052 – Unpopular Opinion on Negative Thinking

[00:00:00] Change your perception of what you're looking at and everything changes. Hey, my name is Giorgio Genaus and this is the how to do life podcast. If you've ever felt that no matter what you try something is missing, then you're in the right place. My aim in this podcast is to begin filling in those blanks for you.

So open your mind and get ready because I'm about to show you an entirely different way to live your life. And once you've seen it, you can't unsee it. So let's get started. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. In this episode, I want to talk about negative thinking. And I've got a bit of a unpopular opinion on this, which is why I thought I'd Put together an episode on this because whenever I find myself sharing my thoughts on negative thinking and negative thoughts, I typically get a response of, Oh, I haven't heard it that way before, or [00:01:00] actually, that's really helpful.

That makes total sense. And so I want to give you an opportunity to get a glimpse into what my thoughts are when it comes to negative thinking, because. Uh, yeah, I don't really share a popular opinion on it and that's okay. And you may not like what I'm going to share in this episode, but my attempt is to give you something that's going to set you free beyond some of the paradigms of thinking that you currently hold.

So what am I talking about exactly? When we look at life, the human mind and psychology, we typically throw thinking and thought patterns into two separate groups. There's positive thoughts and there are negative thoughts, or there are positive experiences and there are negative experiences. Now something I learned a long time ago that has been quite empowering for me is that all experiences in life are actually neutral.

In fact, they're probably a gift. And [00:02:00] what we tend to do with our perceptions, because we have parts of the brain that are primitive, is that we tend to take experiences and divide them into one of two camps. It's either a positive experience or it's a negative experience. And so we will label something as good or bad or positive or negative as a way to keep things simple.

Another way to describe this you may have heard before is that we tend to chase pleasure and avoid pain. And so when you look at our ancestors, what we would do before we were living in civilized existences where food was readily available, we would seek food, we would hunt for food, and it would give us a sense of pleasure when we would eat it, especially sweets.

And it would activate different parts of the brain that would essentially release a sense of, uh, dopamine, which would give us a sense of reward. So like, do more of this, get more of this food because it's rewarding. [00:03:00] And so what happens, we've evolved, our society has evolved and changed, and we haven't necessarily evolved our thinking to overcome and override.

The desire to throw something into the camp of being positive, which is something that we would chase and putting things into the negative camp where those are things that we tend to avoid. And so people tend to do that when it comes to their internal dialogue and their internal thinking patterns or thoughts.

For me, that's disempowering because what I've seen a lot of people experience over the course of my career so far is that I hear a lot of people say to me, I just need to stop having these negative thoughts. I just keep defaulting to negative thinking and there's something wrong with me. Like I got to stop doing that.

I don't like that. My first response, however, is not necessarily what's expected by a lot of people, which is What people typically expect from me is, all right, [00:04:00] well, let's get into this. Let's start exploring why you're feeling so disempowered. Let's see if we can empower you. Let's see if we can give you all the tools to help you think in a more positive light, rather than these negative thoughts, which is not what I'm about.

That's I don't particularly like that approach. Now here's why I'll take you back a little bit in my story. I remember when I was a child around the age of five or six, I remember having these questions in my mind. of if negative experiences and negative things served no purpose, why would they exist in the first place?

We see through natural selection in evolution and depending on whatever spiritual beliefs you may or may not carry, that all things have the intention of existing for some utility, meaning the re those things that survive. If we look at species, for example, that survive, they serve some kind of utility.

They serve some [00:05:00] kind of function. in the ecosystem. And so there's a reason for their existence. Now, I look at that, just if we look at the evolutionary standpoint through natural selection, that kind of made sense. I had the question from a spiritual sense as well, because at the time I was raised on this concept of God.

And, you know, God was supposed to be all good, all loving, omniescent, omnipresent. And I kind of had this question, well, if everything was made in the eye of God, or God was the creator of all of these things, then why do these negative things happen? Is this a place, is this a part of the world, a part of the universe that God would turn a blind eye?

Was God, if God creates everything, does that mean God's the creator of the negative stuff? So, if so, Is there some good in that? Like, I wasn't quite landing on a solid answer and whenever I was having conversations with people around me trying to get answers to these questions, I was getting, because it's that way, because I [00:06:00] said, so, um, this is just how it is, or I'd get some kind of answer that would kind of lack substance to it.

It just, it didn't quite scratch the itch. And I just, I would usually come away from these interactions having more questions than I went into them. And so. I, I stuck with this question because it really kind of, it, it, there was like this philosophical bother if I could say that it just, it really kind of irked me cause I'm like, there's gotta be an answer to this question as a five year old, surely if I'm thinking this question at the age of five, surely I'm not the first person to wonder this.

And it turns out I'm not. Many people do ask this question. And so for me, what's really important is. Trying to find the gift, trying to understand the purpose of what a negative experience might be, or what a negative thought may be. Now, if we, if we're to take negative thoughts and put them under the bracket, We're under the umbrella of [00:07:00] it being a negative experience that people have, then maybe negative thoughts or what we label as negative thoughts, they serve a purpose too.

And when I started to pursue that line of thinking and trying to unpack, well, what purpose might negative thoughts have, I started to land on some interesting insights. One of the first insights that I realized was that negative thoughts are trying to protect us. So if you think about having negative thoughts at any point, and your default is to.

Lean into pessimism. Your default is to lean into a negative train of thought that is fear or an anxiety base. So you might be expecting the worst case scenario in some particular situation and you're labeling that as bad and you kind of try to coach yourself out of thinking that way or don't go there, don't think that.

My question is. What if that's actually protecting you? What if that's just your mind [00:08:00] doing its job, which is trying to keep you alive? So if you know that something is going to be dangerous, for example, if you know that juggling really sharp kitchen knives is probably going to be quite dangerous for you, lead to some kind of injury, or if you do things wrong, potentially being a fatal experience, then you're probably going to not do it.

And the idea of someone's like trying to encourage you to do it, you will start to experience anxiety. You'll start to experience fear. That's a normal response because your brain is telling you this is going to lead to pain. And so it's trying to protect you from doing the thing. So you don't do it. So you don't experience injury or a potential fatality.

So it's a protection mechanism and you can use this for any scenario. This is why people are scared of heights in different circumstances. This is why people experience anxiety when they fly, because in their mind, flying leads to some kind of trap. It leads to some [00:09:00] kind of pain. It leads to the potential of fatality as far as their mind is taking them.

As far as their mind is concerned. Um, people will feel this way when it comes to the way they spend their money, they can get really anxious and fearful. Whatever the situation is, there's an imagination that's occurring where the worst case scenario is being painted out with the brush of your imagination.

And it looks very real because your mind can't distinguish the difference between reality and imagination. So it looks real. It feels real. And then what happens is when people start to get consumed by that worrying thought, They feel like they've just gone down through this negative spiral. But here's where things are really interesting.

What if your mind is actually going down that pathway, that train of thought, to help you prepare for the worst? So imagine this. Imagine you're scared of some particular outcome. What's a common one? You're scared of going for a job interview and you're getting anxious about it. And you're in your mind, you're building this thing up in your head.

And the more you think about the interview, the more anxious and worried you [00:10:00] get. The thing is what you're worrying about is the specific details that you're imagining in the future. So for example, you might imagine yourself fumbling your words. You might imagine yourself. Humiliating yourself for saying something stupid, or saying the wrong thing like you're being tested, because interviews can sometimes feel like you're being tested.

You're imagining some very specific detail in the future, and because you've got pain associated with the idea of humiliating yourself for making a fool of yourself for saying something silly or whatever it may be, or dealing with rejection, that feels like pain. And so days ahead or hours ahead of the interview, your mind is taking you to that fear because it's trying to prepare you for it because it wants you to avoid that pain.

And so if you're to sit down and work out, well, what are the different things that I could do? So instead of trying to avoid the potential pain, you prepare for it and you have a solution for each of the things that you're worried about, [00:11:00] your mind stops going there. So if you're worried about an interview and you're worried about saying the wrong thing.

You can have a line or a statement prepared that gives you the opportunity to correct yourself or change what you said. So, for example, if you're worried about giving them the wrong answer, you can have a line that's prepared that says you say whatever it is, and as you're hearing your thought, you realize that maybe it's not the most appropriate answer to give them, or it's not quite what they're looking for.

You give yourself permission to say something like, I don't know. Actually, upon reflection, now that I'm saying that, what I think would be a more appropriate. Solution or what I think might be a more appropriate answer to your question is whatever and then you can insert that so you're giving yourself an opportunity to correct yourself rather than trying to get every answer correct on the first go, you're giving yourself some leeway and so if you've got a job interview, you're worried about saying the wrong thing and then you prepare this statement for yourself to go, [00:12:00] okay, well, I can say that if need be.

That gives you a chance to take the pressure off and that eases some of the anxiety. Another thing that I encourage people to do to continue to with the job interview example is give yourself permission to admit that you're nervous and anxious to the interviewers. So if you're going in for the interview and you're sitting down and you're actually really nervous and anxious, typically what people ask is, Hey, how are you doing?

Your response can be, honestly, I've got to tell you, I'm feeling a little bit nervous about it, you know, cause I, I actually really want this job, or I really care about being able to do a great job with you today. So I think there are just a lot of nerves coming up about it. If I'm completely honest with you.

And what you're doing, just by saying that, is you're setting the bar, you're setting the threshold for them, so if you do make some errors, or you stumble, you fumble through something, or you get something wrong, you've already contextualized it by saying to them, [00:13:00] I'm nervous coming into it, so you've pre framed it to let them know that if there are mistakes, it's probably because you're nervous, not because You're not suitable for the job.

It also gives, it takes the pressure off you, which is really important because you can, you're contextualizing it for them, but you're taking the pressure off yourself by saying, Hey guys, I'm a human being. I'm probably going to mess some things up here. Um, and by doing that, you're giving yourself some, a bit of a break and taking the pressure off, which then makes it more comfortable for you for the rest of the interview.

So when you think about these different things, where your mind is taking you to these worst case scenarios, if you come up with solutions, different things that you can do in these cases, your mind starts to calm down. And when it's no longer scared of these outcomes, because you have solutions for each of these potential negative outcomes, your mind stops going there.

Okay. The worry and the concern and the, the rumination over the future just completely drops. And you're like, okay, I can be present with [00:14:00] this now. And this is true for all kinds of circumstances, like going on dates or, you know, for some people it's asking, like proposing to somebody. Right, there's a lot of nerves, or even on the wedding day, there's nerves that start to come up.

There's nerves, typically, if it's not because there's a misalignment in the relationship itself, it's because there's specific things they're worried about, that maybe they're going to make a fool of themselves, or the dress is going to get messed up, or there's some detail and someone's going to laugh, or someone's going to get angry, or whatever it might be.

Like, if you prepare for each of those things, the anxieties calm down. So, the reason I'm saying all of this is because people feel like their negative thoughts are just these random things. Like, life is playing roulette, rolling the ball on the roulette wheel, and if it lands on your number, that's the weird negative thought that you're going to have to deal with, and that's just you.

And you have to deal with that. It's just like this chaotic universe and scenario that you have to live through. I have not found that to be [00:15:00] true. I've found that negative thoughts have a very specific purpose. They're trying to help you prepare for pain. And if you have solutions for each of those things that you're worried about, you will find that the pain and the anxiety calms down significantly.

Which means that's where the negative thoughts start to dissolve and dissipate. They completely disappear. And so if the thoughts are disappearing when you're coming up with solutions, that tells me they're not random thoughts, they're just trying to help you. Which comes back to this idea that everything is a gift, including negative thoughts.

Your negative thoughts are trying to help you. But too often in my industry, there's this narrative and there's this push to get rid of negative thoughts, to get rid of these thought spirals that people struggle with because they're bad and you're going to manifest bad things. When in reality, it's not, it's just your mind actually doing exactly what it's designed to do, which is protect you.

It's trying to help you. And when you start looking at these [00:16:00] negative thoughts. As a concerned friend, the one that wants to come at the table and says, Oh, but have you thought about this? And, Oh, have you thought about this? Instead of being at this table with this friend and telling this friend to shut up, every time they have something negative to say, why don't you go, Hey, tell me more about that.

What exactly are you worried about? What are you concerned about? Let's talk that out. And they say, well, I'm really worried. You're going to make a complete fool of yourself. Like, okay, how would that happen? Well, maybe I'm worried that at a particular point, you're It's gonna be like, you're talking in front of everyone and you've actually taken all of your clothes off.

And you're like, wait, what? And you find that there's this really irrational fear that it's gonna be like standing in front of everyone naked because you've humiliated yourself. So you backpedal to being like, well, I mean, the first thing I can do to prepare for that is make sure I keep my clothes on.

That's gonna be an easy thing to do because it's probably more effort in taking my clothes off than keeping them on. I don't have to do anything to keep my clothes on, so that's really easy to [00:17:00] deal with. What else are you worried about? Well, I'm also worried that you're gonna fumble with your words.

Like, that's fair. What can I do to be able to make sure that I don't fumble my words? Well, I can't guarantee I won't fumble my words, but I can do certain training exercises and go through different trainings and learnings to help me increase my vocabulary, increase my clarity, and increase my my articulation of different words, but I can't really guarantee that I won't fumble my words.

So what could I do in the case of fumbling my words? Well, if it's really bad, I can just call it out. So if I find myself saying something that comes out really strangely or strange or strangely or strange, actually, what's the right word there? Sorry, I'm getting a bit confused on the language there for a second, right?

That's something that you can say. I was just giving a silly example of it. You can give yourself an opportunity to say like, [00:18:00] well, I don't know why that was coming out strangely, but what I meant here was this right? And you give yourself a couple of phrases or a different couple of different things that you can use to prepare yourself for it.

And then suddenly this worry that your friend, which is your anxiety and your fear and your negative thought has starts to calm down. You're like, okay, well, what else are you worried about? Well, I'm also worried about, uh, What happens if I trip? Okay. Well, well, what would lead up to a trip if I was to physically trip over?

Well, why would that occur? It's because I'm moving too quickly. I'm not looking where I'm going, or I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing. Great. Okay. So what if I just make sure that whenever I'm moving around in this particular setting, if it's a presentation, that I'm aware of the physical space, I move slowly.

And if I am walking a bit of a distance, That I'm looking where I'm walking and not just staring up at the wall or staring up at the clouds or [00:19:00] something like that. Okay, okay, that does make me feel better. That's going to decrease the likelihood of me tripping. And so by addressing each of these concerns, that your negative friend has, which is just a part of your thinking, what you're doing is, you're considering it, you're providing them with a solution to each of those things.

As opposed to just going, shut the hell up, stop bringing these things up, I don't want to focus on that. When they're actually trying to be helpful, they're not trying to be a nuisance. And what this does is it starts to completely change the way you see negative thoughts. I'll give you an example, I'll give you a personal example, where this occurred for me.

When I was writing my manuscript for my book, um, I don't know if, You'd know this, but when I wrote the original manuscript, it was actually three books worth of writing. And the editor I was working with at the time when I first started working on [00:20:00] publishing the book said, she said to me, you can't publish this thing.

It's way too big. This is like a Bible for people. You need to cut a lot of things out or break this up into smaller books. And so we broke it down into the first book, which is available. It's called how to do life if you don't have a copy. And. Well, while I was writing that book and I was sitting down to write it, what I found for the first maybe 40, 000 words that I was writing every time I sat down each night, sat down and I would start writing another chapter, I had this thought that would kick into gear really quickly that was basically saying, who the hell are you to be writing a book as if it was a critical comment, not a, not a supportive one in any way.

And I would do what I could to sort of overwrite it, not focus on it, and just focus on getting the writing done. But it happened every time I sat down. Who the hell do you think you are to be writing a book? [00:21:00] And then if I wrote a particular claim in a chapter or something that was a really important principle or concept, again I would hear the same kind of thought.

Like, who are you to say this? Who do you think you are? And it was really fascinating to me. And then eventually I just got to this point where I'm like, okay, I can't ignore this anymore. I can't just push past it because I've still got, um, had 40, 000 words at that point. The book that I wrote ended up being the original manuscript ended up being about 160, 170, 000 words.

So it was quite significant. And I'm like, I can't just push past this for another 120, 000 words or whatever it was like, I've got, Um, there's a lot of work and that's kind of exhausting. So I chose to slow down, turn around and face this criticism of like, who the hell are you to be writing this book? And I thought, okay, I'll use this approach of what if this is a friend, not an enemy?

What if this is a [00:22:00] part of my psyche that's trying to help me in ways that I didn't realize? So it's like, okay, what are you trying to say to me? What's the issue here? I'm like, You are stepping out, putting yourself out there, sharing these ideas, who do you think you are doing so? And I thought, okay, I could sit here and say, and get really defensive about it and say, well, you can shut the hell up.

I know what I'm doing. I know who I am, kind of stand there with a lot of PR pride and arrogance and, uh, overconfidence. And I thought, no, let me be humble about this. And so I sat down and I was like, okay. And I was writing this out by hand at the time through a, a journal entry and I'd. I landed on, my name is Giorgio Genis.

I have overcome a lot of my own anxiety, panic, depression, and confusion in life. And I've helped a lot of other people do the same thing in theirs. And so [00:23:00] these writings are my attempt to document my experience for myself, but also to help other people that might be looking for this kind of help. This isn't for everyone, and it doesn't have to be for you.

And I realized it was just me sharing my experiences. It wasn't me trying to say, everybody needs to listen to me. It wasn't me saying, I'm everybody's hero. What can we come through and save the day? I'm going to change the world and people don't realize it. This was me just being really humble about and going, this is what I've experienced.

This is how I've helped myself. This is how I've helped others. This is what's worked for me. And I'm just documenting this for other people to be able to use in their lives. And you can take it or leave it. No harm, no foul, no judgment. If you don't want it, that's totally okay. There's nothing wrong with you for not wanting this stuff.

And I won't take it personally. It's not a personal rejection. It may just be that you don't like my style of communication, or you don't like what I'm particularly sharing. And that's fine. [00:24:00] And when I was able to address it that way, it calmed down this criticism. And what I realized was that criticism was trying to help me prepare for the potential criticism that I get when I release this book.

And I continue to build an audience and share this with more and more people. It stopped being about the approval of others and became more about, this is what I've got, you're welcome to it if you like. No harm, no foul. And because I had an actual answer to the question of who do you think you are? And it was a genuine answer and it was humble.

The negative thought stopped coming up. So every time I sat down to write the next chapter, I didn't experience that negative thought coming in saying, who do you think you are? Because I had addressed it. Not attacked it, not shut it down and suppressed it. I just sat down, slowed down and spoke to this part of my psyche, so to speak as a friend, like as if it's trying to help me in some way by [00:25:00] being overprotective.

When I was able to address that issue head on, it all changed. It all calmed down because in that moment I was being reminded of the value of negative thoughts. It was a really important lesson for me. Because that was something I was teaching, but I had forgotten it for myself, which is irony at its finest.

So, for me, what I keep coming back to whenever people tell me that they're struggling with negative thinking or negative thoughts, they don't know how to overcome it, my immediate response is, don't judge it, let's find the value in it, because it's trying to help you. And when you approach it through the lens of it being a friend that's trying to help you, your experience of negative thoughts will change.

You won't judge them. You won't try and get rid of them, but you will lean in and try and understand them. And by understanding them and appreciating them, they dissolve. So it's a little bit of an unpopular opinion. It's certainly not necessarily popular in the entrepreneurial spaces, especially the, the [00:26:00] brute force just push through everything guys out there.

I don't need to name drop, but if you're in that space, you know who I'm talking about. I'm not about that. I'm more about just understanding them because you completely disarm this part of your mind. When you realize that it's helping you and it stops looking like an enemy and starts looking like a friend So, please don't judge these aspects of yourself.

It's not random. It's not coming from nowhere It's coming up for a very specific reason Now I can also give you this really quickly if you keep hearing the same Inner criticism or the same dialogue that keeps coming up in your mind. What can happen is It's the voice of somebody else from your past, who would say things like that all the time.

Like, you're not good enough to do something like that. That was something that maybe you heard from a sibling, or an aunt, or an uncle, or a teacher, or a friend, or whomever back when you were younger. And it was their voice initially, but you kept playing [00:27:00] that in your mind enough that it eventually internalized to the point where you say the exact same words they said, but in your own voice.

And so later in life, it sounds like it's your own thought. It sounds like it's you, but in reality, it was installed by somebody else at a time that you were impressionable and you believed them. So that's something to consider because what that is, what that's trying to show you is there's a part of you that has this unresolved experienced from your past.

And so if you're able to trace back to where that comes from and what that experience is, that will then help you start to alleviate some of the pressure and realize, Oh, that was what my sister said to me when we were younger and she was criticizing me and it turned out she was criticizing me, not because the criticism was warranted because I'm actually crappy at doing whatever happens to be or I'm not good enough, but it was because she was angry that I was getting more attention than she was at the time.

And then suddenly it takes the meaning out of it. It shifts the meaning and the [00:28:00] context because you're realizing, Oh, it wasn't an attack. It was her feeling upset about something. She was lashing out and making it sound like I wasn't worthy. When in reality, she was just in pain and had nothing to do with me.

And it kind of liberates you from that experience. And so then in the present day, that in a dialogue of that criticism that you would have, that you're used to hearing in your own voice, but was your sister's original words, it stops affecting you. So I want to give you that little piece because sometimes it does come from your past.

I can't overgeneralize, but the reality is sometimes these experiences do come from the past. And whenever I've had that come up with people, I will trace it back. I will work through and change the perception of that original experience. And then that whole narrative, that whole dialogue of you're not good enough, you didn't do as well as you should have, or you're not worthy or whatever that the little statement is in their mind, that dissipates too, because it's no longer something that they're reliving from their past.

So I thought I might give you that little caveat because, [00:29:00] um, I think sometimes people struggle with that too. All right, so with that being said, please take the time to understand the negative thoughts. Don't suppress them. Don't push them aside. Engage with them like they're a child or they're a friend that's trying to communicate something to you and the only way they know how to is through fear, is through negative thoughts, is through worry, is through some kind of criticism, whatever it may be.

Slow down, engage with it, listen, dialogue with that part of yourself. Try and understand the gift of what it's trying to show you and prepare for the different circumstances that it's painting out for you. And you'll find that it calms down because it's just that really overprotective part of yourself, trying to help you avoid pain, because we all have these parts of ourself that are important to overcome and transcend.

If we want to master our lives and our mind, We've got these parts that are avoiding pain and chasing pleasure. So if we can override those and transcend them, we're no longer being [00:30:00] ruled by these two different parts, and we start to govern them. So anyway, they're my thoughts and negative thoughts. Come back to this.

Re listen to this as many times as you need, because there's a good chance that Like, I've crammed a lot in here. I haven't gone really deep, but I've also crammed, I've made this kind of dense for you because I want you to make as, extract as much value as you possibly can, each time you come to this episode, you'll hear something different.

So, my hope is it's valuable, my hope is that it frees you from this dogma and this way of thinking that negative thoughts are bad. They're not, they serve a purpose. I've been doing this for a long time and I haven't found a situation where that's not true. So hopefully that helps you. That's my aim.

Anyway, thank you for listening. Thank you for being here. I really do hope that you get value from it and please make sure you leave a review. If you're listening to the podcast on Spotify or Apple [00:31:00] podcasts, it makes a huge difference. It helps let other people know that we're bringing value. this is a podcast to check out.

You may actually change somebody's life with your review. So, uh, I ask that you spend a minute doing so. And, um, in the meantime, we'll keep producing content and getting it out to you. Thank you so much for being here. Lots of love. I'm Georgio Genaus. I'll see you in the next episode.