📚 Change your thoughts & feelings, the dark story of Ozempic, and more.

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👋 Hey everyone,

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📚 Book Summary:

This week’s book is “Thoughts & Feelings” by Matthew McKay PhD.

It’s a cognitive workbook that’s fantastic for anyone who wants to change their limited thinking, stop self-sabotaging patterns of thinking, overcome feelings of depression, and take control of their mood and life.

Here are a few key lessons from it:

📖

1) How To Stop Believing Negative Self-Talk

One of my favorite lessons from this book is to avoid absolutes–words such as every, all, always, none, never, everybody, nobody, etc.

That’s because these statements ignore the exceptions, jump to conclusions that usually aren’t true, and can become negative self-fulfilling prophecies.

But if your self-talk is overwhelmingly negative, such as saying “Everybody thinks I’m a loser” or “I’ll never find love,” you want to examine the evidence of your self-talk.

Usually, this negative self-talk comes from a single mistake or incident, that you can throw out when you take a minute to think of more positive evidence.

So “Everybody thinks I’m a loser” becomes, “Well my family and close friends all say nice things about me, and most of my teachers said I was awesome throughout the years. I shouldn’t let one small mistake define me.”

Or “I’ll never find love” becomes, “Well I did have a two-year long-term relationship before this, and my parents met when they were in their late 30s, and most of the people I know are still single so maybe I just need to be more patient.”

So before you accept your negative self-talk as true, question it and look for evidence from both sides before making a decision.

📖

2) How To Stop Making Bad Situations Worse

Catastrophizing is the fast lane to anxiety and stress.

It’s usually when something small goes wrong but you then magnify it to the extreme.

Storytime:

Years ago I went to Costa Rica for my friend’s bachelor party. He loved fishing so we booked a deep-sea fishing trip for one of the days.

The captain told us it would take 2 hours to sail to his lucky fishing spot. But about 1.5 hours into the trip, smoke was coming from the engine and the boat had stopped. One of the workers opened up a hatch to see that the engine was on fire.

The bachelor started to panic. He paced back and forth while a worker extinguished the flame and then examined the engine.

“Engine no good, I try to fix,” the worker told the captain.

Meanwhile, the bachelor lost his cool and demanded the captain call the Coast Guard to rescue us before we sank. Yes, we were miles offshore so if the boat sank we’d be in trouble, but the fire was extinguished, the boat was still floating, and nothing else was wrong.

While the bachelor was freaking out, the rest of us drank beers, cracked jokes, and enjoyed the peacefulness of the sea.

About thirty minutes later, the worker fixed the issue and the engine started working again.

Both the bachelor and the rest of us went through the same event that day, but because he catastrophized the situation, he went through a negative experience while the rest of us had a positive one.

The key here is to catch yourself catastrophizing before it spirals out of control and to ask yourself “What are the odds?”

Make an honest assessment of the situation: Are the chances of disaster really 50% like you initially thought? Or is it closer to 5% or even 1%?

Looking at the odds will help you realistically evaluate whatever is worrying you and calm down your nerves.

📖

3) How To Stop Assuming It’s Your Fault

Personalization is when you assume the actions of others are because of you.

For example, if your boss is being a jerk, maybe it isn’t because you were 5 minutes late or skipped a meeting yesterday. It’s because he didn’t get much sleep since his newborn kept him up and he’s cranky.

Or if your partner is sending you short, blunt texts, it doesn’t mean they’re mad. It’s because they’re having a busy day at work and don’t have time to send longer thoughtful texts.

So stop assuming everything is your fault and don’t make any conclusions unless you have reasonable evidence and proof for your theory.

Another good way of framing things is that humans are complex and there are an infinite number of reasons for why someone is acting a certain way. The chances that your hunch for why something is happening are incredibly small.

✅ Actionable Advice:

1) Examine the evidence before believing your negative self-talk:

• Put your negative self-talk on trial and look for evidence that disproves it.

2) Examine the odds before catastrophizing:

• Make an honest assessment of your situation: Are the chances of disaster 50% or is it <1%?

3) Examine the unknowns before taking the blame for other people’s actions:

• Don’t jump to conclusions or think people are acting a certain way because of something you did unless you have reasonable proof for your theory.

💎 Weekly Gem:

Podcast: The Dark, Untold Story of Ozempic 

This podcast isn’t actually about Ozempic (it’s talked about for 10 minutes or so), it’s about the corruption that takes place in the pharmaceutical and food industry.

The guest, Calley Means, is a former food and pharmaceutical consultant who pulls back the curtain and exposes the dark side of these massive industries and how they truly work.

Super fascinating podcast, recommend giving it a listen.

Thank you for your support, read on everyone!

-Alex W.