LIT Podcast

Episode #8: Putting Thought Into Action

Full Transcript

Welcome to episode 8 of LIT. My name is Ravi Toor, and I’m your host. First, I want to say thank you so much for all the downloads, guys! I’m so freaking grateful every time I open up my analytics. Thank you so much for continuously downloading my content and listening to my program! You guys are the fuel to my show! If you’re a returning listener, you know the drill. First, what’s up? Second, let’s welcome the new listeners! For those of you who are new to the program, welcome to LIT, the place to be if you’re a leader at heart. Like every week, I want anyone new or behind on episodes to head back once you’re done and listen to older episodes to get caught up on the plan.

But for now, let’s get into things, shall we? In today’s episode, I’m going to talk about the 2nd pillar that will transform your life if used right. Last week I talked about self-awareness, this week, it’s all about focus.  

So what’s the meaning of focus? Simply put, it’s the centre of interest or activity. But aside from the dictionary definition, what is focus exactly? It’s the thing that dominates your thoughts, dominates your drive, your will, your actions, your emotions, basically your entire fucking life. Remember what I said in episode 5? I said we all are striving to accomplish the thing – as I said in that episode, the thing is totally different for each of us. Here’s the kicker, that thing for you can shift day in and day out if you’re not maintaining focus or if your focus shifts, you get it?

Focus is something you control. Focus is also significantly related to energy. So, last week, I got you to get focused on yourself through self-awareness. By starting simple, you’re able to really pay attention to your thoughts, time, energy, basically all the good data that will help you make more informed decisions and choices for yourself using the guidance of your authentic voice. Now that we have you listening to yourself, I want you to recognize where your focus and energy go.

Often as leaders, we have all sorts of aspirations. Maybe you want to write a book, maybe you want to run for political leadership. Maybe you’re someone who wants to open up a business where eco-friendly is the name of the game. But what happens when you start out on your path? What are you focused on?

So at first, you might totally be focused on creating a manuscript for your book. Great, let’s fucking do it, right? Then you sit down completely jazzed up, you’re about to change your muthafucking life with a life-changing book other can use to create transformations of their own. You open up your computer. Then, open up the word doc. Then you see the cursor and here you find out what you’re really focused on because 1 of 2 things happen.

Either you start to write like a mad man, just typing away like that gif of that crazy ass cat everyone sends around. Just type, type, type, type, type. Clearly, you’re focused on writing the book. All the power to you. Or, you see the cursor on the screen. You look at it waiting for something intuitive to come out. You type a few words only to delete them. You start to stare out the window. You start to worry as you think about all the people in your life who have a potential to have an opinion, good or bad, on your aspirations. You freeze. You’re headed down that dark and negative spiral because you just heard, in your mind, the judgement from your boss or your parent, or even your friend. And then you’re thinking it: who the fuck am I to write a book? Do I have anything to say? I’m feeling negative, must be writer’s blog, I’ll take a break now and get back to this later.

You take that break but you don’t break from the focus. All of a sudden, at different points in your day, you have these thoughts pop up, negative ones just like the ones that got you to take the break in the first place. Now, guaranteed you’re feeling it emotionally. You’re feeling some anxiety, maybe some restlessness. When you’re sleeping, your sleep is often broken. You’re so focused now that this focus, the Negative Nancy focus, totally starts to unconsciously spill out into the rest of your life. Now, you’re unsure if you’re picking the right clothes to wear. You start to battle a depressive state as you realize, that book ain’t writing itself and the last time you opened that word doc was like a week ago. Guilt is taking over. Then you start harping on yourself for all your past failures. You hear yourself say you’re no good. You suck at life all the time. You’ll never make a change in your life. You’re nothing special, sweetheart. And as these thoughts swirl, you lower your state of being, you start to ignore your aspirations and soon enough, you ain’t writing worth shit.

Apply this to  any leadership role that has you commiting to your dream.

Sound familiar? Be honest.

Whatever you focus on will happen. Let me fucking repeat that one back to you.

Whatever You Focus On WILL Happen!

How? Well, part of it is electromagnetism or manifestation as some call it.

You see focus is energy. I’ll talk about this some more in later episodes but here’s the gist of what you need to understand for right now. Focus is directing your thoughts to something, right? Well, thoughts happen in the brain. When forming a thought, your brain uses a lot of energy to function. It’s not quite the same as electrical energy used in like your house or whatever instead, it’s in an ionic form. That means when you have a thought, neurons in brain shootout messages like gangbusters known as neurotransmitters, chemical substances that let neurotransmission happen. When these neurotransmitters start moving, they create electrical energy in the neurons. These messages, if strong enough, travel and are released into the synaptic gap only to be pulled into another neuron. In this process, you’ve just created a synaptic connection. All that messaging start to end releases a potential for action or inaction depending on the strength of the message. During that time, chemicals are released into the body. Those chemicals typically turn into emotions. Mix a strong enough thought, negative or positive, with a corresponding strong emotion, bingo bango, you’ve got yourself not only some internal energy but some attraction energy. How? Your heart’s gonna respond big time creating energy that radiates an external perimeter around you. And what happens there? Attraction! You’ll start to attract exactly what you’re releasing. But let’s not forget, it’s like a shit ton of vicious cycles all happening at the same time.

Sit silently, right now for five seconds. I’ll wait.

Ok, how many thoughts went flying through your head? Thoughts happen like wildfire, they just fire, boom and happen. So, remember the book writing, taking a break, harping on yourself shit? Well, that stuff doesn’t happen over a long period of time, it happens rapidly.

So, what you want to do is this. Using that self awareness as much as you can, start focusing on your thoughts. When you hear a negative thought, you want to stop it and flip the script. So when you hear:

Who am I to write a book?

I want you to stop and say something like:

I am a powerful person with so much to say, writing my book is just the tip of the iceberg of change I’m about to create.

Bam, think about the emotional reaction you would, or just did have to that. Flip the script, man. Don’t start beating yourself up, letting your dreams and aspirations slip through because your subconscious goes in protective mode because it’s not used to being challenged. You’re not one to let challenges get the better of you, you’re a leader who’s meant to create massive change for yourself and for those around you. You’re the leader this world has been waiting for. You’re the change.

So, challenge your subconscious, challenge your limiting beliefs. Step up and be the leader.