If Then Podcast

About If Then Podcast

A podcast about getting uncomfortable and writing some neurological code.

Publisher

Jordan Taylor

Category

education · education

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

26 Apr 2022

Latest episode

31 Oct 2022

Latest episodes

13 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   31 Oct 2022

   How to Achieve Security in Total Loss with Caleb Natale

   This is the story of Caleb Natale--a video effects artist who built a massive following on the app Vine before having it all taken away when the app was discontinued in 2017. In the midst of tragedy, learn how he mitigated its effects and stayed afloat as an entrepreneur, building an even bigger following in the years after. 🎧AIRPODS MAX GIVEAWAY ENDS NOVEMBER 7🎧 To enter to win the Airpods Max with an "If Then Podcast" engraving, here's what to do: 1) Screenshot this podcast and share on your Instagram tagging @ifthenpodcast 2) Follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram 3) If we get to 200 shares by 11:59 PM November 6th, you have an opportunity to win the Airpods Max the following day! But don't forget, that each week, for those of you who share on Instagram, I also give away two 1 month Audible gift cards which include a FREE credit for an audiobook + 1 MONTH ACCESS to their Plus Catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. WEBSITE: https://www.ifthenpodcast.com EMAIL: contact@ifthenpodcast.com CREDITS: Caleb Natale's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/calebnatale/ Caleb Natale's TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@calebnatale Caleb Natale's Website: https://www.nataleproductions.com Written and produced by Jordan Taylor: https://www.instagram.com/messy_jordan/

2. 

   24 Oct 2022

   How Limiting Yourself Makes You Limitless

   I always felt like I couldn't narrow down my focus to just one interest because I was scared of losing all of my potential in all my other interests. By picking just one, I was losing everything else, and I was poorer for it. This episode delves into the idea of the Backwards Law, and how, sometimes, you have to do the uninstictive backwards thing to get your desires. What if you had to actually narrow your focus to broaden your horizon? 🎧AIRPODS MAX GIVEAWAY ENDS NOVEMBER 7🎧 To enter to win the Airpods Max with an "If Then Podcast" engraving, here's what to do: 1) Screenshot this podcast and share on your Instagram tagging @ifthenpodcast 2) Follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram 3) If we get to 200 shares by November 6th, you have an opportunity to win the Airpods Max the following day! But don't forget, that each week, for those of you who share on Instagram, I also give away two 1 month Audible gift cards which include a FREE credit for an audiobook + 1 MONTH ACCESS to their Plus Catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. WEBSITE: https://www.ifthenpodcast.com EMAIL: contact@ifthenpodcast.com CREDITS: Written and produced by Jordan Taylor: https://www.instagram.com/messy_jordan/ Josh Taylor as the Professor: https://www.joshtaylor.fyi Kristi Smith as student #1: https://www.instagram.com/kristi_denise26/ Samuel Smith as student #2: https://www.samuelsmithvoice.com Kristi and Samuel Smith's Podcast: https://www.instagram.com/groupdatespodcast/

3. 

   17 Oct 2022

   Patterns: The Key to Discovering Your Calling

   A lot of us feel like we're wasting our lives when we constantly start and stop hobbies. When will we ever discover our calling after all? In this episode, I argue that following your interests, even if you quit tons of them over time, will eventually lead you to your ultimate calling through the patterned nature of learning and the interweaving connectivity of the universe. 🎧AIRPODS MAX GIVEAWAY🎧 To enter to win the Airpods Max with an "If Then Podcast" engraving, here's what to do: 1) Screenshot this podcast and share on your Instagram tagging @ifthenpodcast 2) Follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram 3) If we get to 200 shares by the end of Season 2, you have an opportunity to win the Airpods Max! But don't forget, that each week, for those of you who share on Instagram, I also give away two 1 month Audible gift cards which include a FREE credit for an audiobook + 1 MONTH ACCESS to their Plus Catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. WEBSITE: https://www.ifthenpodcast.com EMAIL: contact@ifthenpodcast.com CREDITS: Written and produced by Jordan Taylor

4. 

   10 Oct 2022

   Boredom: Our Brain's Greatest Gift

   What if boredom wasn't something to dread but was, rather, something to value? Boredom is your brain's built-in program to grow, to extend yourself, to let you know that your current trajectory is off track. It's encouraging you to push through the discomfort and write new neurological code. 🎧AIRPODS MAX GIVEAWAY🎧 To enter to win the Airpods Max with an "If Then Podcast" engraving, here's what to do: 1) Screenshot this podcast and share on your Instagram tagging @ifthenpodcast 2) Follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram 3) If we get to 200 shares by the end of Season 2, you have an opportunity to win the Airpods Max! But don't forget, that each week, for those of you who share on Instagram, I also give away two 1 month Audible gift cards which include a FREE credit for an audiobook + 1 MONTH ACCESS to their Plus Catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. WEBSITE: https://www.ifthenpodcast.com EMAIL: contact@ifthenpodcast.com CREDITS: Written and produced by Jordan Taylor TRANSCRIPT: My name is Jordan Taylor, and welcome to the If Then podcast. Our brains our a conglomerate of if/then statements, like in computer code, and oftentimes new lines of code are hard to write in our mind when we’re trying new things, for example if I want to play piano, then I need to read music. Sitting down and coding that particular if then statement could take years of dedication, but when we do sit down and create new then statements for a complicated if, it feels freaking amazing. This podcast is your weekly motivation, and mine, to get uncomfortable and write some neurological code. “Boredom is your imagination calling to you.” — Sherry Turkle There was a storm that evening—outside and within. The wind blew the limbs, and the leaves came down like an autumn colored rain, and I sat inside, unprotected, from my own rain of thoughts and a cell phone. I was battered by stimuli in my electrical brain storm. A notification here. A suggested video there. An instagram like. An Elon tweet. Hmm… I wonder how many downloads my last episode got? I was in the thick of it like most evenings—until, outside, there was a strike. *lightning strike* *sound of breaker* And all went dark. All, that is, except my illuminated face now contrasted in the bright light of the screen. My eyes dilated. The screen froze. There was a glitch in my brain as my video stopped. “No no no, not again…hhhhhh…” Out in the country, you run on wifi. I pulled to refresh. *roulette wheel sound* “Come on come on.” Nothing. And then another pull. *roulette wheel sound* Even though I knew what the outcome would be. *ding* “Error loading Tap to retry.” And then it set in. My new reality as I pulled 3 more times out of desperation. How long would it be? Could it be all night? The storm is pretty bad this time. *thunder* And then it hit me. Withdrawals. I could feel my stress rise as my pattern was broken, as urges hit and I couldn’t react, I just sat and stared at the Home screen swiping left and right through icons, another urge. Another sequence of apps opened and closed, their patterned order engrained in me, top left, then close, swipe, bottom right, then close. Opening and closing. Desperately searching for a fix, and the stress rose and kept rising, and another urge, and another, and then Sara came in, “Jordan, let’s get that lantern from downstairs.” “Yeah, okay. Can't you just get that yourself, Sara? You know where it is, right?” “Uh…yeah…I think I do. You just kind of have your tools down there and I thought you could help me maneuver around it so we don’t get hurt in the dark.” I looked up. And I saw. I finally saw it all. Myself. The darkness. Her flashlight across the room lighting her little corner I put her in. The black void between us. And the feeling. I can’t think of anything else in my life that if it were taken away right now, I would experience withdrawal symptoms. See for some reason, I just don't struggle with common addictions like drinking, drugs, pornography, food. And, because of that, it's easy to internally criticize others when I hear of their addictions, like just stop watching porn--how hard is that? Even though, when I think about it, I'm not much different than them, and I can relate more than I'd like to admit. Much more. We all have some symptom in our lives we're trying to mask by different methods. Instead of dealing with the root cause, we temporarily medicate the symptom away. During a particularly stressful day, drinking a lot might make you feel carefree and happy in the short term, but the side effects are a terrible hangover, potential liver poisoning, disease, and an early death. You've successfully masked the initial symptom of stress, but with a laundry list of side effects--themselves symptoms that also need to be masked and medicated--the root cause of the initial ailment never truly understood or addressed, and if the addiction is tried to stop, it can lead to even worse side effects from withdrawal than the one initially medicated. When I saw so clearly my withdrawal symptoms that stormy night, after I made a stressful marital battle out of my wife's thoughtfulness, it hit me. What symptom was I masking with a smart phone--my medication of choice? What symptom did I need to get to the root cause of? To answer this question, a simple line of thought needed to be followed. What do I not feel when I'm on my phone, that if taken away, would eventually appear and I would have to deal with? The answer was obvious. See, I’ve noticed something weird. I’ve never felt bored when I’m on my phone. Not one time, and, interestingly, it doesn’t seem to matter how long I’m on it either. Rather, if I’m on it for a long period of time, I start to feel stress, anxiety, and irritability, like side effects, but never boredom. I'm never motivated to stop. And then it hit me. I realized that, in a very real way, I'm medicating boredom from my life. I'm not dealing with its reality. I'm ignoring it by popping my hourly medication with a phone scroll without even being aware. But what if the symptom of boredom was actually cluing me into something important, something I needed to know? That stormy, powerless night, I asked myself, "What is boredom?" Well, if you think about it, the interesting thing is that it’s a pre-loaded program in our brain’s operating system—much like hunger and our conscience, which are, respectively, for our physical and moral well-being. If either one of those pre-loaded programs were deleted, well, that wouldn't be good. So what about the other pre-loaded program: boredom? In the same way that hunger is unpleasant but, with responsible choices, leads to a healthy life, so to boredom is unpleasant. Could it also be leading me to something beneficial in some other aspect of my life? 4 times a year we would make the 14 hour drive to south Florida--our out-of-sync kid bladders making it 16. My dad--the pilot, drove down the never ending runway while my mom, the flight attendant, made sure her 3 child passengers were fed and cared for. My brother, sister, and I sat, watching the world fly by hour after ticking hour with a paper plate and a semi passing. A red one this time. Guard rails traced with eyes as 70mph revealed their slight imperfections--up and down and up and down like a wave. And there was a car in rapid pursuit behind us. Us siblings could feel the presence of the driver as our van seemed to slow to a crawl--he was breathing down our necks. We came up with all sorts of ways to speed the van and gain back some ground. Bursts of stories with Beanie Babies and Mario plushes throttled us faster. Mrs. Rayburn's Dumb Class was our favorite fuel that my brother created. I don't remember times of laughter quite as vividly as when Bowser, Mrs. Rayburn, openly scolded the children in shame while Lugi, the smallest of the plushes, somehow consistently came from behind in class competitions to win, always famously uttering his last line, "I win all the awards!" And where was the driver, Boredom, now? Out of site, it seemed. But we couldn't keep our guard down for too long. When I thought about it, boredom's pursuit was the direct orchestrator of some of my most fond memories--bursts of creativity, imagination, and interactions that, otherwise, wouldn't have happened. Being the youngest, I might not have learned important lessons so quickly on what made my older, more interpersonally sophisticated siblings laugh and what didn't. The threat of boredom made me deeply engaged and pay attention to small nuances in social cues, and boredom's ever-present pursuit made them patient with me, made us all work as a team in our attempt to outwit him on the road. We didn't have phones, and there was no such thing as data. It was just our energetic synergy like an afterburner down the road as boredom fell behind. Each tearful laugh jet fuel as the van seemed to finally lift off the runway and time sped. Hours past like minutes. And we thrived together and arrived safely at Grandma's door and ran in and shut it, safe at last from boredom's stalking--until the drive home in 2 weeks time. Thinking back, that long family car ride defined my life. It trained me in deep imagination, interpersonal communication, humor, patience, and focused attention, training I wouldn't have received in such overwhelming doses otherwise. And it was all thanks to our common enemy: boredom. If boredom's pressure, back then, accelerated me to a more ambitious, developmental place, could it be pressuring me in the same way now to act, to ambitiously run like my life depends on it, but it catches and swallows me instead without my knowing? I couldn't feel the urgent chase because of my medication, my smart phone, and so I didn't have the proper response, the fight or flight, to escape. Did I just complacently let it swarm unbeknownst to me and then lived with the results? A life overwhelmed with stress, anxiety, and irritability as my side effects? And I never felt boredom creeping up. I never knew it was there. After all, why run if you don't know you're being chased? Boredom is the brain's built-in program to develop itself. It's the catalyst to make you get uncomfortable and write new neurological code. If you're bored, if you allow yourself to feel the consequences of your life choices, the unfulfillment, it's your brain urging you to learn, to grow, to do something worthwhile, to extend yourself. It's your brain encouraging you to push through the discomfort, and live a meaningful life. Boredom is the antidote to living in an uneventful, stagnant way. If something dangerous is pursing you, you don't think about the uncomfortableness of what you have to do to avoid the dangerous encounter. You just act. You just do. You do anything you have to, to run for your life. To make it out on the other side. But imagine being in hot pursuit, and having no idea, no clue that you're in a chase for your life. Do you think you'll have the motivation to do anything you have to do to get out of there? No matter how uncomfortable? To know if you're medicating boredom, throughout the day when you have the urge to pull out your phone and autoscroll through your sequence of apps without a thought, stop, notice the thought, and wonder at it. Just observe it. Then, without engaging, just be present in the moment like described in the last episode, and see yourself. Where are you? What is your physical environment right now? Then, as anxiety inevitably builds and falls away as you don't feed the addiction, as boredom slowly takes its place, feel it. Appreciate its functionality, and its purpose in your life. It was designed for a reason, to push you to fulfilling activities. Then look around and inside yourself, what tools do you see that you could imaginatively use to combat boredom naturally. If you were a child, how would you see things? What opportunities are there? If you were completely open ended, if you weren't yourself with your self-programmed responses and behaviors to every little thing, where would your imagination take you to naturally be fulfilled? I do this quite often when I'm in the airport. There's nothing quite as boring as waiting for a flight, and so I intentionally keep my phone in my pocket as an exercise in combating it naturally without medication. When I have the urge to pull out my phone, I just sit. I see myself sitting there. I look at my environment, my imaginative tools, the people sitting around me. Who are they? What is her story? I wonder where he's from? I see his socks as he's hunched on his phone, an unusual brand I'm actually familiar with because I have the same pair. He must be a cyclist too. A natural conversation is sparked. He puts his phone away. We talk. His name's Mike. Colorado. I've been to Boulder. Okay, he does ride bikes. Oh he's a racer? Like big events. Cat 1 competitor, even. Now, that's dedication to the craft. The conversation ends, and I get up to get some exercise before the long flight. Now, reminiscing about my days of racing. I remember how I went from being lapped to winning in one year's time. How did I do that? Oh, that could be a great podcast episode for season 2 of If Then, How to Master Anything Fast. The outline of the script practically wrote itself in my head with every step and escalator and down the ramp, and then I buckled in and the plane took off. And where was boredom now? It was left behind, no chance of catching up now as my fingers typed the script on the plane. Every stroke an acceleration. Every burst of inspiration a rocket launching, and I went faster and faster… So I'll leave you with this: “Boredom is your imagination calling to you.” — Sherry Turkle Thank you so much for listening to season 2 episode 4 of the If Then Podcast, and hey, if you enjoy the podcast and want to be entered to win AirPods Max with an If Then Podcast engraving at the end of season 2, give me a 5-star review, screenshot this podcast, and share it on your instagram tagging @ifthenpodcast in your post or story. We're at 83 shares currently, and if we get to 200 by the end of season, one of you will win AirPods Max. If not, I keep them--which I'm more than happy to do. But steal them from me, okay. Sharing this podcast and leaving reviews is the main way that other people like yourself discover it. It's the main way it grows. So thank you so much for reviewing and sharing. We’re almost at 565 reviews on Spotify and 260 on Apple Podcasts. And don’t forget, while we're building to that 200 mark for the AirPods Max giveaway, I’ve also been giving away 2 free 1 month Audible gift cards every week to two of you who share on Instagram. Last week, Victoria (@Victory_Klenke) and Andy (@ascoles3) won a free credit for an audiobook of their choice. If you shared the last episode, you can also share this one too to be entered to win again. Thank you so much for listening, my name is Jordan Taylor, and what if/then will you write today?

5. 

   26 Sept 2022

   The Power of Being Present

   Have you ever wished you could be present again the way a child is? In this episode, I dive into the power of being present and strategies you can use to get in the moment. 🎧AIRPODS MAX GIVEAWAY🎧 To enter to win the Airpods Max with an "If Then Podcast" engraving, here's what to do: 1) Screenshot this podcast and share on your Instagram tagging @ifthenpodcast 2) Follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram 3) If we get to 200 shares by the end of Season 2, you have an opportunity to win the Airpods Max! But don't forget, that each week, for those of you who share on Instagram, I also give away two 1 month Audible gift cards which include a FREE credit for an audiobook + 1 MONTH ACCESS to their Plus Catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. WEBSITE: https://www.ifthenpodcast.com EMAIL: contact@ifthenpodcast.com CREDITS: Written and produced by Jordan Taylor The video I use to practice my focus: https://youtu.be/R5UHvRtvV1c TRANSCRIPT: My name is Jordan Taylor, and welcome to the If Then podcast. Our brains our a conglomerate of if/then statements, like in computer code, and oftentimes new lines of code are hard to write in our mind when we’re trying new things, for example if I want to play piano, then I need to read music. Sitting down and coding that particular if then statement could take years of dedication, but when we do sit down and create new then statements for a complicated if, it feels freaking amazing. This podcast is your weekly motivation, and mine, to get uncomfortable and write some neurological code. “If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” - Lao Tzu *The sound of kids running* It took all summer, but we had finally turned the yard to dust. It billowed from our steps and a football thrown, a car hood slammed with an incomplete end zone pass to the driveway. A dent was made, or was that already there? Dad would make the final call on that later. We huddled up. Neighbor against neighbor in a daily summer skirmish and there were no screens or beeps or past or future. There were just smiles and eyes and movement. And us, and the dust. The ball launched again, this time short and complete with a juke and shimmy and a two hand touch. Soon, the sun was quenched, and with it, our thirst as we downed water on the front porch watching the sunset. And we sat. We just sat and watched and talked and were together—in the moment. And we had no idea how valuable it was. When I was a kid, there was only one thing—the moment. I had no past I could remember and my future was too far away to envision. I was there. Just right there with no distractions, just a sponge and a football soaking in every second and waiting, just waiting for the opportunity to squeeze out and apply its lessons, and then soak again. And then squeeze until the waters grew me, and then I found myself older with new kids on the field of life, bulky Past and weighty Future and with them, complex thoughts and distractions that thickened like a fog on the field as they blitzed and rushed me with the snap of the ball. And then the game was sealed with a mid-game substitution from flip phone to smart. More foggy distractions, and I didn’t stand a chance. I was blitzed so fast, sacked so hard, and injured and then the game ended and those summers did too. “The moment” I knew so well, faded and was gone. *music* Have you ever just stopped and tried to be in the moment and not think? Like, really, just tried to think of nothing and just be present, with no external or internal stimuli affecting you— just solely focused on the now like a child? If you try this, you’ll notice something. Thoughts come to the front of your brain like waves on the beach. “I need to take out the trash, did I pay that bill, I wonder what she’s thinking of me, who’s that texting me?” You’ll see them come and then watch them dissipate as you observe them and choose not to engage as you continue to just sit and empty your mind again and then new ones emerge and dissipate from the psychological sand. And then new ones. You’re not thinking about them, you’re just observing them roll in and pull away. Roll in and away. It’s very weird. When you start to look at your thoughts objectively in this manner, you’ll notice that they don’t actually seem like they’re a part of you. They’re outside of you somehow. And you have a choice with each of them as you try to just be present and in the moment. I started playing with this once I realized I had let my thoughts spiral out of control last summer. An unfortunate string of events exasperated by a phone addiction and the COVID response that brought a bought of insomnia that I had never experienced before. A new fear around something that had come so effortlessly my entire life: the basic human need for sleep. I’m still trying to understand the cause precisely, but I know one thing for sure. I was anywhere but there as I lay in bed. See that summer, I had had an epiphany about my social standing within my family structure that turned my view of myself on its head. I found myself in a brand new role. It happened when I was designing and building a huge playground for my nephews with my older brother and Dad. Being the baby of the family, obviously, growing up this would have been a situation where I would be the one who was taking instruction and taking a back seat, doing as I was told. But now as I grew up and had practiced wood working for a few years at this point after having moved out from my parents and getting married, it was me who found myself in charge—planning and making tough final decisions and ordering what to do as my dad and brother looked to me for the final say, and that had never happened before. And for some reason, I don’t really know why, but that wrecked me. I all the sudden saw myself—how different I had become, and I didn’t recognize myself. Slowly over time I didn’t notice it happening I guess, but then working on that project with them, I could see my past self so clearly compared side-by-side to myself now. And it startled me awake at nights and then slowly moved to not being able to sleep at all as that summer progressed, and as unexpected things continued to occur. My wife Sara and I picked up my Pop pop, soon after, from South Florida so he could come for a visit to Tennessee—an annual trip normally around my September birthday so he could experience the leaves with a changing season—a sight uncommon to his Florida eyes. When he opened the Ft. Lauderdale door, something was different. It was the first time I saw it in him. His age. His warm hug and familiar smile as we stretched our backs from the drive almost hid it, but there it was. 6 days later, when we got back to TN, as he sat in his favorite chair, watching his favorite show, it showed itself again, this time aggressively so. His breathing shallowed, and his large, grandfather hand grasped mine. It was all so sudden. Was this really happening? And we called. His heart slowed as the woman on the phone guided me through CPR, and I knew there was no point as I counted and pushed and tried, because Pop pop’s mission was complete: the great transfer of life. As I searched for his heart, I found it safely in mine, and then he was gone. And then the season changed. And I wasn’t ready. Then, a couple weeks later, there was a knock at the door. Who could that be so late tonight? A man was heavily standing, and we knew—even before he asked if that was our dog in the road. Chance, my Great Pyrenees, had climbed the fence and was laying in the light of a truck all shook and I ran and picked him up and hurried home with him in my arms and he could barely move. And I knew. And the next day he was gone. And I wasn’t ready again. All of this was magnified while in the midst of an unbearably stressful time of government restrictions and potential lockdowns and holidays canceled and abnormality and doom scrolling constantly to see when it would all just end, and I never had my eyes off my phone, and it never seemed to ever end. Would it ever be the same? Would it ever just stop? And I couldn’t control my brain any more. I couldn’t be present any more. Too many situations all at once I was reacting to, and I couldn’t sleep for months. 2 hours of broken sleep a night with terror as the sun started rising revealing the casualties of yet another lost, wide-eyed battle. My brain was breaking. Any little thing would bring me to tears as thoughts of the past and unknown future haunted me. And I was on the couch with a blanket and a cell phone trying a new place for the third time and this was all so sudden as my brain kept spinning and spinning and reacting to the world and my phone, uncontrolled and just spinning. God, make it stop. But what if this wasn’t all so sudden? What if this could have easily been predicted based on years of programmed behavior? When I thought about it, as sleep started to return slowly but more consistently months later, as my brain naturally cooled off over time, I realized that this, indeed, wasn’t something random. In fact it was very predictable. This was a virus I had unwittingly and quietly coded in my brain for years and then, one summer, the intricate breadth of it’s web and intrusive structure was exposed all at once when there was more traffic than usual, and my brain utterly broke and the system crashed and went offline. To blame the surge in traffic seems logical at first which is good for me because in that scenario I have no responsibility—I’m not to blame. How could I control bad things happening after all? How could I control my thoughts towards them? But if I’m being honest, the surge in traffic just exasperated and exposed an already existing bug that I had personally been scripting for years. This was revealed to me when I was reading a book that sleepless summer called “The 7 Habits for Highly Effective People,” a book my wife had bought me at the most timely of times, which I highly recommend. In his book, Stephen Covey talks about the concept of reacting to stimuli. He describes the difference between reactive and proactive people, and how in the reactive person there’s only one thing after a stimulus and that is an immediate response. There’s no middle step. The phone dings you, grab it. A harmful thought pops into your head, you ruminate and stew on it. In the proactive person, however, there is a middle step between stimulus and response, and this is the middle ground that makes us human, he argues. That middle step is the freedom to choose your response when a stimulus occurs. “Because we are, by nature, proactive, if our lives are a function of conditioning and conditions, it is because we have, by conscious decision or by default, chosen to empower those things to control us. In making such a choice, we become reactive. Reactive people are often affected by their physical environment. Reactive people build their emotional lives around the behavior of others, empowering the weaknesses of other people to control them. Proactive people are driven by values—carefully thought about, selected, and internalized.” (Covey 79) Was I a reactive person or a proactive one? I honestly asked myself that night. Do I react quickly to stimuli without thinking or do I recognize my freedom— *phone dings* “Who’s that? Oh, right…” *typing* Or do I recognize my freedom to choo— *phone rings* Hello? Hey, yeah, I’ll be there tomorrow around 4 if that works? Okay sweet. See ya then. *typing* Oh, wait what’s this? What’s this article? Wait they did what? The U.S. plans to do what? You’ve got to be kidding me. Hhhhh…everything’s just so out of control these days. It’s like there’s not one sane leader in the entire world, it’s never going to feel like it used to, people have just given in too much to this stuff and now there’s no way to ever go back and my kids won’t know what the world used to be like… (keeps talking as the volume fades) I think that we’re in one of the most reactionary times in human history. A stimulus happens, *ding* we respond, without a thought, no matter what we were doing or how important—hundreds, potentially thousands, of times a day. I mean, admit it, *ding* when you heard that sound, there’s a good chance your brain immediately lost focus. See, the main problem was that I had trained my brain to be solely reactionary. Every time I had an urge or trigger to pick up my phone, like when I woke up or went to the bathroom, or when someone left the room, I almost didn’t even feel a stimulus because it was so engrained in me that it was automatic. Everything in our current society is based around us willingly allowing others to control where our focus goes. Spinning the roulette wheel of a pull-to-refresh on Youtube as suggested videos appear like cards on the table to decide for us where our minds go. Algorithms curating which order to show you posts to hook you longer. Push notifications. Targeted ads. Suggested music on Spotify. That neurological path way to react was etched so deep in my brain, it was like a massive rushing electrical river to feed and sustain that reactionary cluster of cells, a thriving city at its mouth. Therefore, unsurprisingly, with this programming, it penetrated into other aspects of my life, not just notifications. If any thought popped into my head about anything, I had conditioned myself to respond and react. And then I was screwed, because as challenges arose in my progressively more complicated life, as suffering happened, I was a programmed slave to any and all thoughts that came into my head. I had deprogrammed focused thought and with it, the freedom to choose my response, out of my brain completely as the reactionary virus infected every single neuron, as that rushing river flooded and destroyed everything. And I was the hacker. I had no one else to blame. To fix this, to have peace, to start being in the moment again and not reacting to every single thought that pulls you, the key is to learn how to focus, which despite what you might have been told, is a learned skill. And this is a good thing actually, because if you don’t have it currently you can take steps to gain it. Learn to focus, to focus on the present, because, if you think about it, it’s the only thing that really exists. The past isn’t here. And the future isn’t either. Like the classic verse in Matthew, “Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.“ Don’t spend energy worrying about the future or the past. All you have and are promised is right now, and right now is valuable. It’s what brings you peace. Learn to discard the waves of thoughts that appear on your neurologic sand that are harmful and useless to think about. Watch them, observe them on the beach. Choose which waves to surf on, and which are too violent and rough. That might seem impossible, so first, let me prove to you that focus is something that is actually easy to shift around. If I mention your toes right now, for example, your thoughts immediately go straight to your toes. If I mention your left ear, your thoughts shoot to your left ear. If I say think about the present, what does your focus shift to now? This might be a surprisingly difficult question to capture in words. Go outside yourself and ask, “What am I actually doing right now?” For me, I’m typing on a computer, sitting on a couch motionless for about an hour. My feet are crossed in an easy way. I’m slightly hunched, head tilted to the left. I’m alone as the skylight beams down a shadow from the fan and it spins constantly in my peripheral vision. That’s what I’m really physically experiencing right now—even if I’m tricking myself into thinking that I’m somewhere else as my thoughts take me to places like the beach for example through this script. That is my physical location in space and time. And if I embrace that, my present moment, if I truly take the time to see things—to just see them and be with them more often, here now, as they are instead of through the fog of distractions and worries and a notification, if I notice them, the small things, like a child does, you can’t help but slow down, you can’t help but feel the freedom to choose start to appear as the world slows on its axis, people’s eyes appear. Their words mean more. The picture has color, and depths and hues, and color. And situations become more clear and the fog of distractions dissipates and you wonder at the world and see things. You see them again. You exist. It’s an entirely different way to exist, to view things. And that will slowly change you. And quickly change you too. You’ll feel calmer. You’ll be nicer. You won’t dislike yourself so much. And you’ll see. I’m still trying to come up with a precise program to code into myself to learn to be in the moment. So far I’ve come up with 6 lines of the program that are really helping me currently: Plan tomorrow morning. Set out everything the night before that you want to do in the morning in order to make it easy on yourself to make the right decisions when you’re tired the next day. I’ve found that if I make good choices first thing in the morning, then I tend to have a more focused, present day. For me, I try to walk every morning, so I set out my clothes and shoes by the door the night before so that I can easily just put everything on without having to search in the dark and then make an excuse to not do it. Make the first thing you look at in the morning something you’re proud of. This thing you’re proud of preferably won’t be on your phone. For me, I have a personal mission statement that I read that helps me focus on what’s important to me. So that I can, again, start my day focused on who I want to be, here and now. Exercise controlling your focus for 15 minutes. Something that really helps me is to just sit alone for 15 minutes in the morning and just practice this exercise of focus. It’s one of the most difficult things I do all day, but one of the most beneficial. Watching my thoughts roll in and then watching them pull away. I try to focus on my immediate surroundings and my place in physical space and time and let everything else go. I sometimes follow a video that I’ll link to in the show notes that’s from a Christian perspective on this process. The first interaction you have, be there. When you have your first interaction with someone in the morning, really focus on them and the now. Don’t think about what they did yesterday that made you mad, or how you think they’re going to act in the future. Think about them in this space and time, now. Cause that’s what exists. Deal with what’s in front of you. I did this the other day with my wife. When we talked in the morning, I really focused on our conversation and who she was in that moment, instead of who I imagined her to be. If my mind wandered—thinking about my podcast and my work day ahead, I would catch the thought, observe it, and shift back to her. Then, when it happened again as the urge to do the Wordle hit me—I saw the thought, and shifted again. I did this multiple times until I was honed in on her like a laser and what she was saying. I was in the moment, and it wasn’t as hard as I thought to deprogram my reactive habits. I even realized that being in the moment brought her peace. I could see her light up and open up to me more, when I always thought that it was her fault that she seemed distracted when we talked. Maybe it was me all along who was discouraging her from fully paying attention to us. And then I realized that I was appreciating her more than normal as we shared that synergistic moment together. And we were together. And we were experiencing that moment together. And then another. And then another. Spend only an hour a day on your phone. Studies clearly show that if you spend more than an hour a day scrolling your phone, that your mental state starts to dramatically decline. Just look at a graph between suicide rates and the launch of the iPhone, it’s startling. This is going to be hard, but for me, when I keep it to an hour, I just feel so much better. Read something difficult every day. Reading is a great way to train yourself to focus on the now. To force yourself from all distractions in order to understand complex ideas or characters in a book is remarkably beneficial for the mind. On days when I read, I noticed a massive difference in myself. If you copy and paste this code into your mind tomorrow morning and follow it, you won’t be able to help seeing your life at least shift in the direction of being more present like a child. Of having more peace. Of having less worries than you had the day before. Of feeling like you’re one with the moment and the interactions and then the complexities start to fall away as you don’t deal with future potential problems that don’t exist, but deal with what’s right in front of you, and take it in stride with a clear, focused mind and the freedom to choose your response. And then the next day you’ll shift more, and then the next. And then the next. So I’ll leave you with this: “If you are depressed you are living in the past. If you are anxious you are living in the future. If you are at peace you are living in the present.” - Lao Tzu Thank you so much for listening to season 2 episode 3 of the If Then Podcast. If you have feedback you want to give me, I would love to hear from you over on my instagram @ifthenpodcast. I always respond. And if you would, leave me a 5 star review if you found this podcast valuable. It really helps the podcast to get seen by other people like yourself. We’re almost at 550 reviews on Spotify and 250 on Apple Podcasts. And, personally, my favorite part of the week is reading your reviews, like Whit who wrote, “I started listening a few days ago and I’m honestly hooked. I love how he story tells in his podcasts, using examples in his own life, and weaves what he learned throughout the story.“ Thanks, Whit. And don’t forget, for those of you who help me spread the word, I’ve been giving away 2 free 1 month Audible gift cards every week of Season 2. Last week, Ritchie and Erin won a free credit for an audiobook of their choice + access to their Plus catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. All you have to do to enter to win is take a screenshot of this podcast and share it on your Instagram while tagging the account @ifthenpodcast in the post or story. Be sure to follow as well  to know if you’re the winner this week. If you shared the last episode, you can also share this one too to be entered to win again. And if we get 200 shares by the end of season 2, each of you will be entered to win AirPods Max with an If Then Podcast engraving. We’re at 60 shares so far, so keep sharing! Thank you so much for listening, my name is Jordan Taylor, and what if/then will you write today?

6. 

   19 Sept 2022

   3 Secrets to Master Anything, Fast

   Have you ever wanted to master something quickly? In this episode, I discuss 3 secrets that will ensure you level up in the video game of life--faster than you can imagine, but I'll warn you, you're going to have to get really uncomfortable. 🎧AIRPODS MAX GIVEAWAY🎧 To enter to win the Airpods Max with an "If Then Podcast" engraving, here's what to do: 1) Screenshot this podcast and share on your Instagram tagging @ifthenpodcast 2) Follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram 3) If we get to 200 shares by the end of Season 2, you have an opportunity to win the Airpods Max! But don't forget, that each week, for those of you who share on Instagram, I also give away two 1 month Audible gift cards which include a FREE credit for an audiobook + 1 MONTH ACCESS to their Plus Catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. WEBSITE: https://www.ifthenpodcast.com EMAIL: contact@ifthenpodcast.com CREDITS: Written and produced by Jordan Taylor Some racing sounds from NorCalCycling: https://www.youtube.com/c/NorCalCycling Some racing sounds from NationsNumber1Beast: https://www.youtube.com/user/nationsnumber1beast TRANSCRIPT: My name is Jordan Taylor, and welcome to the If Then Podcast. Our brains our a conglomerate of if/then statements, like in computer code, and oftentimes new lines of code are hard to write in our mind when we’re trying new things, for example if I want to play piano, then I need to read music. Sitting down and coding that particular if then statement could take years of dedication, but when we do sit down and create new then statements for a complicated if, it feels freaking amazing. This podcast is your weekly motivation, and mine, to get uncomfortable and write some neurological code. “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” - T.S. Eliot *The sound of riding a bike* When I got home from getting my driver’s license that summer, the very first thing I did was ride my bike—a dysfunctional, red mountain bike, a hand-me-down from my brother, with no breaks. I zigged and zagged to slow myself on the descent, scraping my soles on pavement as the stop sign approached. The convection oven wind stuck the beads of sweat to my skin as the air hung its humidity like a weighty, damp towel over me—and I came to a stop. My heart pounded from the previous uphill beating. A common neighborhood hill—an Everest to me. Last week, though, I could barely make it up the climb. Dang, now I’m practically flying. College was on my mind that day, like most days at 18. Decisions started to pile. Where should I go? Should I go at all? Maybe there’s a collegiate bike racing team around, is that even a thing? All I knew was that in the confusing racket of it all, somehow that noisy, squeaking bike, gave me quietude. A car passed. I pedaled home with legs aching from the 5 mile, 100% effort. I couldn’t possibly go harder. Months later, my dad bought me my own road bike as I got more interested in the idea of racing and even found a college team to apply for. I had been riding every single day for the past month and was getting really serious about it—even getting faster on my timed course I had created around my neighborhood. I was practicing for a race series that I had just heard about in Nashville. Turns out, the last race of the year was actually on Wednesday. Here was my opportunity to prove to myself that all the hard effort I had put in had paid off. Because I had pushed myself so hard the past few months every day, I had the sneaking suspicion that my first race was going to be a complete blow out. Wednesday came, and with it, the gun. And we were off. A 20 minute beginner Criterium, or Crit, a short looping course. I was put in the lowest tiered race—the one for who I found out were called Category 5 riders due to my inexperience, but I wasn’t so sure that I belonged with the Cat 5s. Maybe I was inexperienced in racing, sure, but strength-wise? We’d find out soon enough. And we did. Quicker than I thought. In the very first lap, I was riding solo—not off the front, however, but off the back. I couldn’t keep up with the other riders even for a single lap. By the end of what seemed like an hour, I had almost been lapped 3 times by the group. I was destroyed, physically, but surprisingly, mentally, I was quite the opposite. I was inspired. I crossed the line through clenched teeth, minutes behind the rest. Gasping for breath, I had one thought: “I will win this next year.” I had a long way to go, and I had to get there as fast as possible—especially if I wanted to get on that college team. My clock started… now. In that urgent period of my life, I happened upon 3 highly effective methods to quickly code complex programs into my brain—massively leveling up my character in the video game of life. These 3 coding methods can universally be used in any venture, not just sports. By implementing these, I improved so fast that the next year, I was the one dictating races, winning, and joining a collegiate team. Later on, I was even able to climb the Smoky Mountains the 2nd fastest of all Tennessee riders. Now, these 3 coding methods are definitively powerful and can either seem absolutely vital or just “kind of cool and maybe I’ll try one sometime” depending on you and your current paradigm. So before we blow up your character’s stats and make you unstoppable in a ridiculously short period of time, let’s shift your paradigm like mine was that day in that first debacle of a race: You have something you’re newly excited about, that you love doing, that your family and friends are encouraging you in every time you show them what you’re working on. In comparison to the people around you, you want to be modest but, honestly, you’re working so hard, harder than anyone you know, and with more passion, at that. The thing however, is that, even though you’re doing literally everything you can to focus and strategize and get better, and you’re getting better actually and seeing improvement, if I’m being totally honest with you, you’re probably not nearly as good as you think you are and you’re probably pretty slow at improving too. Most likely, at the rate you find yourself going, you’re not going to be competitive for quite some time, and unfortunately, maybe never. Sure, you might “feel” like you’re doing well, but you don’t even really know what that means, and you might never know because it’s probably gonna take so long that you’ll most likely quit. Again, unfortunately, that’s just statistically true—about 90% of people fail in their start-ups. That’s just a tough fact. Now, after hearing that, you have 2 choices, you can either be angry or inspired. When I was destroyed that day crossing the line, heart pounding, sweat falling from my reality check, I chose to be inspired, because I had no time for anger. I was immediately willing to utterly change my entire approach to coding my brain. In that change, I found three strategies that massively level up your character quickly and make your success almost inevitable. So here they are: Strategy 1: Get a map. During that first race, while I was repeatedly lapped, I realized that I had been in a vacuum for months. [sound of silence, maybe a small hum] In an absolute void of all useful outside influence. Sure, my family members and friends were extremely supportive, and I needed that, but to be honest, they didn’t know anything about cycling or have input to give. Yes, I appreciated their support immensely and they propelled me on, but I had to learn this skill a different way. Going 5 miles was impressive to them and me, when, in reality, going 105 miles isn’t even that impressive. See, before you “ride” with other people in your field of interest, you don’t even really know what it means to ride in that interest. You might feel like you’re making a good effort, and you are trying your best, don’t get me wrong, but at the same time, your effort is utterly pointless. To explain further, you have to understand one critical thing: your effort means nothing, without an honest understanding of where you are in your overall capability or experience level. For example, think of capability as a map. There’s a point A which is where everyone starts, minimum capability, no experience to speak of, and then there’s point B which is where everyone wants to be—maximum capability and experience. All effort is is how fast you’re traveling on the map. Without the map, however, you can be going 100mph but be going in circles, breaking down and going no where fast. OR, with the map, you could be going 100mph in the right direction to point B—as you inch closer and closer to MAX capability, max experience. The critical part is the road map. You know how to drive, that’s the easy part, you just need to know where the heck you are and where you need to go. You have to have the road map in order to direct your energy in the consistently right direction to get from no experience to max experience. Otherwise, you’re just going to have a torn up car and nothing to show for it. Put simply, if you don’t know what to improve, how do you improve it? You don’t know what you don’t know. So after my catastrophic race, I stretched myself and awkwardly got in contact with a guy named Jackson on Facebook who was already on the college team I wanted to ride for, and asked him if he could give me a proverbial map, if I could ride with him sometime, and for some reason, he not only let me ride with him on a weekly basis, but he took me under his wing. It’s amazing to me how much people are willing to help you, if you come to them humbly, asking for their advice and help—even if it doesn’t make sense to you why they would care or take the time. Jackson was a God-send to me, showing me the landmarks on the capability map. Benchmarks I needed to hit, important skills to master immediately, some to master later, still others to micro-dose in every ride. He encouraged me to do things I would have never willingly done on my own—like the time we hurdled down a mile long descent over and over again at 40mph until I would stay 6 inches off his back wheel—drafting the entire way—a vital cycling skill to conserve energy and stay with the group. If I ever backed off even a little from fear, he would slap his thigh, urging me closer. He broke the fear out of me that evening, boosting me ahead like a directed rocket closer to point B on the map, faster and more accurately than I could have ever gone alone. Find someone in your field who knows where you are in your experience level better than you know yourself. Who can show you the critical capability map so that you can direct your effort in the right direction. Strategy 2: Be totally immersed. While it’s critical to have a specific mentorship, it’s just as essential to have a larger group you can learn from and immerse yourself in. Sure, you can close yourself in your room and get Spanish lessons from a tutor once a week, and that’s better than learning alone for sure, but only until you come out of your room and totally immerse yourself in an unpredictable society and new culture, applying what you’ve learned to dynamic real-world situations and making tons of mistakes along the way as you interact with nonspecific people, only then will you ever make quantum leaps to point B. To make these leaps, you have to be willing to make a lot of public mistakes and get kindly corrected or even openly criticized—like the time I was on a big, Saturday morning group ride, one I was committed to be battered on every single week for months just to learn, and a rider cussed me out after I put a heavy, inexperienced hand on him at 30mph to push him through the line of speeding riders as I tired out—knocking him and me momentarily off balance. Each correction—a deeply etched memory. A directed leap forward to point B. Immerse yourself in your craft by willingly going in as many uncomfortable situations as you can possibly manage, because that’s when your brain is engaged the most. Strategy 3: Don’t quit too early. The racing season finally started back up after months of intensive training, and even though I was, now, a determining factor in races each week, first place? That was still alluding me. Top 5 after top 5, but with the last race of the season, I had one last chance when the gun went off. It’s hard to describe, but sometimes you just feel it—unstoppable in those moments. I could feel my strategic training in my body. My thighs bulged and relaxed bulged and relaxed with each experienced pedal stroke through the pack of riders. I was sitting pretty in 2nd place, the safest place to be I learned, as the race was coming to a close. Not only was I safe from the wind but also safe from the unpredictable nature of having 30 men with metal piling, puffing, and pedaling all around you. I just had to worry about one rider and one rider alone. 6 inches off his wheel, I drafted him, as we leaned hard left through an apex and then right through another. And then, all at once, just like that, my race ended. My last chance. The one rider I followed lost vital traction in the turn and slid out as his bike scraped and cracked and all I saw was sky. I flipped—bike above and whip launched from me and I felt lighter—until I hit. There’s a sound that bikes make. There’s a way that bodies feel. My skin ripped with a roll and a scraping stop. There was a pause. Riders zipping without a glance—just another casualty in the cruelty of a war as my body lay on blacktop. And it was over. Just like that. It was all over. The clock I had set the year before, stopped ticking. Unlike most will tell you, it’s ok to quit sometimes. Sometimes it’s the right and smart thing to do. But one thing I’ve realized, when you think that that time has come, when you’re convinced it should all just stop, keep going for just a little bit longer. Not forever, just a little bit. Oftentimes, the moment that you think you need to quit and stop your journey to point B completely, is the moment that you need to begin. So why not just see? Hold on. Get up off the discouraging ground. After all, when your confidence is most vulnerable, is when you have the best opportunity to built it, when you have a light speed route to point B, and you don’t want to miss that, do you? Success could just be around the corner, or maybe it’s not, but why not find out? And that’s exactly what I decided to do that day. With bloody joints and 7 laps to go, I stood, forced myself to my bike, and mounted, and all I knew was to pedal. My desperate work began. Now in dead last, I had to work my way up in a short period of time as the laps ticked quickly 6, 5, 4—a spot gained here, 5 spots there. I forced myself in the draft after another spot was gained. 3, 2, 1—with heart pounding, it was the last little rise of the last lap, and I somehow fought back to second place, now, behind the dominant man who won most weeks. He looked behind as the hill kicked up, and I knew what was coming. With a dig of the pedals, he accelerated, attacking off the front, a huge gap left between my exhausted body and his powerful one. He was giving it his all, while I had nothing left to give. The wind flogged me all at once as my human shield pedaled away further and further. And I was done. Was second place so bad? I bargained with myself. I can’t expect much else after crashing after all. But in that moment, as he pedaled further away, all I could see was Jackson down that descent, slapping his thigh, urging me closer, urging me on, and I couldn’t stop. I can’t give up now. I gave it one more dig, just to know. With head down and feet stomping, to my surprise, I was gaining on him. It didn’t even take long to catch back on. I did have it in me—it was just my brain telling me I’d hit the limit. When I really hadn’t even come close. As we made the last turn and down the final stretch, I opened up my sprint like he was standing still. I couldn’t believe I had so much left to give after everything that had happened. And I would have never known. To think, I would have never known. It’s ok to quit. But don’t quit too early. If you get a capability map from a mentor, immerse yourself completely in the culture of the skill, and don’t quit too early, in a short few months, you won’t even be able to recognize yourself. You’ll have coded such massive new programs in your brain in such a short period of time, you won’t even believe it. Not only will you have leveled up your character insanely fast, but you’ll also know exactly the path to take to progress further while having the knowhow and skill to make it happen in a directed and intentional way towards point B. It’ll feel like time travel. Worm holes hopped through dimensions and into new places not even dreamed of, and you’ll be motivated to keep going even when the going gets tough. And then you can’t be stopped. So I’ll leave you with this: “Only those who will risk going too far can possibly find out how far one can go.” - T.S.Eliot Thank you so much for listening to season 2 episode 2 of the If Then Podcast. If you have feedback you want to give me, I would love to hear from you over on my instagram @ifthenpodcast. I always respond. And if you would, leave me a 5 star review if you found this podcast valuable. It really helps the podcast to get seen by other people like yourself. We’re almost at 550 reviews on Spotify and 250 on Apple Podcasts. And don’t forget, for those of you who help me spread the word, I’ve been giving away 2 free 1 month Audible gift cards every week of Season 2. Last week, Lila and Marissa won a free credit for an audiobook of their choice + access to their Plus catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. All you have to do to enter to win is take a screenshot of this podcast and share it on your Instagram while tagging the account @ifthenpodcast in the post or story. Be sure to follow as well  to know if you’re the winner this week. If you shared the last episode, you can also share this one too to be entered to win again. And if we get 200 shares by the end of season 2, each of you will be entered to win AirPods Max with an If Then Podcast engraving. We’re almost 1/4 of the way there, so keep sharing! Thank you so much for listening, my name is Jordan Taylor, and what if/then will you write today?

7. 

   12 Sept 2022

   If You Have Impostor Syndrome, Then Follow These 3 Steps

   I've struggled with Impostor Syndrome for nearly my entire life, but what if my brain is actually conjuring up this emotion as a tool for some twisted end? 🎧AIRPODS MAX GIVEAWAY🎧 To enter to win the Airpods Max with an "If Then Podcast" engraving, here's what to do: 1) Screenshot this podcast and share on your Instagram tagging @ifthenpodcast 2) Follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram 3) If we get to 200 shares by the end of Season 2, you have an opportunity to win the Airpods Max! But don't forget, that each week, for those of you who share on Instagram, I also give away two 1 month Audible gift cards which include a FREE credit for an audiobook + 1 MONTH ACCESS to their Plus Catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. WEBSITE: https://www.ifthenpodcast.com EMAIL: contact@ifthenpodcast.com CREDITS: Written and produced by Jordan Taylor "The Courage to Be Disliked": https://www.amazon.com/The-Courage-to-Be-Disliked-audiobook/dp/B07BRPW98K/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2U3CSDJV643CC&keywords=the+courage+to+be+disliked&qid=1662934625&sprefix=the+courage+to+be+disliked%2Caps%2C88&sr=8-1 “Commentary: Prevalence, Predictors, and Treatment of Imposter Syndrome: A Systematic Review”: https://www.mentalhealthjournal.org/articles/commentary-prevalence-predictors-and-treatment-of-imposter-syndrome-a-systematic-review.html TRANSCRIPT: My name is Jordan Taylor, and welcome to the If Then podcast. Our brains our a conglomerate of if/then statements, like in computer code, and oftentimes new lines of code are hard to write in our mind when we’re trying new things, for example if I want to play piano, then I need to read music. Sitting down and coding that particular if then statement could take years of dedication, but when we do sit down and create new then statements for a complicated if, it feels freaking amazing. This podcast is your weekly motivation, and mine, to get uncomfortable and write some neurological code. “The exaggerated esteem in which my lifework is held makes me very ill at ease. I feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler.” —Albert Einstein Before I announced my podcast to everyone this May, I sat in a dark room, alone. (snap sound that echos out. Narration stops.) (a ceiling fan eases in) The fan was on. Too high actually, but I was in the middle of something, and I didn’t even notice my bare feet chilling on the hardwood floor from wind blasts as I sat on the couch. My brain was occupied with one of the most unique things a human can do. Something we’ve all done. Something that seems a little self-important and stupid, but… it’s actually maybe the most important thing. I had my phone, and I was typing, deleting, typing, deleting. I hadn’t used this app in years, and that was exactly why I was on it that night for that task. It was the perfect place for what I was doing. (iPhone typing sound) I was on Twitter. But I wasn’t tweeting. I was busy, in an inconspicuous place, defining myself. A place that was public, yet very hidden. A safe place: my bio. “YouTuber. Hobbyist. Podcaster.” “YouTuber. Podcast host. Hobbyist.” I was trying to make myself believe something I didn’t feel like even though I was really proud of the first two episodes that I had created but hadn’t posted yet. I knew I had a legitimate podcast, but that didn’t matter. See, I might have a podcast and therefore, by definition, be a podcaster, but every single other podcaster felt more authentic than me. I had the same suit and tie as them, we’re all at the same party, but it’s just a costume on me while it’s real on everyone else. I was an imposter. So I deleted the bio, turned off the fan, and slunk to bed. According to the article “Commentary: Prevalence, Predictors, and Treatment of Imposter Syndrome: A Systematic Review” “Imposter syndrome is a condition that describes high-achieving individuals who, despite their objective successes, fail to internalize their accomplishments and have persistent self-doubt and fear of being exposed as a fraud or imposter. Individuals struggling with imposter syndrome do not attribute their performance to their actual competence, instead ascribe their successes to external factors such as luck or help from others while considering setbacks as evidence of their professional inadequacy.” I thought this feeling might go away as I released the first season of the If Then Podcast, acting super confident in each episode, even giving prizes away to those who shared. But it never went away. In fact, I’m still feeling it. Even right now, as I speak to you. I almost didn’t continue season 2 of this podcast for this reason, even though the podcast release went better than I could have imagined, reaching #25 for Education and getting 100s and 100s of shares online, all thanks to you. But as the success rolled in, I just felt lucky, like I had nothing to do with it. I was an inadequate, untalented onlooker to success that I could only attribute to luck. I was just there as the shares rolled in, as I moved up the charts, trying to convince you that I was something I wasn’t. (Music builds like I’m going up in the charts. Then silence as keyboard typing comes in, typing the next sentence on the script.) After all, I’m just a dude in a room, typing scripts on a computer. This feeling was debilitating, and I needed answers to make it stop. The other day I was pulling weeds in my unkempt garden, avoiding writing for the podcast as this imposter feeling was growing, choking out the creativity from my brain. I was listening to a book a friend had recommended called “The Courage to Be Disliked,” and in the midst of weeds as tall as me, a stalk yanked, a sapling shoveled, the author, Ichiro Kishimi, began talking about something that had me completely zoned in. In his book, which I highly recommend, about Adlerian psychology, he began talking about where uncontrollable human emotions really derive themselves—like, for instance, when something happens and you find yourself reacting with seemingly no control. To exemplify his point of view, he uses the scene of a waiter spilling a drink all over a customer who then gets so uncontrollably angry that he shouts at the waiter, without meaning to, in front of everyone. To explain the origin of this uncontrollable anger, Kishimi writes, “The goal of shouting came before anything else. That is to say, by shouting, you wanted to make the waiter submit to you and listen to what you had to say. As a means to do that, you fabricated the emotion of anger.” Fabricating the emotion of anger? Could this really be true? To Kishimi, this anger, this emotion, was really felt and experienced. It was real, but it existed for a purpose, with an end in mind. Without that purpose, it wouldn’t have existed, he argues. This idea of fabricating emotions that I experience in order to manipulate a situation was profoundly interesting to me. I pulled another weed and thought, “What if, in some backwards way, I was conjuring up the emotion of imposter syndrome? What if I was using it as a tool for some end?” I wanted to explore this potential paradigm shift further. Was there a buggy line of code that I was unknowingly writing in my brain—an if then statement that I needed to erase? To discover if this if then statement was embedded in my neurological code, I tried writing it out on paper. I asked myself the ridiculous question: IF I wanted Imposter Syndrome, THEN what would I gain? To my surprise, as I stood amongst a cleared garden bed, the book still playing in my ears, yet somehow silent now, the answer was apparent. By feeling like my success was luck, by not taking responsibility for those successes, I’m also slyly denying the responsibility for potential failure. I’m denying responsibility for my life. If my success is luck, then my failure is bad luck. None of it’s my fault. I can’t be blamed. I’m just here as external factors bump me this way and that. Sure, the amount of competence I have might play some factor, I’m sure, but just how much, really? See, by internalizing this luck-centered framework, I have little, if any, responsibility for my life. On the one hand, this framework does bring comfort in some twisted sense, but at a big cost: anxiety. And the more success I have, the more anxiety and fear I have that it might be taken away by some discovery from others that I really have no talent and that it was all just luck—that I’m an imposter. To eliminate this buggy, imposter-syndrome if/then statement in my brain, I came up with a 3-line loop to replace it. In computer programming, a loop is code that runs again and again until a required outcome is finally met. Take Responsibility This step seems hard, and it is don’t get me wrong, but in a way, it’s actually easy because you already have it. Responsibility is like your shadow—it’s always there. Learning to not be scared of it or hide from it is what’s hard, because hiding from your shadow is just so easy, but it does come with a cost: you have to live in the dark, and the darker the engulfment, the more your shadow disappears, which short term is great because that was the goal, but now you have the weight of darkness over you, instead of that warm light. The more you want your shadow undefined, the more weighty the darkness around you has to be—the more you can’t see where you’re going, the more lost you become as you awkwardly stumble, still trying to reach that destination you’re dreaming of, but held back by the fear of your own small casted shadow, so you engulf yourself in even greater darkness and, opportunely, greater excuses for why you can’t see where you’re going, why you haven’t made it to your destination. I mean is it even your fault you can’t see, it’s this stupid cave’s fault. You can’t hide from responsibility and live a meaningful life, so make it as defined as possible on the ground beneath you as you adventure openly in the warm light to your sought after destination. Accept the outcome, whether success or failure. The outcome isn’t what matters, because the result doesn’t define you. What defines you is that you actually got up, made a decision, moved in a direction. Sure it was your first decision—maybe it wasn’t the best one, but at least you made one, and learned. By accepting that you have the power to decide your outcome, is terrifying. It’s not luck, it’s not chance, it’s not other people, it’s you. I cannot think of something more terrifying and empowering than that. Accept that you can royally screw up and that you can wonderfully succeed, and either way, it’s on you, and that’s a good thing. Treat success or failure the exact same way: as a learning experience. Your reaction to success should be the same as failure. In the words of Rudyard Kipling, “If you can meet with triumph and disaster, and treat those two impostors just the same—yours is the world and everything that’s in it.” You’re never changing. You’re constant. If you’re praised for your work, you accept the praise and continue learning. If you’re corrected for your work, you accept the correction and continue learning. Either way, you’re moving forward. Constantly. The only way you move backwards is when you revel in praise or when you stoop in failure. By taking every scenario as the same learning experience, success and failure will start to meld into one continual forward motion for good. After line 3 is complete, start again at line 1, accept responsibility, then get feedback from your decision’s outcome, then learn from the feedback, then start again at line 1, and repeat. This is how you debug imposter syndrome from your mind and realize that your life and where and who you are is not luck and you don’t want it to be—it’s responsibility accepted, it’s outcomes experienced, it’s adjustments made. It’s you, and yes, that’s scary, but would you really have it any other way? So I’ll leave you with this: “The exaggerated esteem in which my lifework is held makes me very ill at ease. I feel compelled to think of myself as an involuntary swindler.” —Albert Einstein Thank you so much for listening to the season 2 premiere of the If Then Podcast. If you have feedback you want to give me, I would love to hear from you over on my instagram @ifthenpodcast or by emailing me at contact@ifthenpodcast.com. And if you would, leave me a 5 star review if you found this podcast valuable. It really helps the podcast to get seen by other people like yourself. We’re almost at 500 reviews on Spotify and 250 on Apple Podcasts, and on a personal note, I love reading what you have to say in your reviews, like Apologetics Guy who said “I feel like this podcast has been removing my obstacles to success one by one. This is incredible.” If you remember, last season we surpassed 100 shares on Instagram, and for that, I randomly selected one of you who shared and gave away AirPods—Tyler was the lucky winner and was super excited, but this season, however, I wanted the prize to be even bigger and more exciting. I really wanted to go all out as a huge thank you to everyone who’s been sharing. So I’m giving away AirPods Max with a special If Then Podcast engraving. These things are sweet and I’m jealous of whoever gets them. All you have to do to enter to win is take a screenshot of this podcast and share it on your Instagram while tagging the account @ifthenpodcast in the post or story. If you’ve shared before, you can always share again to be entered to win this season. If we get to 200 shares by the end of season 2, you’ll have a chance to win the AirPods Max. And don’t forget, as an extra bonus, as you share and spread the word each week on Instagram as we’re building to that 200 mark, I always give away 2 free 1 month Audible gift cards every week I release an episode, which includes a free credit for an audiobook of your choice + access to their Plus catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. Again, screenshot this episode, tag @ifthenpodcast in your post or story, and you’ll be entered to win both an Audible gift card this week AND AirPods Max at the end of season 2. And be sure to follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram to find out if you’re the winner this week. Thank you so much for listening, my name is Jordan Taylor, and what if/then will you write today?

8. 

   30 May 2022

   If You Want Progress, Then Resist Perfection with Jude Smith

   For the Season 1 Finale, I wrote my own if then statements in real time by conducting my first interview ever. I sat down with Jude Smith to learn how he accumulated his 157K Instagram following for his music after years of pursuing other interests. Jude writes, records, produces, performs, and promotes all of his own music alone. How did he learn to do it, and what can he teach us about writing our own if then statements? Jude Smith's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jude_smith |Airpods Giveaway Details| Because we hit 100 shares on Instagram for the podcast in May, I'm giving away AirPods to one lucky person who shared this month! Follow https://www.instagram.com/ifthenpodcast to find out who the winner is on Tuesday, May 31st. Website: https://www.ifthenpodcast.com Email: contact@ifthenpodcast.com

9. 

   23 May 2022

   If You Have Decision Fatigue, Then Try This

   In this episode, I go into detail about how I overcome burnout in my creative endeavors. I call it the 2:2 Method, inspired by Kobe Bryant's insane work ethic. GIVEAWAY DETAILS: If you want to share the podcast, I’ve been giving away 2 free 1 month Audible gift cards every week this May. This isn't sponsored by Audible, but because I know most everyone has done their free trial already, I wanted a way for you to get another free audiobook. This is a gift card that will still work even if you already have an account! You’ll get a free credit for an audiobook of your choice + 1 month access to their Plus catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. All you have to do to enter to win is take a screenshot of this podcast and share it on your Instagram while tagging the account @ifthenpodcast in the post or story. And, also, be sure to follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram to find out if you're the winner each week. If we get 100 shares by the end of the month, each of you will be entered to win a pair of AirPods. WEBSITE: https://www.ifthenpodcast.com CREDITS: Kobe Bryant Ted Talk: https://youtu.be/9_tYXFbgjZk?t=841 (14:03-15:16) Dr. Benjamin Hardy's book "Personality Isn't Permanent": https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08157LXPY?ref_=cm_sw_r_cp_ud_dp_5MPBJTFKHZNGA9C128YG TRANSCRIPT: My name is Jordan Taylor, and welcome to the If Then Podcast. Our brains our a conglomerate of if/then statements, like in computer code, and oftentimes new lines of code are hard to write in our mind when we’re trying new things, for example if I want to play basketball, then I need to learn to shoot. Sitting down and coding that particular if then statement could take years of dedication, but when we do sit down and create new then statements for a complicated if, it feels freaking amazing. This podcast is your weekly motivation, and mine, to get uncomfortable and write some neurological code. “It’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time, then it is to hold to them 98% of the time.” — Clayton Christensen When I was thinking of creating a podcast, I had no time. It was everything I could do to keep up with everything else in my life already: 2 Youtube channels, house renovations, a free range chicken farm, friends and family. Everything was already falling apart as it was, and adding another full time obsession I would inevitably burnout on was, in a sick way, hilarious. How could I write even MORE if then statements in a day when my brain was already burning up from the complicated programs I was currently running. But I felt like I had a good idea for a podcast, and I just had to try to balance everything. I had to find a way. See, even though I always felt busy, like I was working all the time, I never felt like I worked enough, cause I was eternally behind, and so I never felt I deserved to take a true break. The weird thing though and honestly the problem, was that I was taking breaks, lots of them—hundreds of micro breaks a day with every app opened, every notification clicked, oh that’s a funny reel, ehh…what’s this next one? Time just kept ticking, and projects just kept piling on and on. Now I would get everything done……. mostly, I mean I was playing the Dope Game from episode 2 after all, so I was getting pretty good at focusing doing projects at random times, but I had no structure to my work life and so I would inevitably be on my phone when I knew I should probably be working *notification sound* Oh, by the way I got the Wordle in 3 today, I wonder how people on Twitter faired. I needed to plan my day somehow with the reality that I’m a human being in the 21st century and I’m going to look at my phone 3 hours per day one way or the other. Months ago, during one of these micro breaks, a video popped up. It was of Kobe Bryant giving a TED Talk in Shanghai, talking about his absurd work schedule. He sucked the air out of the room when he said the insane: {Kobe Bryant clip https://youtu.be/9_tYXFbgjZk?t=841  14:03-15:16} Quote “So if your job is to try to be the best basketball player you can be, to do that you have to practice, you have to train, right? You want to train as much as you can, as often as you can. So if you get up at 10 in the morning. Train at 11. 12? Say 12? Train at 12. Train for 2 hours—12 to 2. You have to let your body recover, so you eat, recover, whatever. You get back out. You start training at 6. Train from 6 to 8, right? And now you go home; you shower; you eat dinner; you go to bed; you wake up; you do it again, right? Those are two sessions. Now imagine you wake up at 3:00 you train at 4:00. So 4 to 6. Come home. Breakfast, relax, da da da. Now you’re back at it again. 9 to 11. right? Relax and now you’re back at it again 2 to 4. Now you’re back at it again. 7 to 9. Look how much more training I have done by simply starting at 4? So it makes sense to get up and start your day early because you can get more work in.” Unquote I felt I already woke up pretty early, between 5 and 6, but I definitely didn’t start work until later than that. But 4? Like, come on. Initially, I was just intrigued by his idea of how to split a day up between focused work and focused recovery. When I was thinking of starting my podcast, adding another obsession to my plate, his plan for life came back to mind, and this time maybe starting work earlier was what I needed to make this podcast thing work. Maybe that was the key. Maybe 4:00 was doable, at least for weeks I had a heavy work load. I knew my phone use was a weakness of mine, though. So I didn’t want to just start work at 4 without a proper plan going in. If, realistically, 3 hours of screen time was inevitable, could I use that to my advantage somehow? I asked myself a question that changed everything: Which is better, deciding to 100% commit to mindlessly scrolling on my phone for an exact 3 hour slot of time and then the rest of the day 100% commit to projects while fasting from my phone, OR an entire day only 2% committed to scrolling on my phone, while always 98% committed to projects—the same 3 hours of screen time is spent but, this time, interspersed throughout the day? In Dr. Benjamin Hardy’s book, “Personality Isn’t Permanent,” he answered my question by saying quote “When you’re only 98% committed to something, then you haven’t truly decided. As a result, you’re required to continue making decisions in every future situation you’re in. Weighing, in every instance, whether this particular situation falls into the 2% of exceptions you’ve allowed yourself. In every situation you’re in, you’re not actually sure what the outcome will be in terms of your behavior and decision making. This lack of decision leads to identity confusion and a lack of success. Becoming 100% committed to what you want is how you succeed. Making serious and sometimes hard decisions rather than deferring them for bad situations leads to enhanced confidence and progress.” Unquote 5:35 In other words, a life 98% committed leads to what he calls “decision fatigue,” and maybe this was my problem the entire time. I thought about it, and if I’m only 98% committed to work like I had been, the computer of my brain will bog down quickly with decisions. Every piece of laundry folded, could lead to a decision. Now is it ok to find a new YouTube video to watch? This video seems cool. Wait, what’s this other one? Every single time I feel the need for a dopamine hit, another decision needs to be made. Does this time fall into the 2% of exceptions? Is this time ok to get on Instagram? By not deciding to 100% commit to phone time or 100% to work time, I’m leaving my brain having to decide literally every minute if this is the time it’s ok to watch some reels. It was like my brain was hacked with windows constantly popping up. (Typing) Every time I would start to get into a rhythm of work—“click here to accept your prize!” Hhh… close. (click) Alright, where was I? (typing) “Don’t miss out on your prize!” Grr… close. (click) (typing) “This is your last chance for the prize!” How could I ever get anything done when half my time was spent closing these annoying pop ups? And then…what happens if I decide to accept the “prize.” What happens then? Welcome to the age of the smart phone. By Kobe Bryant 100% committing to focused work for 2 hours, 4 times a day. And then, 4 times a day, 100% committing to relaxation and recovery, mindlessly scrolling if he wanted to, he became one of the best basketball players in history. We both might be spending the same amount of hours on our phones, but the time’s he’s not on his, he’s 100% focused on the job at hand, and that makes all the difference. So I decided to try it. After all, it seemed kind of fun to be able to guilt-free scroll through my phone for 3 hours if I wanted after working hard. But instead of waking at 3 though, I would wake up between 3:30 to 3:45, and hyper-focus on my podcast for 2 hours starting at 4am and then instead of taking a 3 hour break between sessions like Kobe, I would take a 2 hour break because I wasn’t doing anything physically demanding. If I did happen to go over 2 hours though because I was in the middle of something with family, that was allowed. But I would stay on my 2 hour work schedule after that. What I realized is, 2 hours of intensely focused work, with no distractions, pushes you juuuust to the edge of frying your brain without actually ever hitting that point. Anything after 2 hours, however, and that’s just plain risky. Your brain starts to short circuit. Things get amplified after that. Small problems you face start to feel like a potential nuclear war—threatening to blow up your entire mental state. Why did I even start this dumb podcast in the first place? Nothing is going to work like I want. I’m terrible at this. Why is it so hard for me? Even right now, writing this script, I have to walk away cause my brain is about to fry as I’m hitting 2 hours. Give me a little bit. Hang on. (Stand up, deep breathing) It’s amazing what a strategic 2 hour break can do for a brain. It’s the same feeling as when you go to sleep on a problem, and then after waking, you somehow have the solution at the forefront of your mind. Your brain figured it out for you by just resting—like a computer updating to the latest version while in sleep mode. But instead of one time, you’re getting that phenomenon 4 times a day. 4 updates fixing bugs. That rest time is critical. You feel it. You’re using it to your advantage and there’s no guilt at all. Work and rest: it’s a beautiful symbiotic relationship. Both equally important, both impossible without the other. I call this work schedule the 2:2 Method, and the cool thing I’ve realized now, after following it for a few weeks, is that instead of wanting to mindlessly scroll every rest time, I find myself often inspired to actually do things in those 2 hours that I had been putting off, that I felt I had no time for. I found myself painting the trim in the downstairs bedroom I’ve been meaning to finish, I was prioritizing my family more by going with them to the mall. I took my wife Sara out on a date, and even folded a bunch of laundry. That didn’t take as much time as I thought. And one of the biggest things I noticed was that I wasn’t burning out on my new passion for podcasting, like I was worried would happen. By forcing myself to slow down and rest, I found I could manage my effort better—instead of passionately sprinting with inspiration as my fuel until I quit from physical and mental exhaustion, I was walking freely, and even resting when I needed in order to make the long journey. And that’s why I broke up If Then into seasons, to further manage my effort by resting. I wouldn’t suggest waking at 3:30AM and only getting 6 hours of sleep as a longterm lifestyle choice. In my experience, that should be done only when necessary, but when implemented, it works. Season 1 has been the story of me getting uncomfortable and learning how to podcast—next week being the final episode. Season 2, date pending, will be its own complete story, just like this one, and the 2:2 Method will be, again, what makes it possible. In following the 2:2 Method, by 6:00PM I’ve worked extremely focused for 8 hours without feeling overwhelmed with exhaustion because I had also rested strategically for 6 hours as well. By 6 o’clock I can relax completely with my wife Sara, resting in the fact that I have accomplished so much. By 9PM I’m asleep, and I do it all over again the next day. Like Kobe Bryant, by committing to either 100% focused work or 100% rest, I’m finding I’m able to get more done with peace and ease than I could have ever imagined, and I’m curious how much more I can put on my plate and feel this exact same way. Time, in a way, almost feels limitless instead of limiting. So I’ll leave you with this: “It’s easier to hold to your principles 100% of the time, then it is to hold to them 98% of the time.” — Clayton Christensen Thank you so much for listening to the third episode of the If Then Podcast. If you have feedback you want to give me or if you have anything you want to say, email me at contact@ifthenpodcast.com. And if you would, leave me a 5 star review if you found this podcast valuable. It really helps the podcast to get seen by other people like yourself. We reached #26 for Education on all of Spotify, and I have you to thank for that. We’re almost at 200 reviews on Apple Podcasts and 350 on Spotify. And as an extra bonus, for those of you who help me spread the word, I’ve been giving away 2 free 1 month Audible gift cards every week this May. Last week, Seth and Tabitha won a free credit for an audiobook of their choice + access to their Plus catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. And if you win this week, don’t worry the gift card is available to you even if you already have an Audible account. All you have to do to enter to win is take a screenshot of this podcast and share it on your Instagram while tagging the account @ifthenpodcast in the post or story. If you shared any of the last episodes, you can also share this one too to be entered to win again. And, also, be sure to follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram to find out if you’re the winner this week. If we get 100 shares by the end of the month, each of you will be entered to win a pair of AirPods. We’re 3/4 of the way there, VERY close, so keep sharing! Thank you so much for listening, my name is Jordan Taylor, and what if/then will you write today?

10. 

    16 May 2022

    If You Want to Succeed, Then Slow Down

    My whole life, I've struggled with sprinting through and, inevitably, killing my newly found passions, instead of slowing down and embracing the long, slow journey of learning. This episode tells, in story, how the fast, obsessed method of passion-based learning will fry your brain's computer every time. Maybe there's a better strategy to long-term success. This is Part 2 to Episode 1 of the If Then Podcast. Listen to Episode 1 first: https://youtu.be/ryv8BHh_MIc GIVEAWAY DETAILS: If you want to share the podcast, I’ve been giving away 2 free 1 month Audible gift cards every week this May. This isn't sponsored by Audible, but because I know most everyone has done their free trial already, I wanted a way for you to get another free audiobook. This is a gift card that will still work even if you already have an account! You’ll get a free credit for an audiobook of your choice + 1 month access to their Plus catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. All you have to do to enter to win is take a screenshot of this podcast and share it on your Instagram while tagging the account @ifthenpodcast in the post or story. And, also, be sure to follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram to find out if you're the winner each week. If we get 100 shares by the end of the month, each of you will be entered to win a pair of AirPods. WEBSITE: https://www.ifthenpodcast.com CREDITS: Jordan Taylor as the traveler. Matt D’Avella's YouTube video about the journey to the South Pole: https://youtu.be/xY0tJAkukWc?t=375 Transcript: Just a heads up, this is kind of a part 2 to episode 1, so listen to that first if you haven’t already. Link in the show notes. My name is Jordan Taylor, and welcome to the If Then Podcast. Our brains our a conglomerate of if/then statements, like in computer code, and oftentimes new lines of code are hard to write in our mind when we’re trying new things, for example if I want to play piano, then I need to read music. Sitting down and coding that particular if then statement could take years of dedication, but when we do sit down and create new then statements for a complicated if, it feels freaking amazing. This podcast is your weekly motivation, and mine, to get uncomfortable and write some neurological code. “It’s not about having the right opportunities. It’s about handling the opportunities right.” — Mark Hunter After episode 1 of If Then, we all started to walk. We all embarked on our own personal journeys to find the ocean, with no understanding of where it was or which way to go, but realizing the importance of just choosing a direction, without having any frame of reference, and just moving. Logically, in so doing, we’ll ALWAYS eventually hit the ocean, no matter which way we turn. Maybe initially we were a mile from the beach without knowing, and started walking in the opposite direction, all the way through the middle east and asia, only hitting the East China Sea years later. But who cares, I argued in episode 1? At least we got there. We’ll always get there if we just start walking. Well, what I realized this week on my journey, is that that’s not the full story. There’s more to this dangerous adventure than I led on. See on my own personal route to the ocean, I realized that I had a serious, serious problem—a problem that left me withered, injured, cracked… and I was worried it might get even worse. ——— “Alright, do I have everything. Water, backpack, Phone. Check, check, check.” *Phone beeps signifying video recording* “Alright, Day 1 of my journey to the ocean. I’m not sure which way to go, but that’s not the point. I’m just gonna start walking, and I’ll have to find it. That’s the beauty. So I’ll pick this way. Here we go.” *Phone beeps again. Recording stops. Phone keyboard typing* “Post…toooo Instagram. And the journey beeegins.” ——— The day I started was a beautiful day, conditions pristine. A mindset recharged. After all, I listened to the first episode of If Then, and I mean it was pretty good. I even gave it a 5 star review AND shared about it on Instagram to maybe win those AirPods at the end of May. I heard listeners already won free audiobooks. That would be cool too. That first day, I walked 35 miles. I wanted to get to the ocean as fast as possible, so I pushed as hard as possible. And I was amazed with how much a new mindset could push me to do something so noteworthy. Something I’d never in my wildest dreams imagine I could do. Well over a marathon in one day. This new mindset I carried with me, it was somethin’ special. ——— *Crickets* *Phone record beep* “35 miles in one day. Anything is possible. If I can do it, you can too! Get out there and crush those miles.” *Phone beep* “Aaaand post.” “Alright, set up camp.” *Wood drop* *Fire strike* *Groans* “My feet are sore…” ——— The next day I woke up, and it was surprisingly scorching for that time of year. And I was even more sore than I thought I’d be after a good nights sleep. I reflected on how I had just walked 35 miles the day before which is pretty insane, I mean, not many people have even tried that. I made so much ground that it was totally acceptable to rest my body up for the next big push the next day. The weather forecast seemed to be favorable then too, which would help with my next big goal. ——— “I wonder if I can go 40 miles tomorrow. *Groans* My leg’s still sore, but this isn’t supposed to be easy, ehhhh I think I can do it. Gotta keep moving. Get there as fast as I can.” ——— Morning came, perfect conditions as promised. I actually woke up at 5:00 AM to get an early start—I was sure to post about that too, and accomplished my goal: 40 miles—an impressive feat. My achilles started to ache around mile 35 though, but..I mean, I had to get 40. So I rested for a day or two. Alright it was five, but I had made some good progress, and the rain had also settled in, so the timing honestly couldn’t be better. ——— *Phone picture takes* *Typing* “75 miles down. Push through the pain and anything can be achieved.” *Beeping sound signifying posting* “Ouch, my feet. I didn’t know they could blister like that. *exhales as sits* I’m really gonna have to take a break. Wow… I’ll rest up and then try hit it hard again next week.” ——— I was surprised and a little embarrassed with how exhausted and beat down I was when the sun rose, not just physically, but mentally as well after just a week of walking. ——— *Tent rustles as Jordan exits and grunts* “Yeah…not walking today, or most likely tomorrow.” ——— How many more hundreds of weeks will this go on? How many years could potentially go by? I honestly feel… kinda terrible and this is only week 2. Like, what? I found myself resting on the hot days, by a fire on the cold days, and under a tarp on the rainy days. Every step a dull pain, and so I could hardly be blamed for the lull in pace. Very few days were spring like perfection, and so very few days had forward progress. On the perfect days, then, I found myself sprinting, traveling all day all out with an urgency built up from days of idling. ——— *Jordan breathing heavy. Trying to pull it together to film. Phone record beeps* “35 miles again today. Big, big push. Follow your dreams and you can do big things too.” *Phone beep. Then typing. Sound of post goes through while Jordan still breathes heavy* “Where is it? Maybe I got lucky and picked the close route. That’s all I can hope. That’s all I can hope.” ——— A month went by. And then another. And then another. And then hills formed and flattened. Those were hard enough. And then… are those mountains in the distance? My legs ached more than I thought possible. Mentally, being out in the elements day in and day out with injuries and such little promise of any sign of an ocean was debilitating. And then the mountain. And then it got serious. I sat at base camp for two weeks in the shade of the peaks. The shadows cast matched my darkened spirits. Trying everything to heal and recover my legs, feet, my entire body. I just needed one week of perfect conditions to get over the top. Everyday it rained and I sat, I just had the hope “Tomorrow will be better” as the rain pelted the tarp. Another post to Instagram. I wonder why I only got a few likes on that one. Does no one care I’m out here anymore, doing what they won’t even try? Then the morning came, and the mud took over, but it had been too long, and I just had to start no matter what. This was getting ridiculous. I got up and trudged. After a few sinking steps, I paused, my boots slurped from the sticky mud as my feet sank—my backpack shifted. ——— “hhhhh….Tomorrow will be better.” ——— I backtracked. Setup camp. The phone again. Another post. More likes this time. Good. They do care. Another night fell. Another day under the looming mountain. “Tomorrow will be better.” Late morning came. I woke up. ——— “Why does it keep being so cold? It’s not even that late in the year, and it’s still a little wet. I really don’t want to get sick. Like, not now. Tomorrow will be better.” *Phone picture takes* *Typing* “Take some time today for your mental health. Today is dedicated to marshmallows and recovery.” *Beeping sound signifying posting* “Wait, is that Jeremy? We left at the same time, how did he—-how did Jeremy get to the ocean so fast??? What??? No…wait he really did. That makes no sense. I saw his posts, I was waking up earlier, I was pushing harder. Like seriously harder. This is ridiculous. Guh…so st—that’s so dumb.” ——— Camp. Another fire. Another post. An Instagram story. Not many views. They don’t care. This is probably all just stupid. Then the next day comes. Wait…there’s a nice breeze.  The first in weeks. Wow, perfect temperatures. Perfect… everything! Maybe I can do this. I think I can make it over the top. ——— “This is it. This is the day I’ve wanted. Finally! Here we go.” *Phone record beep as Jordan walks* "Alright, it’s the BIG day, starting the big climb. What mountain in your life do you need to climb? We all have one. Send me a message with what yours is and then just star—” *Trips and falls while walking* "OWW!!! owww my ANKLE! THIS IS STUPID!!!! I’M DONE! I CAN’T DO IT ANYMORE! I’m done. I quit.” ——— And I really did. I quit that day. And can you blame me? I broke my ankle. Like I physically couldn’t walk. I couldn’t take another step even if I tried. It would be smart to go on. After 3 months, and not as many miles as I had hoped, I slunk home. It’s understandable, but the hard thing to suggest to someone at that point, is that maybe it was their own fault, and not anything else—not the weather, mud, the fall, just yours. Maybe I should have taken a different approach altogether from the very first day, and then none of that would have mattered or happened. I heard a story last month about the men who raced to the south pole on Matt DUHvella’s YouTube video “The problem with most productivity advice.” There were two groups who wanted to be the first humans to ever reach the South Pole. One group’s strategy was exactly mine, As Greg Mckeown put it in that video quote “they walked with an insecure overachiever approach…. They would walk all out on the good weather days, and then on the bad weather days be so exhausted they would make no progress at all and felt the psychological burden of not making even an inch of progress forward.” Sometimes they would travel as much as 50 miles in a day. The other group took the exact opposite approach. They did the thing honestly harder to do. They limited themselves. They committed to 15 miles a day every single day no matter the conditions, no matter what the moral, no matter anything. On bad days, 15 miles. But more notably, on good days, they would simply walk 15 miles even if they felt fresh and could go further. They purposefully held a consistent sustainable pace. For the first group, the fastest way, in their mind, was to go all out every single good weather day. They complained and complained about the situation and the weather all while the other team, slow and steady, progressed daily. 15 miles no matter what, they kept that steady pace. In the end, what happened? Well, they got there 30 days ahead of the insecure overachievers and all even safely made the long journey home. Mckeown points out how the biographer miraculously described them: Quote“They progressed every day without particular effort.” Unquote. One of the hardest tasks humans had ever done in history, done “without particular effort.” Meanwhile the other team? They tragically died from their effort. Recently I’ve come to grips with the fact of why all my hobbies seem to die in the tundra—on the journey. Every single time I get into something new and begin the long process of writing new if then statements in the computer of my brain, I go all out. I get impatient. I overachieve. 24/7 it’s all I think about. Literally, it’s all I do. I write huge neurological programs in an incredibly short amount of time, like Neo learning kung fu, more code than most people would be willing to write in that span, and I take pride in that. But then predictably… my computer fries from the workload and burns up, and the people I thought I was better then, slowly pass up my programs with more lengthy, advanced, clean pieces of working code in their minds. And I never finish my program. I never reach my ocean while they’re all on the sand. I don’t want to make the same mistake again. My newest venture is what your listening to. This podcast. And I’ve been actively working to slow down. To pace myself. To find my 15 miles a day, and slowly chip away. Consistently. Sustainably. And I think I really found something that works incredibly well. Next week I’m excited to share that secret strategy I’ve been following to get a ton done without burning out all while leading a very tight schedule. So I’ll leave you with this: “It’s not about having the right opportunities. It’s about handling the opportunities right.” — Mark Hunter Thank you so much for listening to the third episode of the If Then Podcast. If you have feedback you want to give me or if you have anything you want to say, email me at contact@ifthenpodcast.com. And if you would, leave me a 5 star review if you found this podcast valuable. It really helps the podcast to get seen by other people like yourself. We reached #26 for Education on all of Spotify, and I have you to thank for that. We’re almost at 200 reviews on Apple Podcasts and 300 on Spotify. And as an extra bonus, for those of you who help me spread the word, I’ve been giving away 2 free 1 month Audible gift cards every week this May. Last week, Tabita and Johnathan won a free credit for an audiobook of their choice + access to their Plus catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. And if you win this week, don’t worry the gift card is available to you even if you already have an Audible account. All you have to do to enter to win is take a screenshot of this podcast and share it on your Instagram while tagging the account @ifthenpodcast in the post or story. If you shared the last episode, you can also share this one too to be entered to win again. And, also, be sure to follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram to find out if you’re the winner this week. If we get 100 shares by the end of the month, each of you will be entered to win a pair of AirPods. We’re over half way there, so keep sharing! Thank you so much for listening, my name is Jordan Taylor, and what if/then will you write today?

11. 

    9 May 2022

    If Phone Addiction, Then Play This Simple Game

    I've struggled with phone addiction for years now and finally came up with a way to stop the addiction every time within a few minutes. The fun part about it is that it's a game I play with myself. Listen to the episode to learn how to play "The Dope Game" too. GIVEAWAY DETAILS: If you want to share the podcast, I’ve been giving away 2 free 1 month Audible gift cards every week this May. This isn't sponsored by Audible, but because I know most everyone has done their free trial already, I wanted a way for you to get another free audiobook. This is a gift card that will still work even if you already have an account! You’ll get a free credit for an audiobook of your choice + 1 month access to their Plus catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. All you have to do to enter to win is take a screenshot of this podcast and share it on your Instagram while tagging the account @ifthenpodcast in the post or story. And, also, be sure to follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram to find out if you're the winner each week. If we get 100 shares by the end of the month, each of you will be entered to win a pair of AirPods. WEBSITE: https://www.ifthenpodcast.com CREDITS: Samuel Smith as the realtor: https://www.samuelsmithvoice.com Sara Taylor as herself: https://www.instagram.com/life_as_saylor/ Transcript: My name is Jordan Taylor, and welcome to the If then podcast. Our brains our a conglomerate of if/then statements, like in computer code, and oftentimes new lines of code are hard to write in our mind when we’re trying new things. For example, if I want to play piano, then I need to read music. Sitting down and coding that particular if then statement could take years of dedication, but when we do sit down and create new then statements for a complicated if, it feels freaking amazing. This podcast is your weekly motivation, and mine, to get uncomfortable and write some neurological code. “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”—Robert Collier When I got married and immediately bought my first house, I knew nothing. Realtor: “Congratulations kids, here’s the keys.” Jordan: “Thank you sir.” Realtor: [Walks to car and gets in] “Oh and don’t forget to change the locks.” [Drives off] Jordan: “Oh right…Alright, Sara, so…should we go to Home Depot or something to get those?” See I lived with my parents up until then, and I’m ashamed to say just how little I knew. I saved a lot of money that route which helped me out in the long run, but at the cost of not knowing some basic things. Jordan: “What time is it?” Sara: "Uh... 6:00PM” Jordan: “You’ve gotta be kidding me. 4 hours?? Why is this taking so long?” How do you pay an electric bill, or set up your water? Sara: “What’s that man doing out front?” Jordan: “I’m not sure. Is that the water meter, dude? Like the meter reader or whatever?” Sara: “It looks like it. He’s opening the water meter. Why don’t you go talk to him?” Jordan: “Ehhh…alright. Sir? SIR?? Hey, what?….sir??? I don’t know, I think he was just reading it.” Sara: “Jordan, the water’s off.” Jordan: “Are you serious? We just bought this place today” [BUZZ] "....and there goes the electricity." Before you ask, yes, that was a true story. Other things like, what supplies do you need in your house at all times? What insurance should I get? How do I fix a leaky faucet, replace an entire toilet? This was one of the more frustrating times of my life. All at once, tons of if then statements needed to be formed, and fast. Very fast. My home didn’t just depend on it, but my self-image and mental state. I struggled with feelings of inadequacy. I felt like a loser. In a way, I kind of was. Here I was mid-20s, struggling to pay a water bill. To this day, it’s hard to admit that. Every single day was a day filled with ifs and no thens. Things that should take 10 minutes took me hours of writing and deleting buggy code in my mind before I got to anything even remotely workable—the code not clean, but hey, at least it ran. For now. Kind of. I’d worry about the rest later. At some point, scrolling the internet was just easier. After all, that was something that was already hardwired in my brain. It gave me immense temporary comfort, but there was a cost. We were living in only one room of our 2,000 square foot house. We were essentially living in a small apartment with unfinished projects piled up in each room of our fixer upper. Sara: “Jordan the faucet’s been leaking for weeks now.” Jordan: “I know, I’m gonna do it now, ok?” Getting up off the couch, I knew that that probe was a four hour if/then trudge. It felt nearly impossible to force myself off my computer to do. I was working off of a cedar chest in the living room that my wife’s grandfather made. A make-ship desk for the time being—it had been too much time though. It felt like an ultra-marathon through the desert to get from that chest to that bathroom, stepping over piles of half-done things, to pick up the tools I didn’t know how to use, to begin to make countless mistakes before the drips stopped—for now at least. The thing I realized, though, was that once I started working on the project, it was never as bad as it was built up in my mind. Yes, it took me a shameful amount of time to do what seemed like screwing in a lightbulb, but it felt rewarding. It was valuable. It made me feel useful and capable. But even though I knew that, it was still nearly impossible to get off my make shift computer chair—a turned around IKEA couch, facing the wall and cedar chest. After years of struggling and a lot of wasted time, I developed a trick, more like a game—something I could do to get myself up off the comfy couch, out from under that warm blanket, off my phone, and into an uncomfortable situation to better myself. I had to convert the pain into a game. I called it The Dope Game. I would start my watch and begin the action of fixing the faucet. As soon as I felt the urge to pick up my phone to get that dopamine rush, I would stop the clock. 5 seconds. And then reset it to 0, and start again. I was amazed with how many times my mind instinctively gravitated to Instagram, the news, youtube. Every time I felt like I “accomplished” something, I would get that urge for the reward of a phone scroll, no matter how pitiful the accomplishment. Get off the couch, urge, clock, 15 seconds. Walk into the bathroom, urge, clock, 12 seconds. Find the right tool, urge, clock, 20 seconds. Assess how to engage tool with faucet, urge, clock—hey, a minute this time. Without fail the clock would extent on a graph up and up, not the smoothest curve mind you, but a curve nonetheless. And by monitoring the addictive behavior, I was able to begin looking at it more objectively. I was able to see, with real numbers, the damage I had programmed into my brain’s reward system. All at once, it was very real. I was outside of the program, actively adjusting the code, desperately rewriting it from my proverbial keyboard, the stop watch. I could see progress as the urges’s spacing increased more and more: 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour. I could feel my brain calm, peace abounding even as a demanding problem was reached within the engaged project. What size pipes are these? Are there different sizes of copper pipes? Surely there are. How do you solder? Is that even something I should attempt? At some point, my brain would be so engaged that I completely forgot about the clock until I would wonder what time it was, and looking down, see the timer going—and all at once feeling proud that I had forgot. Soon enough, or not so soon enough, the faucet was fixed. The Dope Game has been one of the most valuable concepts I have come up with to get myself uncomfortable and write new neurological code. This small effort, repeated daily if need be, is highly effective for one reason. It rewrites buggy code. It’s taught me that before writing new code, new if then statements, I have to first reprogram old, buggy if then statements. If pick up tool, then check phone; if walk down hall, then check phone are terrible pieces of code that I unwittingly wrote along the way. I might have written that same type of code 100 different ways in 100 different scenarios, but The Dope Game is like writing a function within a program that finds all of those faulty if then statements and corrects them automatically without having to individually find each one buried within the brain’s folds. It resets the brain and allows for new useful if thens to be written on a fresh slate. So I’ll leave you with this, “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day in and day out.”—Robert Collier Thank you so much for listening to the second episode of the If Then Podcast. If you have feedback you want to give me or if you have anything you want to say, email me at contact@ifthenpodcast.com. And if you would, leave me a 5 star review if you found this podcast valuable. It really helps the podcast to get seen by other people like yourself. We’re almost at 100 on Apple Podcasts and 150 on Spotify. And as an extra bonus, for those of you who help me spread the word, I’ve been giving away 2 free 1 month Audible gift cards every week this May. Last week, Daniel and Sammy won a free credit for an audiobook of their choice + access to their Plus catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. And if you win this week, don’t worry the gift card is available to you even if you already have an Audible account. All you have to do to enter to win is take a screenshot of this podcast and share it on your Instagram while tagging the account @ifthenpodcast in the post or story. If you shared the last episode, you can also share this one too to be entered to win again. And, also, be sure to follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram to find out if you’re the winner this week. If we get 100 shares by the end of the month, each of you will be entered to win a pair of AirPods. We’re a third of the way there, so keep sharing! Thank you so much for listening, my name is Jordan Taylor, and what if/then will you write today?

12. 

    2 May 2022

    If You Want to Know Who You Are, Then Act

    “Do you want to know who you are? Don't Ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.” —Thomas Jefferson This quote inspired me to launch the If Then Podcast. For years I've thought about a podcast, but I never had the bravery to start the long process of figuring it all out. What's an RSS feed anyway? I didn't know either, but now I do. It's been a long 3 months of learning and building, but now I finally have something to show for it--even if it's not perfect. GIVEAWAY DETAILS: If you want to share the podcast, I’m going to give away 2 free 1 month Audible gift cards every week this May. This isn't sponsored by Audible, but because I know most everyone has done their free trial already, I wanted a way for you to get another free audiobook. This is a gift card that will still work even if you already have an account! You’ll get a free credit for an audiobook of your choice + 1 month access to their Plus catalog which includes thousands of audiobooks with no credits needed. All you have to do to enter to win is take a screenshot of this podcast and share it on your Instagram while tagging the account @ifthenpodcast in the post or story. And, also, be sure to follow @ifthenpodcast on Instagram to find out if you're the winner each week. If we get 100 shares by the end of the month, each of you will be entered to win a pair of AirPods. WEBSITE: https://www.ifthenpodcast.com Credits: Abbie Goulet as friend on phone: https://www.abbiegoulet.com

13. 

    26 Apr 2022

    If Then Podcast Trailer

    If you somehow find this before the official release date, the first full episode of the If Then Podcast releases on May 2, 2022.

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Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

328 ratings

Contact If Then Podcast

Guest appearances

Books guests

Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.