How Choices Affect Our Lives
Today’s topic is a topic that I think is one of the most powerful things that I’ve ever learned and it’s this concept that at any moment there are 3 key decisions that we are all making, and these 3 decisions are the decisions that completely shape our lives and our destinies. Now, what are these decisions?
Decision 1 – What Are You Focusing On?
Well, let me tell you, number 1 it’s the decision of what you focus on. So, as you’re sitting there or standing and you’re listening to this podcast episode, you’re mind has a choice of what it decides it’s gonna focus on.
Now part of it could be you may choose to focus on what I’m saying and maybe your mind might be wandering and focusing on something else. Hopefully, you’re all focused on exactly what I’m saying.
You’re gonna focus on the different aspects of what I say because, by the time I’m done with this podcast episode, research has shown that over 95% of what I say, you’re not even really going to remember. So you’re only remembering about 5% of what I say during this podcast episode. But the question is, which 5% do you remember?
Now, there’s no doubt sometimes I’m gonna stumble, sometimes I’m gonna misspeak, sometimes I’m gonna say something that is gonna be good in your opinion and sometimes I’m gonna say something that’s not gonna be so good in your opinion.
But see, you have a decision of what you focus on. Which 5% of the content that you hear today do you actually focus on? And more importantly, of course, some of that 5% may be even things I don’t say because you are focusing on things around you or other things that you may be doing while listening to this podcast.
At any point in our lives we have a choice of focusing on things. And when we focus on things, we’ve then made the second decision and that second decision is what meaning are you going to give to that thing?
Decision 2 – What Meaning Will You Assign That Focus?
So we decide what we’re gonna focus on and once we’ve decided what we’re gonna focus on, we then make another decision that’s even more important in shaping our lives and that is the decision of saying, what does that thing mean? For example, if I say something where I stumble, right?
You might focus on that while other people don’t even focus on that at all. And the person who focuses on me stumbling while I speak, or when I misspeak, whatever it may be, then they get to give it a meaning, right? Someone might give it the meaning of, “wow, this Arman guy looks like he’s a real human being. I really like this guy, yeah you know this neuroscience guy and this business guy and this coach and this speaker but look, he is just like me. I like this guy a lot.”
Where someone else might take that and go “Hah this guy, he’s got a podcast, you know what he can’t even speak properly. Look at that, he just stumbled or he just misspoke or he said something wrong.” Right? So you have a choice of what meaning you give that focus.
And then finally, comes the third decision that is literally shaping your life consistently. And that is, once you focused on something, once you’ve given that thing a meaning, what are you gonna do about it?
Decision 3 – What Action Will You Take?
Number three is action, so every moment after we focus on something and we give it a meaning, we look at it and then we take an action based on those things, right? So some of us, we go out for example, you see a booger hanging out on someone’s nose right, and you look at that thing and you go, “oh my God, there was a booger.”
Some of us wanted to focus on the booger. Some people focus on other things. But then sometimes we focus on the booger, right? And then the meaning we give that booger could be different. Someone’s gonna say, “Man, this person is disgusting, God, how gross is that?
Someone else might think, man I remember one time I had a little something coming out of my nose and I was really happy when someone told me so I can wipe it away.”
Right, so we give it different meanings and then let say you give it the meaning of the second one I said which is “well, you know I wish someone would tell me” and then you tell the person you like “hey, the action you take is hey you might have a little something on your nose you might wanna wipe it off.” Right, or hand him a tissue or something like that.
How to Make Good Decisions in Life
And so those are the actions you can take, someone else might take a different action by turning around and not talking to that person because they’re grossed out by it, right? So at any moment, we have a choice of what we focus on, what meaning we give to things and then what action we take. Now, where does this really come in? It’s in our relationships with other human beings that this really comes in. I happen to be married to one of the most incredible human beings on the planet.
Without even knowing it, she has mastered this thing. I mean this girl you should see, in our relationship, she focuses on all the good things that I do and happens to overlook all of the things that I fall short on. I mean, 99% of the time this woman is incapable of noticing my shortcomings, whether it has to do with my looks, my personality, the things I say, the things I do, my failures, my successes, this woman somehow magically sees all of the good in me and very very very little of the bad. And she focuses on the things that I do that are good, right?
She focuses on the positive, and then once she focuses on something that’s positive about me, the meaning she gives to it, are just so beautiful and so rich and then the actions she take is she treats me better than anyone else’s has ever treated me in my entire life including men, women, parents, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, everyone.
No one in my life has ever treated me as well as this woman does and it’s because she focuses on the right things about me. She gives them beautiful meanings and then she takes actions that are positive. And it makes me wanna do the same for her, and I hope that if she was here she would say that, “yes, it’s true he does do the same back for me.” But so many people in relationships you find, that they’re always focused on the negative.
Stop Focusing on the Negatives
They focus always on the negative. For example, let say your significant other wants to go out with his or her friends, right. And for some reason, you can’t go. Well, you can focus either on the fact that “hey, this person is going out without me or you can focus on the fact that this person gets to go out and have a good time tonight.”
Right, and then the meaning you give to it could be you give it a negative by saying, that means that he or she doesn’t love me and that means this person doesn’t care about me, and that means this person’s gonna leave me and that means this person’s unfaithful and whatever else.
Whereas you can give it a positive meaning, “hey you know we have such a beautiful healthy relationship that we’re both people who are able to get out there have friends and socialize and although we love being together, when we’re not together we can still have a lot of fun without each other.”
And then the action you take is maybe the negative one would be to be yell and scream at your significant other and tell, “I can’t believe you’re doing this you know you’re terrible person, you’re mean. or you pout or whatever you do.”
Right, or worst you let them go and then you just, you know you let him hear about it for the next three weeks or what you do is take a positive action by going, “Hey, you know, come here let me help you fix your hair so you look good” and then you tell him, “you know what, when you get out there today I know I’m not gonna be there just have a good time, you know, relax, enjoy yourself, you don’t get a lot of time to go out by yourself with your friends so make sure that you enjoy that time.”
See, it’s those things that shape our destiny because we’re making these three decisions at every single moment of our days, right? And when you think about this, you start to become conscious of what you are focusing on, what meaning you’re giving things and what action you’re taking.
Because throughout your life, no matter what experiences you’re having, I guarantee you, that at least a thousand times a day you are faced with the choice of what to focus on. And then you’re given the choice of what meaning you give that thing that you focus on.
And finally, you can take action, you can take whatever action you want based on what it is that you focus on. So, what I want you to do is become conscious of this, become conscious of the fact that you can focus on whatever you want, you can give whatever meaning you want to it and you can in fact, take whatever action you want. And when you do this, your gonna see just how incredibly empowering it is to have this thing inside of you where you literally get to control your thoughts.
How to Make the Best Decision for Yourself
You got to control your destiny and even if the worst things in the world happen to you, even if your life is falling apart all around you, even if you have failed, I mean that’s one of the things that people look at my life and the people who are closest to me, I think they start realizing, “my goodness, this guy fails a lot.” I mean I fail more than anyone else I’ve ever met in my life.
Why? Say you put something in front of me two feet high and you said jump over it. I know I can easily clear two feet. I’m gonna tell you to raise it up four feet because the whole point is, if I already know I can clear two-foot jump, why would I have you keep it there for me? So many people in life set their goals so low that they can easily clear them.
And while they don’t fail in the short term, they fail miserably in the long term in life. And that is not the kind of life I wanna have. I am not gonna be the kind of person who’s gonna constantly set the bar low for myself just so I can feel like a success. So, I fail all the freaking time, I fail in my businesses, in my relationships, in all things, but you know what?
They’re not failures, and they’re certainly not a bad thing because I bounced back from them better than I’ve ever been before, and the way that I do it is I am constantly focused on the learning experience. I’m focused on what I now know that I didn’t know before. I’m focused on who I am now, that I wasn’t before. I’m focused on the fact that I’m a better person now, I’m a stronger person than I was. I’ve gone to another level and next time when I get faced with the same thing, I’m not gonna let it get to me.
Giving that focus there and having that kind of a meaning attached to it, allows me to take incredibly empowering actions, actions that propel me forward. Actions that allow me to be truly at my very very best and that’s the gift I want to give you today.
It’s the gift of knowing you get to focus on whatever you want, give whatever meaning you want to it, and take whatever action you desire.
So, if you got a lot of negative things in your life right now, God forbid if you have health problems, if you have relationship issues, if you have financial issues, anything that’s going on in your life, that you’re not totally perfectly 100% happy with, I want you to understand that you are brewing this on the inside of you by focusing on the wrong things, by giving it a wrong meanings and by taking the wrong action.
Think about that right now, think about the one thing right now that’s bothering you more than anything else in the world and when you go there, I guarantee you’re focusing on a negative aspect of this thing, and I guarantee you’re giving a negative meaning to it , and I guarantee you, the actions you’ve taken have been negative around this thing.
Otherwise, it wouldn’t feel so terrible, right? So now, take that same thing. Think about, what if you could change the focus just slightly, you could skew your angle just a little bit so you can look at the different perspectives of it. I can tell you, two years ago I went through the most horrific experience of my life where my face is literally bashed in, I have to have facial reconstructive surgery, one of the worst experiences a human being can possibly go through.
A Story From My Life About Focusing on the Positives
But you know what was awesome about it? For the three or four days or however longer it was that I was in the hospital, while I was having surgery done to put my face back together using titanium, let me tell you, I got to see all of my friends and family and I got to spend more time with my friends and family than I’ve ever spent before with them, or longer than I’ve spent with them in decades I would say.
And in fact, my sister who is a doctor came and spent the night with me in the hospital room and she and I got to be together for almost 24 hours which is more time than I’ve spent with my sister for literally probably decades. And see that was a beautiful thing, so yes even the worst things in the world can have some incredibly positive sides to it.
And I want you to know this, that if you take this thing that’s going on in your life if you just change your angle a little bit, pretend like you have a camera, and move the camera over a couple of inches, maybe move it over to the side or to the back of the situation, and notice there is a different focus that you can have? Yes, now what about the meaning? What about the meaning that you can give to it?
For example, if you got your face bashed and the are a lot of meanings you can give to it, but what if you gave it an empowering meaning, like the meaning I gave to it, was that this man, that God had given me another chance to live, because I died.
Having that near-death experience right, it’s not even a near-death experience, I literally died and came back to life on the sidewalk, right? New year’s eve, two years ago, I literally died on the sidewalk and my wife saw me laying there in a puddle of blood, and I came back to life somehow, magically, miraculously, and I knew that the purpose of my life was to give back so today, I’m standing here and I’m recording this podcast episode because I wanna influence your life and next month I have an incredible Titanium Live event. It’s designed to help change people’s lives even though I don’t get any money from any of this stuff, of course, you know the podcast is free, my events are name your own price, all this stuff that I do is just for giving back, and it all came out to that thing, why?
Because I focus on the right things and I gave them the right meanings. And then finally, the actions, right, so when you’re looking at this thing you’re experiencing right now, you’ve changed you’re focused now I know, and now you’re giving it a more positive meaning, you’re giving in a different meaning, what is this mean?
This means empowerment, this means growth, this means an opportunity to be even better than you’ve ever been before, this means that God has selected you to do more than what other people may need to do on this planet.
Whatever it is the meaning that you’ve given to it, now what I want you to do is I want you to decide what actions you’re gonna take, because that’s the third decision.
And you get to take whatever action you want. And today as I stand here and I record this podcast episode, this is part of me taking this massive action to live what I believe God has put me on this earth to do.
And that’s what I’m doing today, that’s why I’ve taken my Neuroscience background and I’ve taken my years of experience in business and instead of going out there and trying to make millions and millions more dollars in business which trust me, if I were to put my focus on business, I have a lot of opportunities to make a lot more money than doing this sort of stuff, right? I love being a coach for people, I love being a business coach, I love getting in there and doing all these different things.
But you know what, the bottom line is that it fulfills me and makes me happy, right? And that’s the action that I’ve chosen to take.
So what I want you to do, as you’re looking at this thing, you’ve now changed your focus, you’ve given it a more empowering meaning, now it’s all about action, today is the day you take a different kind of action on this thing that you’re going through and I wish, this was a live episode where I can have you guys call in and ask me questions because at my events this is the thing I love doing more than anything else.
Is getting people to tell me these things and then I can help you realize how you’re almost always when you’re going through a tough time, it’s almost always because you’re focusing on the wrong thing, giving it the wrong meaning or taking the wrong kind of action.
Most importantly, let me tell you it is focus, most people spend most of their lives focusing on all the wrong things and then when they focus on the wrong things sadly, they give the wrong meaning to those things. And of course you have no choice at that point but to take poor actions.
So don’t start or trying to change your actions, go back to meaning and focus. And in fact, some of you who make struggle with things like anger, and other sorts of negative personality behaviors, one of the things I want you to try if you ever struggle with that, stop trying to control the action. See, it’s not about not getting angry, it’s about noticing, what did you focus on, and what meaning did you give to it that then made you angry?
That’s the most important advice I can give you if you want to avoid some of those negative behaviors. If you struggled in relationships right, struggled with jealousy, struggled with anger, struggled with whatever problems in a relationship, go back and see, how can you change your focus?
The meaning you give to it, and magically you’ll see that most of your actions will change automatically. But once you’ve mastered focus, and then you master meaning, then yes, you can also master action. But most people want to start with actions. So, get out there today, focus on the right things, focus on empowering things, giving empowering meanings, and then take actions that propel you forward my friend and take action that is gonna consistently help you grow.
I love you all. I hope to see you next month at Titanium Live or if you’re listening to this podcast a few months from now or a year from now, just find my next event, come to my event, I go twice a year.
I love doing this. I love you guys and I want to tell you that go out there every single day, focus on the right things, give them empowering meanings and take really incredibly powerful action and as always, please get out there, and lead with your heart.