Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Today we're gonna talk about the marshmallow effect. The marshmallow effect. It's a great book called the Marshmallow Effect, which is basically a study of children.
[00:00:13] And what they did is they got all these different kids, put them in a room by themselves with a marshmallow. They were hungry, right? There's a marshmallow. And they were told not to eat the marshmallow. Do not eat the marshmallow. There it is. And if they want to eat the marshmallow, then they have to ring a bell, and then they can eat the marshmallow. And they were told, don't eat it. See how long you can go without eating the marshmallow?
[00:00:41] And so they're sitting there in front of this marshmallow, right? And they're like, oh, squirming in their seat, and, whoa. And it might be like they've tried different candy, and they tried different versions of this, right? So there they are with this thing that they want, and it's right there.
[00:00:56] And the average kid, I think it was something around, like, 1 minute or possibly up to two minutes, was like, the ma. Maybe someone. One of them was like, five minutes was, like, the biggest success.
[00:01:08] One of the kids who maybe didn't like sweets or something for some reason.
[00:01:12] So most of them, they cracked within one or two minutes. Some of them cracked even earlier.
[00:01:17] And then what they did is they. They stayed in touch with these children later on in life, and they saw how successful they were later on. And do you know what they discovered?
[00:01:32] The people doing the study discovered that those who had held off getting instant gratification eating the marshmallow the longer were much more successful, on average, than the ones who just went for the marshmallow straight away.
[00:01:54] So the ones who are like, I can't handle this, immediately ate the marshmallow, were typically less healthy, less happy, less wealthy, more prone to addictions, bad relationships, and all the other bad things in life, whereas the ones who could hold off getting what they want were more successful.
[00:02:22] I think there was another version of this study where they said, you can have one thing now, or if you wait a certain amount of time, you can have two things.
[00:02:31] So they did different versions. It's like, if you. You can get one marshmallow now, or we'll wait, and you can get two marshmallows if you wait ten minutes. Right? Most of them couldn't handle that, but they had the opportunity for more. Lots and lots of versions of these studies have been done over time, and the result is pretty much always the same.
[00:02:56] We can either have instant gratification or we can have long term success.
[00:03:11] So, for example, saving money and putting it in the stock market compound interest at a young age, which I didn't do, by the way, because no one told me about this till I was way later on in life. Didn't even know about it. I probably wouldn't have done it even if I had known, actually, to be perfectly honest. But people who have managed to save and put money in the market ended up much, much better off than those who just spent all their money right away.
[00:03:41] And the same is true in relationships and in food and in business. And, you know, all these things.
[00:03:52] So what does that mean for us getting what we want in our life?
[00:03:59] It means that for us to create an exceptional life, we need to be willing to tolerate some level of discomfort.
[00:04:16] Postpone temporary gratification.
[00:04:21] Short term fixes in exchange for long term benefits.
[00:04:30] So in. In practice, what does this look like?
[00:04:33] For example, if I'm working on a project, right?
[00:04:37] I can distract myself with entertainment and not do my work because that's instant gratification.
[00:04:47] Or I can focus on what I'm doing and get it done and achieve success, right? When in. When we're in relationships, we can postpone, you know, saying things out of nastiness or just being too abrasive or whatever it is, right? I'm sure you're a very peaceful person, and we are all very nice people, but there's certain level of nastiness that we might have on some small level that can be postponed and removed and cleaned out, and we do the work on ourselves.
[00:05:27] And that leads to better long term relationships. Many, many relationships end up breaking up because people have little outbursts and they're nasty to each other.
[00:05:37] So it's easier just to respond and react to stuff than it is to do the work and face ourselves, isn't it?
[00:05:46] It's easier to eat the junk food than it is to eat the healthy food.
[00:05:53] Like, I'm thinking of growing wheat grass. I have everything I need to grow wheat grass. And I did it and then I stopped doing because I don't like the taste of the stuff, right? Very healthy wheat grass juice.
[00:06:05] But I don't really want to do it because I don't like the taste of it. It tastes awful, right? And I feel, even thinking about it, I'm starting to go like that, you know, if you've ever had weak or ask juice, you know what I'm talking about?
[00:06:20] But it's good for me, right? So I might do it anyway. So there's temporary discomfort followed by long term benefit.
[00:06:29] It's extra work if you want to lie down and imagine you're successful and you have attained everything you want, doing that practice, manifestation practices, having meditation, doing these visualizations is harder than doing something else is right. Learning, studying, practicing, putting in the effort.
[00:06:59] It's all harder than instant gratification.
[00:07:08] So this is the third audio I've done. I'm sitting here in my studio recording this third audio on this general, same topic we talked about in previous session, about the shadow.
[00:07:20] We talked about how when we get what we want, our life often starts to fall apart.
[00:07:26] But that's actually reorienting our life for the success we want.
[00:07:33] And then this is talking about postponing instant gratification for long term joy.
[00:07:49] These are the hard truths of life that we have to come to terms with.
[00:07:58] It's always fascinated me that what's good for us tends to be difficult and what's bad for us tends to be easy. I just think this is really funny. There's a great quote. I think it was from Joe Polish, who's a marketing guy.
[00:08:13] He had a quote, something like, life is easy when you live it the hard way.
[00:08:23] But life is hard when you live it the easy way. Isn't that a great quote? Life's easy when you live it the hard way. Life's hard when you live it the easy way. So if we go for temporary instant gratification, it's very easy, but it causes a hard life.
[00:08:45] But if we do the hard stuff, you know, getting up, doing the practices, going on a walk, going on a run, doing our work, avoiding things that are bad for us, etc. Etcetera, we end up with a great life.
[00:09:08] And so this is one of those truths of reality that we have to come to terms with.
[00:09:17] And this is why so few people are successful, because it's easy, super easy, to get caught up in temporary gratification. It's very easy to eat that marshmallow.
[00:09:36] There are people and companies who basically put marshmallows out like a line of marshmallows, and we're just wandering around eating one after the next until we get trapped.
[00:09:58] The technology companies have got us totally addicted to notifications and entertainment.
[00:10:06] The food companies have got us addicted to sugar, right? The politicians have got us addicted to being, right?
[00:10:21] Yeah. The religions get people addicted to being better than everyone else, right? It just goes on and on and on. But our job is to understand reality and understand our dharma, our higher path, understand what is our highest actions, our highest intentions. What is it that we really want in life and what do we need to do?
[00:10:55] Even if it's hard?
[00:10:59] Life is going to be hard anyway in one way or the other.
[00:11:08] So which kind of hard do we want? That's the question we have to ask. So, for example, if I eat junk food all the time, that's easy because I can get it easily. There's tons of it around and it's cheap, right?
[00:11:22] That's easy.
[00:11:25] But I'll have to go to hospitals and get tests and end up sick down the road. Right. That's hard. That's very hard.
[00:11:35] I can distract myself with various things and not do what I need to do, which is easy, but then I'll have to suck it up and then go bankrupt potentially, right? Or end up in a bad situation or end up addicted.
[00:11:52] I can avoid my thinking and changing my thoughts, but then I'll end up with a mind that is out of control and causes me stress.
[00:12:07] So what do I want? Or I can say I'm going to do the hard work of eating well. I'm going to do the hard work of changing my thinking and I'm going to do the hard work of doing what I need to do with my work, my business, my projects.
[00:12:24] I'm going to do the hard work of going on walks and runs and hiking and swimming or whatever, lifting weights and whatever it is, I'm going to do the hard work and I'm going to feel better, look better, sound better, sleep better, have more wealth, more success, more self confidence, more joy. What's it going to be? What's it going to be?
[00:12:51] So just think about this in your life, there are marshmallows everywhere in their own different ways.
[00:13:00] What are the main marshmallows? Each of us has our own type of marshmallows that we like in different contexts. But in essence, distraction and entertainment is a massive one for a lot of people.
[00:13:13] That's the new cigarette, that's the new drug. That's like the. The new marshmallows.
[00:13:20] Unhealthy relationships is another big one.
[00:13:24] Drugs and alcohol is another huge one.
[00:13:29] Laziness, just not doing what we need to do, sitting around too much.
[00:13:38] This modern world is very sedentary life, right? Unless you have a job where you're on your feet all the time. Most people working in offices and wherever else, don't. I mean, I have to get out of the house because I'm doing like recording and writing and emails and all this stuff.
[00:13:55] So we have to. If you're in that situation like I am, you have to go out and put in the hours of different sorts of activities to get the health exercise up to scratch.
[00:14:08] So think about it. There's all these different marshmallows.
[00:14:12] And we talked about this in a different session, that your shadow self wants all the marshmallows.
[00:14:20] Shadow self's mission is eat as many marshmallows as possible all day long.
[00:14:25] But your higher self wants to do all the good things, right? So what's it gonna be? Who's gonna win?
[00:14:32] And some days, the shadow is gonna get more marshmallows than you want it to, and some days are gonna get less. But we have not beat ourselves up about it.
[00:14:43] Just keep tracking your joy, your success, you know?
[00:14:50] So the more we do what we need to do, the more confidence, the more joy, the more happiness, the more good feelings.
[00:14:58] We smile, and we can laugh, and we can enjoy our life.
[00:15:07] And so just think, how many wins can I get today?
[00:15:12] What are all the wins? What are all the things that you want to do? Like holding the vision of what you want, eating the way you want, doing the things that are going to move things forward.
[00:15:21] Get as many wins in as you can. And then when these other things come up, just be aware, this is a toxic marshmallow. Just imagine it's a toxic marshmallow.
[00:15:34] It tastes nice, but you'll be sick afterwards, right? If we tell ourselves, this is. This is going to make me ill, then we're less likely to do it. We might do it anyway and eat some toxic marshmallows here and there, but at least we know what we're dealing with. It's a bit closer to home. We're a bit more aware.
[00:16:00] So, sadly, a lot of people wake up and eat toxic marshmallows from day to night. And no wonder they're so unhappy and depressed and sick and broke.
[00:16:12] And if they wanted to, they could change it themselves. So they need to do the work and learn the things and take the action. So anyone can turn this around with enough effort. So we just have to look after ourselves, and you'll be a good example in others. The best thing I can do is to do all the stuff I'm talking about as best as I can every single day that allows me to be able to talk about these things and be able to inspire people. Best thing you can do is do it yourself. And then other people around you will benefit by your presence, by your company, by your courage.
[00:16:45] So thank you for your presence. I just wanted to share some of these more hardcore things. You. Because we have to look at this stuff. If we want to achieve success, we want to manifest what we want. These are the things that are holding us back, and then when we turn them around, we end up getting what we want.
[00:17:03] So thanks for being here. I'm Michael McIntosh. This is your wish fulfilled. And if you need help with anything else, check out the links. There's lots of goodies and courses and programs and coaching and all sorts of things that you can get if you're struggling a little bit and you're needing a bit of help.
[00:17:20] Have a beautiful day, lots of love. Talk to you soon.
