July 6, 2015 – HOW TO TRAIN
YOUR ELEPHANT: First, the Ugly Truth about Your Autopilot
Welcome back Viphilus*
I hope you enjoyed having a week off … I know I did because June turned into a very busy month. “Why?” you ask. Because my son got engaged on June 15 … meaning that both of my children got engaged within 6 weeks of each other. It appears that 2016 may be the year of the wedding for our family.
About my son. Christian
has been dating Ashley for 9 years and he has always had it in mind that he
didn’t want to propose marriage until he had a healthy career underway so that
he could support a family. Last October he decided that now was the time so he
began looking for an engagement ring. During his search he became very
frustrated because he was not able to secure the type of financing that he
wanted for the ring he had in mind. His pursuit took him through the winter and
right up to the middle of May with still no open doors for the specific
financing he was looking for. This was a huge problem because part of his elaborate
plan for the proposal was to do it on June 15 … their 9th
anniversary (since their first date). He found himself between the proverbial
rock and hard place. Christian is a website designer by occupation … that’s an
important fact for what came next.
Being financially
stonewalled at every turn, he began looking at the websites of jewelry stores
in the Halifax area in the hopes of finding some that looked in need of
upgrades or improvement. He found a half-dozen or so and wrote to them,
suggesting that he could provide them with a state-of-the-art website, to their
specs, in exchange for an engagement ring. Some of the responses that he got
back were quite rude. One respondent told him that he was extremely
unprofessional and they would never simply give away one of their precious
pieces of jewelry for a mere web page (which probably explains why their web
page sucks). He remained undaunted. He finally received a positive response
from a store owner who wanted to meet him to discuss it. Long story short …
they’ve been daunted in their own search of a web designer who could do what
they needed for less than the $12k they had been quoted (that was the cheapest
quote) and were thrilled to custom-make a ring for Christian to his specs, in exchange
for a website. The jeweler is very happy. Christian is very happy. Ashley (now
my son’s fiancée, no longer just “the girlfriend”) is very happy … especially because
they have twice the ring she would have had, but with no loan to pay off.
And I was VERY happy for another
reason … one being that my son demonstrated one aspect of something I want to
highlight this week … so I’ll come back to him shortly.
I have written quite a bit
about the elephant … the subconscious part of us that is ruled by pleasure
seeking and pain avoiding … but also the part of us that governs a big part of
our will. “How big?” you might ask. Good question, so let’s see what the
experts say. But first, let me actually ask a different question which will
really help us get at the raw truth about ourselves. What
percentage of a person’s behaviour is conscious and self-regulating? Or the opposite: what percentage of a
person’s behaviour is non-conscious, habitual and automatic? Remember, the rider is the conscious part and
the elephant is the subconscious (or arguably, non-conscious)? Be prepared to be shocked if you didn’t
already know this.
You might be asking what this means. Well, what it means
is that 95% of your actions and behaviour do not require an act of intervention
by your conscious mind. 95% of your actions don’t require a decision to be
made. You just do things and behave on some auto-pilot routine that’s running
in your head. That's your elephant! I like to call him your auto-elephant because he really doesn't think things through ... he simply reacts.
I know … you can’t believe it either, right? This just
doesn’t make sense. I “know” that I am making decisions all day long and
choosing how to behave and what to do. But if you actually take time to really
observe yourself and watch/listen to everything you do/say, you will be shocked
to discover that this is true. Now this is where a paradox becomes evident. We
are told our whole life, “pay attention,” or “be alert,” or “be
self-controlled.” From the data we just
saw, apparently we only have 5% of our brain available to our conscious mind …
only 5% is at our disposal to be as attentive, alert and controlled as we need
to be.
You’re probably saying now, “but wait a second … I know
lots of people who are incredibly well-managed or self-controlled … and a lot
of people who aren’t.” So obviously everyone’s percentages aren’t the same …
that 5% / 95% thing must just be an average for all people. And you would be
right …. it is an average for all human beings. So think of all the highly disciplined
people that you know … and now think of all the very undisciplined people that
you know. Think of them as two groups … those with great discipline and those
with virtually no discipline (the high achievers vs. the couch potatoes). Now
take a guess at what the above percentages look like for each of those groups.
Give some thought before you read on. If the 5% / 95% is an average for all
humans, then do the high achievers have numbers that are more like 10% /
90%? Do the couch potatoes’ numbers look
like 3% / 97%?
The answer is …. they are identical …. 5% and 95%! There
is no difference in how much of their lives are on auto-pilot. Those who appear
highly disciplined are intentional in everything they do … they establish a
reason for doing what they do and they only do what makes sense according to
the reasons that they have given themselves. Those reasons are called,
“purpose.” High achievers/performers have declared one or more focal points
(purposes) to which they direct their energy, including a substantial amount
directed towards changing what their auto-routines look like (this part is huge
and I will dig into this in an upcoming blog). They recognize their basic
weaknesses, especially towards their natural inclinations to be lazy and indolent
and they expend a substantial part of their 5% on establishing rituals /
routines that draw them away from those self-limiting, self-defeating and
self-destructive behaviours.
Back to my son for a minute.
His determination to not let any obstacles deter him from achieving his goal of
acquiring an engagement ring is an important life skill. A really really
important life skill. He is a “hammer.” (see June 15 blog) In the last few years I have watched him (with
delight) develop this character quality and it is beginning to separate him from the myriad of “nails” who never accomplish their goals … or can’t even
fulfill the simplest of their own intentions. The really big difference between hammers and
nails is in how they each use their 5%.
Clearly, the 95% greatly overshadows the 5%. Therefore, the rider/elephant analogy makes sense in light of these numbers; one is huge and the other is tiny. And for people who are self-limiting, self-defeating and self-destructive, they are victims to these numbers because their elephant is the hammer and their rider is the nail.
YET ... we know that riders can control elephants. They can tame them and get them to do some very heavy lifting. It takes training ... first of the rider (to teach him how to train his elephant) ... then of the elephant (to put to work the training). When a plaintiff appears on Dr. Phil and says that they are going crazy because they have a dog problem or a child problem, Dr. Phil listens for a while before rendering the same verdict; "You don't have a dog problem ... your dog has an owner problem," or, "You don't have a child problem ... your child has a parent problem." And we know he's right because owners can have incredibly well-trained/behaved dogs ... and parents can have incredibly well-trained/behaved children. It's all about training.
Reframing the problem
So your rider doesn't have an elephant problem ... your elephant has a rider problem.
You don't have a 95% problem ... you have a 5% solution.
You don't have a subconscious/non-conscious mind problem ... your problem lies completely in what you are doing (and not doing) with your conscious mind. And since you only have 5% to work with, you really can't afford to squander any of it. Effective people invest some of that 5% into learning how to train their elephant ... and then training him. Our conscious acts of
determination, self-control and “will power,” can be strategically chosen to
harness the power of the other 95% of our mind. We all know that change is hard so we need
to give ourselves every possible advantage. The rider needs to “think and speak
elephant,” convincing him what’s in it for him (June 22 post), and then mapping out the
easiest possible path for the “beast,” holding his hand through the first few changes.
My Model
Who do I look to as the greatest "elephant trainer?" Jesus. He was the guy who said that, "the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." He understood the 5/95 problem very well. But He made that statement, not to provide an excuse, but to show why vigilance in focussing the 5% was so important.
The book of Hebrews makes two claims about Him that really drives this point home ... 2:17 and 4:15. These verses tell us two key things about Jesus: 1) He was no different from the rest of us in that he had the same weakness towards self-limiting, self-defeating and self-destructive behaviour; and because He had the same potential points of failure He was able to "empathize with our weakness"; 2) He never fell victim to His weakness. He made perfect use of His 5% ... He completely trained His elephant. Jesus was the complete hammer.
Whatever you do … do it with
full attention: all 5% of it.
I hope to see you back next
Monday as we start the actual training of the elephant ... with machetes and dynamite.
Blessings Viphilus,
Your friend, Omega Man
* Viphilus means, "lover of life"
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