Act of Giving, Time Is Money, Making Mistakes, and Listing Values
Host: Eric Chow · December 13, 2019 · Episode 17 · 55 minutes
Transcribed from the episode audio and edited for names and terms. Wording can differ slightly from what was said; the episode itself is the record.
What is up everybody? Welcome back to the Eric Chow Empowers Podcast in this episode. I'm going solo to talk about some things I've been thinking about over the past week that I am really really really excited to share because I think these are some valuable thoughts and You know, they're not complete thoughts. I think I They're just things that I've been thinking about and I want to create a conversation around. So as you listen to these things that I've been thinking about, hopefully something is of value to you. And maybe if you have thoughts on something, you can share them with me. And I'd love to hear what you're thinking and your opinions on the things that I'm talking about here.
I guess a brief overview of what I'm talking about is just sort of how we being able to be of service to others and doing things for others and sort of finding purpose and fulfillment in our lives is a very complex sort of situation issue, I suppose. And so I talk about Um, sort of one little angle that I've been angle on that situation that I've been thinking about lately. So that's the first clip I recorded that several days ago. I don't actually know how long it's been, but I recorded that several days ago, uh, because that's something I've been thinking about and I had time to record it. So I did. And then I just recorded a second clip.
which covers a few other topics that I've also been thinking about particularly around where we direct our attention and our time and some of the mistakes that I've made and My relationship how my my relationship with time has changed over the past year two years the idea of past present future but also about how we make mistakes and how, you know, just the thought and idea on how we should be treating mistakes that we make and how we should be treating ourselves for when we make those mistakes and also thinking about values with. So those are just three general areas that I've been thinking about lately and I wanted to share some thoughts around. So hopefully there are value to you guys. Hopefully.
You someone someone will have some thoughts that they can share with me. I do have two episodes that are already pre recorded recorded them quite a while back actually, but I just finished finals yesterday and I haven't had a chance to finish editing so I'm uploading this one first because this one doesn't require much because it's just me and I don't really have to edit anything so here's this episode Hope you guys enjoy. Hey everybody. So this episode is going to be a little bit different because I'm actually recording clips on different days. I just think that I'm gonna be having all these ideas throughout the week and whenever I have a moment to just record quick clips like this one, I'm going to do so and put together those clips so it's not gonna flow super well because they're gonna be different topics, different thoughts, whatnot.
But it's nonetheless ideas that I've been thinking about and hopefully will bring value to you guys. So here is the first one. I've been thinking a lot about just how incredibly unique we all are and how incredibly special we all are. You know, when you think about it, Has anyone ever lived the same childhood as you? No. Sure, you might have childhood friends that you've known since first, second grade. But even they haven't had the same, all the same teachers as you. They also are probably part of different friend groups that you're not a part of. They...
might have their own siblings. They might have, they have their own different families than you, right? They haven't, so even they haven't lived the same childhood as you, even if you've known them practically all your life. And even your siblings, you know, my, my younger sister, for example, she didn't grow up in the same family as I have. Yes, she had the same parents. Yes, she's lived in the same house that I have had all my life. But she has had an older brother in me and I've had a younger sister and her so we have had Different families she had a brother. I had a sister so no one has lived around Surrounded by the same people No one's had the same teachers same friends the same siblings the same parents the same classmates the same community as any of us.
Also, does anyone have the same talents, the same jobs, played the same roles, had the same life experiences, shares the same strengths and the same weaknesses? No, of course not. We are the unique combination of our own life experiences, our natural talents, the skills that we have developed.
the relationships that we've had throughout our lives, we are a unique combination, every single one of us. No one has lived the same life as us and therefore no one can be the same person as us. And to me, I find this an idea of just being incredibly unique, very empowering. I think that sometimes we feel like We have nothing to offer the world. We feel like we are nothing special. But the truth is, when you really think about how incredibly unique we are, I mean, the fact that no one has lived all the same experiences as you have has had all the same people around you, as, you know, everything, when you really think about how incredibly unique you are as a result of that, I think that's incredibly empowering. You are special.
You do have something to offer the world. Of course you do. Everyone does. I mean just it just wouldn't make sense for any of us to not have anything to offer after all our life experiences combined. It also means that we have to be careful about how we compare ourselves. You know, we all we all tend to compare ourselves with other people. But if We're all different than we have to be careful about that comparison. We can't always You know, we can't draw comparisons between apples and oranges other than oh, they're both fruit. They're both you know, spherical You know, there are there are some comparisons we can make but there are you know, we look different we Apples and oranges taste different So truly the only real comparison we can have is to ourselves because we are the only ones who have lived the same life.
And of course, yes, we can draw certain comparisons with other people like, you know, apples and oranges. Yeah, they are both fruit. They're both spherical. There are things we can draw, but We are limited and I think oftentimes we get so caught up in oh, you know, how is this person so you know successful at this so good at this so happy so blah blah blah and I'm not well they're living a different life than you and The truth is no one knows your entire life For example, you know, I've grown up with my sister my entire life obviously But I don't know everything that goes on in her life Only what I experience with her and what she chooses to share with me I don't know the majority of what goes on at her at when she's at school Her friends probably know that much better than I do It's just a fact No one knows our entire life and you don't know and pretty much anyone else's entire life So be careful when you draw comparisons be careful when you make judgments about people because You just don't know It's like judging a book by its cover Yes, we can all judge a book by its cover we can say oh, this is you know, we can make conclusions we can draw conclusions based on what we See and what we perceive maybe what we hear, you know, we can draw these conclusions, but We can't be sure about them because we don't know the full story and we probably never will unless someone chooses to share it with us.
I also think that this idea that we are all incredibly unique and special means that no one is special. You know, if everyone's special, then no one's special, right? But that doesn't make any sense either, does it? Here's what...
Here's what I believe and here's how I interpret that. We, like I said, are the unique combo of what we've experienced and what we've learned and our attitudes that we've had throughout life, so on and so forth, which means we all have something to offer the world, but we do not deserve anything for it because everyone has something to offer the world. We have I'm gonna call it a key. We have no, not a key. Maybe a gift. I'm gonna call it this. We all have a gift we can offer, but we do not deserve other people to take that gift because everyone has a gift to offer.
So no one has a responsibility to accept your gift. What does that mean? Well, It means that even though we all have our gifts, we have to figure out who we want to give it to, how we want to give it. We have to put an effort to give our gift away. It's like this, you know, if, you know, since it's Christmas season, right? People get gifts for each other and everyone has a gift that they can offer. But everyone only has, let's say, in this metaphor, everyone only has one gift to give. And you want to give it to this one person, but that person does not have a responsibility.
They do not have to accept your gift, just like you do not have to accept theirs. Now, of course, we can actually give our gift to many people, you know, musicians, they give their gift of music and song to millions of people around the world, billions. So let's change the metaphor now. We all have an unlimited amount of our gift that we can offer, but no one has the responsibility. No one has to accept us giving the gift. We have to put in the effort. We have to do something to persuade other people to get our gift, to take our gift. But at the same time, we shouldn't be entitled to the idea that someone else has to accept our gift, no matter how hard we work, no matter how great we think our gift is, no matter what, really, it is our job to experience life and create the unique gift of who we are.
And it is our job to share it. But how we do that takes incredible effort. It's not enough to, for an artist, a musician, a filmmaker, to say, hey, I made this song, I made this movie, I made this art piece here. No, it's not that simple. They have to consistently put out their gift. And they have to build relationships with people to help them put that gift out or to continuously give that gift to people. It's building a personal brand almost. You know, if an artist only put out what, you know, if the Beatles, right? Classic. If the Beatles only put out one song, great.
Whatever, right? It's like, who, who? How many people would actually know the Beatles? No, but they put out a ton of songs. And by putting out tons of songs, by putting out this incredible gift over and over and over and putting in the work to create these songs and building a team of people to help them put out these songs. That's what they did. And then they also built relationships with fans and built a sense of loyalty. And so that's why people loved the Beatles. That's why people love all the amazing artists and musicians and filmmakers and actors and actresses and and all these people.
We all have our gift and it doesn't just have to be some sort of song or film or whatever. I'm just using entertainment because it's a an excellent example I think. We all have our gift but we have to put in effort consistently in order to Give that gift away. We are all special. We are all incredibly unique. We all have something amazing to offer the world, but we do not deserve to give it unless we are willing to put in the effort and the consistency to actually do so. And this also means that, you know, I suggest a lot of ideas.
I share a lot of things that I feel like is empowering. And I believe in everything I share. I really do. Like for example, this idea I feel is incredibly empowering to me, but I can't possibly know if it's right for you. When I suggest an idea, I believe it is true. It is right for me, but it is your job to determine if what I am saying is right for you. Or even better, what part of what I say is useful and what is not. You know, one of my favorite quotes by Bruce Lee is this, adapt what is useful, reject what is useless, and add what is specifically your own. And this only goes back to the idea that we are the combination of a unique set.
You take what you feel is useful to you and you throw away what is useless to you and you add in what is specifically your own to create Your gift to create your life to create who you are today I am you know if if I think of Everything I I I guess preach if I think of this podcast as one of the mediums and ways in which I am giving away my gift to people. I do not have any entitlement or any belief that you have a responsibility to take everything I've learned and apply it. I don't believe that. I am willing to put in the effort to put out this podcast.
you know, whatever scheduling with guests, figuring out what to talk about, having these conversations, using up hours and hours and hours of my time to record. Sometimes there are errors and mistakes in the recording or there's problems and technical difficulties. And you know, I also have to edit and figure out how to write the copy and, you know, try to share it and promote it. And I also have to try and You know bring value to you guys if this is the way that I am sharing my gift with the world Even for all the effort I put out I don't believe you have to accept everything I say because the truth is Not everything I say is going to be right for you All I can do is share what I feel is right for me and what I've heard and what I've learned and If something's useful, I hope you can adapt it and use it for yourself if it's not useful then whatever move on and Maybe something I share Resonates with you and you have thoughts on it and you can add your own experiences to something I'm saying and Create what is specifically your own your own, you know when I think about my life motto, right?
Live love matter. I've talked about this before I don't know how many of you actually know exactly so I'll explain briefly this idea live love matter is Three words I heard in a speech by Brendan Burchard And I absolutely loved it. He had his own stories and explanations behind these three words And to me, those three words hold a ton of meaning. When I heard those words, I decided, okay, I'm going to adapt this to my life. I think this is useful. I'm going to call this my life motto. His explanations were great, but they weren't me, so I decided to reject them. I didn't have the same experiences that Brendan Burshard has had. So his stories didn't really relate to me.
So I rejected it. I took the meaning from it. Yes, I kept the meaning. I kept the words, but I rejected the story and I decided to add my own stories and I decided to add my own interpretation of those three words that are the result of my own experiences in life in order to create my life motto that is based on his but not his. I hope you guys can do the same for anything I share, but also anything you hear. You know, our parents will share their pieces of advice, our teachers will, our mentors in life will, our friends will. It's your job to determine whether something is useful, useless for you and what you want to add to it. So I guess to summarize everything I've said about this idea.
It would be this. We are a unique combination of everything that has happened to us, everything we have thought, everything we have done. No one ever has or ever will live the exact same life as we. And that means that we all have something unique and powerful to offer the world. And that doesn't mean by the way that we have to impact the entire world. We are not all going to be world changemakers, but what we can do is impact someone's life, one person's life. And by making an individual's life better, that person will influence someone else. And the truth is we're not going to influence just one person. We're going to influence a ton of people. We're going to influence everyone we encounter in our life, whether small...
or big. And if we're all able to impact someone's life in some sort of positive way, whether it is through some sort of wisdom, whether it is through laughter and entertainment, we're all able to provide something, if we're all able to create an impact like that, we can change the world together. But we all have this gift that we can offer. We are all special which means none of us are Truly special none of us are entitled to receive anything Unless we are willing No, never mind. There is no unless we are not entitled to Everyone accepting our gift We have to do the best we can to put our gift out there for other people to receive and then leave it up to them to receive it or not, to take it or not.
And on the flip side, it is our job to take a look at the gifts that other people put out and figure out what we can adapt to ourselves, what we will reject, and how we will add our own twist onto that gift. Thank you.
Something I've been thinking about the past several days and again, this is being this clip is being recorded on a different Day than the first clip. In fact, I don't even know how long it's been but Something I've been thinking about is my relationship with time particularly Past present and future sort of thing. I think I used to be a person who was very much a past, present sort of person. I attended to be pretty good at being in the present moment, but I also spent a lot of time thinking about the past, particularly things I really enjoyed. So I would take myself back to vacations or really awesome conversations with people or Things like that and sometimes I would imagine oh, you know, what if I did this instead of that how would that?
Situation that it happened already. How would that have changed? Or I would think about oh man. I made a mistake here. I should have done this how would that have gone? And I would play out the situation in my head and That also influenced how I treated the present moment sometimes it would mean that I would act a certain way because I knew how the past had played out and you know, I've been thinking a lot about how I've been using my time because I've been trying to sort of maximize how I spend it, maximize how I spend my time, I mean. And you know, before I talk about that, the reason I'm thinking a lot about maximizing my time is because I am becoming more and more aware of how valuable time is and how valuable moments are.
And so I'm really trying to maximize what time I have. And I think Gary Vaynerchuk says it really well. And I like to reference him a lot because I love a lot of the things that he says. He talks about, okay, it's not about how many hours, you sleep, how many hours you're awake, it's about what you do while you're awake. So, you know, sleep however many, however long I need to sleep, however long you need to. But while you're awake, how are you going to spend your time? I like to say that, you know, if money is the currency of the world, if money is the currency of our economy, or specifically, you know, the US economy, we can say US dollars, you know, in Iceland, they have the crona in Europe, they have the euro, we have the yen, we have all sorts of different currencies, the pesos. But for human life, I believe that the currency is time. And I guess the medium of currency where the dollar is to money.
is to the economy, we have attention is to time is to life. And I'm really starting to think about how valuable and how important it is to direct our time and our attention to the things that are valuable to us and the things that we actually give a fuck about as much as we can. And obviously there are always things that we have to do that aren't valuable that we don't really want to spend our attention on. We don't want to do all our homework. Maybe there's one or two classes that we really enjoy and we don't mind doing that one. Or maybe something's not that hard, so we don't mind doing that one.
We don't mind putting our attention there. Maybe there's certain tasks that you enjoy and then there's going to be other ones that you don't enjoy. The other ones that you kind of just have to do based on.
things that you value, but at least that's based in something that is important to you. But I'm really thinking about how directing attention to what matters is important. So as I thought about that, and I would think about, I would find myself focusing on the past, like, oh, you know, I should have... I would be thinking, oh, I should have directed my time and attention here instead of here. You know, I did all that for the past several hours and man, that's just like I it just wasn't valuable to me. It didn't turn out valuable to me. It didn't turn out meaningful to me, blah, blah, blah.
And I was really living in the past and in that specific sort of scenario, it was very a negative view of the past, a negative view of things.
But I'm really starting to realize that dwelling in the past is actually Also wasting time, you know, we might waste time in the past but by dwelling on it. We're wasting even more time and This also is the result of just my own reflection, but I think Gary Vaynerchuk put it well in a video that I was watching Maybe one or two weeks ago and it was this He was giving context to how he you know whole sleep Six seven eight hours a night and then he'll be he'll work for about 15 hours every day and actually work and He was saying look I waste a ton of time like I I I I I go really fast.
I do a lot of things during the day I'm extremely extremely busy constantly on the move but I still waste a ton of time every single day. I just don't dwell on it. And look, if you know Gary's lifestyle, if you've watched some of his vlogs, especially some of his mega vlogs, the man literally is always on the move. We'll have a seven minute meeting and then another seven minute meeting and then he'll be doing something for like three minutes on social media.
and then he'll be running off to another meeting and then in the car he's going to be doing phone calls with business partners, with his team, with his family, with all sorts of people, and then he'll be hopping on planes to and then he'll be working on planes and then he'll give like couple speeches in like Australia or something and then fly back to New York. The man has a very, very busy lifestyle and he's saying that he wastes a ton and a ton of time and Since I have a little bit of context to his life, it helped me realize what I had also been thinking about, which was, wasting time is very natural.
We're all going to waste time. I think the important thing is to not dwell on it too much. Sure, obviously, we should be learning from our mistakes, you know, oh, you know, I shouldn't be doing this and this and then there's...
There's this thing that sometimes leads to problems that should be aware of blah blah blah. You know, you can learn from your mistakes, but I think that the moment where you catch yourself, you go, okay, I've been spending my time and attention in the wrong place instead of going, okay, well, I fucked up. Maybe just spend just immediately shift your attention to something that actually does fucking matter and then... You know, you can deal with okay. Well, I fucked up deal with that later, you know Maybe you can think about that as you hit the bed at night. You can think about okay. Well, I fucked up right there Maybe something I can do here's a solution.
Here's an idea But I'm you're just gonna have to deal with it like the truth is we're all gonna make mistakes and those mistakes might be Something like what I'm talking about here like not spending your attention to your time in the right place. It might be saying something wrong. It might be doing something that didn't turn out very well. We all make mistakes, right? But instead of dwelling on how we could have changed it, I had those mistakes and I would in the past play out the situations. What if situations in my head, what if I had done this instead? How would that have played out?
I think that that just a waste of time and the truth is we make mistakes and we have to deal with it and I think that's what we should be focusing on you know we make a mistake and we maybe if we can learn from it we learn from it and then we deal with it we just have to move move move you know move Gary likes to say macro macro patience micro speed and micro speed just means take action move fast you know And I think something that really attaches with what I'm thinking about here, and this is also something I've been thinking about over the past week or so is the nature of making mistakes.
You know, the truth is I think that most mistakes are only realized in retrospect. What I mean by that is when we are trying to make a decision.
It's hard for us to know whether we're making a mistake or not. And I'll try to explain this through examples, because I think that's the best way to do it. One that's coming to me right now is, you know, your parents are like, hey, bring a jacket, it's gonna be cold, or a dress warmer, it's gonna be cold. And you feel like you don't actually need the dress warmer, or you don't. Need a jacket or whatever it is. And so you guys go out. The truth is you can't know who's right. You don't know if you're making the mistake or if they're making the mistake, you don't know.
And you know, I mean, you could look at the weather and be like, oh, you know, it's blah, blah, blah degrees. But the truth is the number doesn't mean much. It's your interpretation of the number that means something. And so it's okay. I.
Don't think it's that cold. So therefore I'm not going to dress warmer. I'm not going to bring a jacket or maybe you're like, all right, fine. I'll bring the jacket. And the truth is you make a decision and you go out and then when you arrive at wherever you're supposed to be, when you are walking around, when you're actually in that weather, whether versus just looking at a weather app and seeing a number and some descriptions, that's the moment where you're going to know who was wrong and who was right. So if you do have your thicker jacket and you go, okay, now it's way too hot.
Guess what? I'm right or if it's freezing cold and this is jacket is helping you. Okay. They were right. Your parents were right. There's really no way for you to actually know whether you're the making mistake, they're making mistake, whether you were right, whether they are right.
If you don't bring a jacket, you're going to either be cold or you're going to be fine. And that's going to tell you who's right, who's wrong. And, you know, life obviously isn't about right and wrong. It's not about, you know, always being correct. I think that's a horrible way to live, if that's what you're doing. But in the context of making a mistake and making the right call, making the right judgment, I think that the truth is mistakes. are often only recognized in retrospect. I think I was also thinking about the military or some really dangerous like police situations. I was thinking of it like this, you know, if we have a fire team, let's just say a couple of people, a couple of guys, they have their weapons drawn and they're moving down, they're in a dangerous area, war zone, and they're going down this like hallway.
Maybe an alley, who knows, I don't know. And the guy up front, or maybe let's say the second guy. You know, there's the point man, the first guy, and then there's the second guy. And the second guy has a choice. He can point the gun to the left or to the right, and obviously facing forward. And he can point it, I guess, at a 10, 11 o'clock direction, or a one or two o'clock direction. He gets to pick. And let's say he picks... the right side, the one or two o'clock direction. And because he's pointing his gun in the right direction, in the direction to the right, if the enemy is on the left and he gets shot or his one of his teammates gets shot, he made a mistake. Because the truth is if he had pointed his gun to the left, that guy would have just been shot down, done. Right?
But he can't know that when he's making the call of okay, I'm gonna point right I'm gonna point left. He can't know which direction the enemy is gonna be and he can't know Whether he's making a mistake or not now Maybe there can be lessons for him to learn depending on the situation And I think this may be a reason why some why usually in the military they'll have one guy pointing left the guy behind him points right guy behind that one points left So they'll like alternate Because the truth is if they all try to make a call okay I'm gonna pick right and then they come on the left you're screwed or if you're pointing left and the guy is on the left then you shoot the enemy great You know you can't know whether you're making a mistake or not until something happens until something goes wrong and in that case that's a mistake of basically life or death or at least serious injury or not, you know, every second in battle counts.
And so making a wrong call sucks. But the truth is you can't actually make a much better call. It's kind of blind luck. There's not much you can really do there in regular fights. You know, if you predict, if you're thinking about, okay, well, this punch is coming here or maybe this move is.
You know, the way this guy's moving blah blah blah That could be fatal if it's you know in the olden days when they had swords or like knights in samurai You know, they made a misjudgment on how the sword was being swung and they blocked wrong or they were too slow or they they made an incorrect move They got their arm chopped off or something And the truth is we have to make the best call we can in whatever situation we're in. Fortunately for most of us, the decisions we have to make aren't going to be ones that are actually life and death like that. But mistakes, as I've said several times now, are usually only realized in retrospect. And so a lot of things.
We don't really have to debate that much because we can't debate that much and come to a better conclusion. We just we have to make the best decision we can given the current information that we have and deal with it. If it turns out to be a mistake, we have to deal with it. If it turns out to be a good call, fantastic. We move on, right? We just have to do the best we can and see if there's something to learn. And this ties really well into my conversation of attention, my conversation of time. Putting attention on debating things, I think, is just a waste.
And I'm not very good at this, but I'm trying to work on it. It's something that I'm really trying to place pressure on for myself.
And that's why it's actually something that's on my values, values list, which I've talked about a few times. But just in case you don't know, values list is literally a list of what I value. And it's in a general ranking order. It's not super strict. Like that doesn't mean like when I say this is my number three and this is my number four, that doesn't mean three is more important than four. But certainly number three is going to be more important than say number six to me, right? And the values list is just a list of things that I value, not just in general, but things that I want to make sure I place my, I focus a lot of attention on.
So, you know, I value say traveling or I value food, but those aren't on the list because those aren't things that I actually have to.
concern myself with fortunately and You know, I'm not good. I don't have the funds to be able to just be like oh there's a traveling opportunity I'm gonna take it or you know, I don't have I'm fortunate to not have to worry too much about Where my next meal is gonna come from so I only Write down the values that I want to focus my attention on and I also define what that value is and so One of the values on my list, I believe it's number four, but I'd have to check. I don't actually know is taking action. And that is basically what I'm talking about here.
It's instead of debating instead of pondering, taking action and actually doing something is just so much better because that's how you find out, okay, am I right? Am I wrong? How can I learn from this? How can I take the next step? And I really think that.
Doing things is just incredibly valuable. And, you know, it's, it's, it doesn't just mean like, oh, you know, you just throw yourself into the deep end, you know, maybe you do a little bit of research on something. Maybe you're actually at least do something that is related to whatever you want to do and make progress on it and don't make, make excuses. Don't spend too long just debating and pondering and learning. I think the really important things to just do and look, I'm not great at it. And I try to preach things that I feel like are valuable. This is something that I think is valuable and something that I'm trying to improve on.
So, you know, usually I try to, you know, there's the idea of practice what you preach. I actually don't like that idea. I like the idea of preaching what you practice.
And the difference is, if I practice what I preach, it means I'm saying something and then I go practice it. If I preach what I practice, that means I am only sharing what I actually do. And so this is something that I'm trying to do. I am not very good at it, to be honest, but I'm trying to work on it. I'm trying to get better at it. And, you know, just... doing things and spending less time debating and understanding that mistakes are most often realized in retrospect. Another example that's coming to mind is, you know, I do something in a math class, right? I end up trying to solve a problem a certain way.
And the truth is, I'm not going to know if I'm wrong or right unless I finish the problem and find out I have a wrong answer.
I can spend time going back on it and trying to see, okay, double check everything, but it's often harder to actually find a mistake than it is to just redo the damn problem sometimes, right? And so action and it's, when you do something, you can't really know it's wrong until you look back on it. Or you redo it and find out that you're wrong, right? I think that that's just the reason to take action. I think that's the reason to just do things rather than debate things all the time. I think that it's also a great concept related to how we spend our time, how we spend our attention because the better we are able to get things done and actually do things, the more we're able to learn, the more we're able to make progress and That's just the best possible use of our time and so when we make mistakes, you know, even if it's like I was saying earlier in the very beginning of this sort of a segment this clip if I've somehow spent time and attention on things that are not valuable to me rather than pondering it I just realize okay.
Well, I made a mistake Let's do what I can with the time that I have left. Let's deal with it. Let's do, let's just take action and start, start moving rather than, oh, you know, I fucked up. I should have done this, should have done that. That's just gonna waste more time. And I think that, you know, we all have the same 24 hours and we all have a certain amount of time in our day and in our life.
Let's try to spend it on the things that we value and that's why I think if you Have it done a values list I think that's a very valuable thing to do. I think writing your values is a valuable thing to do and the reason for that is because When you write out your values you are telling your brain this is important to me and this is what I want to spend my attention on and that's not just like logic that's actually science like there's a part of our brain shoot it was called the The reticular activating system. That's what it's called. It's called the reticular activating system and one of its functions is You know we all get our brains are bombarded with a shit ton of information every day For example, our eyes are receiving a lot of reflections of rays of light, right?
That's how we see it's light reflections off of everything and we receive a ton of it at every moment because light rays are fucking tiny and you know, obviously that's just one of our five senses, so we receive a lot of information, but how do does our brain decide what to send to our consciousness, what to send to our awareness, what to send to out the conscious part of our brain. And that's the job of the particular activating system. It's the part that tells you, Hey, right now you're looking at a pillow right now you're listening to the Eric Chow Empowers Podcast. But there are other things going on around you, you know, if you're in a crowd, for example, you are able to sort of not pay attention to what's going on around you, the conversations going on around you, unless you choose to, of course, you can direct your attention to, hey, I'm going to keep a drop on this conversation here because that's kind of funny or I kind of know these people. Or you can totally direct your attention just completely away and be focused on something else.
and you can drown out all the noise sort of and then somebody will say your name and you'll suddenly pop to attention to wherever that sound is coming from. That's the reticular activating system saying, hey, this is, we just got a message. This is important for you to actually pay attention to. And so now you actually recognize, hey, that's my name who's saying that, right? By listing your values and saying. These are the things that I want to pay attention to. These are the things and this is what they mean. You were telling your reticular activating system, Hey, if there's anything that is related to any of these values, let me know so that I can pay attention to it. That's what the values list is about. And that's why I really think it's so valuable. And, you know, these three ideas of attention.
being the currency of lifetime, being the currency of life. And the idea that mistakes are recognized in retrospect. And the idea that the values list helps us to pay attention to what actually matters to us. These three things have been something I've been thinking a lot about some things I've been thinking a lot about. And I want to share it with you guys and hope they Bring you some value. So yeah, hey everybody. Hope you enjoyed listening to this episode of the podcast. This is episode 17. I hope you guys enjoyed listening to some of the Thoughts and ideas I've been pondering over the past week two weeks.
I Hope you guys got some value out of some of the things that I was talking about and hopefully you know you can share it with other people and hopefully It can bring value to others as well. I would really appreciate it if you would do that. If you do and you do it on social, underscore chow, Eric on Instagram and Twitter. You can share it all across social media. And also if you have thoughts on anything that I was talking about in this episode or if it's sparked an idea for you, absolutely let me know.
What your thoughts are I would love to hear them because the truth is these are just things I was thinking about and I would love to hear some more I would love to continue this conversation because that's really what I try to do I try to give ideas and create conversation around them. So yeah Stay tuned for the coming episodes. I hope you guys enjoyed this one. Thank you so much for listening This was episode 17 of the Eric Chow Empowers's podcast. I'll see you next time, but until then my friends, have a fantastic rest of the day.