Summary
Joe outlines three essential mindsets for approaching self-development. First, treat the entire process with gratitude rather than self-punishment — when you notice you’ve fallen out of practice, celebrate the remembering rather than beating yourself up for forgetting. The nervous system learns better through gratitude than through punishment.
Second, approach everything as experimentation. Since everyone’s brain and background is different, no one can tell you the exact steps or order for your development. Run experiments — try a practice for two weeks and see what happens rather than taking someone’s word for it.
Third, the goal isn’t self-improvement but self-discovery. If you improve yourself into someone you’re not, you build a life that suits a persona rather than the real you. Authenticity allows others to actually love you, and creates a life that genuinely fits. Just as two kids with equal talent will have vastly different outcomes based on whether they approach volleyball with excitement or dread, how you orient to transformation determines your success.
Key Concepts
- Gratitude as orientation for growth
- Experimentation over dogma in self-development
- Discovery not improvement
- Punishing the remembering slows growth
Key Quotes
“At the moment that you realize you’ve forgotten, you’re in the practice again. When you beat yourself up, you’re actually beating yourself up for being in the practice — for the remembering.”
“No matter what, looking for someone else to tell you your truth is never going to work as effectively as running experiments and finding out what your own truth is.”
“If you improve yourself and you’re not yourself, then certain things happen — like you can never love yourself because you can’t love yourself if you’re not being yourself.”
“There’s a thousand different people, completely different people, that are successful in their own right.”
“How you orient to it is going to make a huge difference.”
Transcript
hey everybody this is Joe Hudson and I wanted to talk today a little bit about how to approach self-awareness or self-development and there’s three things about the approach that are really important the first thing is that you treat it all with gratitude the second thing is that it’s really important that it’s experimentation and then the third thing that’s really important is that what we’re here doing isn’t about improving yourself it’s about discovering your authentic self so when you’re in the middle of learning something let’s say you’re playing tennis and you hit the ball when you’re playing tennis and then you miss and then you hit and then you miss and then you hit there’s this idea that if you beat yourself up every time you miss you’re going to somehow improve and that’s not how it works at all in self-development if you beat yourself up for not keeping to a practice or if you keep beat yourself up for not uh listening with an open heart one thing that’s happening is that you’re slowing down the progress because it’s really important that you titrate that you go pendulate back and forth to be able to learn something and so if every time you’re like in the natural learning process from understanding to not understanding to understanding to not understanding if you beat yourself up then you slow down that entire process instead of saying oh this is cool the second thing that’s really important is that at the moment that you realize that you’ve forgotten at the moment that you realize oh I haven’t been in the practice or I haven’t been listening with an open heart then you’re listening with an open heart again then you’re in the practice again and so when you beat yourself up you’re actually beating yourself up for being in the practice for the remembering and so the way that the nervous system works is oh I remembered you you fucked up and so you’re punishing the remembering so it’s so much better to say oh I’ve done it and I’m grateful and oh I just remembered and I’m grateful that I remembered also it’s just a fucking ton more fun to be in a place of gratitude than it is to be in a place of beating yourself up experimentation is critical so everybody’s brains are a little bit different everybody was raised differently and what that means is that even if let’s say that we know what all the steps are which nobody knows right all the steps for your particular development nobody knows what order those steps should be in and sometimes the order is more important than the steps and so no matter what looking for someone else to tell you your truth is never going to work as effectively is running experiments and finding out what your own truth is so a great example of this is let’s say uh you want to figure out how to enjoy your life more and somebody says it’s really important like I just did I just said oh hey enjoyment and gratitude is is far better great so you listen to that you hear it but instead of going oh that’s right and I’m going to be grateful fuck that run an experiment say oh I’m going to do gratitude practice 10 minutes a day for 2 weeks and see what the hell happens I’m going to be grateful every time I remember and see what the hell happens that’s a far better way to do it it than to just take my word for it one because you learn it a lot better if you actually are in an active relationship with it but two is well maybe gratitude doesn’t work for you right now yeah let’s find out or maybe there’s a way in which you can do gratitude that you’re going to discover in that experimentation that works better for you and so don’t take anybody’s word for it if you hear something that you think oh that resonates with me or that’s something that doesn’t resonate with me uh is it triggering me and I want to experiment with it then design find an experiment where you get to play with it for a while and find out what’s true for you so let’s say I went out into the world and I acted like some guy named like Tim Harris right and I’m like I’m out there walking and acting like Tim Harris and the people who like Tim Harris are going to be around me and the people who don’t like Tim Harris are going to be away from me and the people who reward Tim Harris are going to reward me and the people who punish Tim Harris are going to punish me and so I have a world that’s fit for Tim Harris I don’t have a world that’s fit for me Joe Hudson but if I’m authentic then I actually find people who like me and I have a world that’s set up for me if you improve yourself and you’re not yourself then certain things happen like you can never love yourself because you can’t love yourself if you’re not being yourself other people can’t love you because then they’re loving who you’re trying to be not actually who you are so you can’t actually feel the reward of living unless you’re living as you you can’t get the love you can’t enjoy yourself more importantly than that you create a life that actually suits you and so there’s this idea somewhere that there’s like one way to succeed there’s one way of being good but there’s a thousand different people completely different people that are successful in their own right so that’s the third reason that it’s really important to be authentic and to approach the whole thing as oh I’m discovering who I am I’m discovering how to be more me then I’m thinking about how to improve myself the reason that all this is important is you think about this like sports for a second there’s one kid who’s like learning to play volleyball and they are saying I can’t wait to learn volleyball I’m so excited for volleyball I love that practice I can’t wait to get out and give it my best shot and then you have another person another kid just as talented who’s saying to themselves oh God I got to do some volleyball today my mom made me do the volleyball right you’re it’s clear who’s going to be more effective so it’s the same thing with self-awareness or transformation as it is with you know volleyball how you Orient to it is going to make a huge difference and so if you think about it this way hey I can have a a transformational process where I’m grateful the whole time or I’m beating myself up the whole time where I’m finding out what’s true for me and I am making it Mine by experimenting as compared to I’m just digesting what other people tell me is true if I’m having a transformation process where I’m learning to be myself and be fully authentic you’re going to have a far better chance of success but more importantly you’re just going to have a much better time in your transformational journey post anything down there that you have other questions about other content that you want to see from us and thanks so much for showing up