Today we are going to talk more about relationships and how we communicate with others in the Alpha state. Do you hear the words people say, or do you hear your beliefs about their words?
Kevin explains his 4 layers of communication based on the model to help us understand how only we have control over the way we feel, and not others. We will go over some tips to improve our relationships through understanding our brains, and their brains.
Kevin also teaches the lesson of Alpha vigilance with sharing his experience and circumstance recovering from Bells Palsy.
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What You’ll Learn From this Episode:
- Deepening our understanding of Alpha communication
- How to deal with our brains projecting our own fears onto the other person in communication and relationships
- How to listen from the Alpha state.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Speaker 1:
Welcome to the Alpha Male Coach Podcast, the only podcast that teaches men the cognitive mastery and alpha mindset that it takes to become an influential and irresistible man of confidence. Here’s your host, certified life coach and international man of mystery, Kevin Aillaud.
Kevin Aillaud:
What’s up my brothers. Welcome back the Alpha Male Coach Podcast. I am your host, Kevin Aillaud. And I want you guys to know, I have received a ton of emails from you guys wishing me the best for a speedy recovery from the Bell’s palsy and how much it’s bummer that it’s happened. And here’s the thing, guys, if you guys didn’t know, it’s funny, Bell’s palsy. I woke up one day and the left side of my face was numb and paralyzed, like it was just droopy. Of course my first thought was, “Oh my gosh, what’s going on? Is there something wrong with my brain? Is there like a stroke happening?” But it was only my face. So it wasn’t my whole left side of my body, it was just my face. And really, it was my tongue as well. I’ve lost some taste in the left side of my tongue, which is quite interesting.
Kevin Aillaud:
So just to, very quick, to bring you up to speed. And now I’m getting a lot of emails from you guys, but I want to tell you all that I’m getting some movement back. I’m getting some motor control back in my face and some taste back in my tongue. And really though, what I want to tell you guys, to kind of put your minds at ease, is that the way I think about this, first of all, this is a circumstance, right? You guys understand that this goes in the C line. It is what it is. I mean, I’ve been diagnosed with Bell’s palsy. So you can kind of say that if you look at what the doctors diagnosed me with, you kind of say, we could all agree on that. We don’t necessarily would all agree that I have it, right?
Kevin Aillaud:
We could see that I have a paralyzed face. But that diagnosis itself is certainly one doctor’s opinion. And if we agree with that doctor, of course. But here’s the thing, that is a circumstance. Having that paralysis, having that sensorimotor nerve, that paralysis and numbness in the left side of my face, that is a circumstance. And I’m not thinking in it as a bad thing. It’s not a bad thing that’s happened. For me, this experience has given me the opportunity to manage my mind and be grateful for things that I typically take for granted. And the truth is, if I still have this facial paralysis in October, then I get to go to Halloween parties as Harvey, Two-Face from the DC comics. So I’m very excited about that.
Kevin Aillaud:
I’m not hoping that I’ll have this through October, but I’m like, if it happens then I’m good to go, right? I’m taken care of in terms of who I’m going to dress up as. All I really have to do is put some makeup on the left side of my face, because that’s not moving. Right? Like that’ll be the Two-Face. Then I’ll be Harvey Dent on my right side, and that’ll be super fun. Or, I can just wear the patch. Right? Because I’m wearing a patch, if you guys have had a consultation call with me, obviously you guys in the Spartans all know. But I’m wearing a patch over my left eye because of again, because of the paralysis, my left eye doesn’t blink guys. When I blink, it looks like I’m winking with my right eye. So it’s just this vulture eye that kind of stares out and it gets very dry.
Kevin Aillaud:
And so because of that, what I do is I put some drops in and I tape it shut and then I wear a patch so that I can still coach, I can still do instructions and coaching and teaching and the webinars and everything, without having my eyeball dry out. And so I could just go as a pirate as well if I don’t get that motor function back in my eye. But it’s funny because I’m excited for it. I’m looking at it in a good way. And it’s interesting because every single person is like, “This is a bad thing.” I haven’t had anyone come to me and say, “Hey, what are you learning from this? How are you growing from this?” Right? Like what is happening for you in this regard? In what way are you becoming more of who you are from this experience?
Kevin Aillaud:
Because again guys, in my mind, in my thoughts, everything happens for us not to us. So while many of my friends, many of my students and many of you as well in the audience here that have sent me emails, many of you are thinking that this has happened to me in some way. It’s really happening for me. It’s true for all circumstances.
Kevin Aillaud:
But today, guys, we’re going to talk about relationships. And what I’m going to do today is really kind of get into how we communicate with other people from the alpha state. And because this is relationship month in the Spartan Academy, this concept will really help you in developing those relationships because communication is so important in relationships. And remember guys, we’re not in a relationship with other people, right? We’re only in a relationship with our thoughts about other people. So how we communicate is through how we think about them. And that’s so important to bear in mind and continue. I’m going to repeat that actually again during this episode, I repeat it almost every episode, especially in episodes that are about relationships.
Kevin Aillaud:
But I want you guys to know, and as a coach, I have taken this concept that I’m going to teach you today to the max, because I practice it. Not just when I’m coaching, right? Not just when I’m coaching my students and working with consultation calls. But at this stage in my life, I do this when I listen to everyone. This is just how I communicate. Now it’s just how I relate to other people. And I also teach this to my students so that they can listen and communicate from their alpha state rather than the beta condition. And there’s a huge difference between listening from your beta condition and listening from your alpha state.
Kevin Aillaud:
Here is the big difference, right? When you listen, when you’re in communication with another person, from your beta condition, all you hear are the words that people say, and that’s it. And that’s the way most people communicate. They hear the words and they think that there is a direct communication, almost like a direct communion there. Person to person, like you’re in a relationship with them. And as I just mentioned you guys, we know that’s not the case. The truth is we are not in a relationship with that person. You’re not in a relationship with that person. There is no direct relationship. You’re only in a relationship with your thoughts about that person. And they are only in the relationships with their thoughts about you.
Kevin Aillaud:
So there is not even their relationship with you. Now alpha vigilance is more like a telephone game. Listening and communicating from your alpha state is really like a telephone game because there’s so many layers, there’s so many stages. It’s not a person to person dialogue. And there are actually four stages. Stage one is there is someone talking to you and that person is thinking their intention, right? So they’re there and they’re thinking their intention. That’s stage one. They’re thinking what they mean to say. It’s their thought, that goes in their thought line, there T line of the model.
Kevin Aillaud:
Stage two is what they’re actually saying, right? That’s the words coming out of their mouth. So you have their T line, they have their thoughts, creating their feelings, driving an action. That’s stage two, that’s what they say. And sometimes what they’re intending to say doesn’t come out the way they’re intending to say it. Think about that. What you’re thinking and what you say are oftentimes, many times, two completely different things. So there can be a disconnect between stage one, the thought, the intention, and stage two, the action, the speaking. There can be a gap between what the person thinks and how they communicate it from their mouth.
Kevin Aillaud:
Stage three then is you hearing what they say, right? That’s the actual words. So that would be the circumstance for you. Now, many times, stage two and stage three are the same. But many times, they’re also not the same because even between stage two and stage three, there can be a disagreement. What someone says and what you hear can be different. Sometimes this can be reconciled, right? If there is a recording, if there’s a video of somebody has recording what somebody is saying. So then you reconcile stage two and stage three, what’s been said, and what’s been heard, because stage two and stage three are the facts, that we would all agree on if we had this recording. But many times people don’t even agree on that. What I said was this. Well, what I heard was that, right?
Kevin Aillaud:
And it’s not what they thought. It’s what they actually heard. It’s not stage four, which is what I’m going to give you now. Stage four is what you make what they said mean to you. It’s your interpretation of what they said. So this is now your thought, this is your T line of your model. So it goes from their thought, that’s stage one, to their action, stage two, to your circumstance, which is stage three. And then what you think about that, which is stage four, that’s your thoughts about that. And at this stage, the communication has made it to your subjectivity and the telephone game is complete. So there’s actually four layers to this communication, which means that a lot of times, we don’t ever receive what the other person is intending.
Kevin Aillaud:
We’re much more interested in what we are making it mean to us. We’re much more interested in our thoughts about the words that they said. Because we don’t see the world the way it is, we only see the world the way we are. And I want to make sure that this telephone game is very clear. So I’m going to repeat it in a much more condensed, succinct way. So there’s the person’s intention in what they’re saying, stage one. Then there’s your interpretation of what they’re saying. Okay, that’s stage four. What is actually said is stage two and stage three. Those go in the circumstance line of the model. That is the circumstance. Those are the words. Those are completely neutral. But what we think about what they say determines how we feel, and this is the universal truth. Thoughts create emotion.
Kevin Aillaud:
So there’s the circumstance of what they said, right? That’s stage three part of the telephone game. That’s a third person in the telephone game. Then there’s the thought you have about what they said, which is your subjectivity, stage four. And that determines how you feel. So many, many times, my students will say to me about someone else, “Well, what they said hurt me” or “What they said frustrated me” or “What they said made me mad.” Right? And that’s just simply impossible. That is not what happened. That’s the beta condition, right? That’s you thinking there is only one stage, which is a direct relationship. That’s you thinking their intention, which is stage one, is to hurt you, which is stage four, creating that emotion. That is the illusion that most humans live in and with. What really happens is this person says something and then your thoughts about what they said creates your emotion.
Kevin Aillaud:
And this, brother, is such great news for you because now you can be aware that nobody has the power over you to create how you feel. Only you do. And when you understand that, intellectually at first, and then existentially with practice, it’s so much easier to listen, to communicate with alpha vigilance. And the way we listen from the alpha state is by trying to understand all three stages, because really stage two and stage three are kind of the same, right? We have to understand all three stages of what is going on. So you’re alpha vigilant for what they are saying, right? For what they’re intending to say, which is their T line. You’re alpha vigilant for what they’re actually saying, the words, which is there A line and your C line. And which is the same, right? Which should be the same if we have that recording, if we can all agree to it. Sometimes it’s not, but in your alpha vigilance, you will be paying attention. You’ll have that vigilance for that circumstance. What are the actual words?
Kevin Aillaud:
And then you’re alpha vigilant to what you’re making it mean, which is monitoring and managing your own mind. That’s your thoughts, what you’re thinking. That is alpha vigilance, and that is listening from your alpha state. Now you may be like, “Okay, coach, so I’m having a conversation with someone, I’m here in a relationship, and I’m trying to dissect all of these things that are going on at once. All these different stages, this telephone game you’re talking about.” And at first I’m going to tell you, brother, it will be challenging. And at first, it’s not something that’s going to come easily to you. I mean, just like anything new, try juggling, try riding a unicycle, right? It’s not going to be simple. Your brain has created a perception of life that you are in direct relationship with this person.
Kevin Aillaud:
And that illusion can be a bit challenging to disintegrate, to really separate yourself from. So in the beginning, what I suggest you do is evaluate conversations after they’ve happened. And I do this very often with my students during our coaching sessions, because they will present with a story about how someone hurt their emotion, whatever it was, somebody created their emotion. But what we’ll do is we’ll basically break down what that person said, right? What my student thought about what they said, right? So we go from the C line, what that other person said and then what my student thought about what they said, to their T line and what we imagine the person intended and why they said it. Now the truth is we can’t ever really determine why someone said something unless we ask them. But it’s still a really important piece of the exercise to ask what you think they might have intended because it’s really rare that our brain ever considers the intention behind what someone says.
Kevin Aillaud:
Usually, the brain just goes direct to what it hears and the subjectivity that it creates. So for example, a student will say, “My wife doesn’t respect me.” Hears the respect. Doesn’t respect me, this emotion, “Because I’ve been working all day and I had to pick up the kids on my way home. And I’m doing all this stuff. And I asked her to start dinner so I could eat when I got home. And when I got home, it hadn’t even been started. And I got home late and she was just sitting there,” and whatever, right? She said she would start dinner, she didn’t, even though I was out running all these errands. My wife doesn’t respect me. And I’ll say, “Do you think that her intention was to disrespect you? Do you think she woke up this morning and was like, ‘Hey, what can I do to disrespect my husband today? And so what I’ll do is I’ll let him run around with the kids. I’ll let him do all these errands and then I’ll just let him starve. I won’t make him dinner.'”
Kevin Aillaud:
And every time I ask that question, my student, it kind of puts some perspective and they’re like, “No, well, of course that’s probably not what she was thinking.” Right? But isn’t that the interesting part? Isn’t that what’s so fascinating because that’s how your brain is choosing to interpret it. That they don’t respect you, that she doesn’t respect you. And what’s even more fascinating is that when I asked my student what they think their wife’s intention, what her intention was by that, most of the time they say, “Oh, well, she just maybe ran out of time. She had other work to do at home. She was trying to catch up on some other housework.” Or even something for you, like maybe she was like finishing up some other projects or some other thing, which is the opposite of not respecting you. Right?
Kevin Aillaud:
So here’s what I want to suggest. You ask yourself, why is this person saying this? Now, pause, stop right there because you got to be very careful when you ask yourself this. You want to find the answer to that question in their brain, not in your brain. And stay with me on this because this is a part of this alpha state, part of alpah vigilance is understanding the superposition of thought, the infinite superposition of thought and how we go about choosing a single position. If someone says to you, “I don’t like you,” you want to ask yourself, why are they saying that? Now, if you find the answer in your brain, your brain will come up with all of the reasons why you’re not likable. It will come up with all the reasons why this person is a jerk. It will come up with all the reasons why they’re saying rude things, being mean to you, or whatever.
Kevin Aillaud:
Our brain’s immediately going to go on into defense and interpret that, in some way, to be protective of you. That’s what brains do. If you give it a problem to solve, it will solve that problem in safety. It will solve that problem without bias. How can I keep this organism safe? How can I keep this organism safe? Your brain will make it about you, that you are the problem and unlikable or that they are the problem, they are a jerk or rude or mean. That’s why you don’t want to go to your brain for the answer. Okay, so they say, “I don’t like you.” You want to ask, why are they saying this, and then go to their brain for the answer. What are they thinking and feeling that would cause them to take the action of saying this?
Kevin Aillaud:
I know that sounds super simple, but it’s actually a game changer, brother. It’s a momentous leap. Because as soon as you look into their brain for why they might be saying this, your brain is open to interpretation with more compassion and you immediately recognize it’s not about you. It’s always about them. Usually when someone’s saying, “I don’t like you,” they’re probably scared or they think you have hurt their feelings, or they think you did something that they didn’t like, or they’re blaming you for what’s going on in their life. And then all of a sudden you’re like, “Oh, I get it. When people are saying they don’t like me, they’re just confused because I’m very likable.” Right? And instead of us trying to reconcile it with our brain, we can start to understand people from that sense of compassion. So question number one. Why is this person saying what they’re saying? And practicing alpha vigilance means you’re going to start to hear what might be going on in their brain. Now that question alone, and that interpretation alone, will completely change your way of interacting with people.
Kevin Aillaud:
The other thing you can do is you can just ask them. Why are you saying that? And they may be able to answer from their own brain in a way that clarifies something for you. But even if you don’t ask them that question, alpha vigilance means you are listening for the intention behind what they are saying. It’s not just what they’re saying, because what they’re saying is there’s a gap, right? It’s a circumstance. And when you ask yourself that, you want to look at the model in their brain. You want to look at the universal truth as it unfolds.
Kevin Aillaud:
So if this is the first episode that you’ve heard of the Alpha Male Coach Podcast, here’s a very quick review of the universal truth. Circumstances are neutral. Everything that happens outside of us, the present moment as it unfolds, including the past and other people, is neutral. It’s data. It’s happening for us. Our gift is to choose our cognition around what we experienced. We get to choose how we think about what happens in our lives. And when we think about it, that creates our emotion, which is our experience, how we feel. And that feeling will drive our action. That will drive us into that circumstance. That will drive us into the present. Now, if feel good, we drive into it, we accept it, we welcome it. If we feel bad, it’s because we’re resisting it. But whatever it is that we feel, that is our experience, creating our actions. And it’s our actions that determine our results, that determine what is the results of our lives?
Kevin Aillaud:
Now the results of our lives, we’ll always reinforce that original thought. That original subjectivity that we have about the circumstance and that reinforces the belief, that opinion, that single position from an infinite number of superpositions that you can choose to once again, create your life. Now, the action. When you think about the A line of the model, the action is what they’re saying, this other person is actually saying to you. That is what you hear. That’s stage two and three of the telephone game I explained earlier. So the feeling is what’s driving them to say it and the thought is what’s causing their emotion. So when you ask yourself, why are they saying this? What are they feeling and what are they thinking that’s causing them to saying this, you’re actually looking at the T, F and A line of their model.
Kevin Aillaud:
And that, my brothers, is alpha vigilance. It’s everything. It changes how you show up because you get out of your brain and you start being in a more compassionate place to understand other people and understand their brains. So here’s another example. Let’s say your boss comes into your office, right, or Zoom calls you or emails you or whatever, and says, “I need you to take care of this right away. It should have been done yesterday.” Now you’re going to ask yourself, “Wow, what is he saying? What’s going on here?” Right? Like, what does this mean? Because that’s what brains do. Now remember, if you go to your brain, it’s going to turn on you, and it will solve the problem by pointing at you. It’ll say, “Because you’re inadequate, you’re not doing a good job. You’re probably going to get fired. You didn’t perform well enough.” That’s what you’re going to get from your brain. It’s not good stuff. It’s beta conditioned lies.
Kevin Aillaud:
But remember, we’re not listening only to our brain. We’re going to elevate our alpha and we want to listen to what we think is going on in our boss’s brain. In the boss’s brain, right? What’s going on in them? So when they come in and they say that, whatever is they say, we can ask ourselves, why are they saying that? What’s going on in their brain? And then we can come up with many different possibilities. They’re under pressure, they’re under the gun, they’re worried about not getting it done, they want to make sure that they’re communicating clearly, whatever it is. And then from that place, you can see where they might be coming from, possibly, from their brain, and you can take action based on a much more compassionate, motivated role versus being defensive with yourself and with them because of your own brain, because of your own brain trying to protect you.
Kevin Aillaud:
Because you’re going to say in your brain, “The reason why he said that is because he’s going to fire me.” Right? And then you’re going to function under that thought, which you just made up. You just came up with that. That’s just a position, one of many. That may or may not be true, of course. It may be true. It’s just one position, but it’s an infinite position. There’s an infinite possibility of positions, and it’s rarely actually ever true because of the infinite potential. Like what is the possibility of you being fired? Probably very, very low. But it’s one thought you can have.
Kevin Aillaud:
And when you take the time to elevate your alpha, you take the time to think what is actually going on in their brain. Most of the time, you’re going to think, “They’re not going to fire me, I’m a great employee. They’re just worried about getting this work done. They just want to make sure this gets done.” It changes your perspective and it helps you stay out of your own reactive beta conditioned brain and question those thoughts.
Kevin Aillaud:
Okay guys, relationships, communication, and alpha vigilance. Here’s a quick recap. When someone’s speaking to you, it is a four stage telephone game. There’s what they’re thinking, there’s what they’re saying, there’s what you’re hearing and there’s what your thinking. When you listen from your alpha state, you ask yourself, why are they saying this? And you look into their brain, not yours, to see what they could be thinking. You step into the universal truth and you see their model. You understand their thoughts that are creating their feelings, that are driving what they said. And it’s a very clarifying experience.
Kevin Aillaud:
And I’m going to end with this. This is how you hold space. This is how you maintain the truth of relationships as alpha humans. This is how all relationships function in transparency. Once you break through the illusion of the beta condition, that illusion of beta relationships, because there’s one part that a lot of coaches don’t teach, that I want to teach you and that I always teach my students. And it’s this, when you are listening to someone speak, and especially if they’re saying something about you, to you, and you ask yourself, why are they saying this? What is going on in their mind? Sometimes what you will find is that the reason that they are saying what they’re saying is because of something very negative that’s going on in their mind.
Kevin Aillaud:
They may be thinking negative thoughts, and they may be thinking negative thoughts about you. They might be judging you. They can do that, right? Because they’re humans, they’re they’re adult humans, they can judge you. And you want to make sure that you don’t go into your brain once you find that out. You just want to ask why. Why would they be thinking that? And that will drop you into compassion. It’s not about you, brother. It’s always going to be about them. And compassion is a beautiful thing to be able to understand people and take the time to be alpha vigilant with them. It will change your relationships.
Kevin Aillaud:
Brothers, we have taken a deep dive into relationships this month, on the podcast and in the academy. And in the month of June, we’re going to switch into a completely dedicated development of indomitable self-confidence. So many amazing guys have enrolled in the academy and have seen huge changes in their personal, professional and relational lives. I got to tell you, I’m so proud of all my students for the work that they’ve done this month and this year. And I want to invite you to be a part of the success stories that are constantly being posted and shared in the academy.
Kevin Aillaud:
When you are ready to learn the skill of cognitive mastery and emotional ownership, you can go to my website, thealphamalecoach.com, and check out the Elevated Alpha Society Spartans. It’s right there under the tab work with Kevin. You can also book a free 45 minute consultation with me or you could simply enroll. You can just enroll right in the academy because what we’re doing in relationships, what we’re doing in confidence, is so deep that you will learn, you will understand, you will develop the truth. You’ll start to transmute the truth, which is all relationships are simply a mirror to the relationship that you have with yourself. And the more relationships that you work with and practice with, and develop and understand how the universal truth works through you and with you, the more you become more of who you are. The world longs for what you have to offer my brother. Now is the time for you to elevate your alpha.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Alpha Male Coach Podcast. If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard and want even more, sign up for Unleash Your Alpha, your guide to shifting to the alpha mindset, at thealphamalecoach.com/unleash.