The "I'm Ready Now!" Podcast
Ideas to help you when you're ready for change.
The "I'm Ready Now!" Podcast
EP 14: Transforming Expectations: From Negative Traps to Positive Triumphs (I Was Shocked)
Ever felt trapped by negative beliefs? You're not alone. Negative expectations often lead to self-fulfilling prophecies, but there's hope for a brighter outcome. Today we dive into the Pygmalion Effect with insights from Dan Miller, illustrating how our minds can sometimes play tricks on us—like anticipating an electric shock that never comes.
This episode unpacks the impact of positive expectations and the amazing outcomes they can produce. With guidance from Dan Miller, we'll learn how focusing on positive possibilities can alter our life's trajectory. I draw from my own experiences to show how reframing thoughts turned potential failures into successes. This episode inspires a deep reflection on personal experiences and fosters a community of resilience and positive thinking.
Welcome to the I'm Ready Now podcast ideas to help you when you're ready for change.
Speaker 1:I'm your host, isaac Sanchez. Here. I share my musings on whatever it is I am reading at the moment, as well as any other ideas that I believe will help you break free from a standstill in your thinking in order to get you dreaming again. Thank you for joining me today. Well, I'm ready now. How about you? Excellent, so let's get started. Welcome back to the I'm Ready Now podcast. I am your host, isaac Sanchez. Thank you for joining me. I'm excited that we're together again. I always look forward to spending this time together. It means so much, as usual. Let's jump right to these communication bits that I always like to share. First, there's those chapter markers on this podcast, so if you want to get straight to the content, use those markers to skip right ahead. No harm, no foul. I understand completely. Also, remember that in the description of this episode there is a link you can tap to text me. I'd love to hear from you To get your feedback on the topics we're addressing. You can always email me at IsaacSanchez at Maccom. That works too, and I look forward to hearing from you.
Speaker 1:So what's up in your world, in mine, the buddy system. Yeah, the buddy system. It works. It still works. So my buddy's, my wife, and we're using this accountability system to get ourselves out of bed at 4.m to hit the gym for a group workout at a local gym here. Now she's coming off of her surgery from a torn Achilles and is making incredible progress. She is being very careful in doing what she's supposed to do to regain full function of her foot. As a matter of fact, just today she saw a physical therapist and confirmed that everything she's doing is spot on. So she's being super careful about that. So we're in a workout group.
Speaker 1:We were this morning and it was the first time together in a long while and we worked hard for an hour. It was great. It's exactly what we wanted. Now, I love this kind of workout where we are working together, with a group of people moving from station to station. We start together, we end together, and that's what happened. We had a wonderful instructor and we also had a wonderful fellow participant who had been attending there for a while and he took us under his wing and helped us through the rotations of the different centers when the instructor was making the rounds with others.
Speaker 1:Now, you know this isn't a first for us. My wife and I are active. We've been active. She's had to slow down, of course, because of the surgery, but she loves the gym and I've learned to enjoy working out Can't say that like I love it, but when we're working out together it's amazing, it was just amazing. So it was exciting.
Speaker 1:This morning we got out of there sweating and just talking about how much we enjoyed that. So we got our gym membership today. My wife was utterly resourceful and got us an excellent deal better than my employer, as a matter of fact and we go back tomorrow to a different location. It's nearby, it's the same big box gym company and we're going to get things done again tomorrow morning. It's a slightly different type of workout, but still intense, still group.
Speaker 1:My point in all of this is that we really did encourage each other to get out this morning and even at the workout, just kind of looking at each other, pushing each other, encouraging each other, I was just so proud of the work she was doing. I just, you know, kept asking her how's your foot? How's your foot, you know, knowing that she was going to pace herself. She doesn't want to get hurt again, but she was doing really, really well. So we'll do the same tomorrow morning and the next day and the next day unless it's a rest day and so we're excited to start working out again together.
Speaker 1:So what can you do that you've been wanting to do that. You may not have had the self-discipline on your own yet. That's okay. It really is okay. I admire those of you who are able to just to do that. You don't need anybody else. That's a great thing. But where I'm at right now, she's a gem to me. She really helped me out to want to do this this morning, to get out there this morning, and we spurred each other on and it was great. So find something that you want to do that you're quite not there on your own and get a buddy. Make it happen. Okay, it's a good thing. Well, let's move into our topic for today. I was shocked or were you? Did that happen or not?
Speaker 1:In our time today, dan Miller addresses the power of the mind regarding our expectations. So specifically, he has us look at the Pygmalion effect. The what I know Stick around as we discuss this next. So in today's talk, dan opens up with a story of him completing some electrical work around his house. He's not very comfortable, he says, with that, but he was making the attempt. And two times he says he was jolted by the flow of the electric current. Exactly what he was fearing happened, except, he says there was no power attached, it was just not connected yet. So then what happened? He shares that the mere anticipation of the shock set him up to feel the shock. So he thought. So this is where Dan addresses the Pygmalion effect, saying that the expectation he had that he would be shocked powerfully influenced his thinking, to the point that he thought he was shocked two times until he actually realized that there's nothing connected here. What a powerful, powerful thing that happens with our mind when we're so convinced that something happened that could not have happened, literally could not have happened.
Speaker 1:So he goes on to discuss the Pygmalion effect, and just in a primer. Let's look at that briefly because it is broader than how he uses it, and I love the way he uses it, but there's a little bit more to it. So I want to just share a little bit more that I found on it from pragmaticthinkingcom. This takes nothing away from what Dan shared with us, it just adds to it. So here's what I found. I just want to read from the website there, pragmaticthinkingcom.
Speaker 1:It says otherwise known as the Rosenthal effect, it's a term used to describe the surprising link between higher expectations and an increase in performance. So this is used a lot in education, but also in the workplace and in other places, and the idea is how do you adjust your approach to increase performance outcomes across your organization, whatever that is? So let's look at this. It says it's from an original study which was conducted by social psychologists Robert Rosenthal and Lenore Jacobson in California schools in 1968. The findings from the study have proven that the expectation of a leader has a direct impact on the performance of the person they are leading. Or, as Rosenthal describes it quote what one person expects of another can come to serve as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Continuing from the website, while the study was originally conducted within a classroom setting, it has since been accepted that the Pygmalion effect applies to all kinds of settings, from elite sports teams to the modern workplace.
Speaker 1:Here's an overview of the study to give you an idea of how the effect works. The website continues students completed a test that was said to be able to identify quote growth spurters, those who were poised to make strides academically. So the teachers were then given the names of the pupils who were about to bloom intellectually and, like clockwork, these students showed a significant increase in performance compared to their classmates who tested again at the end of the year. Now here's the kicker. The website continues. The growth spurters were chosen at random. The only difference between them and their peers as Rosenthal puts it was quote was in the mind of the teacher. It may seem like a small thing, he says, but the expectations held in the mind of a teacher or a parent, a manager or a coach can impact performance greatly. So that's from PragmaticThinkingcom.
Speaker 1:Now, dan, with that background and you see how there's an extension from how Dan used it in our talk in his book here regardless of that, what he advises us here is that the implications of this concept are huge for us personally. So he asks the question could the false anticipation make that event become a reality? That's a critical question. Could the false anticipation make that event become a reality? That's a critical question. Could the false anticipation make that event become a reality? So think about that.
Speaker 1:Here's a couple of things he brings up in the book I'm going to get fired. Or the idea that you are unlucky, you just don't ever win anything. Or knowing you have a failed business on your hands, it's just going to fail, right, you know it's going to fail. These are the kind of false anticipations that he talks about. He gives other examples there to make his point. How much of this is happening because our negative beliefs are so powerfully compromised that we are acting in a way that will make these things come to fruition. We're just so hard into believing the outcome that must be, and that outcome is negative, and so it just. We work ourselves into that way and it happens. And so, therefore, we're convinced Yep, I knew it, I knew I was going to get fired. I knew, I know I'm unlucky. I knew I knew this business was going to fail. It's just no way it can happen. Okay, so we end up just going down that road because of these anticipatory thoughts we have. So he then goes on to say, well, can we reverse the effect? Can it be reversed? Now?
Speaker 1:Dan Miller, a real optimist and realist, encourages us that, yes, we can make a change in our thinking that will move us toward positive outcomes. Just like we can go one way, we can go the other. It is a simple switch in thinking to positive outcomes. Just think about that. If you can think one way, why not think the other way and act on that? Now look at the very real positives in whatever circumstance you're in. Exploit those facts as possibilities. Now they are facts. Look at them and highlight them and take them through their course. Like, yeah, if I do this and this and this and this happens, there's a positive outcome. So exploit those facts and those possibilities. Now Dan shares that he ultimately was able to enjoy the benefits of his new electrical work because he switched his false expectations and he completed the electrical work with the firm belief that he could do it and it happened. Yeah, now I want to move right into our transition to find some application, our wrap-up application section. Yes, this is a little bit shorter than typically, but I want to move on and share a personal story of how this applied to me, what I wrote in my journal on this date and this commentary that he has today. So go ahead and grab the tools you need to make an application here, whether that be something digital or writing utensils to paper. Again, this really is the most important part of our time together. So here's today's application.
Speaker 1:Dan asks us a question Describe a time in your life when you expected a negative outcome. What happened? Okay, describe a time in your life when you expected a negative outcome and what happened Now. I think it might be good to remind yourself here of outcomes that came out both ways. So, one your negative expectations were fulfilled, unfortunately, and maybe think of another time, write about, journal about another time where you fought through the negative and ended with a positive result. I think this could be enlightening for you as well. Now I want to share my story here, where what I journaled about a couple of years ago when I was going through this book, where something did go wrong, but then, at the right time, with some effort, with some change in thinking and some effort, I was able to turn the outcome to something positive when it mattered most. Here's what I mean.
Speaker 1:So several years ago maybe eight to 10 years ago I was playing drums at a church for a Christmas Eve service, so I was hired on to do that. I'd played at this church several times. I was pretty regular there and they had hired me for the Christmas Eve service and a beautiful event. And it was only one service. Sometimes there's several services and there was one service. So you get one shot at every performance. There's a run through and then there's this service that happens and so I head out there.
Speaker 1:I prepared the music. I just I always do. I make sure that I'm well prepared for the music. But there's this one choir tune that was odd metered. It went from 5-4 to 4-4. Won't get into that, but I hate odd metered music. I shouldn't, not that I hate it. I mean I played it. I do play it, but it just I had to be thinking on this one because it get set up and these musicians that play at this church are stellar. They are absolutely incredible musicians and professional level and so that's one reason I love to play with them. They challenge me.
Speaker 1:Well, we go through the one run through that we have. Okay, we get to play the song, parts of the song, here and there. That's just the way it is. But at some point we're going to play the song one time through, maybe go through it again. And I dropped a beat when changing meters. That was a note from the musical director. Meters, that was a note from the musical director, amazing musician buddy of mine, and I just I panicked, I panicked and immediately I started seeing this thing fall apart at the actual service. I mean, it was just going to blow up. I was going to get awful looks, I was going to be just, you know, ostracized. Everything started going through my head and the thing was, I did it on the last time. We did the run through, and then we were breaking for a few hours and the next time we would come back. We were going to have the performance that evening.
Speaker 1:So I went to a restaurant I can see this right now. I was so upset with myself and on the break I was by myself. So I went to a restaurant to have a bite to eat, have dinner, and I had my notes with me and I was reviewing and I was listening to the song. I was looking at my notes and just going through it over and over again and what I did was I started thinking positively that you can do this Like. This is possible. You've done it.
Speaker 1:You did it at least one or two times in the run through. You failed on the last one and that's what's shaking you up. I was telling myself. You left the building with that problem of dropping a note and you cannot that beat you dropped and you just cannot do that. Cannot that beat you dropped and you just cannot do that. So I went through it. I enjoyed my dinner, but then I I used every moment there to just review that song over and over again and then just kept telling myself you're going to do this, you're fine, you're going to be able to do this. Look, you're doing it right now, that mental rehearsal, that physical rehearsal, just tapping my fingers and my feet on the floor. And so we went back and here we're going through the service, and every time my mind was trying to fast forward to that part of the service I would pull it back, said no, we're not there yet. You're going to be fine there, let's concentrate on the song we're on right now and just enjoy the moment. Of course there were butterflies when we came to that tune, but I just remembered you did not mess up on this. A couple of times we rehearsed it and at the restaurant you went through everything. You're going to be fine. We got through the song.
Speaker 1:I made sure I was enjoying myself and staying focused as we were playing through it live. There we went, it was counted off and we were on and I just keep going. And we finished and it was right. I played it right, Everything worked out wonderfully and it was a huge lesson to myself that you can't have these blocks. So when I did mess up, like what was the issue, did I lose focus? What was it? And it was a huge learning lesson to where.
Speaker 1:First I was just certain that things were going to fall apart and I'd walk away embarrassed. I wouldn't want to even talk to the guys after the service Christmas Eve. Folks, it's a beautiful thing. And I was already thinking you're going to leave, you're going to be upset, you're going to not like what happened, they're probably not going to call you back. Whatever I was doing catastrophizing there and instead I prepared myself and just said you're going to be fine, you're going to do this, you can play this. You've played harder things before that required much more focus and you're going to get this one done and it worked. It worked. So there was some effort there, but there was some positive anticipation of what I knew I can do. So listen, I hope that what I shared and what Dan shared encourage you to think differently, to anticipate differently, mainly exploit the good in your circumstances and then head down that road instead of the negative one. Okay, so let's learn and grow from this today. Well, on to next week. Dan begs us not to be crabby, specifically black crabs. He shares a lesson from an important and influential book and an application from it that is so relevant for all of us today. So I'm looking forward to learning with you next week. I hope you'll join me.
Speaker 1:Let me send you away with a quote here it is the expectations of life depend upon diligence. The mechanic that would perfect his work must first sharpen his tools. That is from Confucius. That's it. That's the quote. Think about it. More importantly, act on it. That's the quote. Think about it. More importantly, act on it.
Speaker 1:Have an amazing week, and thanks for hanging out, friends. Let's do this again next week. Thank you for listening. If you found this time together useful, please consider following this podcast and leaving an excellent rating. If you feel you can't do that yet, please reach out to me and let me know what I can do to get you to leave a top rating. If you are already excited about what you've heard, please consider sharing this podcast with a friend. I really would appreciate it. Also, I'd love your feedback, both on today's topic as well as what you'd like to hear me address in the future. I would really appreciate that input. Again, I'm your host, isaac Sanchez. I hope today's thought serves you the way it has served me. Remember your next move is just one inside away. Have an amazing rest of your day. I'll see you next time.