Afleveringen
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An interesting section of the book How to Win Friends and Influence People discusses the value of being comfortable with the possibility of being wrong. Even if you 'know' you're right, starting a sentence with "I may be wrong, but this is how I see it" seems to be a much better way to have a conversation. I put 'know' in quotes because even if you feel very strongly about being right, it's hard to really know for sure. One thing that comes to mind is the viral photo of a dress that circulated some years back. You may have seen it. It's a striped dress that stirred up a lot of arguments because people were roughly divided in half on what colors the stripes were: black and blue, or white and gold? There are other examples of these visual and auditory phenomena where two people can see and hear completely different things. Can't the same be said about our perception of information we receive? It's possible for two people to perceive the same information in completely different ways, so it's hard to definitively say who is right. Being okay with being wrong demonstrates humility andâin my opinionâcan turn many conversations into learning opportunities rather than arguments. This is a little longer than usual, but I wanted to end this with a quote from Socrates âAll I Know Is That I Know Nothingâ -- These podcasts (starting with this episode) also now have video. If you want to check out the episodes with video, check them out on YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/@busmsk
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I'm going to start doing interviews with graffiti writers and have a question for you. Would you like to see/hear this kind of content on this show, or would you prefer it just stays the way it is? Right now, what I'm thinking is, I'll start releasing two episodes per week. One personal development style like we've been doing, and one graffiti interview style episode. Would love your feedback. Feel free to reach out to me on Instagram @bus166, or if you're seeing this on YouTube, feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts. I appreciate all of your support over the years and am trying to find ways to make this project better than ever.
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Zijn er afleveringen die ontbreken?
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There's a part of your brain called the reticular activating system (RAS). It acts as a sort of filter. If you think about something a lot, the RAS will show you more of it. For example, if you want to buy a certain car, you might start seeing that car everywhere. If you regularly think negative thoughts, your RAS may reveal more negativity that you might not have noticed otherwise. On the other hand, thinking more positive thoughts, like the goals you want to accomplish, can program your RAS to help reveal steps and ideas to move you toward those goals. What are you programming your reticular activating system to show you?
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It's easy to put so much pressure on ourselves when trying to get something perfect. Sometimes the desire to get something exactly right can lead to not finishing at all. Sometimes striving for finished is better than striving for perfection. Don't half-ass it, but get it done.
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If we want things to get better, whether that is in our community, family, or even the world, it starts with improving ourselves. It may not seem like making ourselves better will help anything, but you never know who's watching. No matter who you are, it's likely that you improving yourself will influence another to do the same. That person improving can influence others. Who knows what kind of chain reaction that can cause?
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How to you treat the mundane tasks in your life? It's often easy to half-ass the basic tasks that seem meaningless, but how does that look to those around you? How does it look to your own subconscious? There are lots of phrases that talk about this kind of thing. How you do one thing is how you do everything comes to mind. If we half-ass one thing because we think it isn't important, we're probably coming up short in other areas. Life is full of mundane tasks. Doing them well raises our standards and influences all aspects of life.
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Something I've been trying to change about my mindset is when I hear about someone else's success when it's greater than what I've accomplished, I often allow that to make me feel bad about my own success. On the flip side, when I hear about someone failing, I often feel better about my situation. Both of these feel wrong and unproductive. If I'm not happy to see other people winning, am I programming my subconscious mind to think I don't like winning? Some people feel that this can have a reverse effect on the law of attraction. By being unhappy about other people winning, it is said that you're potentially manifesting losing for yourself. I'm not 100% sure what I believe in this regard, but one thing I do know is, when I'm happy to see other people win, it's a much nicer feeling.
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On my way to the shop yesterday, I was thinking about the 'good old days'. It was sparked when I did a style of graffiti that I hadn't done in close to 30 years. The 70+ comments on the piece on Instagram got me thinking about things like nostalgia and hanging onto the past. Then a famous and profound quote came to mind: "I wish there was a way to know youâre in the good old days before youâve left themâ. This was from the American version of the TV show The Office. The way I see it is, there are a couple ways to look at things like this. We can look back on those days and wish we could be back there. Or, we can realize we're actually in the 'good old days' right now and we always are. No matter what we're dealing with currently, there may come a time where we look back on this time with the same nostalgia. Not only that, but we have the control to make the time we're living in now something memorable.
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I wanted to share a quote from the book Thick Face Black Heart on page 141.
This chapter talks about if we had the ability to remove all negative experiences from our lives, it would not make us stress free or happy.
"The absence of negative experiences in our life does not alone contribute to the quality of our life. As humans we need challenges in order to develop fully and bring forth all the positive aspects within ourselves. The only way to feel truly happy is by confronting these challenges and overcoming them."
I find things like this helpful when times get tough. It's those times that create the most growth.
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Something I need to remind myself of regularly is that the time is going to pass one way or the other. What I mean by this is, the timeline is ticking away whether or not we do what we need to do. For example, if we want to get in better shape, start a business, scale a business, learn a skill, etc., and we put it off, that time is going to pass. Say a decision was made to accomplish a goal, then three months later, we haven't even started. How far along would we be in that three months? Years can go by with us saying "I should get going on that" and we haven't moved the needle at all. Once the time has passed, I would much rather look back and be further along. The hard part is convincing my procrastinating brain of this at the time. âOne inch of movement will take you way closer than a mile of intention.â â David JP Phillips "Learn to execute even if you donât feel like it."
â Andy Frisella -
Most have probably heard the quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln âGive me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.â or some variation of it. There's also a version of the concept in the book 7 Habits of Highly Effective People talking about sharpening the saw. Sharpening the axe or saw is about preparation and being more effective. The concept of taking time to prepare rather than just powering through with a dull tool is can be applied to pretty much any aspect of your life. I was listening to a podcast recently, the guy getting interviewed mentioned a book called How to Read a Book. This kind of got my mind racing. I use books to sharpen my axe. If I read a book about how to be better at reading books, is that another level of axe sharpening? It's like if Abraham Lincoln spent some time learning more about axe sharpening before sharpening the axe. It's got me thinking about different things this might apply to. Like Jim Kwik's book Limitless. If continuous learning is a way of sharpening your axe, this book is about how to learn better. It seems like there's always a level deeper with shit like this. The book How to Read a book is pretty cool by the way. Connect with Bus on social: INSTAGRAM https://www.instagram.com/bus166 TWITTER https://twitter.com/bus166msk
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We all find ourselves in a rut from time to time. Whether it's an artist block, work related, fitness or whatever, sometimes we aren't feeling the motivation to get it done. The best way out of a rut I've found is to simply force yourself to start rather than waiting to be motivated. Sometimes it feels nearly impossible with motivation being so low. To effectively force momentum, a good way is to find easy tasks that get you moving. The more you get done, the more momentum you'll build. Eventually, you don't even need motivation at all. You'll be fully out of the rut and running full speed ahead. Connect with Bus on social media. Instagram @bus166 Twitter @bus166msk
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Any given situation is supposed to go the way it goes. It has nothing to do with us. When we put expectations on things, it causes disappointment. Once we realize this and try to detach from the outcomes, our minds can find more peace. Doesn't mean we can't do our best to get the outcomes we want, but in the end, it isn't up to us.
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I came to a realization recently that the reason my mind feels like it is in turmoil all the time is because I am not living up to my own standards. This realizations came from some weird places, so this episode goes into some seemingly off topic things like ghost stories, spiritual healing, and shit like that.
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I believe in you. It may sound corny since we may not actually know each other, but itâs true. No matter where we are in life, we have the ability to improve and overcome the obstacles we face. If you search around, you can find countless examples of people bouncing back from bad decisions, came from nothing, or any number of things that would derail a life. We all have what it takes to improve. Countless people have overcome addiction, homelessness, obesity, prison sentences, and many other things. If they can do it, itâs possible.
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The concept of accepting the things outside of our control is a simple, but powerful concept that I find really helpful when shit gets tough. Simple, but not easy to impliment.
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If you find yourself in a situation where someone consistently breaks promises, misses appointments, or shows up late, it's natural to begin questioning the value of their word. This is a common experience that many of us have had.
What's even more intriguing to think about is that if you fail to keep your own promises to yourself, your own mind may begin to perceive you in a similar light. When you repeatedly break commitments you make to yourself, it becomes easier to evade self-accountability.
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Ever feel like youâre putting in the hours practicing, but not making the progress you feel you should be? Iâve definitely experienced this a lot over my life. The reason is most likely not a lack of commitment, but it lies in the way youâre practicing. I first came across the concept of âdeliberate practiceâ from a book called 'The Talent Code'.
Deliberate practice is a more purposeful approach to developing skills using focused, repetitive practice rather than simply putting in the hours. With deliberate practice, youâre hyper-focused on what youâre doing, you have a specific goal in mind, and youâre out of your comfort zone.
With this level of intentionality, it helps your brain wire and strengthen transmitters faster than something like practicing casually while watching TV. I can remember back when I was trying to get better at graffiti letters in the early '90s. I spent a couple of years fiddling around with different things, but in 1993, I was given some letters by one of my mentors, Eklipse, and told to practice those letters exactly.
Without knowing it, I was in a deep state of deliberate practice. I would draw those letters over and over, hyper-focused on every detail, trying to get it all right. I made more progress in two months than I had in the previous two years. This can be applied to any skill you want to get better at.
Definitely something I find harder and harder to do in this era of distraction we are currently in.
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Find Bus on various platforms linked here:
https://bus.graffitimachine.com/ -
For some years now, Iâve been a student of stoic philosophy. The biggest lesson from this philosophy is to focus on what you can control rather than things you cannot. Itâs often difficult to do and one can easily forget to apply this. Most of the time, all you have control over is your actions and the outcome is not within your control. Focusing on the outcomeâespecially when it causes stressâcan really drain a lot of your energy. Energy that you could use on the part you can control which is your actions. I recently found myself doing exactly this. Focusing nearly 100% of my attention on the outcome and not on the actions required to achieve the outcome I wanted. The result was me performing below my own standards since a lot of energy was diverted. The moment I realized I was doing this and redirected my focus on the controllables, my stress levels went way down. Do you find yourself focused on the outcomes rather than the actions you need to take to achieve what you want?
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It feels like we're in an age of massive distraction. We're being distracted by the media, world events, politicians, etc. Then we're distracting ourselves with social media platforms and other apps on our devices. Today, I talk about these distractions and some ways we can identify when we're being distracted and how to regain focus.
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