Ep #35: The Truth About Actions

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.

What’s up, my brothers. Welcome back to The Alpha Male Coach Podcast. I am your host, Kevin Aillaud. Today, we’re continuing our talk on future-focused thinking. I’ve done a series of episodes on future-focused thinking. And today, we’re talking about actions. Actions are math.

So, before we get into actions, let’s back up. That’s a couple of topics that I just want to very quickly review with you because all of these things demonstrate to you exactly why actions are math, actions are neutral, actions are easy, actions are simple.

Here’s the thing; number one, the universal truth. Okay, you guys know the universal truth. You’ve heard me say the universal truth so many times over and over again because it is the foundation of how we develop self-mastery, how we learn cognitive mastery, emotional ownership. And the universal truth tells us that it is our circumstances that are neutral and our thoughts that create the subjectivity of life. It’s our thoughts that make things good, bad, positive, negative, right, and wrong.

And it’s our thoughts that create our emotions. Our emotions are chemical messengers that go into our body and cause cellular changes, vibrations in our body at the cellular level. And that is what we call a feeling. We feel our emotions.

So we have a thought that creates an emotion, that creates a feeling that will then drive our actions. Our actions come from our feelings and then they determine our results. Now, our results will reinforce our original thought, that’s the universal truth. But let’s back up and go back to the actions.

Actions are neutral, guys, and here’s why actions are neutral. Number one, actions are neutral because other people’s actions are your circumstances. So when we observe other people’s actions, that goes in our circumstance. They’re neutral, they’re objective.

We get to think about other people’s actions any way we want, and at the same time, our actions are other people’s circumstances. They get to make our actions mean whatever they want to them. We have no control over that. So their actions are neutral, our actions are neutral, our actions produce our results and, guess what, brother, our results are also neutral because our results become our circumstance that we can then have a thought about. We can make our result mean whatever we want.

So, everywhere in the universal truth, we have this objectivity. We have this objectivity in our circumstances. We have this objectivity in our results. We have this objectivity in other people’s actions. Actions are neutral. Even thoughts are neutral, brother.  Like, the truth is, thoughts are just sentences in our brain. What makes thoughts feel good or feel bad is our belief in them, whether we believe the thought or not, and it’s the emotional response that we have to that belief, to that thought.

That’s what we feel. We feel the emotion. But thoughts, actions, results, circumstances, so many parts of the model, four out of five components of the model are neutral. So that’s number one.

Topic number two that I wanted to review with you is that it’s not the result that we want; it’s the way that we think we’re going to feel when we have that result. It’s the feeling that we want. So it’s not the wealth that we want, however you define wealth. It’s not a million dollars in the bank account that we want. It’s the way we think we’ll feel when we have a million dollars in the bank account. It’s the emotion.

Life is emotion. It’s not the car, it’s not the house, it’s not the beautiful girlfriend that we want, it’s not the result, it is the way we think we’re going to feel about life, about our self when we have those results.  It’s not the action we take or the result that we want, it’s the emotions. It’s the feelings that we have in our body because emotions are what makes life amazing when they’re good.

You think about confidence, love, joy, and pride, these things feel good. They feel amazing. That’s what makes life great. And at the same time, when life is terrible, it’s not because any of the circumstances in our life are terrible, it’s because of the way we feel. It’s because we have anger or jealousy or fear or doubt. These are the things that feel bad. These are the things that make life bad, not the actual circumstances, because you know that circumstances are neutral.

Emotions drive our actions, actions are mechanical. So that’s topic number two. So we reviewed the universal truth, we reviewed that results are simply circumstances and what we’re actually chasing are the emotions. What we’re actually chasing is the feeling in our body.

And number three is the process of future-focused thinking. I want to quickly review the process of future-focused thinking before getting into why actions are math. Because you guys see this, you see how actions just kind of follow. The process of future-focused thinking is to, number one, determine your wants, which is to determine your results.

If we look at the model, you’re looking at that result line. You want to determine what you want in the future, in your future model. So we look at that result line, from there, we believe into the future. Number two in this process is believing into the future. So taking your thinking and making that thinking the same as the person who has the results that you want.

And then, with enough of that thought, you start to believe and have the emotional response, and that is believing into your future, that you believe that you’re this person. Now, that is how you get it quickly. You can wait and look for results to come before you start to believe, but when you know what the result is that you want and you can think and feel the way you will think and feel when you have that result, then the third step is to simply act like your future self.

And this is so smooth. This is so easy when you already believe it because number four is now you know that you are the person you’ve become. The result reinforces the thought and the belief. So you don’t believe it anymore – well, you do believe it, I guess, but you know it now.

Think about belief as being like this meter. And this is kind of going into a previous episode, but think about belief as being this meter from zero to 100. When it’s 100% full, you’ve accomplished what you set out to accomplish because then you know it. You don’t believe it anymore. You believe it 100% because you know it to be true.

So your belief meter rises the more you think and feel the way your future self thinks and feels. And as that belief meter rises, you take action into your future self so that, number four, when that belief meter hits 100%, you’ve become this person. You know it. Like, the belief is there, I know it 100% because now I’ve become this person. So that is the process of future-focused thinking.

And with these three concepts reviewed from topic number one, from the universal truth, I want you to see that all actions are neutral. I want you to see that actions are just physics, guys. They’re circumstances. They’re completely neutral. They’re objective. From topic number two, from reviewing topic number two, I want you to see that it’s not the action or the result that’s hard.

The actions are not hard. The results are not hard. The action just is, the result just is. It’s the emotion and the belief behind it that make it feel hard. It’s the feelings that we get from life that make it feel easy or hard, difficult or simple. And from topic number three, I want you to see that actions are natural when you already have the thoughts, when you already have the beliefs of your future self.

Natural is easy. Natural is effortless. So with those three review topics, here’s the real reason why actions are math. Those were kind of descriptive characteristics of the mathematics and the neutrality of our actions. Those are descriptive characteristics, guys. Those characteristics describe to us how actions are objective and how actions are natural, purely mathematical.

But I want you to know the definitive characteristics of actions and I want you to know the definitive characteristic of actions that make them neutral. What all action boils down to and is, at its most basic foundation, what is action? Action is power. I don’t mean power as in status or control. I don’t mean power as a thought that someone has about you, like you’re a powerful person or you’re not a powerful person. I’m talking about power as a physics equation. I’m talking about the actual mathematical equation for power, that action is a demonstration of power and that power is, by definition, force times distance divided by time.

Okay, now again, we’re getting into science here. We’re getting into some things here, some math that might spark some really old memories in your brain from high school and college. But I want you to think about it, power, force times distance over time.  Every action we take is a demonstration of this mathematical equation.

It’s a display of movement. It’s a display of molecular and cellular movement from one place in time and space to another place in time and space. It is a movement of mass. That’s what the force is. Force is mass times acceleration. In this case, it’s acceleration of gravity. So force can be any object.  It can be your body, the matter of your body, or it can be the matter of your body plus an object, if you pick something up and move it.

And it’s moving from one place in space, a certain distance, you’re moving it a distance to another place in space. And you’re doing this throughout time. Maybe it takes a second. Maybe it takes a minute, maybe it takes an hour or a week.  But you’re just moving matter, you’re moving mass a certain amount of distance in a certain amount of time.

And that’s going to give us a power equation, but that’s going to give us a defined action for a specific amount of time. When we take a look at time, we say we start here, we finish here, we can look at that and say this is the action; it was this action that created this result. We can look at that action as a form, as an equation of power. It’s a physics equation, it’s a math equation.

And there’s nothing good or bad about it. Here’s the thing; there’s nothing good or bad.  There’s nothing right or wrong about physics. There’s nothing right or wrong about taking an object, moving it a distance in a certain amount of time.

When we look at action in that way, when we look at it purely from that objective place, you can see that there’s nothing that we can say, that this movement is good or this movement is bad, or because it took us this amount of time, it’s right, or it should have taken us that amount of time, therefore it’s wrong. It’s that we judge.

You know, we judge action from our thought. And then our thought has a feeling about it. And that feeling is what gives us good, bad, right, wrong. And that feeling is created from our thoughts, our beliefs, and the beta condition from the integrated subjectivity that we have as a human species. So a lot of that belief comes from culture; integrated subjectivity.

But the action itself is just the movement of matter through space and time. Do you see that, brother? Do you see the physics of that? Do you see the neutrality of that? Do you see the objectivity of that?

So I’ve covered, pretty clearly, why actions are neutral. It’s just physics. But let me explain why actions are easy and simple, because you can say, look, okay, Kev, we get it, actions are neutral, but what makes them easy? What makes actions easy?

Because if actions are power, then as power goes up, that makes it more difficult, right? Yes, you could say that. You could say if you’re measuring it by power output, then you could say that it’s more difficult. But actions are driven by emotion.

What makes an action difficult or simple, hard or easy, is the emotion you have about it, is the belief you have about it. Because originally it starts out with cognition, and if it’s a thought you choose to believe or a thought you have belief about, then you get the emotion. So your actions come from your beliefs.

Actions themselves are easy as long as you have the fitness to produce the power. And that’s what I want to take note of. I want to make sure you guys understand, I’m not talking about physical exertion here. It’s going to take more power to climb a mountain than it is to sit on the couch. Considering you complete both in an hour, climbing a mountain, you’re moving your mass, you’re moving your body load a distance up a mountain. That is a higher power output than not moving your body at all sitting on the couch.

But I’m not talking about physical power or power exertion. I’m talking about the difficulty of the action emotionally, whether the same action or similar actions can be the same in terms of difficulty and ease and you can change that simply by how you’re thinking about it. We’re not talking about physical exertion.

So let me give you an example. Let me clear this up. Every day, I’m going to assume that at some point during the day, you stand up, walk 20 steps, and start talking to someone, that you’re somewhat sociable throughout the day, that you don’t live like a hermit, that you talk to someone throughout the day.

In order to talk to someone, you have to stand up and get there. You’ve got to get to them, whether that’s to walk into your office, to walk to the water cooler, walk into a coworker’s office. Whatever it is, you have to stand up, walk a certain distance, walk 20 steps. We’ll say that for measuring purposes, metric reasons, and start talking to someone.

Now, you might do this at work. Like I said, you might be getting some water, maybe you might be talking to a coworker. In fact, when you think about taking this action, I want to ask you, what about it seems difficult? What about it seems hard? Is there anything that seems difficult or hard about it – standing up, taking 20 steps and talking to someone, initiating a conversation.

Does anything about that very objective statement seem difficult? Is there anything painful about executing this series of actions? Three actions, stand up, take 20 steps, start talking, does that sound difficult? Objectively looking at the behavior, it appears there’s nothing about it that’s hard, nothing at all that’s difficult.

You might even be thinking, right now, as you’re listening, of course there’s nothing hard, I could stand up, I can take a walk, it’s easy to open my mouth and make words come out. This is not difficult. It spears to be easy and simple. It’s only when I start to add more details, it’s only when you start to have more thoughts and emotions.

So, let’s say that the person you’re going to talk to is a beautiful female stranger. So now, you’re going to stand up, take 20 steps, and walk towards a beautiful female stranger and start talking to her. Does that change the way you feel about taking the action? Does it feel more difficult? Does the action to stand up, take 20 steps, and go over to talk to this person now feel more difficult? And if it does, then why?

That’s the thing; why? Nothing has changed except now we have context around the person that you’re going to talk to. The context is you don’t know this person and you think they’re beautiful. That’s the subjectivity, right?

Now, what if you already knew the future and what if you already knew that this woman was the woman of your future? You knew that she was there. Now, how do you feel taking these 20 steps? And again, I’m going to tell you, you already know that she’s going to accept you. There’s no fear of rejection or fear of failure.

You already know she’s going to accept you, love you, build an amazing life with you, you guys are going to live the life of your dreams together. You already know this. You’ve seen the future. Now, how do those 20 steps feel? Are they easy? Are they difficult?

Shoot, if you knew the future, brother, you’d probably be running over there, like, yes, there’s the one, I’ve been waiting for her. She’s the woman of my dreams. If we could all predict the future, if we all had crystal balls, you could see 20 years in the future, like, there’s the one I know, I know what she looks like. Then all of a sudden, you’re standing there at the bar or in the grocery store and you see her, like, whoa there she is.

I mean, you’re off your seat and over there in less than a second. You cover 20 steps in less than a second because you already know, the action is effortless. It’s easy because the only thing that was making it difficult before was the uncertainty, was the fear of failure.

Now, last question, let’s say you know all of this and at the same time, to get to her, you’re going to have to cross hot coals, 20 steps of hot coals. Now, is it hard or is it easy? Now, I just threw that last question in there kind of like another what-if for you because if you already know that this is the woman of your dreams, the hot coals isn’t going to slow you down. It’s not going to slow you down because you know the future. You know you’re meant to be with her. You know you’ve already crossed these hot coals.

You know that they’re there, but so what? You’ve already met this woman.  You’ve already talked to this woman. You’ve already fallen in love with this woman. You’ve already made a life with this woman. Hot coals are just there, so what?

Now they seem easy because you already know, you’ve already crossed them. That’s the thing, my friend, actions only seem hard because we doubt, or actions only seem hard because of past-focused thinking.

Let’s take another example. What if the person you’re going to talk to was your boss and you’re going to ask for a raise? Now we go back to these 20 steps, how are they feeling? Are they feeling hard or are they feeling easy? Let’s look at the future-focused thinking. What if you already knew you were getting the raise? What if you already knew it was happening? What if you knew ahead of time that your boss was going to give this to you, that she was so happy with your efforts, that she was so satisfied with your productivity that she was ready to give you the raise?

Now how do those 20 steps feel? Again, you’re running into the office. You’re eager to get in there, chat with your boss, get your raise. You know, as the final question, how would it feel if you had to take those 20 steps across through a jungle of snakes, I don’t know, something weird that might cause fear, so what?

You can see the future, bro, you know you’re getting the raise. You know you’ve already made this trek. So there are snakes on the path, okay, you know you’re not going to get bit because you already know what the future is. You’ve already crossed this path, the snakes left you alone, you made it to the door, you opened the door, you got your raise, now you’re there, you’re good to go.

It’s the difference between past-focused thinking, believing in your future based on your past, and future-focused thinking, believing in your future because you’re living it in your present. And actions are easy when you’re future-focused thinking. Actions are so much more difficult when you’re past-focused thinking.

When you’re past-focused thinking, your actions are difficult because you’re using your past experience to tell you, I’ve never done this before, I can’t do this, this is hard, something I’ve never done before is hard. And you have all these thoughts about your actions and you’re believing these thoughts because you’re thinking about your past. You’re using evidence from your past.

Future-focused thinking, your actions are neutral. They are easy, brother. You’re living into them. My point is that the steps themselves are neutral, right, they are easy. Like all of our actions, they’re going to be dependent on how we feel about them when we execute them, not after we execute them. Because after we execute them, they’re done, they’re in the past, but while we’re executing them, and what we believe about ourselves when we execute them.

You might feel the same way about approaching a beautiful woman that you would feel about walking across hot coals. Fear is fear, the fear of physical pain versus the fear of emotional pain, you know, getting burned or being rejected.

But what is driving or preventing, in this case, your actions? The emotions, not the results, not the circumstances. Actions have no merit in and of themselves. They are manifestations of our thoughts. They are manifestations of our emotions and our beliefs because actions show us what our beliefs are, about ourselves and about the world.

People will say actions speak louder than words because our words are a reflection of our thoughts and our actions are a reflection of our beliefs, which are our thoughts and our emotions; the thoughts that we really believe, our true thoughts, our deep thoughts.

So, here are three things you can do to take action right now. Future-focused thinking means, again, going back to the process, knowing what you want, believing you’re the person that has what you want, but then taking action. You’ve got to take the action the way the person who has those wants would act when they have them, when you believe you already have them.

So number one, be aware that your actions are driven by emotion, not the other way around, not that your emotions come from your actions. Because if you think your emotions come from your actions, then you are waiting to feel a certain ay based on what you do. You feel it first, brother, then you act on it. There is no action that is hard or difficult.

What’s hard or difficult is the way you’re thinking about the circumstance and the emotion that you’re creating around it. Take yourself into that objective place. Look at the circumstance itself. Look at the actions you want to take and then look at the actions as circumstances. Look at them as neutral. See them as physics. It’s just an equation of power. You’re demonstrating power, you’re moving a certain load a certain distance in a certain amount of time. That’s number one.

Number two, plan it out ahead of time. Brother, there will be times when you don’t want to do the hard stuff. And I use that in quotes, “The hard stuff,” because nothing’s really hard, it’s just the way we think about it. So when you’re thinking about these actions being the hard stuff, these are the times when your beta condition will create and release emotions that work to reinforce your current result paradigm. This is totally normal.

Your brain resists change and it loves efficiency, so you’ve got to plan for that. You’ve got to plan for that resistance. Know that your brain is going to want to buffer, which is to avoid. It’s going to want to avoid or it’s going to want to resist you taking new action, action from a place of where you are becoming, from a place of your future self.

So prepare ahead of time, not to resist these emotions, instead just allow them to process and act towards your goal, act towards your future, be your future self anyway. This will build confidence, and or it will build courage depending on the situation. Alright, that’s number two.

Number three is getting into the real tools of it all, getting into obstacles and strategies, having a to-do list and putting everything on a calendar, using a not-to-do list. What are some things that you’re doing that are getting in your way? Looking at top-five outcomes and yesterday’s tasks, these are all kinds of action-based tools that I use with my students at this point.

And I want you guys to know that this process is very, very simple. We start with the basics and we move towards more advanced application, but it’s all cognitive, brother. It’s all that mastery. It’s all that self-mastery.

Just to remind you, I coach intelligent, and I use that word specifically, I coach intelligent ambitious men that want to achieve more in their relationships, their wealth, and their personal health. Before moving into the skill set of future-focused thinking, there’s a lot of that understanding of the universal truth, the alpha state, the beta condition.

Knowing these things is important because it’s not about the action. It’s about the way we think about the action. It comes from our cognition. It comes from the mastery of our cognition, the mastery of the self, because the self is our relationship with our self. The self is the thoughts about our self. When our actions are hard, it’s because we believe they are hard. When our actions are easy, it’s because we believe they are easy.

Actions, my friend, are neither hard nor easy. Actions are math. It’s what we feel that makes our actions, our life, hard or easy. It’s what we think that creates what we feel. That is cognitive mastery. That is the alpha state. That is living like an alpha male.

Alright, guys, that’s what I’ve got for you today, actions are math. Go to my website right now and sign up for a 45-minute free consultation. You have nothing to lose, guys.  I want to talk to you. I want to see where you’re at, what you’re struggling with, and how I can help you be more effective in your life and get started on living the life you were meant to live, elevating your alpha state, and being that influential irresistible man of confidence.

There is nothing you can’t do, brother. Everything you need you already have; your brain, that’s it. Your brain is all you need, my friend. It is the most powerful tool you have. It is your key to unlock the door to your personal greatness and it’s ready to serve you today. It’s right there. It’s in your head.  It’s ready to serve you today.

So, go hit me up, go to my website, sign up for a consultation. Until next week, my brother, elevate your alpha.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Alpha Male Coach Podcast. If you enjoy 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.