#124 - You are what you listen to

Having control over our sensory input insures choice over the outcomes that we achieve in life and while many of us are quite picky about what we eat or even see, a great deal of us are thoughtless about what we listen to! In this episode of Beyond the Present Podcast Dan and Poujix discuss the importance of being more selective about what we listen to from sound and music to podcasts and audiobooks. 

You are what you listen to thus if you want to change the quality of your life you need to change the quality of your auditory input and this short program will remind you to do just that. 

Episode Transcript:----more----

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

book, listen, audio, podcasts, audiobooks, audio inputs, choosing, life, author, input, applicable, important, poker, impact, influenced, emotional state, music, importance, title, topic

SPEAKERS

Pouya LJ, Dan

Pouya LJ  00:09

Hello, and welcome back to yet another episode of beyond the present podcast. Let's talk addition as always with Daniel Mulligan How's it going Dan?

Dan  00:16

it, man, buddy. How are you? Good to be here with you for yet another great episode of The let's talk edition, and couldn't be excited about this matter anymore because it's just so great to hear your voice after a while. And life is great. I mean the coronavirus pandemic is obviously not over at all, but we are still seeing some, you know, even spikes, basically that are going up in some cases now. Now California is ahead. But overall life is good. And life is somehow getting back to normal in some countries. And of course, generally, we're not complaining Life is good and we're going forward.

Pouya LJ  00:51

Let's pretty good. Good to hear that.

Dan  00:54

Now.

Pouya LJ  00:55

So today's topic, thankfully we're not talking about anything Coronavirus related for change And we are talking about. So this is a topic you introduce and you will you sort of use you mentioned, you are what you listen to. And it was a very interesting scenario. And I think we share similar thoughts on the matter. So we thought, you know what, let's go go ahead and give it a go to try about this topic. And so first of all, can you can you explain what you meant? When you said, You are what you listen to? What do you mean by say

Dan  01:26

was, it said that you are what you eat is like pretty common. But the fact of the matter is that a lot of us we pay up a lot more attention to what we eat. But we don't care so much about the other inputs, as we know we have, you know, five major inputs. Basically, one is of course, visual one is kinesthetic, the things that we touch or do physically. And one is of course, what we taste. One is what we basically hear. And unfortunately, that's what unfortunately gets ignored and neglected a lot. Because of this. I believe that we need to take care That aspect of basically our lives as well, if you want to, you know, take full control of our lives, because if you are not in control of what auditory input you have in your head on a daily basis, then of course, you will have some problems and your life will not go the way you want. And for this reason, I believe that the quality of your life really is determined by what you listen to.

Pouya LJ  02:23

Yeah, that makes a lot of sense, though. I want to also mention Yes, it's one of the things that the one of the downsides is that you can't really turn it off easily, like you can't shut your ear and not the best you can do is pluck your ear. There. There's a question how much the worst actually doesn't work that much does it? No, not really. It makes it dim, but still you can hear but there is a there is a there's a degree that you can also think of it as upside. And that is you can listen to stuff passively meaning web while doing other stuff. For example, you're listening to podcasts, perhaps if you're in the gym or commuting, driving. Whatever. So now, I want to talk about that. I want you to talk about that a little bit. And so what are so we met, you mentioned the downside, and there's an upside. What are the ways you can we can do to optimize the upside, but on the other hand, minimize the negative part. Do you have a

Dan  03:18

very good question. You see, when it comes to understanding the way the environment affects you, you have to understand that what you listen to has a direct impact on you. A lot of times people ask like, Dan, what do you get all this energy to be active all the time? And the answer is because I'm very much aware of what input I have throughout the day, not just basically auditorily there are many other ways to control it. But for me, audio is very, very important. Of course, I grew up as an auditory learner for the most part. So for me, that was always a thing which actually led to me becoming a polyglot. But the fact of the matter is that once you have control over what you listen to, it changes the way you think you change the way you feel the world around you. And because of this, I've always believed in the importance of looking at audio and your audio inputs very carefully. For example, most of us we don't care, some show will be listened to, we drive and we listen to random music. We listen to random radio programs, and we put all this junk into our head and wonder why life sucks. There's a reason if you're listening, you know, you're driving down the road, you listen to a song and says, Oh, my wife just left me. Life is all terrible. And I'm alone. And you start singing along with this crap. And you wonder like, Well, why do I feel so bad? Dude, you just listened to a shitty music and you wonder why you feel bad. So I believe that if you want to optimize the overall quality of your life, you have to take a look at what audio inputs you have at on a regular basis. And most of us we have a variety of basically forms of audio input. Namely, of course, we have the music, but that we all listen to on a regular basis. Then we have things like radio programs, podcasts, audio books, and so on. And I really believe that you can cannot really take your life to the next level. If you're not controlling basically the the type of audio that you actually listen to. And if you want to optimize it to the way you want it, ask yourself, what kind of state of emotional, emotional state or states of being I want to be in? And more importantly, what are my targets and the long term that I want to achieve? And once you know those, then you say what type of audio inputs will allow me to achieve that, so does listen to sad or doesn't seem to useless material or useless radio talk shows necessarily allow you to achieve that. If the answer's no, then you should probably make an adjustment here and start changing it for the better.

Pouya LJ  05:45

Yeah, that that actually makes a lot of sense. Lots of good points there. Now. So I have a question for you. Like let's say we have a goal we have a you know, we want to optimize that the listening passive listening skill, if you will. So one of the you mentioned these you have, we have audiobooks or podcasts that you can specifically pick and choose and listen to, to help you or you know, in your path, whatever that may be learn something new, helps you do something. So, I'm sure you use selectively go go about choosing your podcasts and audio, audible books or any kind of audio book that you listen to. Do you have any any specific methods of weeding out the use less than using the choosing the good ones to listen to? Or do you think it's generally? Yeah, go ahead.

Dan  06:36

Very good question. You see projects out when I want to make a choice here about what to listen to you. I asked myself, What will I get because I look at time as investment as money. And I asked myself, so I'm going to spend seven some audiobooks. I listen to where you know, more than 20 hours. I mean, for example, I recently finished a book called basically The room where it happens by john bolton. And that book was more than 20 hours. And when I finished that audiobook, I got a badge on Audible saying that this called the I don't know, Mount Everest band or something. I literally got a badge for the longest audio book I've ever listened to. And that was, you know, you can imagine that's a huge investment of time. And because of this, I asked myself, I cannot just skip through this the way I do this when I'm reading a book, you know, visually. So I asked myself, is the content of this book relevant to me or not? If the answer is no, I simply won't speak in listen to the audiobook, because what's the point of trying to read something or you know, listen to an audiobook that you simply will never use in the future? So it's not immediately relevant. I just don't do it. Now. The second layer filtering is okay. Maybe I think this book is relevant to me. For example, not long ago, I was listening to an audio book, basically a called the biggest bluff. It's about the journey. As a professional poker player, now in that audio book, and you know, the description, the audio books description was all about how the philosophy of poker, for example, can be applied to politics and to be applied to business. I mean, the poker face concept and putting yourself in the, you know, certain positions to make decisions, and so on and so forth. And I thought this would be applicable, you know, in business, and I actually made the purchase, I got the audiobook, I was listening. And after about a few hours, I realized No, man, this isn't really not at all about business or politics. It's really about pure poker. And it's talking about the journey of a professional poker player who went from complete newbie to I don't know, World Series of Poker tournament, for example, extraordinaire, and then I realized, well, do I really want to spend the next three, four hours finishing it? And I realized No, because unfortunately, you see projects, a lot of us especially guys like you and me, we tend to somehow detest giving out we say, like, you know, what if I if I don't finish this audio book that I'm giving up And therefore, I should keep listening to this garbage because otherwise I have given up. No man, this is not the case because in reality, you could spend that four or five hours, let's do another audio book that will actually be ethical. Because the fact of the matter is, if you just grind through the audio book, so you know what I got to finish this audiobook right now. So what happens? after about four or five hours, six hours, 10 hours you finish it, and then what happens? You'll forget about it. So if you're going to forget about it, then why spend that 10 hours listening anyways. And for that reason, I believe that it's better to go for that two layer method. So at first, you fully filter out the topics, and let's say, the titles that are not relevant to you. On the second level, once you read and start reading or listening, you ask yourself, Is this really helping me or not? If the answer is no, just abandon it and move on to another audio program, podcasts or some other source.

Pouya LJ  09:54

That's exactly that's exactly my that was my problem. And now isn't so much What do I mean by that? Is that you mentioned that if it's not useful, you thought it's different kind of audiobook, and it's not living up to your standards or your thought or your expectations. Yeah, I don't I don't shy away from dropping dead, which is a good advice, in my opinion, but even books, but specifically audiobooks because you have to dedicate that chunk of time, as you mentioned. And I used to think otherwise, meaning Yes, I can't give up whatever. And at some point, that is accumulation of thoughts. Give me this epiphany that, yeah, well, the not giving up scenario has a purpose because if you don't give up there is a gem at the end of all of that suffering that will you know, that will be that will be unlocked and you can access it. However, in the case of a audio book that is not useful to you, not interesting to you or not useful to you, not helpful to you. There's really nothing but for our statistics, which I read this book, too, which is, well, who cares? What is the result of that? So I I completely agree on that on that point. And I think I think just choosing is obviously requires some time and research, to dedicate to choose Good, good audio books, podcasts, what have you. And one one way, which is usually a reliable way is word of mouth from people you trust, and they can explain to you what the book is about to a degree. So you have a higher degree of confidence of purchase. But at the end of the day, there's always chance that, you know, I thought differently about this book, and it turned out differently. So, you know, no, no shying away from dropping the books. Do you have any other method methodology in choosing a books, podcast, whatever, like, for example, by author maybe I don't know, like, maybe

Dan  11:46

because sometimes a lot of the, you know, titles that I find, let's say audiobooks are certainly, you know, knowing the author, because I believe that sometimes you don't know the author, maybe it's like her or his first book. So in that case, you Need to actually give it a shot. For me it's more about whether or not the description of that audio material or the podcasts or whatever it is, if it be directly, that's, for me a lot more important than who the author is. Because sometimes very famous authors, just because they are famous, they just want to, you know, write more and make more money and just write more books. And a lot of you know, top authors books are total junk after about a few books, I mean, because basically, they just got to rights, and if you will, and they end up writing some crap. So for me, it's not about the author so much as it is about the top of the title, how relevant The topic is to me, and that's how I usually pick them. But of course, I usually go through the best selling list on Audible calm to see which titles are now bestsellers. Obviously, a lot of those titles are bestsellers because of the situation which might not be relevant to me personally. So in that case, I tend to somehow not care so much about it. But if I find a topic, or a title that is, you know, brand new or it's like a best Wunderland really applies to me. And of course I will take it and of course I will apply because in that case, the suit You know, going to be applicable regardless of who the author is. Sometimes I don't even know who the author of the book is. I know the title, but I don't remember the author's name. So that's okay, too, because what really matters is the content that you will consume in terms of audio. And that's for me, very, very important. And by the way, because I know you also listen to a lot of audiobooks, what is your typical audio routine these days? Like how much audio Do you listen to these days or in the past? What is your typical day like?

Pouya LJ  13:27

Right? Well, I mean, it's changed a lot since the Coronavirus situation developed because I used to do a lot more commute than I do now, due to covid. Or but I mean, still going so it's not to a halt and but it's much, much more reduced. And currently, I am actually reading, not reading rather listening to a podcast is always there. I have my own podcasts that I listened to whatever. But in terms of auto audiobooks, I am listening to one by this individual called Douglas Murray who's The book is called the madness of crowds. A and the author is a British journalist actually. So my vocabulary is much influenced by the fact that I'm listening to this. Yeah, we talked about the unconscious impact of audio, which we're not really aware of, perhaps, consciously, but it's always impacting us. And that's one of the one of the aspects of this like to listen, please

Dan  14:28

try the title myself, which is just double the deeper into what this thing is like the impact that we're receiving what the author exactly she's trying to say here.

Pouya LJ  14:38

Oh, no, but by the impact, I meant to impact the audiobooks itself. I already did this book. I was right. But the book is about a book it was about the well, the title is actually the subtitle of the title. Let me let me bring it up because I don't remember precisely, but it's very telling. It's basically about groupthink in a sense, so it says the madness of crowds crowds, gender, race and identity, the recent issues that have circulated around gender, race, identity, etc. orientation, all that, and the good the new groups that have emerged and the crowds that have started, you know, kind of like some eye movements anywho. So it's actually a quite a controversial book. But what I'm trying to say, regardless of the content of the book, his choice of vocabulary has influenced my choice of day to day speaking vocabulary that I use. I mean, I noticed that recently, but it does actually, even if I listen to podcasts, sometimes I see that, you know, sometimes my choice of vocabulary my own speaking, is changed or influenced, based on what I'm listening to. So when I was trying to highlight the importance of, you know, passive listening and what impact it can have on your mindset, Yeah, yeah. I don't know, do you feel you have the same?

Dan  16:05

For me personally, of course, I've been an audio learner myself. But I think that audio has a tremendous impact on us. I mean, think about this think of music, what is exactly music because music affects us emotionally, in ways that I don't know, speeches or even you know, articles, books or even masterpieces do not do it. And music has been with us since you know, our evolutionary background, which is why I believe that the impact to influence us auditorily is far higher than many other mediums. And other than that, of course, it's about you know, your own perspective. It's all about how audio affects you personally, not just in terms of like, what you listen to, but also how you express yourself, which is why in the, you know, in the area, for example, marketing and personal branding, recommend things like podcasts because nowadays, that's the one basically platform that never gets too old. People will can will always be able to find time to put in some listening time in their schedule, which is why I believe that not only is effective in terms of how it affects our emotions, but in all facets of life, whether it is branding or marketing, or whatever it is, you can always use audio as you as a major carrier of information that not only transcends beyond just mere words, hers emotions and the feelings and values of the person who's saying that So overall, I totally understand the importance of basically audio and how it really affects us the way many other basically inputs do not do it.

Pouya LJ  17:36

And Besant doesn't amazing now for the end part of the today's show, is there anything we didn't talk about that you want to address, or you want to summarize what we talked about?

Dan  17:48

Well, first of all, I really want to thank you for choosing this topic because I believe it's quite important for us to fathom the importance of the audio input that we have. So all listeners should now ask themselves do I Choose the music I listen to on a regular basis with care. Do I know the emotional state of my favorite for example, musicians? I mean, let's be honest. Many top celebrities, top musicians have serious mental issues. And a person with all that mental issues, the lyric and the music that will come out of that mind will in some way also be sick and not necessarily applicable. So ask yourself, do I really feel a sense of connection to these artists that I have around me? Have I selected these bands just because they are cool, or because I really feel that the message resonates with who I am, because unfortunately of us, don't do that. And be very selective of the kind of music you listen to because that ultimately reflects on many things and determines your emotional state. Other than that, we discussed the importance of audio and all forms, whether podcast, audio books, radio programs, and so on, because we believe that audio really has deeper impact on us as an input than many other forms of input and choosing the right basically audio format for us. And more importantly, the right sources are very important. We also talked about, you know, the whole concept of never ever give up, which does not really apply to audiobooks. And we mentioned, whether it comes to when it comes to audiobooks or podcasts. If you start listening, and you realize, well, this audio book really is not about me, or if you're listening to podcasts, and you realize that I don't know after about, I mean, we have some very, very long podcast goes on for hours. So after about an hour and a half, it's like, you know, well, it says two hours left. So it's a three and a half hour podcast. Do I really have to finish it? The answer is no, of course not. So do not apply the same thing if it doesn't immediately attract your attention. Then you are going to forget it. So why listen anyways, and that of course then allows you to choose the Write source of material, the right source of input for yourself that will also be applicable and you will remember it and you can actually apply it in your daily life. So, for that reason, it can actually be a lot more conscious of the content that you choose and the material that you actually try to listen to on a regular basis. And by doing so, you will then be able to control how you feel how you think and the results that you will ultimately get in life.

Pouya LJ  20:24

That's amazing. Thank you, Dan, for like, we appreciate it. And thank you all hope. I hope that we have influenced you auditorially well today and until a later on jatoi, auditory influence Cheers.