Category: Ideology

Take small actions. Now, remember, the basis of FYMM is to do things so small we don’t even notice. Also don’t forget, the difference between innovation and the FYMM way, innovative ways involve a shock factor, making a huge, drastic change. Big bold efforts to make change can be counter-productive. They can raise our doubts and fears, they have the ability to initiate the mid-brain, the amygdala. That’s why we don’t want to do grand, innovative things. It can add more stress in our lives. It can lower our creativity because we initiated the fight or flight response, we’ve learned about. But with the FYMM way, Allows us to slide by the amygdala On a direct path to the cortex. Allowing us to execute our strategies, accomplish the plan that we want done, or any goal we want accomplished. Let me give you a couple of examples for eating healthy, exercising, saving money, meeting people, asking for a raise, and using time more productively. 

So let’s get into it. Eating more healthy. These are just steps. Take one. Choose it. Let’s see what happens. Do it for yourself. Toss out one bite of a fattening snack. If that’s what you’re doing, If you’re eating a lot of candy bars, and you’re having a problem with that, a small FYMM action is when the candy bar is about 90% done, toss it out. Instead of eating the whole thing, eat 90% of it, this will help you learn to eat less portions.

The second step, toss out the first, and the last bite. So break off a little front part, and then only eat 90% of what is left. So, instead of eating a whole candy bar, or the bag of chips, Pringles. Throw out the top little part and don’t eat the bottom part. Don’t save the bottom part and eat them later. Just toss it out. I hope you understand. So back on the candy bar. So, first step we take out a little part, don’t eat it. The second step, take out the first part and the back part. Right now, we’re just eating the middle part. Continue this process by making your candy bar smaller and smaller until it’s just about Bitesize. What we’re doing is training our brain to not need as much chocolate, while we’re weaning ourselves off of the addictive substances.

Exercise. The FYMM way to exercise. If you can’t get off the couch, buy one of those little things that you squeeze with your hand. And squeeze that while you’re cooking, or while you’re watching TV. While you’re watching your favorite TV show, buy two of them. So you can squeeze both simultaneously while you’re watching your favorite TV program. If you’re also having a problem at work, take a pencil, or a pen, put it on the ground and lift it with your foot. Lift it, shift your foot, (to the left or right) drop it, lift it, shift your foot, (to the left or right) drop it. Do it on the other foot. Continuously do that until you can start building yourself up. Do that until it just becomes so easy you’re like, “I’m doing something else this is ridiculous.” Then move your arms. Keep your arms out and continuously circle them in circular motion, during the commercials. Don’t do it during the whole 30 minutes. Why would you even try to do that? You’re never going to continuously do that in the beginning if you try to do it for 30 minutes. No, no, no, no, no. Start off with something so easy that is impossible for you not to do it, And then, add more, with your arms during a commercial you’ve seen a million times, start it halfway through the commercial, or get yourself all the way through the entire commercial with your arms up, put it down. You’re done for the day.

Obviously this has to do a lot with each individual personally, If you consider yourself to be in better than average health adjust accordingly, the concept is unanimous anywhere you start. 

Our goal is to initiate some physical activity on a daily basis. Then little by little, gradually, not innovatively, not in one day, but gradually, get yourself to walk in place when you’re watching TV. Walk in place. Or walk in place while you’re cooking. Walk in place while you’re talking on the telephone. Doing something like that. And then eventually get yourself into the gym if that’s your overall goal. If you’ve noticed I keep saying eventually, this is on purpose because I do not want you to put a time goal when you want something accomplished. if you have been paying attention or joined my exercise class, you can see how having a timed goal can be counterproductive. I’m going to reiterate, our only goal in the beginning is to stay consistent.  If you start adding too many goals then you’re expanding the problem or challenge and can be difficult to overcome without the necessary skills you are obtaining now. 

 Let’s not forget mind sculpture. So on all these, on everything that I’m talking about, with saving money, with meeting new people, with eating healthy, with everything, mind sculpture’s going to be very big in this process and is going to help us out a lot. Don’t forget how easy mind sculpture is. It really is, 15 – 30 seconds a day. Close your eyes, envision the change that you want. Envision you accomplishing the goals, envision you failing, so you understand how you’re going to feel/cope, and how you can transform yourself in changing that negativity into a positive thing.

Saving money. So if your goal is a dollar a day, maybe that’s too much. Maybe you don’t even have a goal right now. You’re just like, “I just want to save.” The easiest way to start saving money is to stop using your credit cards. Go to your bank every week, so you don’t have to pay the ATM fee. What hurts a lot of people is they don’t understand percentages. if you keep going to the ATM machine and only take $20 but paying a $3 fee you are paying an incredible high percentage on your money, over 10%. The very easiest thing for you to do to start saving money is start looking at fees. And start understanding the percentage of something. Whether… If you’re getting a cash payday advance loan, look at how much money in interest and in fees you actually are paying. If you’re going to the ATM three times a week, add up how much money you’re paying the ATM. If you’re paying your bills over the phone and they tell you there’s a service fee, start cutting down the fees first. Cancel out all the fees. That’s one way to help save money if you’re having a huge problem, just cut fees out.

I understand I’m going to get a lot of flak for what I’m about to say, stop going to the grocery store and buying a lot of food, I have watched numerous documentaries and I see Americans especially waste about half their food they buy.  if you know no one in your family is going to eat leftovers do not cook more than your family is going to eat at one sitting. If you are on food stamps, buy seeds because they are covered through food stamps and grow a mini garden,  I did not say a mini Farm so you cannot have an excuse that you do not have space, technology is so advanced you can grow a tomato plant upside down. If you are not using the reward system at your grocery store,  either you are really lazy or you are very frivolous. It’s as simple as typing in your phone number. Type your phone number in, and then look at how much you’re saving.

 But then also remember, pay attention to small moments. So when you are starting to do this, you need to pay attention to where your money’s going. That’s the fastest, easiest way to start saving money, is to see where your money is going.

Does that make sense? Because if you don’t know where your money’s going, then it’s kind of hard for you to save something that you don’t know where it’s going. So once you recognize where it’s going, then recognize where you can cut off the excess money. Like, “I really don’t need to go to the ATM four times in a week. I can be responsible and get money from my own bank once a week.” And then what do you do with the change? Do you save the change, or do you spend it? So if you want to save money, take that same change, put it to the side where you can’t touch it. Where you cannot touch it. Well, I mean, you can touch it, but just, don’t touch it. Put it to the side and then a very smart move to do, this is a little bit more advanced, You can do your own research on this. I’m not going to teach it, or go into it. But with that change, at the end of the month, take it to your credit union and get a bond. A secure 10 year bond, that will basically double your money in ten years. And then what you do with that bond, put it away. And so every month you take your change, you save it, you put it in a bond, throw it away, not throw it away, but put it away. And then you’re doubling your money in 10 years and off of money that you’re not even paying attention to. It’s just change pennies, quarters and dimes. Who cares?

Meet more people. Don’t forget, we envision ourselves doing this thing. Think of an interesting place to go with people who have the same interests as you. So it could be a place of worship, adult education, athletic event. How about the disco or the bar? Yes. But we’re trying to think of positive places, not places where it’s not the most positive environment. I’m not saying going to the bars is a negative thing, and meeting people in the bar is a negative place. But when you’re meeting people under the influence of alcohol, it might not be the most promising relationship. I’m just saying, for the longevity of things. Just saying.

Every day think of one additional location or group. Remember, this is just for ideas. So just think of another place every day. Think of someone who has a full and happy social life, and ask where they met friends. So in your life, after you’ve been brainstorming different places where to meet people, go find someone that you know. It could be your mom, could be your dad, could be your sister, brother, aunt, uncle, co-worker, boss, whatever. Someone that you see at Starbucks, and they just have the bubbliest personality, and it looks like they know everybody. Ask them, where do they meet people? How do they socialize? Then, what’s the next thing? Join a social group. With Facebook nowadays, they got social groups for everything. There’s also with WeChat, you got a who’s shaking their phone, right? It’s literally who shakes their phone at the same time as you, and it would show you who’s shaking the phone with you.

So even if you’re shy, you can go out and you can do small little steps. Once you brainstorm all these different environments, try going to one. If you like basketball, go to a college game. A local, small college. If going to a professional game and being around thousands of people makes you nervous. If you’re more of an introvert, and you kind of get nervous around people, then start with a small college. Go somewhere where it’s smaller, where there’s not so many people and then try to interact with people, try to meet people there, get to know a couple people. Go to a bookstore, go to a poetry-reading event, go to a seminar, go to anything, go to small little things around you, where there’s going to be sociable people. Don’t overwhelm yourself. Just give yourself the goal of only going to this place for 15-20 minutes, getting the feel for it. then work yourself up from 15-20minutes, to meet two or three people. And if that’s too scary, one person. “I’m going to go 15 minutes and talk to this one person. And then I’m out of here.” Set yourself up for goals that you can accomplish. If 15 minutes is too scary? Set it up for five.

Asking for a raise. Start a list of reasons you deserve more money. Every day add another reason why you deserve more money. Spend one minute a day practicing your request to your boss. So once you write down your list of different reasons why you deserve more money, then start practicing out loud on why you deserve a raise. Increase this time a little at a time, at first it’s only a minute. So increase it maybe two minutes, three minutes, until you feel comfortable, until you get your ins and outs. Now remember, think of different things, like when we envision things, and sculpt our mind we also have to think of the opposite. So if our boss doesn’t react the way we want, how are we going to act in this situation? This better prepares us for when we Finally discuss higher compensation with our superiors. if we only look at it from our argument, from our side, then we’re never going to be able to intuitively give our defense on why we need a raise, because we’re only looking at it from why we need a raise. Now we should also look at why they need to pay us more. What value do we bring to the company? What are we doing? What is it, that they should be paying us more? If we can’t convince, ourselves, why we deserve more, then we have a lot of work to do before we ask for a raise. Through experience what I’ve noticed is a lot of people expect they deserve more, but when they actually look and analyze their position in the company there’s a lot more they could do to bring more value to their current position. Before we want to upgrade our current position we want to make sure that we are completely optimized in our current position to bring more value to the company and to ourselves. If we do this then we will slowly but surely put our superiors in a place where it is impossible for them to say no, Because we have become too valuable to the operation. 

Does that make sense? It’s a process. So, once you feel successful, or completely comfortable with why you deserve more money, what it is that you’re going to do, you’ve practiced a rebuttal of what your boss might say. We are already well-prepared for whatever our boss has to say, with a well-thought-out answer to his response.

Use time more productively. Make a list of activities that take up time, but are not useful or stimulating you. It could be watching TV, browsing the internet, reading things that you don’t find pleasant, doing things that you do, but it’s a waste of time, after you think about it, you find something more productive to do with your time. Make a list of activities you would like to try that could be more productive and add a new one each day. So what we’re doing is the FYMM way. First, you’re writing a list of all the things that we think that are wasting our time, that are unproductive. And then on the other side, we’re writing a list of things that we could do, that we want to try, that could be more productive. And then try the activities in a limited manner, stop doing the unproductive list, and start doing the productive list. Everything that could be unproductive, let’s try to stop doing those things and let’s try working on the new list we just created, that could be more productive.

Write down each day, one person that is very productive with their time. The person you are like, “Wow, they’re always doing something, always. They’re always accomplishing their goals. They’re a go-getter.” Don’t just find one because you want to find different examples.

Could be somebody on TV, someone you read in a book, somebody that you see on a daily basis, someone that’s working in a Starbucks and they’re on the ball all the time. They don’t waste any time when they do anything, and then ask them. Or, if you’re too nervous to ask them, or if they’re in a book, then study what they do and then see what you’re doing differently in your life, from what they’re doing, and then adjust accordingly.

Taking small actions to get to what we want. I hope these little things helped you. I tried to give a vast array of different things. With productivity, asking for a raise, meeting more people, saving money, exercising, eating more healthy. If there’s anything else that I missed, feel free to send me a message. Let me know, and then I’ll bring that up and we can discuss that. Thank you.

All right. The strategy for today, solve small problems. Now, over the years, society has just become accustomed to accepting our small little problems. And we don’t even call them problems anymore, it’s become so normal, they’re not even problems. Whether it’s your desk is dirty or unorganized, that’s a problem but now we just classify it as, oh well, he’s just messy. So in today, the main thing that we’re trying to get across is how to spot these problems early. The faster you can spot a problem… And I mean, it takes training to be able to do this, it’s not something you can do overnight. But the faster you can spot a problem, a small problem, the faster you can avoid it turning into something larger.

Imagine getting a splinter from wood or even metal, you can get a splinter from metal as well. When you get that splinter in you, if you don’t solve that problem fast, then what can happen is it starts to fester, and before you know it, then it can get infected. Now, if you still don’t solve that problem, then it can get even worse and then eventually they have to cut that whole little finger off or whatever. Now that’s a drastic example, but I hope you understand the point. The smallest little problem, a little itty-bitty shard of wood or metal that went into your hand and that you just ignored, and you’re like, “Oh, well it’s normal. It’s normal. I get it all the time. It’s normal. It’ll go away.” Well, that one time that it doesn’t go away, it turns into a huge problem. We’re trying to learn how to spot those small problems before they turn into having to get your hand cut off.

Recall a major mistake that you’ve made some point in your life. Now think about it for a second. It’s going to take a minute to think. When you’re thinking, don’t just think of the problem, but think of playing the tape out. Like where did the problem start, and then how did it get to where it’s at? If it’s being overweight, you didn’t just have that problem yesterday, so where did it start? Because usually it’s a trigger that started it. Or being disorganized, or a problem in a relationship with somebody else, a significant other, a mom, a child, a teacher, whatever. You don’t know until you think. You don’t know until you know. So we’re at the beginning of the problem, at least as far as you can remember the start of the problem. Then see if you can start thinking of things, interactions that happened in your life that were small signs of telling you that this was a bad idea. Or this is going to have a result that you do not want if you continue down this path.

Did you ignore the problem? Did you correct the problem? Did you brainstorm or try something different and it didn’t work, or did you just be like, “Whatever, I’m going to wing it, see what happens.” Now, once you’ve thought about that. Remember we’re just practicing because it’s a new process. However when you do this, when you’re practicing, you’re also giving yourself the ability to analyze faster. The more you practice, the better you get, just like shooting basketball or playing tennis, learning a new language. If you do not practice, you will not learn it. But if you practice, you will get fast at it. In fact, you’ll learn it and you get faster and more efficient.

So now, identify one mistake that you made today, without becoming angry at yourself. Because again, like I said, we’re just analyzing the situation. We’re not criticizing ourselves. Is this a problem that you do every day? Or is this an anomaly? Is it misplacing your keys? when I was stocking my Amazon bookstore it was a common theme between me and my neighbors that Erik would lose his keys for weeks at a time. That’s a mistake. I didn’t mean to lose them. Well, once you think about that problem, it’s like, “You know what? I do that quite often.” And then start thinking about it, and break it down, when are the times that you tend to lose them? Is it when you have groceries? Think about what you were doing before you lost them. We noticed most of the time I would lose my  at night when I entered the house through the back door. 

If it’s a consistent problem that you’re having, find the consistent trait. What is it that I keep doing? When is it? Is it when I’m on the telephone? I’m walking in the house, I’m on the telephone, or is it when I have groceries? Or when I have the kids? Or whatever, find the one constant. You’ll find that the losing of the keys is just the end result. The problem is before the losing of the keys. Now, that’s kind of a basic example, but I hope that you follow along with what I’m talking about. The one constant every time I lost my keys; I was inebriated walking in the back door. I would set them down and not remember when I woke up in the morning where I put them,  obviously the night before when I was inebriated I put them in a very safe and obvious place, but when I was sober that place was no longer obvious. 

What we’re trying to do is raise awareness to mistakes. The mistakes we’re making might have a deeper root of cause and reaction. Just like with the keys the end reaction is losing the keys. Something might have caused you to lose the keys on a consistent basis for me it was my constant struggle with alcohol. So there might be something that you’re doing in a relationship that you’re not even noticing, that is causing a problem, you might swear up and down you’re not even doing it.

It could be as simple as every time that your significant other, or your coworker, or your boss, or your employee, or your son, or your daughter, or your mom, or your dad, or your whatever, every time they open their mouth and they’re trying to explain something, you automatically be like, “Oh yes, I get it.” In your mind, you could be like, “Well, I’m trying to show them that I feel them. That I’m trying to be empathetic and I’m trying to be with them.” But in other people’s eyes, you could be overbearing. Like they’re trying to express something to you, but you won’t allow them. You see what I’m saying?

So it’s something as small as that, can have a huge effect on a relationship. But if you don’t learn how to break down problems and spot problems when they’re small, opposed to when they’re big. Because what happens over five years of you consistently doing this and you’re thinking that you’re being extremely supportive, but in all actuality, you’re being very unsupportive on the way that this person receives support. And over the years, you guys start growing resentments towards each other because you’re like, “Man, I’m trying to be so supportive.” And she’s like, “Man, he’s just not supporting me the way that I need. He’s just always interrupting me. I’m trying to get it all out and he just won’t let me.” Something as simple as that can be avoided by focusing and being able to spot small problems. Find the small problems in each relationship and become self-aware of yourself. A small problem that you both think is a normal relationship problem could be the cause of multiple other less obvious reactions .

Now let’s talk about when failing is not an option, like The airplane director people. Failure for them is not an option. Dr. Carl Wyke studied HROs, high reliability organizations. what he’s saying is their services are so vital and precise, they’re all forced to find ways not to fail. A common characteristic in all of this is they distinguish themselves by being able to detect incredibly weak warning signs and taking strong decisive action in the beginning. When they hear any bit of stress in a pilot’s voice, they’re trained for that, they’re trained to hear it. They’ve trained their ears to hear things that the normal person will not hear. When they go over their checklist, they have a hundred different things they have to check off every single time before they can even move on to step two. They’re checking things three, four times to make sure that it works. If something even looks like it’s off, they stop, and redo it. Like the assembly line when building a car, it’s the same thing. They’re doing their best not to fail. Trained not to assume the system works perfectly on its own, instead they look for the slightest signal that things are going awry.

On the boat when the fighter jets fly in and if the water’s moving, if the boats come in a little bit too hard, they’re looking for if there’s any debris on the deck, anything that could cause a problem, they’re looking for it. Most of us, me, included, in our minds, we’re like, “Oh, everything’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Everything’s great, it’s going to be okay.” Well, these people are trained to think, “It’s not okay. It’s not going to be okay. Let me find a reason that it’s not okay. Let me make sure and double-check that I’m going to be fine.”

Now, if we take that same approach I’m not saying we’re all going to be that disciplined, that’s a little bit extreme, but if we were to take a little bit of their training and their perspective on life, the way that they perceive things and we add that into our own life, how much more we’d focus on our finances, right? If we weren’t allowed to fail, how much we would focus on our love life. If this marriage is not allowed to fail, if this relationship isn’t allowed to fail, if you didn’t have an option for it not to work, then you would focus on it and you’d make it work. You’d figure a way to make it work. And that’s why solving small problems early, or training your brain to detect things that are not working, early.

A quote by Tao Te Ching. “Confront the difficult while it’s easy. Accomplish the great task by a series of small acts.”

Identify small moments. Throughout our life, there’s always just small moments that count. It’s the little things that matter. It’s the small, little note that you put out for your wife or your husband, telling them to have a beautiful day and that you love them. It’s the little flowers you send, it’s the little chocolates. It’s the little small thank yous or when you see somebody having a bad day, walk over there, you tell them, “How are you doing? What’s wrong?” It’s the small things that matter.

When practicing the FYMM Framework, we want to always remember the small things. I was mostly just spurting out some things, but let’s give some better examples, like some massive examples of how identifying the small things matter. Let’s talk about Walmart with Sam Walton. Sam Walton used to fly to every single one of his competitors’ stores and spend time, he was even quoted saying that he thinks he spends more time in his competitors’ stores than his own. Why was he doing that? By trying to identify small things. Small moments, small things that other stores are doing that he’s not doing.

Another example. I think it was American Airlines one of the flight attendants noticed that all the customers were taking the little black olives off the salad. No one was eating them. She made that discovery, and she went up the proper chain of command and told her superiors. That small little thing, her general manager, realized that The Airlines were being charged by the ingredient. It’s like when you’re ordering a pizza. You get charged on how many items you put. You just get a cheese pizza, it’s completely different from an all-you-can-eat meat-lover’s pizza, right? Cheese in-expensive, Meat lover’s expensive.  So if all the customers were not eating the olives, then there’s no point in adding them.  They realized that taking off some of the ingredients, (the ingredients that the people did not want to eat anyways,) they saved thousands, probably over the years, millions of dollars. Finding that small, little thing, identifying small moments in time. Innovation comes from solving problems, I kind of almost say laziness. So identify something small, something that you don’t like, something in your life, you’re like, “Man, you know what? I think I could do this better.”

Remember, everything starts with a thought, so start from there. Identify different things. Identify with your kids, If your kid’s not doing something a hundred percent how you want it done, instead of automatically jumping the gun, take the time, slow down, maybe there’s a reason. Maybe the kid’s telling you something that you’re not paying attention to. Maybe they can’t vocalize or they can’t explain how they want to explain it, so they’re trying to communicate in a different way. One of the greatest tragedies of life is to try to turn an artist into a conformist and a conformist into an artist. 

Same thing with a dog, you trained yourself to notice when the dog goes to the door, let it out. It has to go to the bathroom. But if you weren’t raised around animals, you wouldn’t really know that. I mean, it’s kind of obvious, but it’s obvious to people who owned animals. My aunt told me when I was younger, she said, “All you need in this world is common sense.” She didn’t tell me that things don’t become common sense until it’s already knowledge that you know. It’s common knowledge, right? So, it’s common sense to let a dog out when it needs to go to the bathroom if you’ve had a dog before. If you’ve never had a dog before, that’s not common sense. It’s really not. But by being attuned and being aware, you would notice, as you can identify that small moment, whether you’ve had a dog in your life or not, is becoming aware of your surroundings, being attuned to what’s going on.

Another example, David Gold. He owned a liquor store and he noticed that every time he put 99 cents on something, that it would be out the door. He noticed this over and over and over again, and he was like, “Well, what is this?” Then, he started realizing, he started finding products he could make a profit off of 99 cents. What he did is he identified that small moment, and then went on to open up a 99 cent store with 149 different stores by selling products that are only 99 cents. He identified something small and then boom, changed, adapted, created. So, that’s what I’m asking you guys to do. Go around your house, really, honestly, go around your house and then identify the small things that you didn’t notice before, and just write it down. Take a notepad and identify every little thing that you didn’t notice before. If you live by yourself, it’s going to be a little bit easier because the majority of the things that you put into the house, you put in. But if you have other people in your house, identify the small moments. Go look around and go notice everything that you’ve never even noticed before. Take the time to slow down. Then through that, you’re going to start noticing things you never thought that you would notice. Whether it’s with your finances, whether it’s with your love life. 

This is like the number one thing with a girl. They get their nails done, pay attention and say, “I like your nails.” Or if they’re changed their hair and you don’t notice, oh man, you made a big mistake. Right? It’s identified in those small moments, and especially when it comes to a female, as in telling a female. I could be wrong, but from my experience, growing up with a lot of sisters, it’s the smallest, little, itty bitty things that they change about themselves. If you notice it, you get extra points. Right?. 

Think of the small, little things and you’ll be amazed on how that changes your life and gives you more opportunity. If you’re trying to lose weight, take time and imagine. Start looking at the weight, start looking at everything that you put in into your system. I guarantee. You’re going to be like, “Wow Are you serious?” Identify the small little things. If you’re trying to lose weight, or if you’re diabetic and you can’t eat a lot of sugar, and you smoke cigarettes, do you know what they put in cigarettes? They put a little sugar in the filter because they know addictive sugar is, and sugar will give a better tasting cigarette. Identify the small little moments. 

Small rewards. Now, whether you’re trying to train yourself, a dog, an employee, your kid, whatever it is, we all like getting gifts, we all like being rewarded for our actions. Now the problem with that is you have to give the right reward for the action. Dr. W. Edwards Deming, studied  “a large gift kills people’s intrinsic motivation to do a good job. People want to be proud of their work. They want to attaboy. But if you just give them money or you bestow them with large gifts every time, okay, that might work once. But then towards the end, it decreases the value of it. And in the end it could actually send the inverse message that you want.”

You could be trying to motivate somebody but by giving them big rewards and big things, it’s actually demotivating them. So that brings us to the perfect reward for the person or for the problem. So the gift or reward should be appropriate with the goal. So don’t give chocolate to somebody who’s diabetic or having health problems. That doesn’t make sense. Maybe give a health book or take them out to lunch at a healthy place. I don’t really go out to lunch pretty often, I have a garden and then in the summertime, so I just eat out of the garden. But do something nice like give them some seeds. There you go. Give them a nice gift that fits the accomplishment.

Understand who you’re dealing with because some gifts people don’t like. And some things that I’m thinking, “Well, this would be an amazing gift.” I give to people and they look at me like I’m crazy. Like what is this, Erik? What is this? This isn’t a gift. This is work, to me, I’m like, “Wow, this is great. Look, look what you can do with this.” Understand who you’re giving the gift to if you give the wrong kind of gift, then it’s not a gift. Or it’s not showing someone’s accomplishments. You could be sending the wrong message.

I do this quite often. Like I said, I’m not very good at giving gifts. I tend to give people gifts that are educational or to better themselves and sometimes people just want a gift. They don’t want to have to think and educate themselves all day long, just some of the days. Have you ever heard the expression, it’s the thought that counts? Well in this situation it is. It’s the thought that counts. So yeah, you can give people Gucci and Prada and Ferrari, but what message are you sending? You can also take the time, especially if you have the money and all you know how to do is just give gifts of money. Well in the beginning, that’s cool but in the end that can get old. Because you’re not telling that person that you care about by doing this. It’s like having your assistant buy your kid a Christmas gift. If you were to take the time and make something that takes you 10 minutes? If you take the time and you give a small gift, it was free for you to do, but it was personalized and it’s something from the heart. That has a much more effective effect on somebody, and longer lasting. Have you ever got something from a little kid they can’t afford, extravagant gifts. they don’t have an income. Well some of them do, but we’re not talking about them. It’s almost the reason they invented magnets for your refrigerator, to put small drawings, pictures, crafts your kids make.

When they want to express love, they make something out of the tools they have and they give it to you and then your heart melts. Now that’s all pretty and everything, because it’s something that was heartfelt and it was something that they took time and they put into it. So it’s the same thing, if you want to do something nice or have a gift for your wife, instead of buying her a diamond, maybe take the kids out and give her some time to herself. Ask her what she wants. Not as in what do you want materialistically, do you want a new Ferrari or this or that? No. Like what do you want? What would give you peace? And then try to do that.

Or if it’s an employee, my buddy, he was so happy. His job acknowledged him and told him he was doing such a great job. He’s still running high off of that now, and it’s been about two weeks since the incident actually happened. And it was for free. They didn’t give him anything. They just told him he was doing a good job and gave him a pat on the back. Imagine if they gave him a big bonus or something, that would have been great, but in the end he would have been like, “All right, whatever,” everyone would move on with their day. He would have been inspired a little bit. But then look at the comradery by acknowledging my friend in a positive attitude, they brought the morale of everybody else up. If they would have passed out money it would have done the inverse and created a competitive environment opposed to a supportive environment.  like crabs in the bucket. Only doing their best to beat the next person to get the money. By not giving money and giving an attaboy, everyone’s like, “Attaboy, Erik. Good job man. Yo, I’m happy for you.” Takes the monetary value out of it and now we all can enjoy and celebrate together. So hope you got something out of that message. 

All right, so far we’ve learned FYMM and innovation, what’s the difference. We’ve learned what FYMM is, what it’s based upon. We’ve learned the six different strategies of The FYMM Way. Now, let’s break down into why it works, before we get into the strategies.

What it does is the small steps, like we talked about in the six strategies (if you notice, all of them say small this, small that.) With the small steps of FYMM, they disarm the brain’s fear response, stimulating rational thought and creative play. Fear of change is rooted in the brain’s psychology. When fear takes hold, it can prevent creativity, change and success.

The brain has consistently evolved over the years. We have three separate brains. The challenge is to develop harmony among the different brains, so as to avoid physical and emotional illness and stress.

At the bottom of the brain, which we developed about 500 million years ago, and it’s called the reptile brain. This wakes you up in the morning time, it puts you to sleep at nighttime, and it tells your heart to beat. It’s the most animalistic, or whatever you want to call it, part of the brain.

Then we have the mid part. The mid part of the brain is about 300 million years old, and is the mammalian part of the brain. The mammal part, which makes us more into mammals. It regulates the body temperature, it houses our emotions and it governs the fight-or-flight response that keeps us alive in danger, which is very important.

So what the midbrain does, is it gets back to the fight or flight, keeping us alive in the face of danger. So back in dinosaur times or when we weren’t living in cities, or even when we’re living in cities, have you ever heard of the phrase deer stuck in the headlights? Well, that’s what it is, it’s our fight-or-flight. When we were in the Serengeti and a lion came through, we didn’t need time to analyze the situation. Our whole body needed everything to shut down and make a decision: fight or flight. We didn’t want to analyze the situation; it needed to make a split decision extremely fast.

Nowadays that gets in the way sometimes, but it also is very helpful. When we’re driving a car and someone cuts us off, we don’t want to analyze, we don’t have the time for that. We need that immediate response to kick in, the midbrain to kick in and make that decision for us, because it’s a split-second decision and it could be life or death.

Then we have a third part, about a hundred million years ago. This one creates civilization. The art, the sciences, the music, it all resides in the frontal part, the cortex. It gives us rational thought and creates impulses. So when you want to create a new project, or you’re an artist and you’re drawing a new product or you’re an artist and you’re writing a new song, or a scientist, whatever, this is the part of the brain that you tapping into, the frontal part, cortex.

So if we want to make a change or jumpstart the creative process, we need to access the cortex. What happens to most of us, or to the majority of us, or the ones that haven’t studied this and don’t know exactly what’s going on in our body or in our brain when this happens. When we face a new project or a new challenge, our midbrain usually jumps in, and blocks us. It’s called writer’s block, it’s actually blocked, right, deer in the headlights. We get stuck at the piece of paper; we don’t know what to do, and then we start getting frustrated and we end up probably not even doing it. It happens with everything in life, so it’s not just with writers. It could be with starting a new project, building the tree house that you’ve promised your kids for the last six years. They’re not even kids anymore, they don’t even want it anymore, but you’re still making that promise, that, one day, you’re going to do it. Well, what caused you to do that is, it was just such a big project. It just put you in your block, the fight-or-flight. What happens is, our fight or flight, shuts off our creativity. Then it kind of transforms us into our basic reptile, animal stage, where it’s like fight, or we get out of here. Either you’re going to fight like a lion or dance like an antelope.

When we are in this state, our heart starts beating faster, we start getting nervous. And our other senses shut down. It shuts down your sexual desire, your thought process, your digestion, it shuts down everything. So if you had to go to the bathroom before and you get distracted, one of two things going to happen. Either you’re going to go on yourself or you’re going to forget that you had to go. This happens because you are no longer your front part of your mind. It has been replaced with fear, you are now using the amygdala. The “Let’s get out of this situation, I got to go, or, the clock’s running down and it’s the end of the game. And for the last 10 minutes, you’re exhausted. But then now it’s 1 minute to go, and somehow, you’re rejuvenated with energy. Well, it’s the same thing as the fight-or-flight. In that instance, your body decided to fight. And so everything else stops, and now you have this new energy because you’re putting every last little inch on the line and you’re fighting.

What happens when we face fear, our creativity is gone, we go into, robot mode. You see this when Michael Jordan, he’s sick He had the flu (1997 finals). Well, most of you guys might not know this; he wins the NBA Championship. His body stops being creative and becomes a robot. Muscle memory and the desire to win forces his body to choose fight or flight, and It went into fight mode. When we understand and can control the fight or flight mechanism that is an example of how powerful we can become. 

Now on the contrary, when we want our creative side and we don’t want to be a robot, we need the cortex, the very front part of the brain. That gives us the creativity. To use it in a different sense, when we have a large goal, it causes fear, and then it restricts our access to the creative part of our brain, and we tend to fail; writer’s block, getting frustrated. For example When you start something for the first time, and then without putting forth 100% energy you’re like, “This is too hard, whatever, I quit.”

So what is the solution?

By having small goals; you bypass the fear. Remember we were talking about this in the previous chapter how, when we start so small we don’t even notice it. With the picking up the pencil or the lighter or whatever, you’re doing a repetition, you’re building new habits. Small goal, fear bypassed, the cortex engaged. You’re allowed to sit there and think of more creative ways. Instead of just picking up the pencil, now you’re picking up the coffee cup. It gives us the ability to become successful. By acquiring the skill to be able to build new habits, is exactly what we are discussing.

An excerpt from “ One Small Step Can Change Your Life: The Kaizen Way” The brain is programmed to resist change, but by taking small steps, you actively rewire your nervous system so that it does the following: unsticks you from the creative block, bypasses the fight-or-flight response, creates new connections between neurons so that the brain enthusiastically takes over the process of change and you progress rapidly towards your goal.

I hope that all makes sense, because it is huge. It allows us to come up with new ideas, be able to accomplish new goals and new feats. Going to the gym, painting a whole house by yourself, writing books, and large unimaginable goals. It also builds self-confidence, before, you might need other people to do things with you, if you have fear of being alone or fear of being ridiculed. With this secret we are taking the most minute steps to complete our goals. we’re bypassing fear, in a way you don’t even notice the change until it becomes a habit.

Before you notice, you’re reading that big book that you’ve never been able to read. You’re doing those 100 pushups that, at the beginning, you couldn’t even think to do five. You’re doing 20 pull-ups. Imagine being able to accomplish the un-accomplishable. amazing right?

Stress or Fear. The modern medical name we have given for the feeling produced when approaching a new challenge or goal is called stress. However for countless generations, we called it fear. Most successful people confront fear instead of relying on terms like anxiety, stress or nervousness. Now, this is very important for us to grasp. Nowadays, I’m stressed, I don’t know what’s going to happen, or I’m anxious, I’m nervous. Instead of focusing on the root problem, I have fear, I am scared of this.

When adults typically see a Psychiatrist, they talk about their emotional pain. They choose words like stress, anxiety, depression, nervous, tense. But then if you remember, when you were a kid, or if you’re around a lot of kids, they tell you root emotions such as scared, happy, or sad. Anxiety, stress, and depression are new terms. The terms we used when we were little, were scared, sad, happy, and afraid. Right? You don’t hear a two-year-old talking about, “Oh, I’m so stressed.”or “I’m so anxious”. When they’re anxious, and they’re bouncing around and their heart’s moving fast, they tell you, “I’m scared.” They don’t go to the doctor and be like, “I’m anxious.” “Well, what are you anxious about?” If you break it all the way down, it usually has to do with fear. Children know they live in a world they can’t control. They have an understanding that fear is a part of everyday life. Everything’s bigger than they are. Even walking down the street, it can be petrifying for a little kid because just a normal adult is towering over them. You know what I mean? We walk faster than them, especially with a little guy/girl who’s more waddling than walking. They’ve got people running past them, dogs that are twice the size of them, wagging his tail, knocking them over and things. That kid knows that, life is dangerous! You never know. There’s the side of the table that you could just, bam, hit yourself, now for the next week or something, your head’s hurting. Don’t forget touching a hot surface, a kids worst nightmare. As a little kid, you’re scared. There’s a whole bunch of things that they know they cannot control; it’s a part of their daily lives. This is why we say kids are like a sponge, they have to learn fast in order to survive.

But adults, for some reason, we feel like we can control everything in our lives. And when we don’t, or can’t, we feel like there’s something wrong: “Why am I not feeling perfect? Everything Is supposed to be perfect.” As opposed to the kid that knows that he’s not supposed to be feeling good all the time. He knows that there’s something out there that’s scary. Us as adults feel that we can control everything, we know everything. So instead of admitting the fact we could actually just be scared, we come up with fancy terms and call them stress, anxiety and depression. So we run to the doctor to solve the problem, then another uncomfortable emotion arises and we run back to the doctor to save us again, never once even thinking to just solve the root of the problem.

Speaker 1:

And why do we do that? I don’t want to get too much into it. Just think for a second, pharmaceutical companies have a financial duty to make money for their shareholders, not to solve your problems. If they made it as simple as, you’re fearful, so conquer your fear. Name what you’re scared of, figure it out and then figure out how you’re going to overcome that fear. If it was that simple, then there wouldn’t be a market to sell things. For example antidepressants can cause erectile dysfunction, so when you subscribe to an antidepressant you also now have a different problem erectile dysfunction. Now you go back to the doctor to get an ED drug which is made by the same company that  made your antidepressant drug. 

To finish up, if you expect life to be ordinary and well-run, you’re setting yourself up for panic and defeat. When life gets scary and difficult, we tend to look for solutions in places where it’s easy or at least familiar to do so, and not in a dark uncomfortable place where a real solution might lie.  It’s human nature, it’s a reaction. And that’s why we call things “comfort food”, ect. Or when people get their heart broken, they say “I gained weight because I started eating.” When something in life gets difficult or when a speed bump slows us down, or we run into a wall, we tend to go back to what’s comfortable, right? Have you ever been in a long-term relationship with somebody? You know it’s not a good relationship, but the only reason you’re with that person is because it’s comfortable. Or you might even break up with that person, go try somebody new, and then before you even can know if this person’s better or worse or whatever, you’re already back to the old, because it’s comfortable.

It’s great for you to feel comfortable, but it’s horrible if you want change. If you always go back to what’s comfortable, you never give yourself the ability to change. Change doesn’t come from being comfortable. Change comes from being uncomfortable. Does that make sense? If you’re always sitting on your couch, well, your body is going to change, but it’s just not going to be a positive change. You’re a couch potato, your body’s going to change, but it’s going to change in a way that you might not want it to change. Your body’s never going to be stagnant, it’s never the same. It’s constantly changing. So either you’re changing in a positive way or in a negative way. Negative change occurs in a comfort zone. Positive change comes from being uncomfortable. 

When you always go back to the same, there’s a definition for it, keep doing the same thing over and over and over again, and expecting a change. What do they call that? They call it the definition of insanity. But fear can cause us to unconsciously sabotage ourselves by going back into the same routine, it’s the fear of the unknown that causes us to go backwards. The FYMM approach is so great, why it works, is we’re bypassing our fear. We’re taking baby steps so small we don’t even know to be scared.

The next time you’re a deer in the headlights, or getting writer’s block, think of this perfect example. You study all night for a test. You know the test backwards and forwards. You’re dreaming about it, you know it so well. But then when it’s time for the test and you sit down, your mind goes blank. In a situation like that, take a little bit, take a deep breath and just realize what is happening is that it’s your fear. Your fear has taken over. Your cortex no longer has the ability to function because your midbrain has 100% control. So calm down, understand what’s happening, that it’s the fear that has taken over, and then adjust accordingly.

Through understanding the six strategies or six steps, however you choose to term it, by the end, you’ll hopefully be able to sit down, be in a stressful situation understand when fight or flight appears and have the ability and the knowhow to be able to assess the problem and to solve the problem quick, fast and efficiently. That’s the goal in all this, to be able to see something we don’t like about ourselves, to assess ourselves, to better understand ourselves and to give ourselves the ability to change ourselves in a positive, more efficient and more effective manner.

We have to remember this: fear is a normal and a natural sign of ambition. So it’s going to be normal that, when we go through this journey, a change in our lives, to better ourselves, it’s going to be fearful, and there are going to be times that we’re going to want to revert backwards, into the past (Go buy that pack of cigarettes; go talk to that ex-girlfriend, boyfriend; go back to the old job that you hate.) There’s always going to be self-doubt as well, that we’re just not going to be able to do it, we have to remember, that’s the normal part of this entire process, the fear.

Let’s embrace the fear and remember to be more childlike sometimes, and to understand and accept the world is a fearful place, and it’s okay to be scared. What’s not okay is to avoid our fears, because if we don’t face them, we’re never going to be able to get over our fears, we will succumb to them. Reading this book and learning the six steps, we’ll be able to accomplish what we’re trying to accomplish.