Last weekend, it seemed that social media feeds were awash with people celebrating their experience at an event hosted by motivational speaker and businessman Tony Robbins called Unleash the Power Within. Looking at this year’s event from the outside, most of the images looked like this:
https://twitter.com/TonyRobbins/status/857649996904058880
What was interesting about many people’s reports about the event was how they shared the concept of priming; a morning ritual that can be used to create a mindset of gratitude, positivity and openness. These rituals are said to help the mind to become more accepting of the present moment, and therefore more able to demonstrate cognitive flexibility in the face of challenges.
Part of learning more is about the will to ‘innovate inside’ before going to create innovation in the world. The personal development world thrives on this hypothesis and has many advocates. It’s essentially another way of saying ‘be the change you want to see in the world. My view of what is necessary to innovate inside looks like this. I believe you need:
50% visionary positivity, 50% dispassionate realism.
Here’s why:
Positivity
Research has long established that optimists are better performers at work, due to this ability to refocus their attention more quickly after setbacks; and it is this refocusing that is one of the key skills needed for learning. Studies have also shown that a positive mindset (the main objective of priming) is linked to higher intelligence and creativity. In short: idealism can lead to better ideas.
Realism
Of course self-belief is only a single part of the picture: the second and arguably more important element of priming the mind for learning successfully is a big dose of realism: this comes in the shape of cultivating the willingness (or willpower) to carve out time to work towards goals, make short term sacrifices (in places such as social life and social media consumption) and in doing so, address the production-to-consumption ratio. There needs to be a certain expectation and embracing of the pain – even the drudgery – of working towards those results: as Mark Manson astutely says: “what pain do you want“?
Telling the brain when it ‘just doesn’t feel like it’ that now is the moment that we need to exercise that willingness: when you get home to write after a long day. When you are tempted to skip building those all-important relationships at that networking event. When it looks a bit dull outside and you don’t want to get up for a run.
And it’s the balance of these things that contribute to a mental environment in which what Tony Robbins fans call continuous and never-ending improvement (CAN-I); which is essentially lifelong learning. We are entering a phase in which the pace of change in our working and educational spheres will make lifelong learning the standard, not the exception. So maybe those people jumping around at UPW London are onto something after all.