that's where creativity comes from I find that too many of us nowadays are so overstimulated that we're always going and we're doing the next thing our schedule is so full we take no time to ourselves and I don't mean just to even relax that's a good place to start but I'm taking it one step further not only should you be taking time to yourself just to relax and unwind and not be working all the time or doing crazy crazy activities talking with friends and all that just pull yourself out of that but you should also spend time being a student being a student of yourself being a student of life being a student of the things that have happened to you today or the things that have happened to you this week keeping a journal and actually doing contemplation that means thinking about things thinking about how stuff comes together asking yourself questions like what is true what is false why did I do that today why did he do this today and there is a big difference between sitting down and doing this sort of contemplation in a very conscious methodical way and then sitting down and or not even sitting down but just doing it as you're running around throughout your day and being frantic and hectic and anxious that's not what I'm talking about I'm not talking about those crazy back-and-forth debates that you have with yourself on your way to work as to how you're gonna yell at that person who's not doing what they need to be doing or how the boss is gonna be yelling at you and what you're gonna say in defense of that that's anxious neurotic thought no no I'm talking about peaceful calm very constructive creative thought this is where you sit down and you think about what is it that I want to create and what are some ideas that I just as a human being having a brain and having a rational capacity should be thinking through this is so missed I find that 99% of people do not do this and this is why they not only do they not get the kind of results that they could be getting in their life but it seems really even worse like Pascale tells us it's really the cause of humanity's problems so a lot of the problems in your life and a lot of the problems in political life a lot of the problems in business life a lot of the problems in your relationship a lot of those are simply because you're always doing doing doing doing and you're not thinking through your actions you're not thinking through them very clearly when you go back and you read and you kind of study the biographies and the stories ancient philosophers and modern era scientists and by modern era I mean like the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment era thinkers this was like the 1600s a 1700 to 1800 when you look and you study those people you immediately see that the people that were great and the people that you read about the reason you read about them is because they were deep thinkers and they did this because they were able to isolate themselves they were not social butterflies some of them were but then they were able to pull themselves out somebody for example that comes to mind is Benjamin Franklin he he's a deeply contemplative man and when you read his writings and you read his quotes and you read about him you can see that he's an amazing powerful genius intellect and he cultivates that by sitting down by himself in solitude and theabout that stuff on the other hand he was also very sociable and very social and so he was able to make strike a balance between those those two so I'm not saying that you should become a hermit here or become a Buddha I'm saying that you should just take more more time to contemplate more time to think about stuff when you actually do this and you don't just sit here and listen to me talking to you about this but you actually go out and you try to do this and I would challenge you right now to do this exercise find 60 minutes where you can sit down in a quiet room maybe like in your bedroom just sit down and have absolutely nothing to do is open and just sit there for 60 minutes straight and just see what happens see what happens I think what you'll notice if you do this it's amazing because you haven't done it for so long that you literally don't have the willpower to sit there to do it your mind is gonna go crazy on you it's gonna be like a stark raving lunatic jumping from wall to wall inside you're inside your head inside your skull this is what's gonna be happening is because your mind is so used to stimulation right now you know you need that hit of tasty food you need to plug into that television that internet you need to call your friend chat with them check your email go to work and and do whatever you got to do there or then go and be in your relationship or be immersed in your family life you're doing all this stuff and you don't even realize what it feels like just to like take a breath and to sit I'm not even talking about meditation I'm just talking about sit and just let whatever thoughts come to mind and think them through there's something very powerful about that what you'll notice if you do this exercise number one is I want you to notice how much your body not even your mind but your body resists if you do this you will literally notice that your body starts to shake you're gonna be like a heroin addict who's been off of heroin for a few days or maybe a week and now you're really feeling it and you're feeling yourself coming off and you're literally getting your body's gonna start to have withdrawal symptoms you're gonna start coming up with all sorts of excuses for why you need to get up why you need to scratch yourself why you're not being comfortable why don't you change positions maybe you need to go to the bathroom maybe you need to go eat because you're hungry your mind is gonna start coming up with all these excuses and then your body's actually gonna start to like tremble and shake a little bit if you just kind of try to keep it still for 60 minutes straight because you've been so conditioned to stimulation now it just feels like your life is empty when you're not always running all the time it feels like it feels so slow and so still it just feels very awkward very weird notice that notice your body resisting notice the things that are happening in your mind - as a second point notice what starts coming up what kind of thoughts negative thoughts positive thoughts creative thoughts neurotic thoughts what starts happening where your thoughts start to lead you in what direction and then after you do notice this of course try to guide them in a more positive direction and just sit there and think and start thinking maybe about some topic pick a topic they wanna think about maybe you want to think about the business that you're starting or some project that you're working on or a relationship that you want to improve or your health that you want to improve or yourself your life the trajectory of your life start thinking about something like that and notice what happens throughout that 60 minutes I bet you that those first 10 20 minutes are gonna be very hectic chaotic your mind is not gonna be able to stay still then if you kind of force your mind and you persist and you keep on the same topic without straying too far you're going to start to notice that your mind gears up and it gets on board and maybe you have some sort of project that you're interested like you're interested in improving your health let's say and so now your mind is gonna start thinking about that well I could start improving my gym routine by maybe watching some videos maybe there was this book I wanted to read maybe I'll buy that maybe I'll go out there and get myself enrolled into some sort of class I'll take a yoga class or whatever maybe I'll go and I'll talk to my buddy I know a buddy who wanted to become a gym partner with me and so maybe he'll join up you know your mind will start to think about all these different ideas that you can now use as a spotter for for generating a great life here it's gonna be your health if you start thinking about your business you're gonna start to come up with ideas for your business these ideas sometimes they come up throughout your day when you're in your shower you're doing this and that but I find it's very different when you do that by sitting down in a dedicated block of time and actually thinking it through and giving yourself space to really think about that maybe even having some paper and a pen handy so you can jot down some notes and some ideas because what you'll find is if you do this and you start developing a habit of doing this every few days or every week you spend an hour doing this this kind of alone quiet solitude time and you start thinking about something like your business you're gonna start to find that you get new creative ideas and those ideas are gonna kind of snowball and build on top of each other and you're gonna really create something something powerful something something new this is how stuff is created and the reason may be that you are not living up to your full potential right now and you feel like you're procrastinating or that dream project that you wanted to start that dream career you wanted to go into is not happening for you it's probably because you're so plugged into everything that you're so busy and you know what you're busy doing the wrong things and in fact those things that you're busy doing are probably causing problems for Humanity as Pascal said so instead what the takeaway is here is to do this exercise sit alone in an empty room without any stimulation and see what comes out I think you will be shocked surprised and very challenged by this so go ahead and try it just maybe to prove me wrong all right this is Leo I'm gonna be signing off go ahead leave me your comments what do you think about this quote how are you gonna apply it in your life tell me what kind of results you get from doing this exercise and then of course please like this and share this with a friend encourage them to join the Blaise Pascal challenge as I'm calling it and of course check out actualize org where we have weekly updates with an awesome newsletter awesome exclusive free bonuses for this newsletter for signing up we're really the reason that you want to join is because every week we are covering new topics about how to improve your life how to do personal development really get results from it get yourself into the kind of life that you know you deserve the kind of life that you've dreamed of but perhaps haven't been able to step into the kind of amazing career that you want the kind of amazing health that you want the amazing relationship that you want how do you actually get yourself there from where you are now that's what I'm really passionate about studying and I love sharing my insights with you guys and I do that every week so sign up to my newsletter awesome free bonuses there you don't want to miss those you