Funny motivational speaker
He wore a fire-red tie, sat with his arms folded tightly over his chest, and appeared to be smirking throughout my keynote address.
“He hates me,” I thought, forcing myself to ignore his negative energy, I honed in on the hundreds of smiling audience members who were laughing at my stories and deeply engaged with my message.
Afterward, it surprised me to spot Red-Tie-Guy in the back of the line at my book table. When he approached, I steadied myself, expecting him to criticize me for something I said.
Reaching for my hand, he cupped both my hands in his saying, “I really needed to hear what you said today. Thank-you” He shocked me, but I later realized that, once again, I’d mistaken my evaluation for reality.
Experts say humans have somewhere between 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts per day. Because thoughts are so prevalent, we often view them as real parts of our outside world. We then forget that we’ve mistaken our ideas for reality and feel oppressed by the external world we unconsciously constructed. In other words, we believe what we think.
Our suffering increases when we confuse our interpretations with observations.
Your mental flexibility becomes stronger by training yourself to differentiate between an experience and the meaning you attribute to the experience.
A description is the observable aspects or features of an object or event.
An evaluation is the interpretation of an object or event.
Observations are objective. Interpretations are subjective.
Here is a description:
Red-Tie-Guy sat with his arms folded.
Red-Tie-Guy had a smile I found confusing.
Here is an evaluation:
Red-Tie-Guy is smirking.
Red-Tie-Guy hates my keynote.
Today reevaluate your negative conclusions by separating what you saw from your evaluation of what you saw.
In other words, don’t believe everything you think.
