It’s June, and we have a big month ahead! We are diving right into indomitable self-confidence. Self-doubt is innate, and many of us are not actively trying to build confidence.
What is it about self-confidence that makes it such a sought after feeling? We want to be liked by other people, we want to have more friends, be attractive to women etc.
You can’t teach people how to feel about you, people think the way they think, that is the universal truth. The only move you can make to influence people to like you, is to like yourself!
Want to know more about what I do and how I can help you? Sign up for a free 45-minute session with me, and I’ll show you how this works!
What You’ll Learn From this Episode:
- The difference between confidence, and indomitable confidence.
Listen to the Full Episode:
Featured on the Show:
- Learn how you can enter to win one of five FREE coaching sessions here!
- Sign up for Unleash Your Alpha, your guide to shifting to the Alpha
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 to The Alpha Male Coach Podcast. I am your host, Kevin Aillaud. And this month, May is all about relationships. We’re actually closing out relationship month in the academy heading into indomitable self-confidence in June. And this podcast episode is probably one of the more simple concepts to understand because it just really aligns you at the universal truth and yet, it’s probably one of the most difficult things for humans to do.
Kevin Aillaud:
So because of that, it may be one of the most hardest podcast episodes for you to hear, because really what this is all about is, it is about how to have disagreements without emotion. How to give your opinion and how to listen to other people’s opinions that you disagree with without emotion. And this is in my mind, what will lead to the end of all human conflict. I know that’s a very bold statement to make. I know I’m throwing that out there kind of like as a fastball for you guys to swing on and hit, but here’s the thing.
Kevin Aillaud:
Human conflict is all about identifying with your brain and thinking that your brain is the way things are or the way things ought to be and then conflicting with another brain that thinks the exact same thing. So really understanding how to disagree with someone from your alpha state. As an alpha male, what happens is you make that momentous leap from this crude animal matter into the luminous beings that we are and you connect with other luminous beings rather than having that illusion of separation that we have as animals.
Kevin Aillaud:
So this is a follow-up to alpha vigilance, which was last week’s episode and I highly recommend you listen to that because going back and listening that episode will help you understand why people say what they say, why people do what they do, understand that it is not them. It’s not a human thing. It is a brain thing. It is their action coming from their cogno-emotive state. This episode is about how to communicate your opinions and influence from your alpha state.
Kevin Aillaud:
Now, before we get into that, do me a solid, brothers. Go to iTunes and leave me a five-star rating and review. Check this out. You know what, I’m more of a book reader. I read a lot of books and to be honest with you, I don’t listen to a whole lot of podcasts. I don’t even listen to my own podcast. I record it, I send it to my editor and that’s it. I don’t even listen to it. But what I found out recently by being on another one of our brothers podcasts is that you can subscribe to these things. You don’t have to download every episode.
Kevin Aillaud:
So here’s what I want to offer you, go to iTunes, leave me a five star rating. Leave me a review. Just I love your show. I think it’s great. It’s helping me and I love what you do. Whatever you want to say, go ahead and put that out there. But do this also. Click subscribe because when you click subscribe, then you will automatically get every episode downloaded to your phone or iPod or iPad or whatever it is that you’re listening to these episodes on.
Kevin Aillaud:
Now, if you’ve already done that, brother, look I appreciate your feedback I appreciate your support. If you haven’t done that, it won’t take you very long. Just run over to iTunes and make that happen. You can pause the podcast. I’m not going anywhere. But when you get back, we’re going to get into how to disagree with someone. I’m going to tell you right now. Just to start this episode off with some really hard truth, you’re not very good at disagreeing with people.
Kevin Aillaud:
I don’t mean you specifically listening now, I mean you like the global you, like the human you. All human beings are just not very good at disagreeing with people because what happens is when humans disagree with other humans, they have that emotional response. They get very mad and in general when that happens, that emotional response is what separates our brain, our ourselves, our humanists from other humans.
Kevin Aillaud:
So I just want to tell you that you can have a conversation with someone and completely disagree about something and you can still love that person, right? You can still be friends. You can still hug it out. You could still stay calm and be peaceful. Really, you do not have to get upset. You do not have to get mad. You do not have to get all huffy and puffy and demonstrate that beta condition manifestation from that beta conditioned brain, which is what so many of us do and that is what we witness when we witness anger, when we witness conflict. When we witness even war and violence. So let’s start with what a disagreement is.
Kevin Aillaud:
What is really happening in a disagreement. Here’s what it is. Your brain has a thought, a subjectivity about a neutral circumstance based on how you see the world. And your thought is different than someone else’s thought. So your brain is creating a different sentence than another brain. And that’s it, that’s all a disagreement is. The sentence in your brain is different than the sentence in someone else’s brain.
Kevin Aillaud:
Now, given that information, why do we have such a hard time disagreeing with other people and staying calm, and having that emotional ownership? Why do we feel like we either need to make the other person agree with us, right? You need to make their brain tell them the same story that our brain tells us. That’s the one option that we have. We try to convince them. We try to win them over to our side or we think we have to just eliminate this person or these people from our lives, right? We just blame them. We accuse them. We call them toxic. We call them evil. We call them bad.
Kevin Aillaud:
We tell them that they’re wrong. And generally decide that they’re bad and that they shouldn’t be allowed to make choices at all because their choices aren’t the same as ours. You understand? Those are the two options that most humans deal with. I mean this kind of behavior is rampant in our species. I see it everywhere. And you guys can probably see this everywhere too from the macro level, from these global conflicts that we have to the micro level, to the interpersonal relationships that we try very hard to build connections with.
Kevin Aillaud:
And it is rampant that we have a hard time having different ideas about things and having calm conversations about our disagreements without trying to convince each other to change their mind, to get that sentence that is telling them to be the sentence that our brain is telling us. Politics, religion, social decision-making. Especially with what’s going on right now in the world with the pandemic and so on.
Kevin Aillaud:
There are so many brains out there delivering so many unconscious sentences to humans that seem like facts, but are actually stories that we tell ourselves about the neutral facts. Now, before getting into all of that, I want you guys to think about the last time you had a conversation with someone where they completely had a different opinion than you did and you didn’t try to change their mind. You didn’t try to have them see it your way. You just let them have their opinion. Maybe you shared your opinion too, but it is, what it is. You just let it be what it was.
Kevin Aillaud:
So for example, if I asked you what is the best movie of all time, you would give me an answer. And if you asked me what the best movie of all time is, I would answer The Matrix, obviously, right? I think you guys know that. If you’ve listened to some episodes of The Alpha Male Coach Podcast, I think that’s the best movie of all time. In fact, a part of my identity is that I believe, I free minds via the universal truth, teaching and coaching the universal truth.
Kevin Aillaud:
I believe I am sort of this like real-life Morpheus and every one of my students I treat like Neo. I treat like The One. I just simply offer a simple choice. Learn the universal truth that will set you free or continue living in the illusion of the beta condition. The choice is yours, completely yours. I do not force you to learn the universal truth. All I offer you is the universal truth.
Kevin Aillaud:
Now, not everybody agrees with me on what is the best movie of all time, right? My brother is a big fan of Stripes, a movie starring Bill Murray and Harold Ramis. And you know what, I love Bill Murray. I think Bill Murray is amazing. I think he’s absolutely hilarious. I’ve never seen a movie with Bill Marie in it that I haven’t enjoyed. And the two of these guys together, Bill Murray and Harold Ramis, I mean look, guys. I mean, that’s two out of three Ghostbusters. You throw Dan Aykroyd in there and you’ve got the gold, right?
Kevin Aillaud:
It’s great stuff. But come on. In terms of movies, The Matrix is the bomb. So my brother and I disagree about that, but we can have that disagreement in a way where nobody gets mad at each other, right? We’re not throwing elbows and throwing fists around because we disagree about what the best movie of all time is. We can have a different opinion over what the best movie is without conflict, without anger, without violence.
Kevin Aillaud:
What else? Best food. We may disagree on what the best food is but we’re not going to get mad about that, right? We’re not going to start punching each other about that. We’re not going to start creating wars and anger around that. Best vacation place. How about sports? What is your favorite sport? Or even within that sport, what’s your favorite sports team? Certainly, there’s going to be rivalries you’re going to have some friendly competition, but we’re not talking about destroying cities which some people do, when their favorite sport team losses, right? Or what about the best athlete of all time. Is anybody going to go out and start punching each other in the face? Are any one of you going to go out and create this anger and this violence over the best athlete of all time?
Kevin Aillaud:
We allow ourselves to agree on certain things like that so we’re okay with those things and we just move right along in the world and we still are friends, we still love each other even though we disagree. But when it comes to other things, we have a much harder time. I’ll give you an example. my dad has recently started dating again. Now, he’s in his ’60s and he’s using a dating app. He went out with a woman who happened to have a diametrically opposing political view. And I mean completely different opinions on United States politics and how the United States should be run politically.
Kevin Aillaud:
Now, in all other areas, he really, really like this woman. In fact, they vacationed together in Ecuador for an entire month like they shared space for a month, and the only time. They would argue was when they disagreed about politics. But it got to the point where finally he decided he didn’t even want to talk to her. He didn’t want to see her anymore because they disagreed on this one thing.
Kevin Aillaud:
Now look, I didn’t necessarily want to coach my dad on this, but I did ask him like what is so hard to hear her opinion on something if you disagree with it. Why is that? Why do you want to just censor her. Why do you want her to just be quiet or just to not talk about politics at all? Why is it so upsetting to hear someone’s idea about something that you have a different idea about and this is the work, my brothers. It’s not about just be quiet, don’t talk to me, I don’t want to hear it. You want to answer those questions for yourself in your own life because I think with politics, we feel like those choices made by other people will ultimately affect us personally and possibly globally whereas someone’s favorite movie isn’t necessarily going to affect me unless of course, I’m at home with that person and we’re sitting on the couch deciding what we want to watch.
Kevin Aillaud:
But I think we get so crazy about politics because we feel like if you don’t believe that, if you don’t believe what I believe, it means you’re going to make that choice or you’re going to do that thing and that will ultimately affect me. And I think that’s what happens for some people. But you need to become aware of what it is about other people’s opinions that upset you so much. That’s the mind work. That’s your brain talking to you, and that’s where you’ll learn how to elevate your alpha. So what are you believing that makes it so hard for you to hear someone’s idea about what they believe. Why do you want to be someone who needs to eliminate other people’s voices so you don’t get upset?
Kevin Aillaud:
Now, if you think about like a moral issue or an ethical issue and say somebody brings up something that you just morally and ethically do not agree with, immediately your brain says they’re wrong, right? And let’s take it all the way because you can really give great examples about this. We could actually think that other people’s opinions are evil, especially when we talk about politics because in the extreme levels of politics, I have heard people say that about each other like you’re evil. You come from evil. Right?
Kevin Aillaud:
So whether you’re you know looking at this from one side or the other, usually the other side, you’re thinking that they’re just completely crazy. And I think a lot of times we’re afraid that if we listen to that person or those people, and that we hear those people and that person, we allow them the space and the voice to speak what’s true for them that in some way we’re somehow agreeing with or consenting to what they’re saying by giving them the audience or to communicate, what they believe.
Kevin Aillaud:
Then we think that we’re part of the problem. By allowing them to speak, we all of a sudden think that we’re part of the problem. So instead of allowing other people to speak and hearing where they’re coming from and understanding their ideas, we just shut them up completely, right? Immediately. Or we run away from them like, “I’m out of here.” Or we even argue with them out loudly or we judge and ridicule them publicly, very loudly so they can’t be heard.
Kevin Aillaud:
You guys have probably seen this, the screaming matches that go on during these protests. I will also say, I want to add this because many times, I think this is very well-intended. I think that all human brains believe they’re coming from a place of well intention. I think people want to drown out and eliminate the voices of hate and fear. But I think that what we end up actually doing is we end up hating the haters, right?
Kevin Aillaud:
We end up becoming hate and fear ourselves. We build up hate in the cells of our body and then we become the very thing we hate. Which is hate and fear. We end up hating the ideas. We end up judging the judges, without even realizing that we’re doing it, without even realizing because we think we’re coming from this well intended, protective sort of moral and ethical space, which is our own perspective. It’s our own brain.
Kevin Aillaud:
So what if instead of getting all angry, manifesting that beta brain, what if you said instead from the curious alpha state, tell me everything. Just lay it on me. I want to understand your ideas. I want understand all your conspiracy theories. I want to understand everything that you’re doing. I want to hear you and you know what, I maybe want to ask you some questions about what you believe, because I’m curious.
Kevin Aillaud:
Now, you might think that the other person will freak out even more. You might think that, “Well, if I did that, this person is going to even be more angry because they’re going to think that I’m being condescending.” Because people don’t do that, right? People don’t ask about what you believe unless you’re some sort of reporter or something. But most of the time, people don’t do that. They just want to argue and that’s totally fine also because whatever their response is, that has nothing to do with you. They can totally freak out and you can just sit there and listen to what they’re saying and smile from your alpha state.
Kevin Aillaud:
Now, it’s important to remember that this person or these people are not upsetting you. I know that that sounds crazy. It’s like, “Of course they are, coach. It’s coming from them. They’re the ones making me angry.” What they are saying or doing is not upsetting you, brother. What’s upsetting you is your brain. What’s upsetting you is your thoughts about what they’re saying. That’s what’s upsetting you. What this person is saying goes in your C line. It’s a circumstance. It’s completely neutral, 100%. And that’s the universal truth.
Kevin Aillaud:
Nothing anyone ever does or says upsets you until you have a thought about it, right? Until you disagree. What people do is a movement of cells and molecules through space, right? That’s what we see. We just see cellular and molecular movement. What people say is a movement of atoms through space, right? It’s sound waves colliding with each other until it vibrates against your eardrum. It’s neutral data until we subjectify it, until we judge it with our thoughts.
Kevin Aillaud:
Now, can you disagree with people and still love them? Can you disagree with people and still maintain your alpha state for their opinion? And do you even want to do that? Because by ignoring people, we’re telling people not to talk about what they believe or not to bring up their politics or not to tell you how they feel, how they think. You’re ultimately just saying, “I don’t want to know what’s true for you. I don’t want to know what you believe. I don’t want to know what’s on your mind. All I want to know, the only thing that I care about is what’s on my mind and what I believe. And you know what, if you don’t believe the same as me, then I don’t even want to hear your ideas.”
Kevin Aillaud:
Now, some people even coaches give the advice that you shouldn’t listen to other people, that you should just leave. You just remove yourself from this “toxic environment” of these toxic people. And I find this so interesting. If you guys have heard my podcast on toxicity before, people are not toxic. What is toxic are your thoughts about people. This is just another manifestation of the beta condition, to blame other people with judgment and then dismiss them outright.
Kevin Aillaud:
The curious alpha state living as an alpha male enables us to ask ourselves why is it so hard for us to be with someone who doesn’t share our same values, and morals, and ethics, and thoughts. And why is it so hard for us to hear those things that are contrary to what we believe? And I’ll tell you, the brain will probably answer because we think we’re right. In fact, we know we’re right. We know what we believe. That’s what the brain is going to answer. But I want you to hear me on this. This is one of the things that I’ve learned by being a coach from nearly two decades.
Kevin Aillaud:
And truthfully coaching all different people from all over the world on all different topics, from fitness to confidence, to cognitive mastery. And when it comes to coaching someone, it’s important to remember that your opinion is not relevant. When I coach my students, my opinion does not matter. In fact, sometimes my students will ask me, “What do you think, coach?” And I’ll say, “Why does it matter what I think, right?” Because my opinion, when I’m coaching someone, my ideas about what they should or shouldn’t do or what they should or shouldn’t have done in the world, that’s not for them.
Kevin Aillaud:
My opinions, my ideas, those are for me. My thoughts are for me and their thoughts are for them. I can help them see their mind and I can help them understand where they might be coming from, and I can offer them different thoughts that they might want to consider to think, to serve their life. But ultimately, what they do and what they want to do and what’s true for them to discover and change if they want to is completely their choice. It’s not for me to force or have an opinion about or be upset about or honestly brothers, it’s not even for me to agree with and be happy about.
Kevin Aillaud:
So because I hear so many different stories from so many different brains all day long and I hold that space of non-judgment, it makes me a much better communicator, because I can do that in my real life as well, outside of my coaching business, outside of my coaching practice. I can disagree with someone on something, on anything and still stay with them, stay in that space. I don’t have to store them up. I don’t have to block them. I don’t have to yell at them. I don’t have to pull them off my social media or tell them that they’re stupid or tell them that they’re wrong or evil or bad people. When I understand why someone is the way they are, it’s so much easier to be understanding of all humans including myself.
Kevin Aillaud:
Remember, the alpha state is the superposition of all cognition, from all human brains in all places simultaneously. This is what creates compassion and love. So if someone comes to me with a moral idea that I don’t agree with, but I understand why they have that idea, I understand maybe how they were raised or what they were taught or what they’ve experienced that made them come to that position in that belief system. And it’s so much easier for me to love them when I understand them.
Kevin Aillaud:
But when I shut them off completely and tell them that they’re evil and stupid and ignorant, they don’t know what they’re talking about. There is no connection. There’s no influence. There’s no conversation. I’ve had so many conversations with friends and family where I’ll disagree with them on something and then they’ll present their idea and they’ll present why they believe differently than I do. And sometimes, I’ll say, “Oh, that makes total sense.” Sometimes I’ll change my mind and agree with them and sometimes I won’t, but at least I’ll understand them more.
Kevin Aillaud:
I will create more of a connection. There is space for me to be in a relationship and disagree with someone to have them have completely different religious or ethical or political or moral beliefs, whatever and I can connect with that person in that disagreement. Because we often end up hating people that disagree with us, without even realizing it, right? We often feel justified about it. We think it’s completely okay to hate people who we think are bad.
Kevin Aillaud:
We’ve decided that they’re bad and it’s okay to hate people who are ignorant, who don’t care about other people. That’s one of my favorite things. It’s okay for me to hate people that don’t care about other people, right? This person doesn’t care about this group of people so now I hate this person. And I’m like, “What? Let’s play back what you just said. You’re hating someone for hating. Does that make logical sense to you?” Maybe it does make sense to you, but not to me. For some people it does and that’s what they want to do and that’s totally fine if that’s what you want to do.
Kevin Aillaud:
If you want to hate people for hating and you become the hater, that’s totally fine. That’s your choice, but I just want you to make sure you understand that’s what you’re doing. Hating isn’t going to serve you in any way. And what does hate do for you? Nothing, right? The other person doesn’t care if you hate them. They don’t feel your hate and they’re not going to change their mind just because you hate them and just because you’re angry and you going to yell at them. They’re going to keep doing what they’re doing. They’re just going to keep doing it and you’re the only one that’s going to feel that hate.
Kevin Aillaud:
You won’t influence or change them even if you think you will. It’s not like you can be so mad and angry at someone that they’re going to all of a sudden decide to agree with you and change their mind on something. Hate doesn’t do that. You don’t change people’s mind through madness, and anger, and yelling, and name-calling.
Kevin Aillaud:
On the other hand understanding someone might serve you. I know for sure that if you want to have any influence on anyone’s ideas, you’ve got to understand where they’re coming from first because you have to meet them where they are. And I say this, you got to hear this. You’ve got to be careful about manipulation and trying to convince people to believe what you believe for your own agenda, because that’s not understanding someone. That’s just listening to them so that you can try to get in there and debate with them.
Kevin Aillaud:
For most of us, this concept is most applicable in our most intimate relationships with people whom we spend the most time with to have disagreements and to take those disagreements from our beta condition and turn them into fights where we end up disconnecting, instead of using our disagreements as a opportunity from our alpha state to connect with each other and understand each other in a way that makes the world I think much more interesting because everyone doesn’t think the way we think.
Kevin Aillaud:
In fact, everyone doesn’t think in the exact same way, period. We all have varying ideas and varying experiences that have led us to those ideas. And if someone who’s fascinated with the human brain, let me tell you something guys. I love the human brain. I love how it evolves. I love how its programmed. Let me tell you. When someone has a belief that is so contrary to something I believe, I feel like I have to stand, right?
Kevin Aillaud:
I’m so curious about it. I got to know. What brought you to this belief? What were you taught? What did you learn? What experience did you have that brought you to believe what you believe in such a way that you feel like it’s so true, like it must be. It’s almost as fact and independent of your thoughts. That’s where we get into trouble because we think that the truth exists somewhere outside of us. Our belief system, we think that our belief system is a fact.
Kevin Aillaud:
We think that there’s this truth that is separate from our decision that something is true, that we’re not making this conscious choice that it’s true, that it just is true like absolutely. We mistake our personal truth is in a universal fact as a form of respect and it never is, right? Our personal truth is not a universal fact and that we have some relationship with the truth that other people don’t have, right? That’s kind of that arrogance. That’s kind of that beta arrogance where we have this intelligence or we have this understanding of this truth that no one else has. And so we have to convince everybody that we’re right, that we have this monopoly on truth and that only we know it.
Kevin Aillaud:
Then we feel justified in disagreeing and connecting. But listen, that’s our choice. That’s your choice. You could totally do that if you want to. You can absolutely live that way. You can absolutely live in the illusion of the beta condition. I just want you to be aware of it. Feeling like you have some corner on what’s true in the world because you believe it’s so hard because of your experience and your education does not make something independently true outside of your thoughts, outside of your brain. It’s always just your opinion. It’s always just what you believe.
Kevin Aillaud:
Other people have an equally strong feeling about what they believe. I think it can be really fun and it can be a really great time if you do it to bring those disagreements together and let them be together without having trying to fix or change other people and bring them over to what you believe.
Kevin Aillaud:
Now, check this out, brother, and this is the universal truth. I really want you to hear this. The only issue you have with what other people believe is what you think about what they believe and what you make that mean, right? You guys know that. That’s the universal truth. Now, you might say to yourself, what they’re thinking is scaring me or what they’re thinking is wrong or what they’re thinking is bad, right?
Kevin Aillaud:
But I want you to consider this on the micro level with your most intimate relationships and on the macro level with ideas and people that you don’t know, right? These global conflicts. You have to know that it’s not other people’s ideas or beliefs that scare you or that are bad or that are evil. It’s what you’re thinking about what other people are saying or doing that is scaring you, and you disconnecting from them is not making it any less scary. It’s not making it any less bad. It’s not making it any less evil in your brain. It’s not going to make it go away. It’s making you understand it less.
Kevin Aillaud:
And honestly by understanding them less, you are not going to be talking about it and it’s going to be even more scary for you. And it’s still under the surface and you know that it’s there even though you’re not talking about it. So what’s happening is you’re disconnecting from other people. You’re disconnecting you from other humans, which is disconnecting you from you. If you don’t think, you’re judging people for what they believe, I’ve got some news for your brothers. We judge people for judging people. That’s what humans do.
Kevin Aillaud:
Somebody makes a comment about someone else that you think is rude and then you judge that person for being rude. You judge the person for judging. Now, it doesn’t mean you don’t have to say anything. I’m not saying that. It doesn’t mean you don’t say, “Hey, I disagree with that comment you made. Hey, I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t use that word or say those things out loud or say them in my presence.” It doesn’t mean you don’t say that.
Kevin Aillaud:
Of course, you do if you want to. But you don’t have to react and you don’t have to get angry and all emotional about it. And then you certainly don’t want to abdicate your emotional ownership, your emotional response by giving credit to that person for causing you to feel that way, because then your solution will be to just get rid of that person. Just toss them out of your life and not listen to them.
Kevin Aillaud:
Look, here’s the truth. If you can let other people believe what they believe and you can hold space to hear where they’re coming from, you will also be able to express how you feel from a place where it might be heard. Often, we disagree with someone. We just start yelling at them and they can’t hear us. They can’t hear our opinion. We don’t want to understand them, but we want them to understand us, right? So we start yelling and they’re not trying to understand us, they’re just trying to get you to understand them.
Kevin Aillaud:
But of course, we think we’re the ones that are right. But I want you to know, to remember the universal truth. Your thoughts are what create your feelings. The other person having different thoughts about things doesn’t create your feelings. And being upset about what someone else believes is not their fault. When you get upset, it’s not because of them. It’s your brain. So here are some suggestions for how to disagree with someone as an alpha male. I want you to know, it’s an art and a skill on how to disagree with someone.
Kevin Aillaud:
First of all, you need to know yourself. That is going to always be the beginning. That’s always the first step, brother. You’ve got to know yourself. Know thyself. You need to know what you believe and you need to like your reasons for believing it and you need to understand why you believe what you believe without thinking that there’s only one unique truth and that it’s not a choice you’re making to believe what you believe.
Kevin Aillaud:
So many people believe what they believe because they think they have to or they believe because somebody else told them that this is what’s right and this is what’s true. A lot of that beta condition comes from childhood where we were told the way things should be, ought to be, must be, from our adults, from our parents.
Kevin Aillaud:
So the first step is to go into your brain and decide for yourself. What do you believe and why do you believe it? People think they believe what they believe because they’re right. But that’s not the case. You believe what you believe because of your history, because of your experience, because of your education and the decisions about what you want to believe.
Kevin Aillaud:
So step one is to listen and to hear and to try to understand why the person might believe what they believe, and know for certain what you believe and why you believe it and that it is your choice to believe it. And try to be fascinated by both your brain and their brain. Check this out, and this is just a segue because we are going to get into a couple other steps. But I want you to know, there’s a group of people out there that think the world is flat, right?
Kevin Aillaud:
It’s true and if you don’t know this, you can google it. They’re called Flat Earthers. They say the Earth is surrounded by ice walls. They think Antarctica is not a continent or an island, they think it’s a wall that goes all the way around this flat Earth. I got to tell you something. I am fascinated by this. Like why? Why do you believe this? Why do you believe what you believe? What were you told? What did you read? I mean, is there something that I’m missing, right? Could I be wrong? Could the world actually be flat, right? What am I missing?
Kevin Aillaud:
I just want to be curious because most of the time were just like, “Oh, they’re dumb. They’ve never seen a picture from space, right? They don’t know. They’re just stupid. We when we do that, when we just dismiss them outright, we miss the opportunity to truly understand them. I want to understand these people. I want to know why they believe what they believe. Why people are so mad about certain things. Tell me everything. Tell me why you’re mad. Tell me why this upsets you so much. I want to know.
Kevin Aillaud:
So listen and really try to hear them. If you notice when someone’s talking, if you’re getting upset, and you want to correct them, and you want to fix them, and you think that they’re wrong, and you want to interrupt them and tell them that they’re wrong, I just want you to sit there in that moment and notice that emotion. Just be there. Be aware of your brain, be aware of the cellular vibrations in your body and then say to this person, “Tell me more. Tell me everything.” And see if you can hold that space because that’s the alpha skill that all humans have and you can learn to develop. In fact, it’s a part of our skills training that I teach in the Spartan Academy.
Kevin Aillaud:
Now step two, is knowing that if you are listening, even if you’re hearing and nodding and understanding, be very clear with yourself that this doesn’t mean that you are liking what they’re saying or even agreeing with what they’re saying. You know what, brother, you might even need to say that. Say it out loud for your own sake. You might need to say, “Listen, I don’t agree with what you’re saying, but I want to hear why you’re saying it.” It may be important for you to say that, so you don’t give the impression or it’s important that you don’t think you’re giving the impression, that you’re agreeing just by listening.
Kevin Aillaud:
So you can say, “Listen, I don’t agree. I don’t agree with you. I think I might have a completely different opinion about this, but I do want to understand your opinion. So please tell me more. Keep talking.” That’s just a good way for you to stay in that space of neutrality, stay in that space of understanding and it’s very important to separate what someone is saying from who they are as a person.
Kevin Aillaud:
Remember, what humans say and do comes from their cogno-emotive state. It tells you nothing about what they are, who they are as a human. It’s essentially coming from their brain. It’s coming from their education, their history, their experience, their past. You can disagree with something that someone says and still love them for being a human being. You can disagree with what someone has done or how someone has voted or how someone has behaved and still love that person. You can give yourself permission to do that. You can give yourself permission to listen to someone without believing that means you’re agreeing with them. Hearing someone is not the same as agreeing with them, brother. And so you might want to say something about it out loud.
Kevin Aillaud:
Step number three is to notice your feelings caused by your thoughts while they’re speaking and this is simply looking at the model. Their speaking is your C line. Your thoughts is your T line and your feelings is your F line. If you feel yourself tightening up or getting upset or feeling like you need to advocate for someone or feeling like you need to rise up and resist what they’re saying in that moment, just notice that.
Kevin Aillaud:
Give yourself some space to go into yourself and notice what your brain is telling you. Give that person some base to speak. Give yourself some time to witness your own thinking in your own emotional response. And then choose how you want to respond from your A line, how you want to act. Don’t react to your emotions. Don’t let your emotions control you. Make a decision about how you want to respond and for some of you, it may be as simple as, “Hey, I’d like to share my opinion with you too and just see what you think about what I think.”
Kevin Aillaud:
Now, here’s a trick. Many times when we disagree with someone, we don’t want to tell them that we disagree with them because now our brain is creating fear that they will judge us the same way that we have judged them. So let’s say for example that you’re talking to someone who has a different political belief and so they voted for the person that you didn’t, right? In the United States, guys if you guys are listening to me internationally, in the United States we have a bipartisan system. So you’re either going to vote for one person or the other, right?
Kevin Aillaud:
Now, this being a political year, I think this may be a good example. So you may not want to say to someone, “Hey, this is who I voted for,” because then the other person may want to argue and bring you all the evidence why that was a very terrible decision. You know what, maybe you don’t want to deal with all that data. You don’t want to deal with all that input. But if you can allow for it, if you can allow yourself to receive that data, it’s kind of like, “Tell me, why you don’t think I should have voted for this person. Tell me why you don’t think I should have done that thing.
Kevin Aillaud:
Tell me why you don’t like me for this reason or tell me why you think I made this mistake. Whatever it is, let me hear your ideas. Let your brain talk to you, talk to me. If you can practice hearing other people’s judgments about you and if you can actually let them judge your ideas, your level of confidence and power and strength in the world and in yourself will go up tremendously. Because you know their thoughts are about them, not about you and it prevents you from trying to control other people or manipulate them or change them. You just let them be who they are. And when you let other people be who they are, they feel safe with you. And that is when you can have maybe some influence on sharing your ideas with them.
Kevin Aillaud:
Now look, I’m not saying that every time you share your ideas with someone from your alpha state, they’re going to see it your way and agree with you. I’m not saying that. Especially if you’re using it as like this agenda. If you’re trying to change them or control them or fix them, it’s not going to work, but when two people can have a conversation that isn’t full of emotion and isn’t reacting and there’s some disagreement, then there can be some enlightenment. Then there can be some connection.
Kevin Aillaud:
For example, if someone believes something because of a lack of knowledge maybe or a lack of education or lack of understanding because of how they’ve been taught or sheltered or whatever, and you’re just judging them and yelling at them and telling them that they’re stupid, they’re not ever going to change their mind. They’re not even going to hear what you’re saying. But if you can hear where they’re coming from and understand it, then maybe you can share your ideas and maybe they will see your ideas in a much different way.
Kevin Aillaud:
Maybe they’ll even consider the whole topic in a different way. Chances are much higher if you’re able to do it that way. Living in your alpha state. Living as an alpha male allows you the truest form of communication. It allows someone to express their opinion without you needing to correct them or fix them or change them. And maybe you don’t even need to express your opinion, brother. Maybe you can just let them be heard. You can just let them feel like what they’re saying matters even if it disagrees with what you’re saying or what you believe, and you can respond, and say, “Look, I disagree with you and I love you. I disagree with you and I respect you. I disagree with you and I honor your willingness to share your opinion. Or I respect your right to have that opinion as a human.”
Kevin Aillaud:
However, you want to say it, just make sure you don’t have an agenda because that’s the beta condition creeping in the back door after you’ve thrown it out the front door. And I really want to invite you, if you haven’t been someone who’s been able to be in that space, that’s been able to control that emotion with someone else and disagree with them, I want you to practice it as a skill because like I said at the beginning, not only will it help you strengthen your ability to decipher circumstances from feelings and strengthen your inner power, your inner confidence, I believe it is the path to ending all human conflict.
Kevin Aillaud:
Because so often we think someone who disagrees with us is causing our feelings and really they’re not that powerful. They’re not as powerful as you give them credit for. Them speaking words does not cause you to feel anything until you’ve had a thought about it. And I know this is true because one person is going to feel angry about it and another person is going to feel joyful about it. It’s not the words. It’s your thoughts about the words.
Kevin Aillaud:
And I’m not saying that you shouldn’t have feelings when someone says something, right? Because that’s the humanist, that’s the human experience. I just want you to give credit to yourself for your emotions. Not the other person. Disagreeing with someone and staying with them in this space and being able to hold space for this disagreement is an alpha move. So try it out.
Kevin Aillaud:
And when you’re ready to take all of this to the next level, to practice and apply this skill, to create the relationships in your life the way you want them to be, the Spartan Academy is available to you. You can enroll today and live your best human life. The life you deserve, the life you desire. You’re welcome anytime, my brother. So until next week, elevate your alpha.
Speaker 1:
Thank you for listening to this episode of The Alpha Male Coach Podcast. If you 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.