7 Lies That Control Your World
The Amplified Impact Podcast
September 25th, 2023
In this episode, I’m breaking down seven common life lies you’ve probably heard:
- Focus Lie: It’s not that you lack focus; you need better focus management.
- Lie of Enough: Pursuing purpose, not happiness, is the key to fulfillment.
- Consumer Lie: You can’t consume your way to happiness; create instead of consuming.
- Thinking Lie: Writing helps you become a better thinker.
- Lie of the Exceptional: You’re not an imposter; anyone can climb their own pedestal.
- Friendship Lie: True friends are rare; focus on deep, meaningful connections.
- Lie of the Best: You don’t have to be the best; aim for better. It’s an ongoing journey.
These lies might be holding you back, but recognizing them can lead to a more fulfilling life.
Which one hits home for you?
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“We tell ourselves, I’m going to be happy when I make more money, when I buy that fancy car, when I move into that amazing house, or I find the partner of my dreams. But the truth is, there is no escaping the hedonic treadmill. All you can change is what you’re walking towards.”- Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony Vicino:
Alright, today we’re going to talk about seven lies that we are told about the world. And this is in particular on business. It’s on money, it’s on personal development. The first lie that we’re told about how the world works is what I call the focus lie. You don’t have a focus problem. A lot of us are led to believe that we don’t have the ability to focus. I grew up thinking because I have ADHD, that I lack the ability to focus. And that’s not true.
Anthony Vicino:
And you don’t have to look anywhere further than just to recognize I can spend hours binge watching Netflix or playing video games, right? Like if you’re interested in the thing, you can focus on it. The truth is you don’t have a lack of focus. You have a focus management problem. And this is not your fault. You are a dopamine seeking missile and you’re incapable of sitting with boredom for more than 15 minutes. That’s what makes us humans. And it’s as a result of the fact that we are constantly seeking dopamine that our attention is fragmented. And I believe, as we’ve talked about very frequently on this podcast, is that focus is your most important asset.
Anthony Vicino:
And how you manage that, how you invest that is going to dictate the quality of your life. But it starts by debunking and refusing to buy into the lie that we’re told, which is that you have a focus problem. You do not. You have a focus management problem. Number two is the lie of enough. We tell ourselves, I’m going to be happy when I make more money, when I buy that fancy car, when I move into that amazing house, or I find the partner of my dreams. But the truth is, there is no escaping the hedonic treadmill. All you can change is what you’re walking towards.
Anthony Vicino:
And in my experience, there’s only one thing worth walking towards and it’s not happiness, which is what a lot of people think. It’s purpose. When you pursue a life of purpose, you have this funny way of finding happiness. But if you seek happiness, well, ice cream makes me happy. Video games make me happy in the moment, but they don’t lead to a fulfilled, purpose driven life. And so pursue purpose, not happiness. Number three is the consumer lie. The world is on this quest to make everything easier, quicker and more convenient.
Anthony Vicino:
Our lives as a result are filled with hypercaloric food, hypercaloric entertainment, and it is all just lulling us into this state of satiation. But despite cramming all of this into our bodies, this food, this hyperchloric food, this hyperchloric entertainment, we feel empty. And the reason for this, I think, is that you cannot consume your way to fulfillment. It can only be created. And so this world that we’re living in, this consumer lies, that when you have enough, when you buy these things, when you consume these things, you will feel happy. You will feel fulfilled, but the truth is you will not. You will only escalate the amount that you can consume or the quality of the thing that you’re looking to consume. And that is a treadmill that you will never get off of.
Anthony Vicino:
And so the only way to live a life of fulfillment is to create one is through the acts that only you can do to bring something forth into the world. And that is an act of creation. It’s hard, it’s difficult, but in my eyes, there’s no journey more worth embarking upon. And so consume less, create more. That is the mantra of a fulfilled life. Number four, the thinking lie. Most of us have around 70,000 thoughts in a day, and yet very few of us truly understand what we think on a given topic. And even fewer of us have genuine insights.
Anthony Vicino:
Because the truth is, most people don’t know how to direct their chaotic mind’s energy to focus it in a useful direction. And the result then is just motion without progress. For me, I live that life. I default to this autopilot existence where I don’t think very deeply on things unless I force myself to sit down and start writing on it. And there’s something about the act of writing which takes those ephemeral thoughts and it makes it physical, it forces me to contain and control and tame the wild thoughts flying through my mind. And so if you want to become a better thinker, if you want to have more meaningful thoughts out of those 70,000 in a day, make time for actually thinking about things. And I think the best way to do that is through the active writing. The fifth lie that we’re told is the lie of the exceptional.
Anthony Vicino:
I believe that the world is run by idiots who work very hard to convince you they are remarkable. And of the ones who truly are remarkable, most of them achieve their success through nothing more than discipline, luck and time. And so if there’s anything I want you to walk away with in this podcast today, it’s that you are not an imposter. Because none of us belong here. Even those people that are up on the pedestal that are running the show, they don’t belong there either. They’re just people who climbed the stairs and got on the pedestal and we allow them to stay up there. And there’s no reason why you can’t also get up on that pedestal, whatever that pedestal is in your life. I’m not saying like, go be a celebrity or whatever.
Anthony Vicino:
I’m just saying whatever it is that you deem important and valuable in your life, you can copursue that. There is nothing holding you back. You do not have to be remarkable to go and change the world or to change your world. You can do that right now where you’re standing. Number six, the 6th lie, is the friendship lie. See, I believe that we all have fewer friends than we think. Most of us simply have a lot of acquaintances. I think friends are the people that you call when the world is crumbling around you, and they always answer.
Anthony Vicino:
And when you view it through those lenses, the amount of friends that you probably have, like, true, deeply meaningful friends, is probably less than you would imagine. And you only find this out the hard way, unfortunately, when the world really does crumble around you and you reach out and you realize there’s fewer people that reach back than you would thought. But in my experience, five really good friends is enough to last you a lifetime. So quality over quantity. Go deep with people. Find those people that you can go a lifetime with and then go as deep as you can with them. And I think the compounding interest, the returns on that investment, is unmatched. And 7th, our 7th lie.
Anthony Vicino:
The lie of the best. I struggled with this one for a really long time because the truth is, you probably cannot be the best at anything in this world. Like, mathematically speaking. It’s so improbable, given just how many humans there are on the planet, that it’s almost impossible for you to become the absolute best at any singular thing. And that was hard for me because for so much of my life, I thought I was extraordinary. I bought the lie of the extraordinary. I thought I was that’s cockiness that’s like, hubris. But I do believe that we all think of ourselves as being above average and that we are the center of our own universes.
Anthony Vicino:
And so we tend to conflate or inflate our importance in the world because you are the lens through which you are observing the universe. And so it’s natural to think that you’re more than you are, that you’re better than average. And it kind of disturbed me when I came to realize, like, I was never going to be the best at any given thing in the world. And it caused me a little bit of internal dissonance, but then I realized that I was pursuing the wrong goal in the first place. Like, the goal isn’t to be the best. The goal is simply to be better. And the beauty of better is that it doesn’t have a finish line. And the only person you’re measuring yourself against is who you were yesterday.
Anthony Vicino:
And when you view it through that lens, you’re no longer living this external, validation seeking existence where you’re just comparing yourself to everybody else and trying to be better and move up the hierarchy, move up the ranking. Instead, you’re just focused on yourself. And the only thing that you can control, which is putting in the work every day and just trying to get a little bit better, incremental improvement every single day. And there’s so much joy and satisfaction and fulfillment in that, right? It doesn’t have to be anchored in the idea of being the best at anything as long as you’re pursuing better, I think that is the key. So those are seven lies that we are told about the world. I’m curious which one resonates most deeply with you. Shoot me a DM. Find me on Twitter at anthony Vasino or on Instagram at the Anthony Vasino.
Anthony Vicino:
Shoot me a DM. I’d love to hear from you guys. Which one of these seven lies resonates the most deeply with you is something that you’ve bought into the most? I bought into all of these over my life, and some of them I still struggle with. So I’m curious. I’d love to hear back from you guys, but as always, thank you for being here. I’ll catch you back around these parts tomorrow, but until then, stay hyper focused, my friends.
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