Changing Your Mindset with Jamie Smart | Business Survival Livestream 014

Note: This transcription has been generated with AI and there may be errors present. 

The red buttons appear Jamie, I think this means only one thing. We are live on the internet. Okay. Hey, it’s like Good to see you. And just I’m just gonna wait a few few seconds and waffle for a bit whilst whilst we get a few folks that join us for the live stream. I know that there’s some people that are excited for this. Not because I’m here, because you’re here, the one and only Jamie smart. Thank you for joining us.

Well, I’m excited because I’m here. Because I want to only Simon pay and it’s all good.

Oh, stop. Let’s just do this for an hour. It makes me feel good.

Wait, no, I’m basically doing fluff talk well, while I share this to my to my Facebook page, and all that sort of thing, so it’s fine. I can share it to my story. I don’t think I’ve ever done that before.

That’s pretty cool. Great, we’ve got a bunch of people joining us, which is great. Fantastic to see. Fran to reserve, Colleen. So that’s we’ve got Wales, Bristol, and Yeovil covered. So that’s the West of England, Ireland, as well. Brilliant. John Carter said, Jamie, thank you for sharing the stream. We’ll get a bunch of people vote, please, can you engage with this post? like it, comment, share, and let’s get as many people watching this as possible, because the topic that we’re going to cover tonight is one that is so important for us all right now and you know, I forget the words that we use, but the thing that went through my head is just about our mojo and our mental health. At a time when the world has gone crazy. We’re gonna we’re gonna dive into this stuff for sure. So I’m hugely grateful that internationally renowned speaker, Sunday Times bestselling author, and founder of multiple companies, but most recently, clarity, clarity, HQ,

clarity, Atomy, clarity,

clarity Academy. That’s it. Jamie, you’ve achieved many things. And I think what I wanted to share with everybody tonight, is how you and I met just before we get into this stuff, because I think there’s a business lesson in here too. And it also gives me an opportunity to plug your books because I can always it will sound better coming from me that will from you.

Perfectly take that opportunity I encourage.

I’m a fanboy. Jamie, I’m going to go a little bit giddy for a few minutes. Obviously talk about this, because go for it. Which is awesome. Let’s just say hi to some of the pop up crew, Lisa como Jenny’s here. Oliver afterdark. Great to see you, Danielle, and so on. So look, let’s get into this. I think it was about two years ago. It was about two years ago, almost to the day wandering around Waterstones, I can’t remember which city I was in. And I was going through that moment that we all go through multiple times in our lives when we go. I just don’t quite know what I’m here for. I don’t know what my purpose is. I think I need some clarity. And I think that you know what, I think I’m not getting the results that I want out of life. And as honestly, as I’m getting I think I told you this. So as I’m walking through Waterstones, there are two books on the shelf next to each other. One of them was called Clarity. And the other one was called results. And I I looked around and this I literally just having this thought and here are these books. This is a moment of serendipity. So I bought the books I did my classic thing of buying something that I was excited about didn’t look at them for about four or five months. And then managed to when I went on holiday with the family managed to grab some time in the shade by the pool somewhere. And I devoured results. I think I read them backwards, I devoured results. Then I read half of it again. And then I dove into clarity. And I have to say those two books. I was in a really, I was in the right headspace to read them. I think I was in a place of wanting some clarity figuring out which direction to go in. And I think what surprised me the most Jamie was that in the books said the opposite of what I thought they were going to say I thought you were going to give me a strategy. But you didn’t you kind of remove the stuff. And I think this is so genius. It’s simple. So that that got me that got me interested in. Well, let’s talk about how we met a little bit later. Welcome to the pop up business school live stream. As you know, we’ve been running these to create a business survival guide to help people survive and thrive in the times that we’re in right now. And you’re very generously giving up your time. I know how busy you are at the moment. But I guess, just as a starter for 10, and just just a warm staff, I’ve got some big questions for you, as you know, I always have this big questions, and we’ll get into that. But the thing that’s gone through my mind is, how are you doing in all of this stuff? What’s going on with you guys? And how has it been for you?

Well, I gotta admit, I feel very, very fortunate, Simon for a couple of reasons. The first is because of the understanding that I have, and that I teach others it. Certainly kind of psychologically, and emotionally, we haven’t been impacted in the same way that I know a lot of people have not, I gotta say, there are also a number of blessings. You know, my heart goes out to people who have been taken ill or have loved loved ones who are ill, or have lost businesses, like I know, people with certain types of businesses are in a terrible situation at the moment, my heart goes out to those people. So I’ve been lucky as well. And I know a lot of people who are there kind of material circumstances, if you’d like haven’t been affected. And yet, they’re kind of losing their minds with worry, and anxiety and that sort of thing. And it’s funny, I was thinking about it, Simon, you know, a lot of people say, Oh, it’s the uncertainty that so difficult is the uncertainty, but I was thinking about it, and thought, well, actually, four months ago, say, or five months ago, maybe November, December of last year, we had a lot of certainty, if you’d have asked me, you know, what’s, what’s the first six months of 2020 going to be like, I would have told you a story that involved my goals and ambitions, it would have been something along the lines of quite a bit like this year, but a little bit better in these ways, and quite a lot better in those ways, and a bit different in those ways, and that sort of thing. And if you just said, How certain are you about that? I would have said, Oh, probably eight out of 10 certainty. But that would have been a total illusion. Right? I may have been feeling good about how certain I was, but it would have been dead wrong. So now, we’ve actually got no less certainty, quote, unquote, than we did. In fact, we’re closer to reality now than we were six months ago. So it looks to me like what people are describing as uncertainty is actually it’s the removal of, of the illusion of misplaced certainty. That’s that that’s what we’ve been. That’s what we’ve been hit by that the illusion of misplaced certainty is being kind of ripped away. And we’re like, oh, that was a bit much. Okay. What next?

I love that. Okay, there’s lots of stuff in there that this this really interesting to unpick, I think, What do you mean, when you say, in some ways, we’re closer to reality? Now, what’s behind that?

Well, just that, just that, you know, the the if we look at the what what we’re seeing where we’re seeing whether whether we’re looking at the impacts on the health system, or the economy or flights or businesses that so I think what the Coronavirus has done is just revealed a bunch of fragility in the system that fragility was there in November, December, January was just invisible to us, right? And now it’s visible. It’s like, well, having it visible is better than not having it was more dangerous when it was invisible. It’s sort of like if you’re, you know, you’re driving along in your car and the axles about to break. You’re at the most dangerous point just before it breaks, because you don’t know what’s about to happen.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And now, and I guess that perfectly explains what you mean, by the illusion of certainty that we yeah, we put all this stuff around us because that’s what feels normal.

Yeah. Yeah. And, and so I, a lot of the people who are also kind of interested in the understanding that I teach the, the the principles, the three principles as articulated by a guy called Sidney banks, one of the things that I’ve noticed is a lot of people kind of in that world have said to me, I’m so grateful to understand the stuff that I do to know the stuff that I do, because it doesn’t mean that they’re not subject to the ups and downs and you know, the, the difficulties of the current moment, but it’s just there’s a certain amount of psychological wear and tear that you’re not necessarily going to have to be subjected to. Once you understand kind of, kind of where your experience is coming from and, and, and kind of how, how your mind works to put it. To put it simply

Well, there are three or four people that that I know quite well, all of them senior guys, including Ashley, who’s, who’s part of the pop up business school crew. One of the shareholders of the business and every person that I speak to that’s heard of three principles and had some sort of training or exposure to it, are completely evangelical about the power of it. And it seems to be quite recent, it’s been around for some time, isn’t it?

He’s been around well, Sidney banks, the guy who first kind of articulated it, he, he had an insight experience into this stuff in the early 70s, like 1974. But he would be the first to say that he just described something that’s been been around since the beginning of time, and that all the, you know, the different spiritual traditions and mystics of old and that sort of thing were pointing to. But the amazing thing about banks, in my opinion, is he expressed this in kind of modern language, that’s kind of relative, I don’t want to say easy to get your head around, because that’s not quite it. But it just that makes it apprehensible to people, you know, living in 21st century UK or America or whatever. And the thing I love about it is, it’s the first thing I’ve I’ve ever come across, where you don’t, where there’s nothing for you to that you have to put into practice, or remember or learn to do, or whatever, all you need to do is get a glimpse of something that’s already there. Like, what what banks was doing when he first articulated this stuff, he was pointing something that’s already true. He said, this is this is already going on. This is already going on. Like the people who first discovered viruses, for instance, they didn’t invent viruses, they just said, Hey, there’s these invisible things that actually explain a lot of what’s going on. If you find out about those that’s going to help you out? Well, well, it’s kind of the same with this, it’s like it, there’s something that you can discover about yourself and about how your mind works. And if you if you learn this, if you discover it, it’s gonna do something for it’s gonna help you out.

So I guess, you know, many of the people that will be watching the live stream, perhaps wouldn’t heard of wouldn’t have heard of three principles. What do you think of the the major kind of? I hesitate to say benefits, but what’s the what’s the difference that you can expect in your life? You know, you talked about the psychological wear and tear, for example, what do you think it’s someone that that gets this glimpse of something that’s already there? And I’ll ask you in a moment, you know, where, where we start with that stuff. If you’re new to three principles, what the starting point might be and get your expertise to explain it would be great. But But what’s in it for us? If we go, okay, there’s all these different ways of thinking. And there’s lots of strategies out there for us to live improve lives and so on What, what’s different about three principles? And what benefits can we expect?

Well, let’s start with the benefits. And I don’t want to I don’t want to, I don’t want to sell the benefits too hard, because it’s, it’s it’s kind of individual in case by case basis kind of thing. But I can, let me start by telling you the benefits I’ve experienced in my own life. I I used to, before I came across this understanding, I used to hear people talk about connection, you felt a connection with someone about love and connection. And that was interesting. I never really experienced that I could get into rapport with people. But I never really felt connected to people never really felt that close to people. And these days, I experienced more connection in the average day or week that I used to in the average year. And so what it’s meant is that your relationships or just have more love in them. More Love there. Have more understanding and more. Yeah, more peace in relationships. Not all the time. Not all the relationships. But yeah, there’s there it’s there to be seen. It’s there to be experienced. So I’ve seen that a lot. And I’ve seen that with a lot of my clients. A lot of my students, a lot of the people, the staff is just just relationships are better and less worry and anxiety. Eddie about stuff. You know, I think it’s funny I’ve, I’ve been giving some thought to, to what we like how to describe what we do as a business. And I’m doing a pretty bad job of it at the moment. So I thought, well, let’s, let’s see if I can. Let’s see if I can come up with something a little a little catch here a little a little more explanatory. So read you kind of where I’ve got to with this. My latest, my latest take on it. This is this is draft. But check this out. People have so much noise in their heads these days. And while we all know how important it is to declutter our desks, very few people know how to declutter declutter their minds, we show people how to clear their minds automatically. So they can get an effortlessly clear mind with productivity, presence, fulfilment, love and connection in their lives. And they automatically thing is, is the important bit like, like, for instance, on this conversation. So, before we got to this session tonight, I was like, Okay, I’ve got to get on two minutes before we start caring going to eat my lamb chop that I was working on. Before I before I started, I was like, Okay, how am I going to prepare for this session? It’s like, when Simon’s asking me questions, I’ll listen to him. Okay, that’s my plan. My plan, I’ll listen to him, and then I’ll answer the questions as best I can. So I’m not worried or anxious or nervous about it, like I might have been. But I wouldn’t necessarily be anxious or nervous about the fact that I was anxious or nervous, just, it’s just the ebb and flow of feeling. So there’s that there’s, but the so the automatically bet, like during this conversation, you and I are going in and out of that feeling of connection, like sometimes a little more connected, sometimes a little less connected, but it’s automatic, it’s not like either of us is doing anything to make that happen. So it just it the way I like to think of it, it’s subtractive, it takes stuff off your mind, and leaves you free to be present and show up in the moment. See what I notice. Seidman is, a lot of times the things that cause people kind of psychological and emotional wear and tear.

It’s the stuff that isn’t actually going on right now. They’re thinking about next week or next month, or they’re thinking about last week or last month, or when they were a child, or what that guy said, or what or what I should have said to him or all that stuff. So So like if you stop and think about it for a moment, the average rabbit like on our local common here, in in Nottingham, where I live the average rabbit a day in their life is like being in the Vietnam War, right, their dogs chasing them around. They’re, they’re birds of prey trying to eat them for lunch. They’re, you know, people in danger of running them over with their cars or their bikes, or whatever. So the average rabbit is is that every day is a major threat to life and lamb. And yet, most of the day, they’re hanging out and you know, eating and having sacks. They’re like they’re there. And they’re not, they’re not dying of stress related illnesses. No rabbits die of getting eaten or squished by bikes or, or injury, Injury or that sort of thing. They’re not, you know, they’re not dying because they smoke too much or, you know, had a heart attack because they were too stressed or whatever. They go into fight or flight once or twice a day. And then they chill and enjoy themselves well, that they’re not caught up in preoccupation with the past or the future or other people’s opinions of them or all that stuff. And yet most of us are like a lot of the time. And that’s what causes the wear and tear. And the only reason we’re caught up in that stuff is because it genuinely seems like it makes sense to be caught up in that stuff. Because it genuinely looks like a threat or that sort of thing. And the moment you start to see oh, that’s not true. That’s not true, then your system reorients and reorganises. And you get to act accordingly.

Very nice. So there’s a few people that are joining us we’re going to cover we’ll probably cover three topics tonight unless we get massively immersed in this which I find awesome. So we’re covering is covering mental health and and how to free ourselves from you know, thoughts of anxiety, you know, worry about the future thoughts of the past and so on. The things that hold us back from, you know, from from living happy lives, the things that hold us back from being rabbits. That sounded like quite an appealing day actually is you just Yeah, I quite like the sound of that. It sounds like sign me up, whichever course that is sign me up, I guess. So we’re going to cover mental health, I’m going to invite people to ask any questions they would like to ask about this topic. And I’m going to ask Jamie in a second about where we need to look. And, you know, if we were searching for something that gave us a glimpse of thinking differently, and having a different blueprint for our thoughts, where we might start, if it’s the first time that we’ve been introduced to different concepts, like this thing, three principles. I’m also going to ask Jamie some questions about running an online business because you transition to online. I mean, you’ve been doing stuff online for a long time, but you actually fully transitioned to online, was at the end of this last year or early this year,

we’ve so we’ve been for programmes we’ve been doing online, live streaming access to our programmes for years, seven years, actually. But at the beginning of this year, for the first time ever, I said, You know what, because what we be noticing Simon, on our we do a certification programme, which is like seven months of what we’d noticed it, we’d been offering live streaming access on that. So we had people joining us from all around the world over the years. But as the years went by, I noticed more and more people on the live stream, even if they lived in England, so the people who lived locally or some someone who lives in London would come and join us for the day on Saturday that on Sunday, they’d be like, Yeah, I’m staying in bed and doing it remotely. So by the end of last year’s programme, the balance attached to we had more people on live streaming more, more of the time that were in the room. And I could see the way this was going, it was going to be pretty soon it would be me in the venue by myself with a film crew and everyone else sitting at home and chilling. So I thought, well, let’s cut to the chase. So this year, we said, okay, only the first module in January, and the last module in July, would have a live in person component. And everything else would be live streamed. So we all got together for the live in person module in January and had a bunch of people live streaming as well. And then February, we had our first live stream only module. By March, everyone was on live stream all the way, right, because that’s the way the world has changed. So I know at this at this point, there’s a question mark, to me, I don’t know what the world’s gonna look like in terms of running in room events going forward. So I’m working on the basis that our primary position going forward is live stream. And if there’s a way to do live in person events, come, you know, come next year or whatever, or come July, for that matter, they can great, but for the moment, it looks like it looks like there’s a question mark over that. I don’t know when the venues are gonna open up again, and all that sort of stuff. So yeah, it I feel very, very fortunate to have made that call this year.

Great. So look, please ask Jamie, your questions on mental health that the topic that we’ve been talking about so far, and that we’re going to continue on for a little longer. Please ask me questions about running an online business. And we’re also going to get on to on to publishing because you’ve written a number of books, I just mentioned two of them. And I know that there’s a bunch of people that are watching that are interested in that process. And when we had a conversation about it, I think those early tips that you gave me were, were very useful. Actually, I never would have considered it that way. And so let’s get into that. So questions about writing, getting published questions about running an online business, or questions about how to free ourselves from the anxieties of 21st century living, plus, virus locked down, and this added layer of unexpected stuff that we’re all that we’re all dealing with. So I’m going to get into the three principles again in a second. But first, I must just share the story of how we met. So I basically stalked Jamie on Twitter for about three months after reading your books, and that one of the most common questions we get asked at the pop up business school is, you know, how do you how do you use social media to sell now I wasn’t doing it for any other reason. Then I was just pumped by reading your books. So after reading your books, I listened to all of the podcast episodes that I could cram in during that time. And every time I listened to an episode, I’m like, tweeting you, and I’m tweeting the guests and, and so on. And I think after some time, you must have been going, Who the hell is this guy that keeps tweeting me? And then you read the pop up business school website thought that there was maybe some kind of crossover and you got in touch and then yeah, we met for coffee, that’s lunch and so on. So that to me is an example I often share a pop up and I wasn’t doing it. for business reasons I was doing it just authentically, just as a person that when I was inspired by this stuff, I’m gonna keep sharing it. But it’s fascinating to me that, that we we ended up being friends as a result of it. And we’ve almost done business together. But not it didn’t quite happen. But it’s gonna happen. I’m sure that

one of these days and here’s the thing, I just got interested notice you popping up on my timeline, then when I checked out what you guys are up to, I was like, this is cool. This is I really, there was something very fresh and exciting about the model. And so like when I came and did a did a talk for you guys in Westminster and stuff, it’s just so I just love the energy of what you’re doing.

Thank you very much. Yeah, it was a great fit. And I remember you got mobbed at that event afterwards, as well. Lots of people were, were interested. So let’s, let’s carry on our conversation around the three principles, because I understand it’s a couple of questions are coming in, and we’ll get jack to join us on the live. And we’ll hear a couple of those questions. So. Okay, so So let’s say I’m someone that, and this has been me, for sure. Who spends lots of time thinking about things that I can’t control. You know, I’m worried about what people think, or I’ve seen something on social media that’s bothering me, or, you know, maybe someone’s commented on something, or I’m worrying about what’s going to happen in a year’s time, I’m worrying about how, what people are going to think about something, I’m worried about my family, I’m worried we kind of cope with these worries, don’t worry, and where, where should I? Where should I start looking for this glimpse of a different way of thinking, that doesn’t involve a different it’s not a strategy. It’s just knowing something? Where do I stop to look, if I’ve never heard of three principles before? Well, where am I begin that journey?

Well, let me let me tell you how it looks to me. And then you can see if this is of any help at all. Like the way that our the way that our experience is created, it’s kind of the most amazing thing like I know, to all of us, as we sit here, it, it genuinely seems like we’re kind of looking out through our eyes, right? Like we’re, we live, it seems like we live inside our heads and inside our bodies. And then we look out through these little windows, in our skulls, the world out there in the room around us or wherever you are. But that’s not actually what’s going on, there are no windows in your skull, what’s going on is data is pouring in through your senses. And then the mind is creating a gas. What must be going on around you for you to be receiving this data. So so the the the world at hand that we perceive is an internally generated gas. And that’s the that’s the strangest thing of all. And so given that that’s what’s going on, it’s really important that we have a way of knowing what kind of guests we’re walking around then. So that’s what our feelings are for. Because Because at a deep systemic level, we know that we’re, we’re guessing, like we may not this may be the first time you’ve heard it, but at a deep systemic level, you know, you’re guessing. And so our feelings are there to tell us what kind of what kind of mood we’re in basically like so for instance, you’ll you’ll you’ll relate to this Simon, if I’m feeling angry or annoyed. It, it seems to me like that feelings letting me know about whatever I’m thinking about, like if I’m thinking about, you know, something someone said to me, it’ll seem to me like that feelings telling me about them and what they said, but actually, that’s feelings just telling me that I’m wearing annoyed goggles in that moment. And you’ve had this yourself, you know, you might be annoyed at someone one day you go to sleep you wake up the next morning, you like you just see them differently. It’s like oh, they probably didn’t mean that. You just have a different experience of it. Well, that’s because you’re wearing different goggles the next morning, now so a lot of times when people hear that they think oh, so I need to learn to put on better goggles. But that’s not even at the issue. Isn’t that we’re feeling whatever goggles we’re wearing. That’s just how the system works. The issue is we believe our feelings are telling us about something other than the goggles we’re wearing but they’re not. So it’s like it’s it’s really useful to know what kind of goggles you’re wearing. Sometimes you’re wearing happy goggles sometimes where you’re wearing sad goggles. Sometimes you’re wearing frustrated goggles baby people watching this are wearing wearing confused goggles at the moment. That’s not unusual either. When People listen to me, or or board goggles sometimes or out or amused goggles or whatever your feelings are letting you know about the the totality of the internally generated virtual reality you’re hanging out in in any given moment. That’s really important. Because when it comes to worry, like I bet there are people watching this, who were worried and anxious about specific stuff happening, there was going to be happening now. And now none of it’s happening. Like I was worried about things going on in the world, that they’re not even happening, like because we’re all locked down and that sort of thing. It’s like, well, it was made up was made up. Like the issue isn’t that people sometimes here’s the bottom line.

I was coaching someone, Simon in front of in front of an audience at a conference, right? I’m coaching this woman. And she was someone who was, had been she I said, What do you want coaching? And she said, Well, I’ve been trying to get my business started. But I’ve been procrastinating about it. I said, Oh, she goes, she goes, Yeah, I, I keep telling myself, it’s going to work out, okay. And it’s going to be a success. And I know I need to think positive. But at the back of my mind, I’ve got this fear that it might fail. And I know I shouldn’t think that I know I should be positive. But in the back of my mind, it’s like I might fail. I said, Oh, well, let me clear that up for you. Your business might fail, it might not work out the way you want it to. And she’s like, you’re not supposed to say that you’re supposed to be positive. You’re supposed to be my coach helping me to be positive and that sort of thing. I’m like, no good. Are you kidding me? Lots of businesses fail that that’s that’s not the issue. The issue isn’t that things not might not work out the way you’re imagining it. That’s not the issue. The issue is, you don’t believe you could handle it. If it worked, if it didn’t work out the way you want it to. And you could, you could you’re capable of way, way more than you think like you the fact that you’re even here means if you stop and think about it for a moment, the fact that we’re here means that we we come from a long line of organisms that managed to survive until breeding age, have sex at least once and pass on their genetic material to the next generation. And the fact that we’re sitting here in the 21st century, having this conversation means that happened millions of times in succession, on a planet where most creatures get eaten by before they ever reach breeding age. So that means like, you’re the spearhead of evolution, you’re built for reality, you’re you’re optimised for results, there’s very little that life can throw at you that will take you out of the game psychologically. Funny thing. One of my favourite books is this book called anti fragile by Nassim to lab, amazing book. And he makes this point he said, you know, as human beings, we have a certain amount of anti fragility and what it means like that is we’re strengthened by adversity, we’re strengthened by adversity. But in many ways, we’re conditioned to believe that we can’t handle adversity. But actually, what you see is oftentimes people come alive in the face of adversity. So I think, you know, if I was to cut to the chase, it would be the issue isn’t that bad things are gonna happen, or the shits gonna come down from time to time or that you’re going to have obstacles and stumbling blocks and bad turns of events. And that’s, I think that’s going to happen life, as Sid banks used to say, life’s a contact sport. That’s not the issue. The issue is people don’t believe they can handle it. And you can, yeah, you’re, you’re capable of far more than you think. Because you are far more than you think there’s that while there are absolutely things that can harm our physical bodies. And I encourage you to wash your hands for 20 seconds and wear your seatbelt and, you know, don’t run with scissors and all that sort of stuff. There’s nothing that can damage who you really are. There’s nothing that can damage your acids, the the core of your being your your, your psychologically safe. And you may not have realised that until now, you may have been told otherwise. You know, I was coaching someone recently who had got the message when they were a young person, that they were broken, there was something wrong with them. They believed that for a long time, it was never true. It was never true. Not because there was something special about them, but it’s because it’s the case for all of us that who we are, cannot be broken doesn’t mean fixing you know, they’re there. Sid banks apparently said, There’s nothing outside that can hurt you. And there’s nothing outside that can help you. Because there’s nothing outside.

So I feel like I feel like that moment when you came to Westminster, we got to this sort of same sort of moment, and a lot, lots of lots of food for thought in there, Jamie, lots of food for thought for sure.

You’re just saying that because you haven’t eaten since sunset last night.

Just before we came on, it wasn’t a lamb shot. But I was just thinking like, even the words food, I saying the word food and thought in the same way, you’re right, it’s to do with food. I think, you know, when I read that, in your book, and I’ve done a bit of reading around three principles, and I think, this concept of who you really are, when I first read that, I thought to myself, right, I need to find out who I really am, I’ll make a list, I need a strategy of who I really am. And then that’s what can’t be damaged. And I missed the point here. Because this sense of, of, you know, all of the things that we surround ourselves with, you know, that our phones, our laptops, our homes, and so on these comforts that we have. It’s really interesting to sort of think, well, actually, whatever happens, I can deal with it. Yeah. And that was a revelation for me, because I spent lots of time worrying about something. When I discovered this stuff, with your help, it was less about what might happen. And more about what it doesn’t matter what happens because I It’s okay, because I can deal with it.

Yeah. Yeah. And it’s funny, you know, one of the one of the questions I really like is, is, you know, what’s, what’s an experience you’ve had, that you something you’ve been through that you wouldn’t wish to repeat. But that actually, you’ve emerged for that you wouldn’t be without either that you’ve been strengthened by you’ve grown I know, You’ve been stuck through stuff in your own life that that you’ve learned from? You’ve been striking to me. It’s funny, you know, I was talking to a group by this tonight. We hear a lot about post traumatic stress. But there’s another another thing which we don’t hear so much about, which is post traumatic growth. And lots of people can point very, very specifically to, to things that were hard at the time, but they grew through and they that their life is richer for having been through. And yeah, you’re, you’re, like I said, don’t run with scissors and all that stuff. But you’re you’re far more resilient than you think. And that, that question of, you know, finding out who you really are. Well, what I’m going to suggest is, well, I’ll give you a quick the way I see it, you know, if you think about in the course of the average day, I’ll often ask people how many times you reckon you say I am involved things. Yeah, I am Simon, I am Jamie. I’m a CEO. I am tall, I am short. I am hungry. I am tired. I am happy. I am sad. Like we say I am over and over again in different ways, at different times. And how it looks to me Simon is that if you imagine like a big warehouse full of costumes, Halloween costumes, every time we say I am, we’re shining a light on one of those Halloween costumes. You know, I am I am a father Oh, okay. There’s that’s kind of that comes to life in our experience. But if you think about it, from a mathematical point of view, saying, I am a father, I am happier. I am sad or I’m hungry or I am tired. Sort of like going i equal that thing. If you look at all of those, the thing that’s the same in all of them is I it’s fixed. It’s a constant. And what I’m going to suggest is that who you are who you really are, isn’t any of the things that follow that statement. I am I am tall, I am short. I am happy. I am sad. I am old. I am young. I am clever. I am stupid. You’re not any of the words at the end of that sentence. Who you are is the bit at the beginning of it. You know if if each of the words at the end of that sentence is like a Halloween costume that you’re shining a light on Who you are as the light? Who you are is the consciousness that’s illuminating it. That’s where you are. You’re not. You’re not your body. You’re the one that’s experiencing a body. And that’s why you can’t be harmed by anything. Yeah, yeah. Because you’re not made of something that can be harmed by anything.

You’ve definitely sparked some people’s interest in Jamie, I think,

sparked in the terms of what the hell is he going on?

I think I think we should get jack on this. Because I I’ve been doing my best to stay away from the stream tonight so that I can be present with you whilst we’ve been chatting. And I’ve had a look a few times I can see a few bits happening here. I think we can ask the audience here for some questions about this. If you need some more explanation from Jamie, there’s a couple of challenges that have come in. I understand how this would work in this circumstance. So let’s talk about that. If you’re up for that, but I am going to need Jack’s help for that if Jack Well, I know Jack hasn’t gone to the pub. I know that he has got some BrewDog in his fridge though. So I’m hoping that Jack is there look like the genie. Yep, Jack’s just popped up. There you go. It’s the jacking pop up business school. Jack is the star of the show. As of now. Everybody say hello to Jack. Hi, Jack. Jack has been working tirelessly behind the scenes were since he joined the team, but in particular since locked down. And he said to me that he doesn’t like Tuesday and Thursday evening, just generally, he doesn’t like watching films, he doesn’t like drinking BrewDog he would rather hang out on Zoom calls with me and everybody that’s watching the live stream. So Jack, you rock with bells on. I hope at some point you’ve been reading the feed. Let’s let’s hear the good and the good in the challenging. You know, what stuff have you picked up from? What are people saying about Jamie’s talk tonight?

I think I think you’ve blown some minds tonight. We’ve had people in the chat kind of going. But so the best the best way to describe is actually Blackmore has been in the chat to discuss about the three principles as well. And he said that the three principles is one of the most difficult things he’s ever come across to explain. He said, Is there a concise version explaining that? Or is it? Is it such a vast subject?

Is there a concise version? Um, well, I’ll tell you how I sometimes explain it. The principles are just talking about your innate capacity, for insight for resilience, for realisation for learning, for love for connection, these are all built in, you know, if you stop and think about it for a moment, we, we there are a million personal development books about how to be more loving how to be more resilient, how to be more happy, how to be more, whatever. But actually, happiness is so easy that a baby can do it. You know, it’s built in, it’s already built him. All these qualities that we’re told we need to cultivate. They’re already there. Love, Peace, joy, happiness, wisdom, resilience, they’re already built in. And like if you if you look at the average three year old, and compare them to the average 33 year old, who’s got the best mental health, it’ll sure look like it’s the three year old. So the thing that is different isn’t something that’s been taken away. It’s been something that’s been put in the way it’s layers of false beliefs about who we are and how the world works. So the three year old hasn’t bought into that stuff yet. And so the process of of seeing this understanding this learning that more deeply for yourself is really just seeing what’s already there seeing like, you know, it’s funny, Simon, I’ll often ask people in fact, I asked people at the talk that I did for you guys is when do you get your best ideas and I’ll ask the people on the live stream. When do you get your best ideas. Now I’m going to make a prediction that the answers that are going to start coming in and type them in, we want to hear right, but prove me wrong. When do you get your best ideas, here are the kinds of answers we’re getting get in the shower, in the bath. When I’m exercising, when I’m out for a walk, when I’m just drifting off to sleep, when I’m just waking up in the morning, when I’m driving to and from work when I’m on holiday, when I’m listening to music, when I’m doing the vacuuming, again, and again. And again, what we’ll see is the people’s best ideas, their insights, their realisations come when they’re not thinking about it when they’ve got their attention on something else. That’s because that’s an innate capacity of the mind, we have an innate capacity for insight and realisation and creativity. And it’s so present that it comes to the surface. So what I’m going to say is, this stuff isn’t complicated at all. It’s actually just about seeing stuff that’s already there. It’s about seeing stuff that’s already there. Just need to have a look. And at first, it’ll seem like it can’t be that simple, can it? It can’t just be just like it’s already built in. Really no, there must be exceptions. I’d be looking for exceptions for 10 years, over 10 years. 11 years now, I haven’t found what I haven’t found a case that’s not explained by this. But don’t take my word for it. Go look for yourself. So what are we getting Jack? When are people getting their best ideas?

There’s a lot of answers coming in actually, people feel best first thing in the morning, when they’re swimming, when they’re running, cycling after healthy after meditation. So we get a lot of like, meditative, I guess, people are taking the moment to

stop almost well. And even here’s the funny thing, even those things like swimming, running, jogging, what you find when someone gets their best ideas, when they’re when they’re out for a run. That’s because when they’re out for a run, they get into a meditative state. Now when I’m up for a run, I don’t get into a meditative state. When I go for a run, I’m going oh, God, I hate this I went slower is gonna last. So I that doesn’t work for me. But if I go for a walk, get into a very meditative state, and then it starts popping. Well, that’s because you got less on your mind. You’re less preoccupied. In fact, I’ve often said, my clients, when when I first start working with a client, they’ve all got the same two problems, the same two challenges. Challenge number one, they’re preoccupied. They’ve got something they’ve been thinking about. And they’ve been thinking about it a lot. In fact, they’ve been thinking about it so much that they can’t really think about it any other way. So that’s the first poll. But then the second challenge they’ve all got is they’re under estimating themselves. They’re under estimating what they’ve got going for them. And so my job to some degree is just to distract them from what they’re preoccupied with for long enough that they start having those insights and good ideas and realisations, and it solves it for him. So Ashley, I don’t know if that simplifies things for you. But it looks ever so simple to me. So I just wish I could talk about it more simply.

See, I love that. That’s the concise resumes agenda. Yeah. Um, we got some other questions. I know, we’re going to be wrapping up in the next 1015 minutes or so. So I want to, I want to ask you a quick question about somebody’s online stuff. Because from the chats that we’ve been having, you seem to have kind of shifted to an online way of presenting at the best possible time in modern history. Yeah, right.

I was lucky that you know, something was happening. No, not

consciously, anyway. I mean, it was, I feel very fortunate to have made the move when I did.

Yes, John, John cart, who was a guest on one of these live streams a few weeks ago, has asked the question, he says, Hi, Jamie, can you talk about giving people value online, building relationships and retaining customers in the long term? So like, how have you? How have you found that some of your, your presentation styles and how you communicate with people as like, pivoted when presenting more to an online than in person, because it’s something that we’re dealing with a pop up at the moment as well.

So So, so Funnily, funnily enough, most of my answer to that question is to do with building long term relationships with people that’s kind of independent of delivery system, like if you stop and think about it for a moment, doing a live presentation online, like we’re doing in the moment, effectively. That’s one delivery system among many. If I think of the different delivery system systems that I’ve got at the moment, there’s online, online, group present live presentation to a large audience. There’s online coaching demos, there’s online one to one coaching, there’s books, there’s podcasts, there’s digital products, they’re showing up live for an event. They’re all delivery systems. But the thing that makes all of that possible is cultivating long term relationships with people. And those long term relationships. often start out with just ways that people can be can engage with your you and your company and your content, your material, the things you’re doing, before they ever meet you, like I I’ve, I’ve met, I’ve met people that I’ve had on workshops with me, who have been following me for one year, two year, three year, four year, five years, six years, seven years before I ever met them, but they’ve been listening they’ve been the way I think about it is they’ve been developing a relationship with me in their minds long before I ever met them, because I’m kind of out there online. They, you know, they’ve been hearing my stories and watching my development and watching me screw things up and all that sort of stuff. So they’ve been on the journey with me. So to me, the, the the fundament, the most important part of the whole thing is relationship. It’s the relationship you’re building with the people who you’re in service to. And those relationships transcend any delivery system. So in terms of how do I deal with doing online, what I’ve previously been doing in room well, for it’s funny, so my, my technical wizard and I, we have a thing called Project Gretzky, Wayne Gretzky, the hockey player famously said, I don’t skate to where the puck is, I skate to where it’s going to be. So when we ran our first certification programme, back in 2013, we had one person who wanted to dial in from Spain. So we just put a laptop in the corner, and she Skyped in from Spain for each session. And I said to our tech wizard, I said, this is the future. And we want the in, I want the in room experience, and the live stream experience to be equal. I want the live stream experience to be as good as the in room experience. So we’d be working on that for seven years, and just doing everything we can to make it as good. So I mean, Zoom is our main, the main thing we’ve been using the whole time, and just designing it so that people are having a really connected, engaged experience, built the different exercises and things that we do are built around being able to be done by someone in room or on live stream. But here’s the other thing, we really wanted people, people who are joining us via live stream to feel like they’re as involved in the programme as everyone else. So when I’m asking, asking for questions, or that sort of thing, we’re not just asking for questions from people in the group, we’re bringing people on live stream into the room way. So we’d have big, you know, a massive TV in the room with their face on it and having direct dialogue with the live streamers and that sort of thing. So just wanting to, to instead of the live stream interface being a barrier, we wanted it to be a way to include people as fully in the experience as the people who are in the room. So that’s it. I think, you know, if I was going to advise someone, I would say, just think about how can you make the experience of live streaming be something that people would be just as happy to pay full price for as the people in the room. And then the cool thing about that is, now that everyone’s on live stream. We’ve been practising this for seven years. So we we we know how to do it.

Can you written that down?

That’s very interesting stuff. No, I love that. Jack, is there any more that you that you want to pull out from the live stream? I wanted to ask Jamie some questions about the books. Is there anything that caught your I

know, you go for it, there’s there’s one or two, but we’ll go through them if we if we’ve got the time. I want to make sure you’ve got the time to wrap up before we before we close up?

Yeah, cool. So Jamie, we had that. We had that really cool luncheon in Nottingham. And one of the questions I asked you was about, you know, everyone’s got got a book or at least a book in them as the old saying goes, and it’s something that I’ve been toying with for some time. And I guess the question I wanted to ask you was probably almost identical to the one that I asked you that time. For the benefit of the people that are watching that are thinking about. Maybe they want to use this type of lockdown to write. Whether it’s fiction, nonfiction, I just want them, you know, what tips would you give people? Because you’ve been through this, you know, right from right from that moment when you went, Okay, I’ve got a lot of when you got years of experience as a coach, you bundled that stuff into into a book, you could have launched it straightaway, you decided to go in different directions, the book came out, you know, what did that process? What was that like for you, when you first decided that you wanted to publish a book? What tips would you give people?

Well, it’s funny, so I funnily enough, one of my one of my dear friends had already published a book and I asked her for some advice, because I was thinking, I’d already written a first draft of the book. And I thought, well, I’ll probably self publish it. But I just asked her advice. She said, she asked me a great question. So this is a lady called Shah wasman, who’s a dear friend and just a powerhouse, great entrepreneur, I. She said, Well, what’s your purpose in writing a book? What do you want to achieve with this? I said, Well, that’s a no brainer. I want to this, this understanding that I’m teaching looks to me like this is to psychology, what the discovery of germs was to medicine is incredibly important. But it’s really left field, hardly anyone’s heard of it. I want to establish credibility for that understanding what she said, Well, if what you’re looking for is authority and credibility, probably want to go with a mainstream publisher. I was like, Oh, great. What’s the what’s the? What are the pros and cons of that? Well, she said, Well, the the upside of it is, they’ll take care of cover design and editing and proofreading and that sort of thing. They may even pay you in advance. I said, What’s the downside? She goes, you don’t really make much money from it, you’ll make maybe 80 pence a copy or something like that. I’m like, those books sell for 11 quid, are you kidding me, the author gets 80 Pence, just like you if you’re lucky. So and so I, the other options are, you can do cooperative publishing. So my buddy Joe Gregory runs a publishing company called rethink press, where they split the profits 5050 with the with the author, so and they take care of a lot of the design and stuff. But I you’re, you know, you need to market and promote it and all that sort of stuff. And then the other way is self publishing, where you get to keep pretty much all the money. But I but you’ve got to do all the work as well. So those are kind of the three options, but depending so if someone’s like, yeah, I want to write a book because I want to make money from selling it. Well, well, it may be that self publishing route is best. It’s kind of horses for courses, I guess is the answer to that. Other tips. I mean, writing a book looks like a big chunk of effort. Like it’s, it’s a lot of it’s looks like quite a lot of work to me. So make sure it’s something you really care about. I think if you’re going to write it like there, there. Yeah, there is there are easier ways to get a message out into the world. So if you unless you really want to write a book, like make sure you write about it, make sure you write about something you care about.

Super cool. Jamie look, I’m conscious of time. This is almost cocoa and biscuit time for me, because look is two minutes past 10. I guess what we’ve done is in the the bottom of the live stream, we’ve put a link to Jamie smart.com. And I think there’s one tip for me would be to dive into Jamie’s podcasts, especially if you’re a coach or you’re interested in being coached. Because you’re very generous with the podcast that you you kind of lift the lid on the process of three principles style coaching. And it’s super interesting to hear you unpick, and we’re not even that sometimes actually, people kind of do it for themselves in your sessions, which is so, so interesting to listen to. And I found the podcast massively engaging and so interesting. So if you wanted to find out a little bit more about three principles, personally, that’d be the place where I’d start and most days at the moment, I’m hitting my head against the wall going, I must listen to some more of Jamie’s podcasts because I got so much from them when I started that journey. So Jamie, thank you very much for giving us your time and sharing some of your insights with us. We’ll post some links in the live stream. Let’s stay in touch and stay safe and all that good stuff. Thank you very much to everybody for watching. We’re gonna post this on the Survival Guide. Next week is a big week for pop up business school because we are launching the rebel entrepreneur podcast that we’ve locked Allen away Summer in Berkshire and he’s been Non super super locked down and he’s not allowed to even go shopping for food until that podcast is done and dusted. And we’ll be launching that on May the fourth. And yes, there is a picture of Alan circulating the internet of him holding a lightsaber. So that’s very exciting for us as our first podcast. So please look out for that. Please share that please get involved. Thank you, everybody for watching. Stay safe.