Life, the Universe, and Everything

SM042 Thursday July 1, 2021 Life, The Universe, and Everything

Welcome to the Second Mix Podcast where we reflect, revise, and remix our lives. My name is Matthew Bennett. At the end of this episode there’s going to be a call to action - a call to take a little step to remix your life – please join the Facebook group Ideas and Concepts so we can continue the discussion. The link is in the description.

We are here at episode 42 and I have “geek out” as the kids say these days because I’ve been a longtime fan of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy books, where 42 is the answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything. In the first book, our world was destroyed because someone came up with the answer to the question, or at least the question to the answer. 

42 has been thrown around in pop culture – in the X-files, Mulder’s apartment number was 42, and it appears in Lost, Star Trek, Dr. Who, Spider-man, The Simpsons, The Darwin Awards, and so many more – in fact Wired Magazine has an article with 42 pop culture references to the number 42. 

It ties into the podcast very well because it’s essentially asking what the meaning of life is – and listeners know the answer, and the world is still here. Victor Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning says that we don’t get to demand that life tell us what our purpose is – but that life is asking that question of us. We get to answer, we get to decide our own purpose, our own meaning, our own mission, our own vision of our better future.  

All right, that’s enough of 42 for now, let’s get down to it – Joe Herbert, in his book Get Rich in 5 Hours tells us that the six life assets are Mindset, People, Time, Knowledge, Money, and Health. Let’s grind on Mindset a little bit. I really like that Joe opens the section writing about the Law of Attraction, but he believes, as I do, that it is not magic or spiritual, and it doesn’t work instantly. 

If you have a mindset of building value, of helping people, and of looking for good, then you will become attractive to others who are also doing good, and you can all share in the good. Zig Ziglar comes to mind with a couple of these things. He said it best when he said, “You can have anything you want in life if you help enough other people get what they want.” 

Brian Tracy says that the quality of your life depends on the quality of your thoughts. If you can change your thinking, you can change your life. So many people are locked into being a bad-finder, actively seeking out the negative. Some people look for the negative like there’s a prize for finding it. The results are disastrous to your relationships, your finances, your productivity, and most importantly they are disastrous the one life you have to live. 

Why not change your thinking, look for the good, actively seek out the pure, powerful, and the positive? Why not change your diet of the shows, podcasts, books, and other input that will change your thinking and change your life?

Another way to change your thinking is to look at your own positive input. If you remind yourself daily why you want a positive mindset it will be easier to keep in the forefront of your thoughts so that you can keep striving for it. We’re not always going to be able to be positive. Sometimes the resistance, or the base, wins. But when that happens, you can let it win for a day – or you can let it win for years. The choice is always yours. 

Keeping your why statements in front of you – a vision or mission statement that reminds you of your goals, and the life you want to live, gives you a chance every day to focus your mind on the positive – it really gives you a chance to decide how you are going to run your mind that day. 

As Jim Rohn said, “You can’t escape the cumulative effects of the selection of your attitude.” If you select a positive or a negative attitude in your life, those will accumulate either into a rich life, or to disaster. Most of us go back and forth with these so often that they keep canceling each other out, leaving us in the same place 5 or 10 years from now unless we decide to make a positive mindset a habit and finally begin accumulating the effects of that decision. 

So write out your mission statement, write out your vision statement, create a vision board with pictures of all the things you want to do, be, and have, and let those things inform your mindset every day. 

I have an earlier series on mindset from March 11th to April 8th of 2021 that you can revisit and continue learning, and I mention many books and speakers that will help. It’s not an exact science, the goal is to continue reflecting and remixing so that you trend towards the positive. 

If you have problems with negative thinking, the exercise this week should help with that. Write down your negative thoughts, negative scripts that your brain runs – write down all the conspiracy theories you have about others, and analyze what you are trying to do. Do it! When you have a negative thought, write it down and analyze it. It will make it more recognizable when it pops up again. If you can see the enemy coming, there’s much less to worry about. 

Let us know you did it in the Ideas and Concepts group on Facebook – the link is in the description. 

Thanks for listening to the Second Mix Podcast, once again, I am Matthew Bennett. You can grab this transcript on the blog at secondmix.net. If you have any questions send me an email at matt@secondmix.net, I would love to hear from you! Please give me 5 stars whenever and wherever you can , subscribe to get notified about the latest episodes – and if you haven’t yet, please leave me a really nice review.  Once If you know anyone who might find this information helpful, please tell them about this show – I do this to help people.  I’m gonna be here every Monday and Thursday until shrimp learn to whistle – For that I’m thanking Cynthia Seer from the True Hauntings and Scary Stories podcast. 

Take steps that will make your week incredible.  I’ll be back on Monday  –  this weekend continue reflecting, revising and remixing your life. I’ll see you soon!