REPLAY: Why to Stop Listening to Everyone Else, with Clare Mann (Organisational Psychologist)..

Have you ever felt trapped in a job and you're only doing it because you feel you should

What has influenced me to choose the career path to do what are the messages I tell myself or other people tell me when I look to change? Or gosh, I'm 30, I've got a mortgage. I ought to be settled down and well, I've been doing accountancy for a while, even though you may not like it well, do you really want to be doing that for another 30 years? So ask yourself first, the question is, what comes up when I dare to think about changing there's some ridiculous percentage of people that really do not like going to work. It's like eight or nine people out of 10, do not like going to work what a total waste of one's creative capacity and, and how it influences people

Have you ever been told you should get a qualification and should get a solid job and should buy a house and should get married. and yet people are drowning in college debt. One in three people consider their jobs. As meaningless people come trapped in their jobs to pay mortgages. And last I heard 50% of marriages end in divorce. Are you sick of being told, this is how you should do things you've gotten into this position because you've always taken the advice of other people. Your parents probably told you to get some training behind you. Get a solid job, maybe even a mortgage, and then you'll be happy. I'm Steve oily, providing you with an episode by episode guide to escaping the nine to five while learning from people who've successfully done it in our second episode. That person is organizational psychologist. Clear, man. She's identified myths. We tell ourselves we should do and how you can get rid of these and spend more time doing things actually want. She encourages you to remove the excuses and come up with your best version of your life. If you knew you could not fail. She also untangles all the myths we tell ourselves that get in the way finally of have your take home challenge to help you on your journey out of a nine to five. I joined the conversation, explaining to Claire why I started the podcast The inspiration for the podcast was actually talking to so many of my friends and every second person that I talked to said, I, you know, I've done this degree and I've been working in this industry for three or four years and, and not happy and don't know what to do with my life. And I think people feel a little bit trapped potentially because if you're not happy when you're 21 who sort of feel like, Oh well, I'll study something else or I'll do something completely different. But when you're in your late twenties, early thirties, potentially there might be a mortgage there, or other commitments that mean you can't necessarily change. for our listeners, can you just give us a bit of a background as to who you are and what you do.

I'm Claremont of course. And, I've been a psychologist actually for about 30 years, but I started off as an organizational psychologist, but that wasn't until I was about 25, 26. I left school at 16 actually, and was heading for the banking career. And I found out very early on that that was not for me, that more pedestrian life. And, and after about five or six years, I knew I was more of a people person. So luckily I had some great people around me that influenced me to make those changes. So can ended up with organizational psychology and working in organizations. And then later on moved into more direct work coaching and then more sort of counseling psychology and ran the communication piece. And I've written and spoken a lot about, the choices we have where we deny we have choice, or we can't even see where they're available. So that's where I sort of find myself encouraging people to use.

and I think it's very appropriate that we you mentioned your book, which is myths of choice. just remember it. heading home and being quite resounding as to, the message that we're trying to, portray in the podcast. So can you give our listeners a bit of a like a summary of, the book?

well, it really aligns with really what you are doing with the podcast. Because as we know, there's some ridiculous percentage of people that really do not like going to work. It's like eight or nine people out of 10, do not like going to work what a total waste of one's creative capacity and, and how it influences people being depressed most of the time. So I wrote this book and I shouldn't, he came out a couple of years ago. But I realized very early on in my life that there were a lot of shoots, a lot of aunts, a lot of musts, which come out of our culture, of course, our socialization with our parents. And we hear it all the time. I should sort of, go and travel around the world, have a great time because later I won't be able to do it well, who decided it all gets cut off at 25, you know? And I ought to save money because I'll forever be renting and that's a terrible thing. Not always, I must study hard and get something behind me, all these little cliches aren't they, or, you know, I should go and visit my mother-in-law because that's what good people do. I must go home for Christmas.

it's, funny, you mentioned the, the shirts thing is, cause I actually grew up in a, pretty conservative south African household. And my old man's a teacher. Very much of the mentality is this is what you must do. This is what you should do. You know, you should get a degree and you should go and get a solid job and you should buy a house and all that sort of thing. And people have different upbringings, but I think that does tend to be a bit of commonality there in terms of people who end up. I'm not saying necessarily a degree, you might've done a building apprenticeship, but you should get this behind you, even if it's not what you want to do.

That's right. It say, you want to get something behind you. You must, you should. And whenever we hear those three words to me, they like the red sort of flat black sort of thing. They really are telling us there's a myth. The way I talk about this is a myth is an unquestioned assumption. This is what we've always done. It was good enough for your father and his father before him and all that sort of melt since we're here. or your, oh, you fed lots of partners. You can't be a person who commits, you know, this sort of interpretation of our reality. And so I'm wanting to make it really easy for people by dividing it into a different number of myths. And I've identified eight that seemed to operate in our world. But I'll tell you when I first came across this, it's always a little backstory. Isn't it? To all our sort of interests. No doubt while you're doing the podcast. And I remember I must've been about eight years. And I don't think it's a romantic story. Cause my mother called to validated it. And I remember there was always a family sort of chuckle that used to happen. And my mum used to say to my dad, Hey Vick, do you want tea or coffee? And he'll said, I'll have the same as you dear. And my mum, depending on whether she just wanted to make him the same drink would say, oh, come on Vick. You know, what do you want to know? I'm not going to choose. He'd go and this sort of thing. And then she'd be, you know, she was a bit of an argument the night before in good spirit, I guess she'd say, oh, I'm having a gin and tonic, you know, it was nine o'clock in the morning and you don't have to be sarcastic. It was all this sort of, but my father would not choose. And I remember looking up and hearing my father say, Gabrielle, I am not going to choose. Obviously I've thought about it a lot since, but I remember having these very philosophical discussions with my mother, but I suddenly realized he wasn't not choosing, he was choosing not to. I got really interested. It is, you know, we try to relinquish responsibility for our choices, our lives, our career options, our partners, whether we have children or not to someone else or to something else like our culture or stage in life or gender or something. And I suddenly realized my dad was relinquishing responsibility when he was still choosing. And I got really interested in, a philosophy called existential philosophy, what it is to exist. And that gave notion to all this, notions of choice and where we deny we've got choice where we can't see, we see it's available. So the myths of choice identifies eight different myths. The group myth, the identity. Morality selfishness myth commitment, myth dishonesty, all of these that where we have an assumption that this is what things mean, and this is what we think things should do. So if we have a belief, for instance, a myth that if people really care about you, they'd never forget your birthday. When someone forgets our birthday, which is just a day and it may not be important to them. We put a huge significance on that. And they're not really my friend. They don't care when in fact it just might not be important to them. So the book is to try and get us to. Look at where, particularly when we look at the nine to five and we start to say, what has influenced me to choose the career path to do what are the messages I tell myself or other people tell me when I look to change? Or gosh, I'm 30, I've got a mortgage. I ought to be settled down and well, I've been doing accountancy for a while, even though you may not like it is, well, do you really want to be doing that for another 30 years? So ask yourself first, the question is, what is comes up when I dare to think about changing where does that come from? Sometimes it may be negligent to walk out of that job immediately before securing something else. And it might reduce your options. You might be able to on your ear and know where to live, but usually assumptions. It comes from other people or our own fears. But given that eight or nine people that attend, don't like going to work, we don't want to be that statistic because life is books too short and too long.

no, that's really fascinating. In terms of the. Not only dispelling the myths, do provide any sort of suggestions for what people can do. Cause I guess for some people in particular, they've always lived by those myths. This is what I should do. And potentially you've been saying these things for years and then someone goes and tells you actually hang on. That's just something else society has been telling us for the last 200 years. I mean like university probably didn't exist or barely existed, I know universities existed for longer than a couple of hundred years, but for most people, university wasn't an option until really the last 50 to a hundred years. So the notion that you should go to university is actually a very recent one. And so for people that have always loved fly, something like that. So I should go to university or I should get a solid job or I should get a mortgage. What advice would you have to them in terms of rethinking those myths? And sort of creating a new path for themselves going

Yeah. Well, it's one of the things, one of the chapters is the myth that you can't change because it is, but it's being realistic. The fact that when we come to think about change, say it's ending a relationship, you know, and you've been in the relationship a long time and we try to think about that a week. We've been in a job a long time. We have responsibilities, we talk our way out of it. I've got responsibilities. My children are at a certain school. You know, my partner wouldn't like it is, is going through a process to identify, you know, I get people to picture that they're in a bit of a box. Okay. And you're trying to get out of the box and it's really identifying. The problem is when we break things down, often the problem isn't as big. It seems so insurmountable. I say, take a large sheet of paper and write down exactly. How you're spending your time, your 168 hours per week. So instead of going, I just want to look at that Korean, look at how you spend your life. And then you, once you break it down, you start to look at how much is you should be told. You've got to do, got to visit the in-laws. I should go to the gym. Even. I really would prefer to do some gardening, but we go to the gym because that's our cultural expectation at the moment so how, what do you, how do you spend your time, dividing them into enjoyable and enjoyable and in different, positive or negative, active or reactive? Are you choosing them or letting someone else do this? And I get people to actually work through what they do with their time and a big chunk of that is going to be work. So it's looking at asking a really big question. I want you to imagine, and everybody could do this exercise. You have all the money in the world. You, and it's not just your money, but you can call on other people's money so people can invest in your projects. You've got all the confidence, all the contacts all the health, all the energy all the time. I know the people's time. So in other words, you have no excuses. And I say to people, what would you begin to do right now? If you knew you could not fail. And most people go, but that made you put the limits on there's the myths you say, oh yeah. Well, what I would do, I'd go and do this job. Well, maybe you don't want to do a job. Maybe you could just do a job for two hours a week and get other people. What is the outcome of the job you want? Well, I like being around really cool people. I like being a bit creative or you don't have to have a job for that member. You you're the master of the university or you've, you've got no limitations. If you could do it without censorship and worry, are you going to get it? Is it gives you an idea of the sort of area that your compass needs to be directing in. So if someone says, honestly, I probably going to do voluntary work in India, looking after orphan kids. There's something there for you or I'm passionate about animals. They might say, I want to work in a sanctuary. Okay. Well at patch and rarely do people when people say, well, actually I would be doing what I'm doing now. I actually would say, I'm doing what I'm doing now. To me it's although I worked very hard, a bit like a hobby, really, because getting people to talk about how to have enjoyable, authentic, meaningful lives, and the honor that people tell me about their lives. That's really cool. So I definitely glad I left banking and actually went and did this cause it was a, I think I would be very distressed if not,

The point you're making in terms of, removing those limitations and, I find a lot of people when you honestly ask them, they've maybe had a couple of drinks and you honestly ask them, what would you want to do with your. Life, most people will say things that are actually very realistic. I don't think most people want to become, you know, if I had all those limitations removed, I don't have any interest in being the world's most famous actor I mean, don't get me wrong. I'd love to be the world's best sports person. But, um, that is one example where the ship has sailed, but, um, in most cases, most I think most people people's kind of ideas of what they want to do with work are actually fairly reasonable. It's not being like all in the sky dreamy about it. It's giving people the, idea to work with. And then from there you can take your current reality and slowly work towards making that your reality. in my example, I could quit my job and go podcasting full time. And that probably wouldn't be a smart thing to do from the outset, but there's nothing to say that I can't do that on the side and slowly as, as it grows make that a full-time reality. But I think people manage to convince themselves that, as you say, the moment you start, saying your dreams, it's like, yeah, I would do that, but I've got to pay the balls or I've got to do do this, or,

Yeah. You know, you're absolutely right. But you just said a moment ago is like to be the world sports player player or whatever, but that ship has sailed C is that a myth? Now? The reality is of course, you know, we know that there's for professional tennis or whatever it might be. You know, realistic. I say really, you know,, there's within the limits of one's own physical health. And if you're competing with a 20 year old, who, you know, because of that just that time in life and, and that little window when we know there's accelerated sort of progress potentially, but it doesn't mean if that's really, what, if you had a magic wand, you would do it. Okay. That was really something somebody wanted to do. How can I bring that tennis into my life? I may not be on the circuit doing all this stuff, but maybe I can coach people. Maybe I can write a book about it. Maybe I can go and teach in a kid's school. Part-time teaching tennis, whatever you're loving, and you can start doing this now, whatever people's thing is. You know, if they want to work in an animal, sanctuary is you don't have to wait too free to do it. Go and volunteer once a. And go and do it, whatever it is, start doing it because it was a German writer called Gerta. I think he said boldness has power. You know, when we go out there and start doing it, it's almost as if I don't know energetically the law of attraction or whatever opportunities rush to us, or we see those opportunities that we didn't see before. Start with a really big vision, you know, with that vision, we could have world peace. And who was it? Who said, give me a big enough lever. And I would shift the world. It was like Atlas or something. He wanted to, you know, move the planet sort of thing. of people say, oh, if, if I won the lottery, I do sign. So, I'm very rarely say if I say, when, you know, he'll say with my podcast is successful. When my podcast is successful, You know, and people go here, but it kind of there's that self-talk so self-talk is a really big thing of this. Learn your own self-talk what is it that excuses or haven't got enough time, a lot of money. I'm not young enough. I'm not rich enough. These actually, a lot of them are all excuses because within reason, if someone else has done it before we can do it and often people use other people's money, actually, You've got to have what I call the stacking shelf. Job is keep doing what you do till you can make that leap. If we move too quickly or we start our own business too quickly, we've got to make money within a certain time. We stopped being creative. Whereas if we could start to invest in those changes and do things, we can start to see the opportunities, you know, develop that while we still not have to worry about paying the mortgage or the rent, nothing. That's important.

It's interesting. I'm talking to different guests from completely different backgrounds and how some of the same sort of themes come through. One of the things you said earlier was something along the lines of, if you start doing something opportunities will present themselves. I've had different guests say very similar things. And I've also heard written a book, which says people misunderstand motivation. They think that you need motivation to be able to do something, but in reality, by making an action gives you the inspiration and the motivation. So just by doing something will likely create the opportunity to, you know, the person that goes to the sanctuary and starts fall interfering one day. They might actually have a part-time job that has going, and next thing they're doing, they're two days a week and they're getting paid for it. And then a year down the line, they've got a full-time job and I'm so impressed with this person that they end up getting a full-time job at the sanctuary. but whereas the person who, who said, oh, I don't know if I have time to, to volunteer one day a week. I've got to really like earn a living. They just making an excuse because the reality is, is that especially in the 21st century, most people could probably do a job two or three days a week and earn enough money to survive, at least in the short term. Yeah, sure. You might not be able to go for your overseas holiday and buy your flesh clothes for a year, but if you're serious about making a change it is possible to just do it. Part-time I suppose.

yeah, no, I, I, I absolutely agree with you. I think it's also, look at your life and actually see, do it. Income and outcome go outgoings. And actually a lot of people, Fritscher a lot of money that could be vested in that training and development, by investing in books and online programs and retraining, you know, but they still haven't gotten the money. Gosh, it all goes when we actually break it down. And we realized there was actually a speaker in the UK, our member once called the, he called it the latte factor. Now we all liked going out for coffee or most people do. And it's great when it's a treat, but if people keep doing it where they just constantly giving a fix and they're having three a day, $3 each, so they're spending $10 a day, $50 a week, you know, $200 a month and 2000 a year. It's soon adds up well to size and you can really do something with that. And that's just coffee and it starting to, I mean, I'm quite a minimalist. And I like very much experiences, you know? Cause that's what we remember at the end of our life. Not that we had the, only bespoke nine slice Danish toaster in the world, you know? Cause everyone was meant to have that. You know, who cares? We actually think about, oh, do you know that time? I went to New Zealand and I went and climbed Mount cook, or actually someone said something to me, you think about this, Steve They said their mother gave them some really good advice. It was a guy in his fifties. He said, this is a bit though. I would like to say is you travel when you're young, you sight. See when you're older. And I saw for the majority of people that probably is. Because they're worried about their reputation. They don't want to get blinding the drunken out three in the morning. And I beat her, you know, but why not? Who's looking really, but we've all remember reputation. I'm a lawyer, or gosh, I might get struck off or, you know, but actually it, another thing is a myth. We've got to get this. Have you found out the way before you have children, but why have children, if you don't make fun of it,

funny thing is I actually did a trip with some mates three years ago. We did, what's called the rickshaw run. So we took, took talks and we painted them and Kiwi colors and we traveled 3000 K's of the space for a couple of weeks. And bearing in mind that that talked to Quinn about 50 Ks an hour. So it was a lot of driving. so most of the people that were on the trip were genuinely under 30, but we actually bumped into, um, there was an, an older guy, probably late fifties with his 18 year old son who was there. And we also bumped into a older group that were doing their own thing, but. there's no, reason to say that you have to go and stay in a flash hotel.

that's right. Yeah. And is it better when you've stayed in some sort of place that you get to know the people that live there, think of the, when you've been traveling or whatever, and you were sitting in the lounge. So when you bumped into other people that they, you know, backpackers or something, or, you know, in the pub or something, we're very isolated, when we go and stay in hotels, we'll be just keep to ourselves. Whereas you tend to chat with other people. And that's the stories that we remember. You remember all the stories of the Tufts. I think that's great. I'll be, I do know Chuck talks, this was in Thailand. Was it? Or where was this?

no, this? is India?

Of course. That's right. So you've normally you've got a driver. How would you be? You actually drove them yourself.

yes. And I gave us a real appreciation of what it was like to be a local. cause we ended up doing a, um, a trip where we did have a driver after the ritual run and. It felt so much safer on the road being in an enclosed vehicle with proper suspension and stuff, but I'm on the top top gave, gave us a true appreciation of what it was like to be a local.

That's right. Absolutely. And when we travel, you are more like the locals. I mean, I've had the, this is another thing about, you know, the law of attraction. What we give out is what we get. For instance if we believe we're going to be rich and successful, if we take some steps towards it, we will be it. But if we believe we're always going to be poor, that's what we're going to do. And it's, it's actually in every philosophy, every religious teaching, every, personal development program, really. And it seems to be that, why is it that two people from a poor background with an abusive father, one will go on to be successful and rich, and the other person will keep. And it's often what people believe they're capable of. You know, we have to make our own luck in many ways. Obviously there's often opportunity or whatever, but, you know, I've gone to motivational talks and the guy that comes from like Puerto Rico, he was a street kid. And I remember seeing him at a speaker's talk once and he came to America and he actually wasn't a illegal immigrant back then. It was probably 40 years ago and he was locked under the truck that was going across to America. Just wanted to escape over then. Of course he couldn't legally work, but he got a job, I think at a fast food joint, looking after the outside area, cleaning it. And he thought I'm in America. If I can't make it here. And I lived on the street and Puerto Rico, whatever I'm going to make this work. So he decided he was going to be the best cleaner going. And he was going to be waiting the tables, even though he was a cleaner and he took great pride in this outside area. And this fast food thing would be able to throw their junk out there. And of course he was recognized and then he got an opportunity to work in. Then he just worked up the ranks and he started to realize is that if we do every job and every action is if it's absolutely our choice and we give it our best, we've got a much better opportunity. We're demonstrating to other people that might take a risk in us or, you know, invest in us or offer us something. But if we say, oh yeah, I'll really show up. When I do what I really love. People are going to go well, if he can't do it with a small staff, how are you going to do it? The big stuff. So I think it's very important to act as if, act as if talk as if you were already successful talkers. But another little tip for people is ask yourself, what is success? I heard a wonderful definition by the late Earl Nightingale. He said, success is the progressive realization of a worthy idea. The progressive realization, something we are doing every day, moving towards what I stacking our shelves. We are moving towards. Cause we're dreaming about our dream. That's moving towards progression of a worthy ideal. We've all got to decide what our worthy ideal is. I'm sure that, you know, were you doing the podcast, something you obviously love and it's, you know, you know, you're making an influence and change for people. I bet you talk about that with your wife over coffee. I bet you're talking about it all the time is what people do. Are they meaningful live yet? This really interesting person, you talk to the very thing that you do, like falling off a log is what we really love doing. And you know, if we can turn that into something that gives us an income. So therefore we can, we don't have to spend our time doing other things to get the income, to do this in the long-term the better. So, so work at what your where the ideal is and then say, how can I move towards. What is the worthy ideal? What is it you want from that? Well, I want to feel I've wasted my life. I want to feel, you know, that I've done the best. I didn't let myself down. I want to contribute to other kids knowing that they can be successful to whatever it is. But if we don't know where we're going, we end up somewhere else. So work at what the worthy ideal is. And then I always say you're moving forward or you're moving back. Okay. Let's just take a really simple thing. Say somebody chooses to go on a diet, even if the word diet is die with the teeth. It's um, you know, it's but say they are, and they've followed some sort of regime. And on day two, they pick up a bag of donuts and they start eating and they go, oh, broken the day. You know what most people say, Steve, they want to get back on the diet. What do they say? A lot of people go, oh, I'll start again tomorrow. How much will go crazy? Now they opened the six

or It's ruined They might've actually been good for three weeks and they were planning on doing it for six months, but because they've had one trade and stuffed up one side it's

And then they just keep stuffing themselves. But actually they keep eating the donuts. I don't even want the donuts. I had two and a half and they feel sick, but they, because it's linked to freedom and not being restrained. Oh, what the heck? And so now they've eaten 50,000 more calories. And when they start the diet tomorrow, they wake up, you know, all shook it up and whatever, the moment that we are back on track. And I just use the diet as an example is it's the moment you stop eating and you think about it. Are you putting something in your mouth so that when they take a bite of the doughnut and they go, I don't want the rest. They are back on track because whatever way they do it, they're not breaking it. And I think we wait till tomorrow, we wait till the job. We wait until the weekend before we can enjoy ourselves. And it's a myth really, because we've only got no. all the moving forward to moving back. So you just so much, you want to be healthy and well, so let me give you an example, not to show off, but I've done yoga for 40 years. Do I go to classes of an hour, an hour and a half? Definitely not occasionally to make sure I'm back on, but I decided all that time ago, I took some great inspiration about a short time quarter. Of course I did when I was very young and the woman said it's best to do a little bit every day, then say, you're going to do it on the 1st of January, never get around to it. And so I decided, what could I do? I could do five to 10 minutes, three or four times a week. So I made a rule. I'm going to do yoga five to 10 minutes, three or four times a week or more. And it's become such a habit if I go a few days and I'm not my back starts to wake, but it's only five or 10 minutes and I've got a nice routine. I do it at home. Now how many years? Weeks, months, years of I doing yoga. But I only do five to 10 minutes. Whereas if I had to wait to get in the car, drive there, pay do the course don't feel like it today. And I think it's like that. What can we progressively do? Are we moving forward? Are we moving back? And whatever your dream is is, for the listeners of this, the fact that you're even listening to the podcast means you're moving forward. You're asking a question you've got here, not by chances because something is not working in your life and dispel the myth that you can't change. Okay. It may be difficult to dispel it, your job right now. And it would be irresponsible potentially, you know, and it would use your choices or your poor children would be out on their own, but work towards not. If I get rich, if I get the inheritance from my family, you know, what can I do now to move in the direction of my dream? What am I prepared to give up, to get my dream? Do we need the second car? Do we need the really big house? Maybe we can.

I wanted to share this quote from Robert F. Kennedy about materialism which I think is relevant to this week's episode, too much. And for too long, we seem to have surrendered, personal excellence and community values in the mirror. Accumulation of material. Things are gross. National product now has over $800 billion a year, but that gross national product counts, air pollution and cigarette advertising and ambulances to clear our highways of. It counts Whitman's rifle and speaks knife and the TV programs, which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our. You hit the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of the education or the joy of their play. It measures neither our words, nor our courage, neither our wisdom, nor. Neither our compassion, nor our devotion to our country. Admissions, everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. just want to go quickly back to the yoga comment and the, you know, three, four times a week, five to 10 minutes. It's very similar to a book I read called tiny habits. premise of the book is that to create a habit that you want in your life, rather than, measuring it on, say, I'm going to go to yoga for an hour, five times a week and you end up not achieving it. You make the habit, something really tiny. And the example I can think of in the book is Casey's. Every Workday, I'm going to go for a run after work. And so what he does is he leaves has shows by the door. And when he comes home from work, he puts his shoes and socks on and his habit isn't going for the run every day, his habit is putting the shoes and socks on and 90% of the time from there, he will go for a run. Sometimes he might just go for a walk cause he's really tired. And they might be a one in 10 times that he puts his shoes on and he decides, you know what, it's pouring, throwing outside. I'm exhausted. I'm not going to go for a run, but he's created a tiny and achievable habit that is just we'll keep doing because he's actually putting on all he has to do is put on his shoes. If you make your goal, the simple, tiny thing, as opposed to this big, more complicated thing, like going for an hour run or an hour of yoga or whatever it is, it makes it. less achievable. And then less likely that you're actually going to continue to do that.

I like that very much. I think you're absolutely right, because it also links into what we know about neuroscience and its neural memory. If we look at habits, memory of the body. I always use the example of, you know, do you clean your teeth at night? Most people do

one of the examples that he actually gives them. The book is the, the, the tape and another one, he goes as an example, is, turning the kid along in the morning. I think when I get up in the morning, I'm not even thinking, and I just walk into the kitchen, I click the kid alone and I'm barely even conscious when I do that. He suggests actually linking a habit to something simple like that. So, you know, if you really need to do, in my case at the moment, I'm having some problems with my upper back. And so the physio is giving me some stretches to do if every morning when I click the kid along, That's my sort of reminder to do my five minutes of upper back stretches. It's something achievable that you'll remember.

I think that's it. Isn't it. It's your body. Remember? We don't remind ourselves about cleaning teeth. We don't set alarms, but it feels weird if we don't do it. So we might even get into bed and clean our teeth. They're not going to fall out, I always say to people, when you wake up in the morning, what's the first thing you think of. And people go, I reach my phone. That is something that must stop. Don't not be drawn into the dumping ground of other people's stuff is develop a daily mantra. Now, when I wake up in the morning, the first thing that comes into my head, because it's become a habit. Does it take 10 days to develop a habit 30 days? You know, who knows? Psychologists do say that on average it's 30 days. If we have a particularly difficult experience or a very emotional pleasure, but one, it can be much quicker, but on the whole, we have to keep doing something until it becomes automatic. As children, we have to be reminded to clean our teeth. For instance, then it becomes the habit. I have a habit that until I change it to something else, I cannot undo this because it is such a habit. So I wake up, I come into awareness and the first thing that comes into my mind is what a grounded, glorious day filled with love, opportunity and potential, because I taught myself to do it. And then somewhere in the house, there'll be adult tapping the tail. Oh my God, she's up. She's out. Which reinforces it. I say to people, write it down. The three piece, the personal, the present tense and the positive, you know, not sort of, I. lose weight in the future. That's future it's negative. make bold statements, I am, I am successful, enjoying life healthy and fit, whatever it is, choose something that works for you and write it down, keep repeating it every morning. And when you forget, start for another 30 days, the idea also of the 30 days is that in the end, you're not counting days because you just do it now, when I wake up like that and sometimes I have to get it ready early and go to Sydney in the city I immediately propelled into Paris. What grounded glory safety would love opportunity and potential. I, yeah, I don't want to get out. It's a warm, it's a bit cold outside, but that changes things. Whereas if a lot of people are all good, they want to get up. I don't want to go to work, you know, and you're even getting paid to feel like that, you know, you're getting your work before, you know, it change the script. So develop a daily mantra. That's going to be really important.

I just want to make a couple of comments there. Clear one is that from the tiny habits. book, better, something he suggests as well. Not that there, those exact words, but he suggests when you get up in the morning, have something, positive to say. And I can't remember the details. You'd have to read the book yourself. But the other thing that I want to say from people that are a bit more cynical, and I was one of those people, as I used to hear the positive mentality stuff. And kind of roll my eyes and think this is a bit sort of wishy-washy and yeah, sure. Say positive things, but the reality is, is that, you know, I might have a crap day at work that doesn't mean to say that you need to be positive a hundred percent of the time, and it is Okay. to feel crap when you've had a bad day, but there's something about, slowly over time or as quickly as possible changing your mindset to be positive. And one of the things that I noticed from doing some life coaching myself is that you know, you were talking about the shirts and the butts and the, I, you know, I can't do this sort of thing. One of the things I used to do is just subtly put myself down. And it was only when I started. writing it down. Then I started to notice the pattern and now it's very rare for me to put myself down because I'm so conscious of it. So, you know, I'd be doing something at work and it was something that wouldn't go well, I'd be like, oh, I sort of mutter under my breath. Or, you know, you're doing a crap job or something like that. Until you become aware of these things that you're doing, you don't realize how much it's affecting your, um, and once it, and I noticed a little bit different to what you were saying with the, the mantra in the morning. But having experienced that to a certain degree, I don't do a mantra or anything in the morning, but I do genuinely believe that that's got to make a, a difference in your life because if you're getting up in the morning and I mean, how many people do we know that get up in the morning and as like, oh, I've got to go to work today. Or,

Yeah. And that's such a waste of creativity and, we can change that. You know, there's always a price to be paid, you know, in the short term, you probably can't have the four bedroom house and the two cars, if that's what you want, you know? But are you having that because you truly want it or is it because that's where you think you should be in life? Do you know? I remember I, I originally come from England and I remember it was one of those times where my most. And there was a guy that came to see me about something. It was some training initiative and he was really burnt out and tired and his job was too much for him. And I said, yeah, how come you haven't even got children? You know, it's like, you, you, haven't got a lot of financial outgoings. that's not even your excuse here. And he said, yeah, we've got this massive mortgage. I said, well, well, you got a massive mortgage for, he said, I live in a five bedroom house, two bathrooms. I said, what you and your wife? He said, yeah. I said, what for? He said, well, at that stage in my life, that's where I think I should be. And I said, what's the cost you paid for this, because guess what? Nobody cares. They worry about their well, they're doing. And I think once we get over that, it's most people aren't looking or they're worried about their own lives. People are afraid of, but if I do it, you know, Everyone else is doing this. So I go along with something is when we stand up, we make the thing often it gives other people permission to shine and actually go with, if he can do it, Steve can do it. I can do it.

So I'm just going to borrow a quote from Dr. Zeus, be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter. And those who matter don't mind. Yeah. I mean, all my good friends wouldn't care what the state of the houses that I lived in or, my job it's, it's the people that aren't really your good friends are the ones that judge you.

that's right. Yeah. I, I, somebody asked me that recently I've got an old 20 year old car, which is an old land cruiser. And he's great. You could go across the Outback in Australia on it people. Stop me and say, can I buy it? I remember it would come up to me and say, so you didn't win the lottery then. And I said, well, actually I could probably go forward a Lexus. And I really wanted it, but guess what? I don't have to worry about people not scratching it, cars out that important to me, this never breaks down and it's big and it's old and achieve kind of, doesn't give it down when she's driving. So they, people stay away. But if I was in Alexis, I'll be free. People are going to upset, but it doesn't mean people shouldn't have nice cars, but have the nice car because you want it not because you think

If that's your thing.

That's right.

so I used to be a large animal vet and I remember meeting this farmer, So it was actually worth another bit. And the guy turned up and he was in pretty rugged clothes. And he turned up to his old theory sheet and we had a chat and stuff. And, and then afterwards, as we were driving away from the farm, the senior vet said to me, he said you know, that guy is the owner of this real estate company. And he's probably worth tens of millions of dollars. that that's saying the rich man doesn't have to show you how he's rich.

that's right. I think that's absolutely. I think you're upset. You're right. It's like Richard Branson, you know, he's there, hasn't got the flashiest clothes on, you know, I'm sure he could, but it kind of doesn't matter. And that keeping up with the Joneses that used to be called, but there's a cost to do that. We doing jobs that we don't want to do because we feel we should have that to impress people we don't actually even care about. you know,

amazing. I psychology. Isn't

yeah, absolutely. And well, we're social creatures. The one doubt about it, isn't that where we are, we want to be accepted. We want to be, but being accepted by the people that really value you for who you are, not because of what you can afford or what club you belong to, or, there's a lovely book actually called lost connections. And it's actually about the real roots of depression. And there was always the view that it was due to reduced serotonin, the happy hormone and whatever. And then you find as they put people on antidepressants that were fine for a while, then it kind of wore off and whatever. When you really look at the research that's been done in the last 20 years, you know, it's about loss, connections, lost connection to meaningful work, lost connection to people that you care about to financial security. So your worry, whether, you know, you can actually put a roof over your head and it's all these loss connections. Know these are the things that we count by. And if we give that away, because we think we should, autumn must be doing something else we are, as we started off the talk is we're adhering to myths, but we are denying that we have choice and we can't see where it's available.

it's a fascinating clear and yeah, I really appreciated your inputs. I think there's a lot, a lot of good stuff to take home. Just before you go, a couple of things, one is where can we find out more about you and what, you know,

sure, absolutely. Well there's many websites I've got, but the two most poignant here, I think is my, my general one to five, my other websites, which is Claire mann.com, which is C L a R E. And they double n.com. And then the best of choice is a book that is in audio and in digital form. And it has 50 exercises for you to go through where you deny you have choice, you don't have it, but also that chapter on, if you really think, how are you going to change your life? And it takes you through about 16 steps you know, get some big sheets of paper and really plan how you're going to do this and what you're going to give up. So that is life myths.com life myths.com.

just a quick question regarding the book, how did you motivate yourself to write a book in the first place?

I always had this interest in this existential philosophy and the notion of choice. It was when I immigrated towards. And there's a great best. Here's one. I was well-established in the UK. You know, I was teaching in a university, actually was teaching occupational psychology and I had my local community and my friends and I had, and a mortgage on my flat and life was great. And then I met somebody from New Zealand and then fell in love with him and that sort of funny thing. And I had to make a decision within the three months we were together. Then he came back and I had a trip there and to make a decision to come to us straining, or he to go there decided to come to us. This was about 20 years ago. No. And, but that was, you know, oh my gosh, I'm at the pinnacle of my career. That was really unlike it. Well, I thought it was, you know, but I had this great teaching job and I was working in open learning. So I was even going abroad to trips to teach overseas students all paid. It was great. See the world get paid, but then I thought I've got to weigh up. There's something do I really want to be here? They've met this great person. You know, we just go and like I was on fire and until I made that change, but making that change, I came to a country. I didn't know anyone. I didn't have a work permit. How was it going to meet people? I didn't have any income other than letting him at my flat in London and absolutely anxiety happened. But then I needed a project. And so I threw myself into writing a book. I'd always wanted to write about the myth of who we are. It started off by looking at that. So I wrote, sort of started writing, ran that out of area and then through my work in communication and challenging myths and. Challenging narratives we have in our society. I am, we wrote it and it came a couple of years back. I had a myth that actually, if I, it was safe to stay where I was, it was rewarding, but I could have still been there. I'd have a very nice pension now. I'm sure I wouldn't be retired, but you know, it would be working towards it. But actually, you know, I've never lived in New Zealand. I've lived in Australia. My partner is my best friend. You know, we, redeveloped what we're doing and we work together. And what do I remember? You know what, I remember staying safe in a job for 40 years, you know? Or did I take that risk? And the end of the day, what do we remember? Steve? We remember relationships. We remember the mate that was with us, talk to us at three in the morning. Cause we had a problem. We don't remember how much money we had. and that Danish toaster.

That was organizational psychologist. Clear, man. I found the conversation with Claire, particularly relevant to escape the nine to five, because so many people are doing things because they think they should be doing them. Not, because they actually want to. I grew up in a relatively conservative south African. We were always told you must do this, or you should do that without any real explanation of why we're told we should go to university, always should travel while we're young, without looking at the goals of the individual person I was told, I must go to university and I did, it was beneficial for me, but it is not necessarily suitable for every. I was also told to go on a gap year after school to the UK. I did in hindsight, I was too mature and this was a complete waste of a year for me. This doesn't mean to say it isn't the right thing for another 18 year old. Do what makes you happy? You've got to follow your. Simon Sinek, author of start with why became famous for his Ted talk, we're explained people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it. Based on the way our brain works, the way we feel about something is more important than what we think about it. That when given the choice we follow our gut. it's an exceeds in another talk. What I'm interested in is what gets people up every single day to do something, maybe pay a premium, maybe suffer, inconvenience, maybe sacrifice because they're driven by something else. What is that thing? What I've learned is it's that question? Well, It drives us. It inspires us. So three tips from Claire for this week. One, what would you do right now? If you knew you could not fail the answer to this will probably give you a clue what you're meant to be doing, to figure out what your own self-talk is. What are the excuses you tell yourself? When you say you can't do. I think one of the most common ones is I'm just too busy. And yet how many of us still manage to find time to scroll our phones? Watch a show on Netflix and generally just fluff about. And a final tip, find something you really want to do and introduce it into your life. Even if it's just on the side to begin with this week's challenge. Do what makes you happy?

challenge accepted.

Grab a big sheet of paper and write down exactly how you're spending your 168 hours per week, cross out all the things you do only because you think you should, or someone else has told you, you should Replace these with things you actually want to do, including allowing time daily for at least 30 minutes of exercise and at least 15 minutes of meditation, I guarantee this will not only make you feel happier, but help with the decision making process down the road. when you've got a healthier and clearer mind,

challenge accepted.

I do ask you to be reasonable about this week's challenge. I absolutely hate doing grocery shopping, but don't need to eat. I also love having a few drinks, but I'm not going to make that a daily habit because not everything that makes you happy in the short-term is good for you in the longterm. Thanks for listening to escape the nine to five. If you need help on your own career journey, be sure to join our Facebook. Escape the nine to five podcast, we will join a community of people with a similar mindset actually wanting to make the most of their lives and not be trapped in a meaningless job for the rest of their lives. This week. We're talking about myths. We tell ourselves what we should do and how to focus on spending more time, doing things that actually drive us and inspire us. The link to the group is in the show.