471 | How To Stop Seeing Through a Negative Lens

Chris LoCurto 0:00
Breaking free from self defeating mindsets that are painting the wrong picture of your current reality and future possibilities that is coming up next.

Chris LoCurto 0:20
Welcome to the Chris LoCurto show where we discuss leadership and life and discover that business is what you do, not who you are. Welcome to the show, folks. I hope you're having a fabulous day wherever you are. Today we are continuing to dig into some super practical topics in our mini series of how to episodes with my air quotes that you can't see. Brian Alex is joining us on the show again, Brian, welcome back to the show.

Brian A 0:54
Always a pleasure to be here. I feel like oh, it was a pleasure. I feel like I belong here.

Chris LoCurto 1:00
It's so funny. It's like you moved away we were off the show for a while we it's good that you know now we've had more episodes where we've had more time since you've been in Sicily to to do some shows. It's great to have you back on. So this is this is how I get to see you. I mean used to be I get to see you every day.

Brian A 1:21
Now I get to see you through the farther away the more shows I'm on so I can't imagine if I if I kept moving. But this would be like just keep moving.

Chris LoCurto 1:30
Just keep into the Brian. Alex show. What does that the absence?

Brian A 1:34
No grow fonder? Oh, you miss me.

Chris LoCurto 1:38
You've already tried one of those shows of your own once?

Brian A 1:44
Well, Joel and I were practicing for our thought leaders podcast never really got it off the ground. It was a bit of a satire show built around, you know, the air quote and thought leaders out there. But yeah, we did in house parodies for guests. But that's about it.

Chris LoCurto 2:01
Still quite funny. Still quite funny. I could see that as being what was it the Orson Welles. What was the deal when people turn on the radio? And like, you know, they're talking about the invasion from Mars or something like that? Yeah, I could see people listening to that show or thinking, yeah, we're the world's I think that was it. Right? I could see people listening to that show going, Wow, these guys really have changed the way they teach leadership. I wouldn't do that all.

Brian A 2:27
This is almost 180 degrees from what Chris taught.

Unknown Speaker 2:32
Right? But I'll do it, what the heck. So we'll just start practicing it

Chris LoCurto 2:36
Might as well just start practicing it. So we are doing a how to today, why don't you take that away and explain what we're doing?

Brian A 2:43
Yeah, so yeah, the idea today is talking about these negative thought patterns. And, you know, just just kind of the 30,000 foot view here, before we dive in too deep. Lots of people struggle with negative thought patterns. It's I mean, this is a well documented thing. There's many reasons for it, we are not going to get into all the stats and causes but it's it's quite epidemic, with external wounds, just to kind of set up a bit of a, an example here, metaphoric, external wounds, take a paper cut, for example, the cause and the remedy can be pretty straightforward, right? I mean, but internal, and we're talking mental emotional wounds, that that's a lot more difficult to deal with. And so it's easy to find yourself trapped in a loop of destructive self talk, we use our own terminology for things like this, the root system, we've, we've talked about that a million times on here. And we've all been there, we've repeated, you know, these kinds of actions, time and again, they become patterns, they're habitual, they're harmful, they're tough to shake. And so what we want to deal with today is how to approach these self defeating patterns. Because they, they can, you know, you can feel like you're in a prison, you can feel blocked in and it can get quite hopeless. And before we get too far into it, just Chris, give us some perspective about what we deal with a next level life about these kinds of harmful patterns. These negative self taught patterns.

Chris LoCurto 4:13
Yeah. Everybody, everybody, everybody experiences, to some to a small level, some to a almost debilitating level, right. Everybody has some level of negative self talk, where they're speaking to themselves about something that they've done wrong or how bad they failed at something or how they're going to fail or, you know, they really screwed that thing up. And many times, you know, here's the thing. I have negative self talk. That's actually constructive. Sometimes, like, there's times that I have in my brain. Hey, dummy, that was really stupid. Why did you do that? You weren't thinking about that person. You were thinking about yourself, you know, whatever. Now you know, calling yourself a dummy is not really that good. But the point that I'm making is is for me, it's more of a, Hey, pay attention, what are you doing, fix that go change that, go do something about it. And praise God, that's a heck of a lot more now, over the last, you know, decade or so than it was for the first four decades, right? Because of practicing the very tools that we teach, but oh my gosh, one thing that I've had my whole life is the you're a failure, you failed at that you're not good enough, you're not worthy. You this bad things probably going to happen, that person is probably thinking, you're really stupid right now. Whatever it is, right? So what we see over and over and over again, is there's not a single person who doesn't have some level of negative self talk, some level, even if they do a really good job of keeping it out of their minds, then that's fantastic. You'll still find something in there that tends to become more self sabotaging than critically building up, if that makes sense.

Brian A 6:09
Yeah, yeah, that's great. And I don't want to get too, too, into the practical side here. And the remedy side, that's your job, I'm gonna leave that for after the break. But I do want to just point to the fact that, you know, this comes back to a lot and we and I remember, you know, being in the office, and we would talk about the idea of a feeling in control or out of control how control is a bit of an illusion, and being okay with, you know, what you can control. And what you can't is, there's a lot of freedom there. There's a lot of leverage there. We can't control everything that goes on around us, all the events, the people, these are all external things, but we have power to choose how we perceive. And that's really what we want to get into today. The problem is, is that our choice oftentimes is to see negative events negatively, we tend to assume the worst. And, you know, we have to be told in Scripture, that love believes the best. Why? Because we're programmed to believe the worst, we have to be told over and over Do not fear why our gut reaction is fear. Don't worry, we want to worry, we have to be told these things, because it's our, our predisposition, you could call it part of the human condition or what have you. But I think there's some, there's a great leverage with the idea of choice and how we respond. But Chris, we need help. Because our choice usually, is to see it negatively. And that's what we're gonna get into. So up next, what does it look like to break free from constantly seeing through a negative lens of freedom?

Unknown Speaker 7:53
it's so powerful, I felt rejuvenated, almost renewed,

Speaker 2 7:56
I just felt so welcomed and loved and accepted for who I am, and not an ounce of judgment. So I was very comfortable there, that had a really big impact on me, that's going to be worth it. It's going to be hard. But it's going to be even better. On the other side.

Unknown Speaker 8:14
For me, it was just, it was just very refreshing. And I'm gonna say life giving for me, and really was,

Speaker 2 8:20
you know, I would go through next level life again, and probably again, and probably again, because it's so powerful.

Chris LoCurto 8:28
I want you to ask yourself a question. Could you hear the sense of hope and freedom and their voice is just then? I want you to know, that could be you. Look, it's easy to get trapped in old habits, negative thought patterns and unhealthy relationships. It's gonna take some work. But yes, there is hope for you. If you want to experience the same kind of life transformation, this same kind of self awareness and freedom that they have, or maybe you're just curious what the process would look like for you, then head on over to Chrislocurto.com/nextlevellife.

Brian A 9:06
All right, and we're back guys. Here we go. Chris, we're gonna dive right into the deep end. No dipping the toe in the water did see the temperature, we're gonna dive in. What can we do to stop seeing through a negative lens?

Chris LoCurto 9:21
Yeah. First thing we have to do, there's so many different pieces. And they're all tools that if you practice them, they will help you. Now, does it mean that you're not going to see something through a negative lens? It doesn't necessarily mean that the first thing you have to do and for me, I have to shock myself. So you heard me say on the front part of the show you like Hey, dummy. There's some things that I will have to say that shocks my brain, because otherwise that tape just runs and it runs and it runs and it runs and I can keep thinking Thinking, the negative thinking, thinking thinking, because I'm operating in my emotional side, right? So for me to switch over from the emotional side to the logic side, sometimes I have to go knock it off. You know, sometimes if it's really bad, stop it. Shut up. And what that does is, is it shocks your brain in the emotional, and allows you to switch over, but you have to immediately start attacking with, why am I doing this? What am I experiencing? What am I thinking, right? So we're never really going to solve problems on our negative self talk, if we stay in the emotional side. Why? Because we're going to become victims, we're going to see those negative things and just go, this is my life, things are terrible, that always sucks. Well, if you if you want to see the negative as a positive, or see through the negative as a teaching tool, or, you know, learn from the failure, or or or you're not gonna get there on the emotional side, you got to get out of the emotional side. And our brain operates that way, right? We have emotional side, we have logic side. So in sometimes what you can do is just take your tongue and press it against the roof of your mouth as hard as you possibly can. And sometimes you can switch on over, sometimes it works. Sometimes it doesn't. But for me, it's usually I have to tell myself in my brain knock it off. What are you doing? What do you know? Why are you here? Why you're saying this? Why? What are you thinking that? What are you doing, and I will start to just pound hard. Because I want myself to get to that place of going, this is the situation? The great thing is, there are so many times that I'm able to go, well, that's your fault, man. That's your responsibility, you know, in start walking my way back out as if I'm coaching myself, right? So it's the same thing as if I'm, if I am, if Brian Alex is going through Next-Level Life and you're struggling with something, you know, obviously, I'm going to lead you in your personality style where you are at the time. If you're high, if you're in high S mode, then I'm going to it's going to be much more gentle, it's going to be a longer conversation. If you're in high D mode. Hey, dude, what are you doing? Right? If you're in high C mode, hey, what do you think let's let's get to that process or you know, C's and Ds in that task mode, you can get, you can push them a little bit harder. Ss and I's, you don't have to, you can be a little bit softer, a little bit more gentle. But sometimes a C or a D needs that snap, right? Get out of that task mode or that that emotional mode and get into actually more of a task mode logic side to think through what am I experiencing? So first thing you have to do is recognize that it is it's existing, the negative self talk is happening, do something to shut it down. Now, this is one of the toughest things that we teach, because people don't practice it. And we say over and over and over again. You are not you know, you don't have this, after listening to this episode, you're not an expert at this. Do this for the next year, you will become an expert at it. Right. But if you walk along, thinking that you're doing it, and you're actually not, I've literally been in conversations with people that are like, you know, I'm like, What do you what's? What are you experiencing that like I'm battling right now. And I'm like, Well, what are you saying? And like, while I'm battling? You know, I'm battling the lies. Well, what are you saying? Well, I'm in a battle. What are you saying? And they will go, oh, my gosh, I'm not actually saying anything. I'm not battling back. I'm like, then you're not in a battle, you're getting pummeled, you're allowing that negative self talk that just beat the daylights out of you. You've got to overpower that with your own words. So recognize this is where I am, dig in, find out what's going on. If something is truly happening to you that you are, you know, somebody's being controlling, manipulative. Somebody's having an effect on you in a negative way, and you aren't able to be healthy in that situation. healthy boundaries must go in place. Right? For me.

Chris LoCurto 14:06
Praise God. I'm at a different place where a lot of times I can watch somebody being very controlling, manipulative, Unhealthy, Toxic, and I start walking myself through. Is this affecting me? What do I need to do? Do I even need to do anything here? Do I need to push back? Do I need any healthy boundary set? And a lot of times I don't I can look at the person and go saying something is not going to do anything right now. It's not going to help this person. They are so in victim mentality. They are so controlling they're so whatever, that if I push back all it's going to do is elevate that right there or sometimes I'll even recognize that even trying to help that person is only going to element no matter how gentle I can be no matter the right questions I can ask. All it's going to do is elevate their lack of control or their victim mentality. I'll even talk myself through that. Don't do it. So if I can recognize what's going on, not handcuffed myself emotionally to it, think logically get over to the logic side, then I can start walking through what's going on. So now let's look at it again, and I'm giving so much information, stop me if any of this is confusing jump in. But let's talk to the side of one, it's just negative about me. When negative things happen, we are in a society now that if you stub your toe, you're a victim to the world. You need the government to come in and save you. Everybody needs to circle around you on Facebook and tell you how victimized you've been by the concrete. The concrete stubbed your toe, ever, it is just insane how people are living in victim mentality. It is insane how people are living in, you know, anything possibly negative is happening to you. Right? If I stubbed my toe, I stub my toe, get over it. Right? What do I learn from it? Well, don't walk around like that, right? You change the way you're doing the thing that you're doing whatever it is. So if I recognize if I will get in my head Well, before I end up in a victim mentality situation, a negative situation, and negative self talk or self sabotaging situation, if I will recognize now right now, hey, not everything is that's bad is bad. So, you know, at our Next-Level Leadership LIVE Event, this past event we talked through? What does it mean to be able to allow failure to be a teacher? What is it? How can you take fears? And allow those to teach you how can you learn from these aspects, and be able to implement processes, so that instead of looking at everything, so negatively, you can look at that and go, Oh, well, what did I learn from that? Well, when you look at next level, leadership, live event, the whole event, this whole business, the stuff that we do, is literally based around a life of me failing at stuff and screwing things up and making mistakes and hurting people and doing stupid, but learning to go that does not define me. You know, zig said "failure is is an instant, it's a situation, it's not a person", of course, I just jacked up what Zig said, but it's very close to that. You know, it's not, I'm not a failure, I have failed 14 billion times I'm going to continue to fail through life. The question is, if I'm going to allow that to affect me negatively, how am I ever going to grow? How am I ever going to get better? So for me, I don't look at those negative situations and go, I'm a failure. Now I did for most of my life, you know, for the first half of my life, for sure.

Chris LoCurto 18:02
You know, I am a failure. Look at me, I'm a terrible person. And that also was coupled with people who would take their, you know, I would surround myself with specific people who, when they were out of control, they would point to me as being, you know, some reason why they were hurting or struggling in life, it still happens to this day, I still have people in my life that, you know, if they're struggling or feeling out of control, the first thing they're doing is how can I make Chris feel bad about himself? Because I can feel better about myself, right? I've even had to take those situations and go, how do I grow from this because I chose to recognize early on, not all bad things are not all failures bad. That's allowed me to not only overcome and practice the tools that we use, but to teach other people to help other people to walk through to help other people grow through it. So I don't know if that answers the question that you're asking, or what we're trying to solve here as much. But for me, I have to recognize I have to look at the situation and go this is okay. It's alright for me to have failed at this. What did I learn from it? And then the other thing is, is I'd say you also have to be very cautious of who you surround yourself with, you know, who you allow to influence you. If you have people that are consistently negative and it's affecting you where you find yourself being negative, change that right do something about it don't spend as much time there are times I have you know, people I love in my life that when something goes wrong, the immediate response is Oh, great. And I right they're going Oh great. What Why is that so bad? Why is that such a problem? Why are you viewing this so negatively? Where's the you know, where's the opportunities? How can we fix the situation what what are our opportunities, you know, what other options do we have? What can we do about out, you know, this current situation, instead of always looking at the situation as a negative, oh my gosh, this thing just broke while it broke, what do we do now?

Unknown Speaker 20:11
It's so funny.

Chris LoCurto 20:13
We had a time up here at the ridge where one day it was just, there's always 1000 Little frustrations, you know, in any random day, like you can start a day off and it's like, oh, there's a frustration out there's a lot of and they're just little ones. It's not, it's nothing that is just like, oh my gosh, this just ruined my day, right. And we had a day where I'm having a bunch of frustrations, Heather's having a bunch of frustrations, and something happened. And I it was with a faucet somewhere. And I'm like, I knew as I began to, I think we're fixing a showerhead or something on something I can't remember. But I remember I'm like, I touched it and popped off in the water was on and I'm like, in two seconds. I'm getting sprayed down. It's it's coming. I know that it's going to happen. And and sure enough, bam, I just get hit. And I just went after it. I just start laughing. I started laughing I picked the thing up, I shut it off. And I'm just laughing. And Heather comes back. She's like, what's going on? And I'm like, Well, I just soaked myself.

Unknown Speaker 21:20
It's just like, why are you laughing?

Chris LoCurto 21:22
I'm like, I gotta laugh. What what are my options, I can be mad, I can be frustrated. But not only am I now wet, I knew it was going to happen. Because I can see what's going to happen. And it just added to the bunch of little frustrations. If I allow that frustration to continue, then it just ruins my day, it becomes more negativity. And then here's what people do. So many negative things are currently happening, what's going on? What's happening? Why are all of these negative things happening? What's going on? You know, am I doing something bad to myself? Am I hurting myself? Somewhat you whatever, then you start, you know, carrying that negativity over into fear of something else is going to happen? Something big is gonna happen. So there's all of that makes sense.

Brian A 22:12
Yeah, there's so many great things in there. I feel like we just, we, this is a compact mini series, these are compact episodes, this is the Red Bull, just stress was a Red Bull dose of. But no, there's so many powerful things here. There's so much objectivity, to be gained. Choice, being careful how we how we judge or label situations that we're in, because if we want to, you know, sustain maintain that objectivity. We can't just run to label it. Terrible, bad, ugly. And then, you know, we've talked about it so many times before that so many of our, you know, the things that we suffer are imagined. And if we'll walk our selves through, like you're talking about, and gain, perspective, gain, the objectivity. You know, when I do that, for me, I'd say more than half the time, it's nobody else's fault. And I'm quick to assign that blame, and you know, make it someone else so that I can be the victim so that somebody else has to deal with it, and then not me. But when I look at it objectively, I realize, Oh, I just have been involved in my own head, my own imagination. And I've been labeling things and I've, I've created a world of suffering, that really doesn't exist. And, and that's not to say that there's not real pain and real suffering out there. But I think so much of the time, especially in modern culture, we do this to ourselves. So there are some powerful keys here to escape that and find freedom. I love it. Thank you. Yeah, and I think sharing all of that,

Chris LoCurto 23:54
here's that this is downplaying actual difficulty or actual pain or actual, that's not what we're talking about at all. We're talking about the other 98% of the time, because when you look at it, the actual real negative situations, compared to the ones that you create in your head, is an incredibly small percentage of time. But when you have all of those other imaginary negative things, or all of that negative self talk or all that, then it makes the actual negative situations like 1000 times bigger. So we're not talking about when something really bad does go wrong, or you know, we're talking about, hey, this isn't that big of a deal. Don't decimate yourself over this process.

Brian A 24:40
Yep. Awesome.

Chris LoCurto 24:42
All right, folks. Well, hopefully this has helped you today. May have confused you a little bit. If so, reach out, let us know. But hopefully this has helped you today. We want you to take this information, change your leadership, change your business, change your life, and join us on the next episode.