 Good mental health. I'm your host, Matt Kelly. I'm joined here by Dr. Neil Maranello. He is a Solutions Focus Life Coach from Woodstock, Vermont and a behavior expert with near six decades exploring the human condition. I've been a client of his off and on over the past two and a half decades and can speak very highly of his willingness to be of service. The good daddy as he likes to refer to himself. Right, Neil? Yes, I found that if I put my mind in the thought of being a good daddy to whoever I'm talking to, it tends to be most helpful to my clients. Certainly works for me and has worked in the past and I know that when I don't see you, I don't do as well. Our podcast series has had 10 episodes and what I like to do now is kind of just recap those episodes. It's as I like to refer to it as the 10 rules for life from Dr. Neil Maranello. It's kind of a riff on the Jordan Peterson bestselling book, 12 rules for life. And as we go through and we began our podcast series, Neil, with the topic there, I am the most important person in the world to me. And of course, you know, that speaks a lot to ego, Maslow's hierarchy of needs as well. And of course, you take yourself wherever you go from the time of your first self realization, self awareness up until the time you die. That's correct. And self awareness is actually quite a developmental subject. Your average baby has very little self awareness. Your average three year old believes that when he or she walks out of a room, the furniture disappears. Your average two year old Peekaboo works with. And the concept of Peekaboo is, you can't see me. It's sometimes referred to by advanced Freudians as object relations, but object is just another word for relationships for people. And the average seven year old doesn't really understand other people's perspective, whereas it's possible for an eight year old to do that developmentally. Your average 12 year old cannot be paranoid. Your average 13 year old can be because it's possible to hypothesize to say, if this then that used to be thought of that the mental development stopped around age 18 and IQ test used to stop around that point. Recent developments in videoing the brain and brain development shows that in fact a number that is closer is 25, but in fact, as long as we live, there is a flexibility in the brain in a way in which the brain can change. So the bottom line on it is that we're looking at the fact that people's thinking can change continuously throughout their lives. And that means that they can change the way they behave continuously throughout their lives if they can change their thinking. And our second topic sort of deals with that as well in terms of perception in that there is no part of you that is not a part of me. And what I got gathered from that was that I have basically created you. And while that may have no basis in reality, what I see out in the world, I have created. And so therefore, if I dislike somebody, well, I have created that dislike and that is actually a reflection of me more than the other person. Yeah, another way of thinking of it is everything is projection. If you think about a movie projector, you have the projector over here and you have the screen over here. So what you see over here is actually coming from here. And when you think about that, you realize that the stronger you feel about something, the more likely it is to be you rather than what you see. Wow, that is just so intense and so deep. And what I love about our series again is that each topic literally almost is a continual thought pattern here is our third topic of our podcast series was that each of us lives in our own reality. Again, I have created the world that I see that I interact with and that is my own personal reality and may be very different from anyone else's and probably is. Yes, probably the best research on this has to do with eyewitness testimony. If you have several people who see an accident, you will get as many stories about what happened in that accident as you have people. And that's because they not only are seeing it from different angles, they're also projecting what's important to them onto their observations. It doesn't mean that there isn't an outside reality. In fact, I have spent most of my life trying to understand what is real and what is not the understanding what is true and what is not true is another goal of mine. I don't think I'll ever reach it, but I'm closer to it now than I was 10 years ago. And if aging doesn't affect me too much, I'm hopefully hopefully be closer to it in 10 years from now than I am now. But the thing that is most important is to recognize that whatever is happening is being observed and the observer has a major influence on the way they perceive it. So do we project onto what we see? Yes. Do we change what we see because we're looking at it? Yes. Does that mean that I can walk through the wall? Probably not. There are people who say, you know, in the right distribution of molecules, there's more nothing, there is anything that it might actually be possible to walk through the wall. I just watched the movie The Man Who Stare Goats over the weekend and what was coming up was sort of just what you're talking about in that, again, if you get down to a quantum level, again, what we see really isn't there. And that, in fact, is going to be one of our topics for our next series in our podcast series here. And again, if you live in your own reality, that very well may be possible. So it was an interesting thing because the movie opens with, you know, this military guy staring at a wall and believing that the wall really isn't there and he was going to go through the wall. And of course he didn't. Yeah, I think that we have to deal with the fact that our beliefs have a major impact on what we see and on what we do and what we say. And once you understand that in many respects beliefs are us, then it becomes possible to see and separate out reality and truth from other people's perceptions. And, you know, that brings up to our next, what our next topic was in our series that none of us is better than anyone else and yet that oftentimes the self-talk that each of us has can be a diminishing self-talk, putting oneself down against another or the ego saying, oh, that you are better than somebody else. And then that can, you know, inform your reality or create your reality. And it's something that, you know, I continue to struggle with even today. Well, self-talk is a major force in our perceptions of reality. But everybody is different from everybody else. Everybody is special in the sense that we all developed areas of specialty. And the idea that the way of judging one person against another has to do with their intelligence or has to do with some other variable is actually a projection that comes from someone who thinks that this is important, more important than that. If we had a culture or a subculture that emphasized grace instead of abstract reasoning, we wouldn't have IQs. We'd have GQs for grace quotient. And how smoothly we moved would have me operating at a very deficient level. And again, this is the natural segue into what was our follow-up podcast that each of us is doing the best we can with what we have. And, you know, internalizing that, you know, given the negative self-talk that any one of us has, we're still trying to navigate in our own reality in the world outside that reality as best we can with what we have. That's correct. And the self-talk is the thing which is possibly modifiable. In other words, if I believe I'm doing the best I can and I see that there's a way I can do better by changing the way I believe or the way I think, then I have the opportunity to actually break the rule. And the rule is that the best predictor of future behavior is past behavior. The bottom line on that one is that the way you think determines the way you behave. You can change the way you think because you see a better way for you to behave that you can say, hey, I thought I was doing the best I could, but now there's a way I can do a little better. Then you wind up not just changing the way you think, but also changing the way you behave in the future and breaking the rule of insanity. And that was, in fact, the subject of our follow-up podcast, which was the only rules controlling me are my own. And that is regardless of what society may put forth as to rules of behavior regarding maybe violence or whatever. But it is ultimately our choice to follow those rules or not. And that is the only thing that I can control in essence, the rules that I make for myself. And in a sense, you know, I've even talked about that, that sometimes that's even difficult to do. So the only rules that are controlling me are my own, but sometimes even that's hard to manifest or to obey. Well, all rules are modifiable as a future thing that we'll talk about in future podcasts discussed, the idea that in fact, there are no systems that are absolute, that all systems have flaws. Any rules that you set also have flaws. There are no absolutes. What we can do is take a look at the rules that we set and compare them to the situation we're in at any given point in time and change those rules if they don't apply to the situation. Flexibility is from my perspective the single most important quality to have. The rule that I have that I apply most often is don't hurt other people unnecessarily. Good rule. Our next topic was something that you had written almost more as a self rule for you, but it did have expanding applications to the community and our viewership at large, which was deciding when I finished the job is up to me, which again felt to me a very natural progression about rules. Yeah, this comes down to a reality which I had to face when I was very young and that is that I have to live with myself and no one else does. So when I'm facing a situation and I feel the right thing to do is whatever is driving me, which I believe is what I call God, I consider God to be the force for good in the universe. When I feel like I am being driven by that force for good and I feel that there's something I can do that will accomplish a job and finish a job without hurting others unnecessarily, I do it even though it may break other rules. The rules for psychologists, for example, are very clear and I have broken those rules because in specific situations it didn't make sense to me because people were going to get hurt otherwise. And again, this follows right into our next topic. Our eighth podcast was quality of life is the only variable that matters and I can see how that totally jives with what you just said, that you had to decide when to finish the job or break the rule because perhaps you could not have lived with yourself had you not and that would have been a quality of life issue that you would have had to carry around with yourself going forward. That's correct, yes. Quality is one of the ruling forces in my life. I look for quality in specific areas that I feel I can achieve it. Other areas doesn't especially matter. The other concept is good enough. In other words, if I can get a good enough job done in a particular situation that's not that important to me, I'm fine with that. But when it comes to the job that I have, which is helping people change for the better, I look for quality and I'm always working on improving myself. My definition of professional is somebody who is better at what they're doing now than they were a month ago and will be better a month from now than they are now and never get perfect. Our ninth topic was that all human systems are flawed. You just spoke about it and I love it. I love it in our 10 best rules for life, if you can. If you go out there with that understanding, it can bring about less conflict or less frustration, I think, on the individual who is acting within their own reality but has to deal with systems or rules that society has made in order to try to, again, not be evil and not do harm, but that all human systems are flawed and if you can accept that, grace probably is more readily available. Yes, yes, because when you accept that all systems are flawed and again human systems versus systems, as you pointed out in our podcast, nature is potentially a system that is not flawed. But when you accept that all human systems are flawed, you can escape the trap of absolutes, the idea that absolutes apply. It's one of the concerns that I have about the concept of ethics. Ethics is what other people tell me I should do in a situation they've never been in before. Truth is that everything is situation ethics and therefore I change the subject to morals. There's a right thing to do in any situation and it depends on that situation and if I do it, I feel good about myself. If I don't do it, I have to deal with the self-talk that can result in shame and in my deciding how I'm going to change my behavior in the future. But accepting that all systems are flawed allows me to look at any situation I'm in from the perspective of what are all the variables operating at this point on this fact and that's where the the BASC concept comes in. In any videotape, you can look at it over and over again and separate out who's doing what, what the behaviors are. The A is for affect, which is another word for emotion, what is each person feeling and mad, sad, glad, or scared. The S is the sensations, what are the the actual senses that are involved, whether it's seeing or hearing or touching or smelling or tasting. And the K is the knowledge. If you watch it over and over again, you will get a picture that has the entire factor with all the variables and all of the people involved in their feelings and thoughts. And that from my perspective is what I seek to achieve in any situation. The bottom line on that one though is of course you have to operate in the moment. And in the moment, your best bet is to take into account what's happening now and that all there is is now and to understand that if included in now is the way in which the past is affecting your perception of the present and that gives you the opportunity to change the future. Wow. Wow. And you know our final topic to me sort of encapsulated it all. If that all human systems are flawed and people are acting within their own reality where they are the most important person to them, that you really need to trust people to be themselves rather than having expectations that they are going to act maybe as you would act or have the intelligence that you would have. That to me seems like again a recipe for frustration or conflict. Unless again, you can trust people to be themselves. Well, people tell you who they are. People behave in certain ways. If you observe it, and if it surprises you in one way or another, at least from my perspective, that's a flaw that I have. I need to understand what's going on in that person's mind when he or she is acting in the way they are acting. And they are explaining it to themselves as the best they can do under those circumstances. And if I can't get inside their head well enough to understand how they're explaining it to themselves, I feel that I am failing. So I work very hard to understand who a person is and therefore I can trust them to be themselves. If I don't feel like I can understand what they're saying to themselves while they're doing or saying whatever it is they're saying, then from my perspective, I'm not getting them. And my job is to get them. You can't change somebody if you don't understand their self-talk. If you don't understand what the announcer inside their head is saying to them while they're doing whatever they're doing. We're discussing the 10 rules for life from Dr. Neil Miranello. It's important to note that these are tweets from Dr. Neil. You can follow the good doctor on Twitter at coach Dr. Neil. And as the curator and the host for the podcast, I have been the one who's been selecting the order and the topics. So while as much as I like to say that these are the 10 rules for life for Dr. from Dr. Neil Miranello, in a sense, you might say that these are my 10 rules for life based on the tweets of Dr. Neil because you certainly haven't put them in this order. So I do take full responsibility that this is a direct reflection of me as much as it is of you. And I appreciate that. The process that we seem to have developed during these podcasts is very much one of cooperation. And as with all my clients, the client leads what we talk about. However, I always react with what feels right to me at the moment. And that's what I think these podcasts are an example of. Nice. And so as we move away from these 10 rules for life, so to speak, I feel that the next 10 episodes are an opportunity for us to dive a little bit deeper into some of the basic tenants that we've discussed here in the first top 10 basic facts for life. And if you looked at the order that I sort of sent you, it's a lot about, again, perception, defining reality, which is creating your thoughts or even that's a little bit backwards that your perception is informing your thoughts, which creates your reality. Yeah, yeah, there is a interesting tenant that I have, which I'm not sure we've discussed and it might be worthy of a future podcast. It is there are no grownups. And I really believe that at any given point in time, whatever a person is doing, is being controlled by a child, a child who's pretending to be grown up in one way or another, and some children are much better at faking it than others. But for those of us who have at one time or another experienced trauma, often the child was at the age that that trauma occurred can be running the show. And that child is operating from the perspective of, as we talked about before, the developmental age. So if at age three somebody gets stuck in one way or another, then you have the person that is driving the bus that's got all the other things that have been learned over time, other children sitting on the bus. But if a three-year-old is driving the bus, the bus is being driven by somebody who believes the furniture disappears when he walks out of the room. And Freud referred to that as a narcissistic stage. But the reality is there are others on that bus who can drive it. On the other hand, if they come up and say, hey, I got a driver's license, the three-year-old may say, oh yeah, where the hell were you when I had to drive this bus? So the controlling child is often the person that needs to be understood and shown some other ways of thinking that will help them to mature and to allow maturity to take place. Taking a look at some of the upcoming episode topics, they include what I see is not what's there, reality exists, meaning is interactive, no two people think alike, and your thinking reveals your belief system. So again, we're really going to be going deep here on how perception informs thinking and it creates your reality. And hopefully in these next 10 episodes, we'll be able to convey to the viewer and the listener that you do have the opportunity and the ability to change your perception and your thinking and hence your reality. That's very exciting and I look forward to it. There's nothing I like more than getting in depth. And in shrink school, I was voted the most flexible and I'm always open to others' perceptions and the possibility that I might be wrong. At the same time, getting deeper and deeper into any specific situation enables me to actually be flexible enough to understand how you think and other people think. And of course how I think because it's a loop. Wonderful. We've been speaking with Dr. Neil Maranello examining our last 10 topics here in our podcast series. Topics that I like to call his 10 basic rules for life. Again, that's my designation for him. A reminder that you can follow the good doctor on Twitter and examine some of his tweets personally in depth. His handle is at Coach Dr. Neil. We invite you to give these podcasts a like and perhaps subscribe and share them with those who you think might benefit. We invite you to join us on our next podcast where again the series topic will be what I see is not what's there. It's definitely a great podcast that you're not going to want to miss because it deals with perception, thinking and reality. Neil, your final thoughts. I'm very much enjoying this process, Matt. And I hope that others will also. I'm available for anybody who would like to talk to me. All you have to do is call and I pick up the phone anytime between 3.30 in the morning and 8 o'clock at night when I go to bed. And I can attest to that having called him one morning just recently at 6 a.m. with a personal issue. On behalf of the good doctor, I'm Matt Kelly. We're both wishing you good mental health.