Today our expert guest is Gay Hendricks, a leader in the fields of relationship and body/mind transformation for more than 45 years. After earning his Phd from Stanford in 1974, Gay served as professor of counseling psychology at the University of Colorado for 25 years. He has written more than 40 books, including best sellers such as Five Wishes, The Big Leap, Conscious Loving, and Conscious Loving Ever After.
Gay had wanted to become a creative writer and had no interest in psychology, but when he went to meet with a friend of his at the University of New Hampshire, he ended up sitting in on a counseling class and he was so amazed at what he saw that he knew then what he wanted to do for the rest of his life.
After that, he signed up for the counseling program, got his masters degree in counseling, went on to get his doctorate at Stanford in counseling psychology, and ended up teaching counseling psychology. So he really stayed true to his decision.
Gay came across this idea he called the Upper Limit Problem, which is a governer of how good we can feel, and that was the original glimmer that led him to write The Big Leap.
The “upper limit problem” is a response to a fear. Once you understand what those basic fears are, you can begin to understand what is happening when it’s happening.
Which fears are you operating under? The fear of outshining and taking away from other people we perceive as more deserving, the fear that you are fundamentally flawed or broken in some way, or the fear of being disloyal to the people in your past? The more you look at them and feel them in your body, it becomes easy to identify which one you are operating under. The more you can open up, the easier it becomes to balance your life.
Another idea evolved from The Big Leap is the “zone of genius.” There are 4 zones: the zone of incompetence, the zone of competence, the zone of excellence, and the zone of genius.
The zone of incompetence is when you spend time focusing on tasks you are not good at, and many people get stuck spending too much time there. The zone of competence is when you are good at something, but other people could likely do those tasks just as well. The zone of excellence is where you’re doing the things you’re really good at, but if you stay there for too long you start to stagnate. And finally, you end up in “the genius spiral,” which is a constant upleveling of your life as you grow and improve.
The way you move from the zone of excellence to the genius spiral is to keep asking yourself questions, which Gay calls “wonder questions,” that keep leading you into magnificent new dimensions.
Some good wonder questions to ask yourself are:
- What activities put me into a timeless space? What makes me lose track of time?
- What do I do that produces the greatest amount of contribution for time spent?
- What is my true genius?
Don’t focus on the answers, just plant the questions in yourself. That will start liberating ideas.
In Gay’s newest book, The Joy of Genius, was made to give you something that you can do on a regular moment by moment basis that will unlock more creativity and gradually eliminate negative thinking.
Just find one negative thought and change it, and watch what happens as a result of that. Change one “can not” to a “can.” Once you start tweaking your mind in this way, your mind will light up, and you find that positive thinking is much more fun and productive than negative thinking.
The Biggest Helping: Today’s Most Important Takeaway
“At our trainings, we have this wristband that says ‘Breath, Move, Love.’
“Anytime you’re feeling stuck, just take a moment to take a few easy breaths. Or even when you’re feeling good, take a few easy breaths to amplify that feeling in your body. After you take that breath, then move your body around, open up to that natural flow of energy. And the third thing is love. Love as much as you can from wherever you are. You are not always going to feel loveable towards yourself, but you can always love yourself for not being able to love yourself. And in that moment you become very different.”
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Thank you for joining us on The Daily Helping with Dr. Shuster. Subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or Google Play to download more food for the brain, knowledge from the experts, and tools to win at life.
Resources:
- Learn more: hendricks.com
- Workshops: heartsinharmony.com
- Read: https://www.amazon.com/Joy-Genius-Next-Step-Beyond/dp/1947637649
- Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=gay+hendricks&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_1_13
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/relationshipadvice
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/hearts_harmony
- YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/hendricksinstitute
The Daily Helping is produced by Crate Media
There is incredible potential that lies within each and every one of us to create positive change in our lives (and the lives of others) while achieving our dreams.
This is the Power of You!
