November 14, 2025 • 22 mins
Pain shows up on its own schedule; suffering often arrives by invitation. We explore the “second arrow” mindset—an old teaching with fresh power—that separates life’s unavoidable hits from the self-inflicted loops that follow. I walk through why the first arrow is a fixed cost of being human and how the second arrow quietly taxes your confidence, focus, and momentum when you need them most.
Across real moments like missed promotions, ghosted texts, and blown deadlines, we map the difference between remembering and reliving. You’ll learn the concept of memory liabilities—ruminations that drain your energy—and memory dividends—lessons that compound into better systems and faster recovery. I share a simple four-step method to catch the second arrow in real time: name it, pause the mental movie, ask if it helps or hurts, and extract the lesson with one small system change. Think midweek checkpoints, earlier communication, or clear reminders that turn setbacks into training data.
We also talk identity and compassion. Past you didn’t know what current you knows. That perspective matters because the people who seem to “always win” still get hit by life; they just refuse to keep stabbing themselves afterward. The rule we build together is direct and doable: suffer once. Feel the first arrow fully, learn quickly, then move on lighter and more confident. If the loop tries to restart, run the steps again and shorten it with practice.
Ready to stop shooting the second arrow and start banking memory dividends? Follow the show, share this with someone stuck in a mental replay, and leave a quick review to tell me what system you’ll try this week.
Thanks for listening & being part of the Mindset Cafe Community.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:41):
What is up, guys?
Welcome to another episode ofthe Mindset Cafe Podcast.
It's your boy Devin Gonzalez.
And today I wanted to break downsomething that I've kind of
noticed recently.
Um, and I think that we all doit or have done it, you know, at
some point.
And as the year ends, and we'reabout to get into New Year's
(01:03):
resolutions, I think this is animportant part to realize that
you're not the old version ofyou, and you are a newer version
of you, and you can always be anewer version.
But I want you to realize thatlife is gonna hit you with
things that you didn't ask forat times that are not
inconvenient, that areinconvenient, times that are not
perfect, right?
(01:24):
And those moments sting, andthey're supposed to.
They're the unexpected, they'rethe in uncontrollable, that's
life.
The second part of that, though,is that's not real suffering.
(01:45):
I mean, yes, there is sufferingin that, but I think a lot of
times with what we're gonna talkabout today, there's a second
part to it, and that's wheretruly one suffers.
Um, and I want to give you sometools, tips, and tricks to kind
of get over that and andre-evaluate it and reshift it in
(02:06):
your mindset.
And I think the best way to dothat is by breaking down where
this whole thought process camefrom, which was an ancient
teaching of the second arrow,um, from Buddha to one of his
students.
And so we can break it down intopractical steps, and I'll kind
(02:28):
of explain the story in asecond, and then you know,
hopefully, you guys get to takeand extract a lesson from it.
Um, and the story of the secondarrow essentially the purpose of
it is that I think a lot oftimes we we are the second
arrow, right?
And so the story goes, Buddhawas trying to teach a lesson to
(02:51):
one of his students, and hesaid, If I shoot you with an
arrow, does it hurt?
And the student responded, Well,yeah, it it's gonna hurt, you
know, that would kind of thatwould suck a little bit if you
shot me with an arrow.
And so he says, Okay, the firstarrow arrow would hurt.
Um, and you can't avoid thatfirst arrow.
(03:12):
He said, The second arrow, if Ishot you in the same spot after
the first arrow, would thathurt?
And he said, Yes.
He said, The first arrow islife, right?
So the first arrow is it's gonnahurt.
Now, the second arrow, though,is you, and that's that's your
(03:34):
suffering, right?
The first arrow is basically afixed cost, it is what is gonna
happen is inevitable, and we'regonna have our downsides, we're
gonna have our bad days, we'regonna have our bad moments, our
bad seasons, but you only haveto suffer once, and that's where
(03:55):
that second arrow comes in, isrealizing that the first arrow
being life, which you didn't askfor, which could be you know
failure, it could beembarrassment, it can be
rejection, it could be loss, ithurts, and that's unavoidable.
But that second arrow, which isyou, that's the replay, that's
the overthinking, that's theshame, that's the version where
(04:16):
you beat yourself up for days,weeks, months, maybe even years.
And while you can't dodge thatfirst arrow, you can stop the
second arrow from even beingfired, even being shot.
And so I want by the end of thisfor you to make it a rule that
you're only gonna suffer once.
I'm not gonna, I want yourmindset to be, I'm not gonna
(04:39):
relive this moment, I'm notgonna let it you know play in a
loop in my head.
I'm not gonna judge the versionof me who didn't know what I
didn't know and I didn't knowany better.
Right?
That's why this happened.
Or kind of letting the lessonstay in a sense, and letting it
(05:01):
you know be a part of you.
I want you to be able to letthat self-attack essentially go.
You I want you to think of it asyou want memory dividends, like
if you have stocks, right?
You get paid dividends on yourstocks.
I don't want it to be where youhave these memory liabilities
(05:21):
and they're only harming you orthey're only a risk to you.
So breaking that down, the firstarrow, you know, things happen
and they happen in in ways andtimes that are probably the
worst timing, and are you know,you're not predicting it.
(05:42):
It's you know, everything'salready you know tough, you're
already going through thestruggles, and then life hits
you with another curveball.
Um, and I believe honestly,that's when they say you're
forged by the fire, that is thefire.
That is you getting theopportunity to grow to become
the next version of you.
(06:04):
Without that struggle, withoutthose first arrows, you wouldn't
adapt and learn new skills, youwouldn't grow to become who you
are today.
Think about you know, anystruggle that you've overcome
and looking back on it, itdoesn't seem so bad because you
(06:24):
know how to overcome it.
So if that same thing happenedagain, you would know
essentially what to do to fixthe problem faster or even avoid
the problem as you see itcoming.
Realizing that there is stillsuffering in the first arrow, it
still does sting when thingshappen when they're not
(06:46):
anticipated.
That's being human, right?
I'm not saying that you can'tsuffer, you can't, you know,
feel the pain, like that's notweakness, it's just hurt, right?
It's just stress, it's justthose things.
But or actually, you know, I'llI'll give you an example.
Let's say you're trying to get ajob promotion, and then all of a
(07:10):
sudden the promotion doesn't goyour way.
That's the first arrow.
Like you don't have any controlover if your boss gives you the
promotion or not, that'suncontrollable.
Let's say if you're dating,right?
You send a text and all of asudden or a message, and then
you get ghosted.
(07:30):
Again, unavoidable.
So I want you to realize thatyou can't mindset your way out
of reality.
The first arrow is gonna hurt,it's gonna suck, it's gonna
sting, and that's a part oflife.
That's okay, that's the fixedcost of life.
I like to kind of rephrase backto you know a 50 cent song.
(07:52):
It's like there sunshinewouldn't be so great if there
wasn't rain.
Right?
There, you can't appreciatesomething if there's not the
polar opposite.
So you wouldn't you wouldn'tfeel the success, you wouldn't
feel the pride, if you wouldn'tfeel the achievement if there
wasn't the failures, if therewasn't the struggle, if there
(08:14):
wasn't the rejections, right?
So you have to realize that thecost of feeling those moments
that are so valuable, well, youhave to pay the toll at some
point of the polar opposite.
But that second, the secondarrow, the self self-inflicted
essentially suffering, that'swhen you're letting that mental
(08:36):
replay happen.
That's when you're overthinking,you know, I didn't get the
promotion.
Why didn't I get the promotion?
And you're living in this stateof just a loop of just replaying
the same thing.
It happened, it went away.
That there's nothing you coulddo about it, right?
But you just thinking about itdoesn't do you any good.
And now you're just sufferingand overthinking, and you're it
(08:58):
starts to affect yourconfidence, it starts to affect
other aspects of you to allowyou to move the needle forward,
and your your fear of beingjudged or your fear of rejection
because of the past event,that's what you know, suffering
in sense of like personal growthand and professional growth
(09:20):
really is.
You have to realize that thefirst arrow hits once, but that
second arrow hits a thousandtimes, and you're the one
pulling the bow back andshooting it.
The event happened one time.
You got denied, you got ghosted,you got whatever.
That happened one time.
But you replaying it in yourmind and thinking about it is
(09:43):
happening on a loop, time aftertime after time after time, and
you're feeling that same wave ofemotions and same um self-doubt
and same, you know, whatever itmay be for you, at for whatever
reason it may, or whateverfeelings or emotions have
happened when it actuallyhappened, you're replaying that.
(10:04):
And so with that, you have torealize that there's mental
liabilities and mental and ormemory liabilities and memory
dividends.
Just like you know, you haveassets and you have liabilities,
you know, assets being goodthings that are you know
increasing value, you know, arenot a risk to you or your
finances.
(10:24):
Well, memory, same thing.
You have things that areliabilities that are at a risk
to you that you don't need tohave, essentially.
You want things that are goingto replay and pay dividends and
keep you growing in the way thatyou're supposed to be growing.
So the memory liabilities, forexample, like things that you're
(10:46):
replaying that drain yourconfidence, drain your energy,
and even your self-trustpotentially of you accomplishing
what you want you set out toaccomplish.
But the memory dividends, inanother sense, is almost one of
like my core values.
I would say is a memory dividendstyle aspect.
(11:08):
Hopefully, this makes it makesense.
But you extract the lesson, inthat you can benefit from
forever.
So something didn't go well.
Well, why didn't it go well?
What could I have what could Ihave done better?
And I'm gonna do that next time.
You learn the lesson, and nowyou are improved, you're
(11:30):
starting to grow into a newversion of you, and so that is a
dividend of you know, having thememory liabilities or dividends.
Um realizing that you have theoption, and you have the option
(11:51):
as of right now, as of listeningto this, that you can choose to
only suffer once, right?
You you have can you don't havecontrol of that first arrow, so
you're gonna end up suffering,but you can refuse to shoot the
second arrow, and maybe thesecond arrow does get shot.
You have a choice at some pointto stop shooting the arrow and
(12:12):
stop reliving and re-loopingthat whole train of events
that's happening.
So I want you to make it a rule,a self-rule, essentially, that
I'm not going to relive thismoment on a loop.
I'm not going to judge theversion of me who didn't know
better, that didn't know how todo that, or didn't know the
(12:33):
necessary things that now I doknow.
Because that was a differentversion of me.
Feel it fully once, right?
Learn from it and then let itgo.
But to give you a practical toolthat you can actually implement
(12:53):
this with, here's how you catchthe second arrow almost in real
time.
It's not gonna, it might be thesecond arrow, it might be the
20th arrow, but it gets betteras you you practice this, right?
So the first time it might bethe you know, 22nd arrow, and
then all of a sudden it's the12th arrow, and then it's the
(13:13):
second arrow, right?
It gets better just like anyskill, any anything that you do
in life.
Working out's not super easy thefirst time, but you keep working
out, you get stronger, so forth.
This memory skill also works thesame.
So, step one, you have to nameit, right?
The second arrow has to have alabel on it, has to have a
meaning to it, has to have aessentially title.
(13:39):
The second part is to pause themovie.
Notice that you're replaying it,you're not reliving it.
So I'll say that again.
I want you to pause the moviethat's playing on in your head
because you're replaying it, andyou need to know that you're not
reliving it.
It's not happening right now, italready happened.
(14:01):
The next part is once yourealize that and you can stop
that memory loop, is ask is thishelping me or is it hurting me
again?
Is this making me feel that waveof emotions again?
Is this starting to make medoubt myself?
And then lastly, when you doanswer that, don't just give a
(14:22):
self um a service-level answer,right?
Understand why it's making youfeel like that.
Extract the lesson.
You don't need to extend thesentence that you're putting on
yourself, almost like jail time.
You extract the lesson, youdon't extend your sentence for
(14:46):
for whatever happened that youhad no control over, and realize
and think about what would youdo differently?
What would you do next time?
What's a a simple process thatif that happened, I would do?
How would I counteract this?
(15:08):
For example, let's say youmissed a deadline.
Next time, instead of being, youknow, you you miss a deadline,
whatever happens, happens, andthen all of a sudden you're
embarrassed, you're you know, X,Y, and Z.
Realize it, stop the loop, andbe like, okay, next time I'm
gonna maybe set a midweekcheckpoint, a calendar
(15:30):
notification on my phone.
Um, I'm gonna make sure that I Icommunicate earlier if I'm
running late.
I'm you know, there's certainthings that you can do to make
sure that if you so that youwon't miss the deadline, or that
you essentially, even if you aregonna miss a deadline, how would
(15:51):
you improve the you know,missing it?
Communicate with the person thatyou're gonna be running a day
late on the project.
Communicate that you're you knowrunning a little bit late to the
meeting.
And then another part I want youto realize is that since that is
(16:16):
the old you right, that is adifferent version of you.
That was a version of you thatwhatever the first arrow had hit
didn't know the first arrow wascoming, didn't know that the
first arrow was even there orwhat it was, but that's not the
version of you now.
Now you know that first arrow,now you know what happens, now
(16:38):
you know the outcome, thefeelings, the whatever.
And so you have to have somecompassion for that version of
you and not put so much blame onyourself or be so hard on
yourself because that doesnothing for you moving forward.
It has a ripple effect.
I know you've heard me say thatmultiple times, a ripple effect,
but the ripple effect is thatsecond arrow, and it could be
(17:04):
positive, it could be negative,right?
You basically not shooting thesecond arrow has a positive
ripple effect.
You shooting the second arrowand the 22nd arrow and the you
know 200th arrow, that has anegative ripple effect, right?
Let's say, for example, yourconfidence.
(17:24):
You're beating yourself up isgonna be taking more time and
more energy away from what youneed to do to move the needle
forward, and so now you're notgonna be as confident the next
time you need to do that thing,right?
Or send the text, or you know,ask a girl out or a guy out.
(17:47):
Um let's say, for example,actually, I want you to to
realize that you know the peoplewho win long term aren't the
ones who never get hit by thatfirst arrow.
That's honestly something foryou to realize that sometimes we
(18:10):
see people succeeding or doingbetter than us, and we think
we're the only ones being shotwith those those first arrows,
and that's just not the case.
The ones that are succeedinglong term or just seems like
they're always winning, they'rethe ones that are not shooting
(18:31):
the second arrow, and they'renot stabbing themselves
afterwards when they get shotwith the first arrow, they're
not reliving it, replaying it intheir mind.
So I just want you to take youknow, find a little takeaway is
life's gonna hit you, right?
Life's gonna shoot that firstarrow.
That's honestly, I can probablyguarantee you that.
(18:53):
At some point or another, if youhaven't been hit by a curveball,
probably gonna hit by acurveball.
But that doesn't mean you don'tstep back up to the plate.
That doesn't mean that justbecause you got hit by the first
arrow, there's gonna be a secondarrow of the same thing.
The second arrow is you, it'syour choice.
(19:13):
Shoot it, don't shoot it, is onyou.
That's controllable.
So take the lesson, drop the setthe second arrow, drop the
weapon, and walk forward.
Walk forward lighter, walkforward more confident.
You now got to experience it andbe grateful that you experienced
(19:34):
it because now you have a lessonand you have something else that
other people don't have.
Right?
I mean, one of the other sayingsthat you know I realized this
with business, and it was like aself-reflective thought of
common sense is only common tothe person that knows it.
Well, now you experiencing thatsecond arrow, if it gets shot
(19:55):
again, it's common sense on whatto do.
But someone else that hasn'tbeen hit by that first arrow
doesn't have that common sense.
So hopefully, I hope thishelped.
I wanted to kind of take alittle bit of a different
approach.
I know that life life is hardsometimes, right?
And I just want you to know thatwhatever you're going through,
(20:19):
other people are going throughit too, or have gone through it.
So there's no point in youbeating yourself up over it
because that doesn't do anythingfor you moving forward.
You have to start believingyourself, realize that you're
replaying something in your headthat was of a different version
of yourself, and move forward.
(20:41):
You got this.
Just like I talked about acouple episodes ago, sometimes
it's okay to borrow theconfidence and the and the
belief others are instilling inyou because they may see
something that you're not seeingwithin yourself.
But the same thing for this: something happens to you, you (20:55):
undefined
get shot with that first arrow,and other people are telling you
it's okay and telling you,giving you um almost
self-confidence boosters.
Realize that it's probablygenuine.
They're not just saying it tomake you feel better.
Realize that and then take itin, and you need to stop the
replay and move forward.
(21:18):
But if you guys ever need me,I'm here for you guys.
I appreciate you guys.
I love you guys.
If you guys need anything, sendme a DM.
But otherwise, I'll see you guyson the next one.
What is up, guys?
Welcome to another episode ofthe Mindset Cafe Podcast.
It's your boy Devin Gonzalez.
And today I wanted to break downsomething that I've kind of
noticed recently.
Um, and I think that we all doit or have done it, you know, at
some point.
And as the year ends, and we'reabout to get into New Year's
(01:03):
resolutions, I think this is animportant part to realize that
you're not the old version ofyou, and you are a newer version
of you, and you can always be anewer version.
But I want you to realize thatlife is gonna hit you with
things that you didn't ask forat times that are not
inconvenient, that areinconvenient, times that are not
perfect, right?
(01:24):
And those moments sting, andthey're supposed to.
They're the unexpected, they'rethe in uncontrollable, that's
life.
The second part of that, though,is that's not real suffering.
(01:45):
I mean, yes, there is sufferingin that, but I think a lot of
times with what we're gonna talkabout today, there's a second
part to it, and that's wheretruly one suffers.
Um, and I want to give you sometools, tips, and tricks to kind
of get over that and andre-evaluate it and reshift it in
(02:06):
your mindset.
And I think the best way to dothat is by breaking down where
this whole thought process camefrom, which was an ancient
teaching of the second arrow,um, from Buddha to one of his
students.
And so we can break it down intopractical steps, and I'll kind
(02:28):
of explain the story in asecond, and then you know,
hopefully, you guys get to takeand extract a lesson from it.
Um, and the story of the secondarrow essentially the purpose of
it is that I think a lot oftimes we we are the second
arrow, right?
And so the story goes, Buddhawas trying to teach a lesson to
(02:51):
one of his students, and hesaid, If I shoot you with an
arrow, does it hurt?
And the student responded, Well,yeah, it it's gonna hurt, you
know, that would kind of thatwould suck a little bit if you
shot me with an arrow.
And so he says, Okay, the firstarrow arrow would hurt.
Um, and you can't avoid thatfirst arrow.
(03:12):
He said, The second arrow, if Ishot you in the same spot after
the first arrow, would thathurt?
And he said, Yes.
He said, The first arrow islife, right?
So the first arrow is it's gonnahurt.
Now, the second arrow, though,is you, and that's that's your
(03:34):
suffering, right?
The first arrow is basically afixed cost, it is what is gonna
happen is inevitable, and we'regonna have our downsides, we're
gonna have our bad days, we'regonna have our bad moments, our
bad seasons, but you only haveto suffer once, and that's where
(03:55):
that second arrow comes in, isrealizing that the first arrow
being life, which you didn't askfor, which could be you know
failure, it could beembarrassment, it can be
rejection, it could be loss, ithurts, and that's unavoidable.
But that second arrow, which isyou, that's the replay, that's
the overthinking, that's theshame, that's the version where
(04:16):
you beat yourself up for days,weeks, months, maybe even years.
And while you can't dodge thatfirst arrow, you can stop the
second arrow from even beingfired, even being shot.
And so I want by the end of thisfor you to make it a rule that
you're only gonna suffer once.
I'm not gonna, I want yourmindset to be, I'm not gonna
(04:39):
relive this moment, I'm notgonna let it you know play in a
loop in my head.
I'm not gonna judge the versionof me who didn't know what I
didn't know and I didn't knowany better.
Right?
That's why this happened.
Or kind of letting the lessonstay in a sense, and letting it
(05:01):
you know be a part of you.
I want you to be able to letthat self-attack essentially go.
You I want you to think of it asyou want memory dividends, like
if you have stocks, right?
You get paid dividends on yourstocks.
I don't want it to be where youhave these memory liabilities
(05:21):
and they're only harming you orthey're only a risk to you.
So breaking that down, the firstarrow, you know, things happen
and they happen in in ways andtimes that are probably the
worst timing, and are you know,you're not predicting it.
(05:42):
It's you know, everything'salready you know tough, you're
already going through thestruggles, and then life hits
you with another curveball.
Um, and I believe honestly,that's when they say you're
forged by the fire, that is thefire.
That is you getting theopportunity to grow to become
the next version of you.
(06:04):
Without that struggle, withoutthose first arrows, you wouldn't
adapt and learn new skills, youwouldn't grow to become who you
are today.
Think about you know, anystruggle that you've overcome
and looking back on it, itdoesn't seem so bad because you
(06:24):
know how to overcome it.
So if that same thing happenedagain, you would know
essentially what to do to fixthe problem faster or even avoid
the problem as you see itcoming.
Realizing that there is stillsuffering in the first arrow, it
still does sting when thingshappen when they're not
(06:46):
anticipated.
That's being human, right?
I'm not saying that you can'tsuffer, you can't, you know,
feel the pain, like that's notweakness, it's just hurt, right?
It's just stress, it's justthose things.
But or actually, you know, I'llI'll give you an example.
Let's say you're trying to get ajob promotion, and then all of a
(07:10):
sudden the promotion doesn't goyour way.
That's the first arrow.
Like you don't have any controlover if your boss gives you the
promotion or not, that'suncontrollable.
Let's say if you're dating,right?
You send a text and all of asudden or a message, and then
you get ghosted.
(07:30):
Again, unavoidable.
So I want you to realize thatyou can't mindset your way out
of reality.
The first arrow is gonna hurt,it's gonna suck, it's gonna
sting, and that's a part oflife.
That's okay, that's the fixedcost of life.
I like to kind of rephrase backto you know a 50 cent song.
(07:52):
It's like there sunshinewouldn't be so great if there
wasn't rain.
Right?
There, you can't appreciatesomething if there's not the
polar opposite.
So you wouldn't you wouldn'tfeel the success, you wouldn't
feel the pride, if you wouldn'tfeel the achievement if there
wasn't the failures, if therewasn't the struggle, if there
(08:14):
wasn't the rejections, right?
So you have to realize that thecost of feeling those moments
that are so valuable, well, youhave to pay the toll at some
point of the polar opposite.
But that second, the secondarrow, the self self-inflicted
essentially suffering, that'swhen you're letting that mental
(08:36):
replay happen.
That's when you're overthinking,you know, I didn't get the
promotion.
Why didn't I get the promotion?
And you're living in this stateof just a loop of just replaying
the same thing.
It happened, it went away.
That there's nothing you coulddo about it, right?
But you just thinking about itdoesn't do you any good.
And now you're just sufferingand overthinking, and you're it
(08:58):
starts to affect yourconfidence, it starts to affect
other aspects of you to allowyou to move the needle forward,
and your your fear of beingjudged or your fear of rejection
because of the past event,that's what you know, suffering
in sense of like personal growthand and professional growth
(09:20):
really is.
You have to realize that thefirst arrow hits once, but that
second arrow hits a thousandtimes, and you're the one
pulling the bow back andshooting it.
The event happened one time.
You got denied, you got ghosted,you got whatever.
That happened one time.
But you replaying it in yourmind and thinking about it is
(09:43):
happening on a loop, time aftertime after time after time, and
you're feeling that same wave ofemotions and same um self-doubt
and same, you know, whatever itmay be for you, at for whatever
reason it may, or whateverfeelings or emotions have
happened when it actuallyhappened, you're replaying that.
(10:04):
And so with that, you have torealize that there's mental
liabilities and mental and ormemory liabilities and memory
dividends.
Just like you know, you haveassets and you have liabilities,
you know, assets being goodthings that are you know
increasing value, you know, arenot a risk to you or your
finances.
(10:24):
Well, memory, same thing.
You have things that areliabilities that are at a risk
to you that you don't need tohave, essentially.
You want things that are goingto replay and pay dividends and
keep you growing in the way thatyou're supposed to be growing.
So the memory liabilities, forexample, like things that you're
(10:46):
replaying that drain yourconfidence, drain your energy,
and even your self-trustpotentially of you accomplishing
what you want you set out toaccomplish.
But the memory dividends, inanother sense, is almost one of
like my core values.
I would say is a memory dividendstyle aspect.
(11:08):
Hopefully, this makes it makesense.
But you extract the lesson, inthat you can benefit from
forever.
So something didn't go well.
Well, why didn't it go well?
What could I have what could Ihave done better?
And I'm gonna do that next time.
You learn the lesson, and nowyou are improved, you're
(11:30):
starting to grow into a newversion of you, and so that is a
dividend of you know, having thememory liabilities or dividends.
Um realizing that you have theoption, and you have the option
(11:51):
as of right now, as of listeningto this, that you can choose to
only suffer once, right?
You you have can you don't havecontrol of that first arrow, so
you're gonna end up suffering,but you can refuse to shoot the
second arrow, and maybe thesecond arrow does get shot.
You have a choice at some pointto stop shooting the arrow and
(12:12):
stop reliving and re-loopingthat whole train of events
that's happening.
So I want you to make it a rule,a self-rule, essentially, that
I'm not going to relive thismoment on a loop.
I'm not going to judge theversion of me who didn't know
better, that didn't know how todo that, or didn't know the
(12:33):
necessary things that now I doknow.
Because that was a differentversion of me.
Feel it fully once, right?
Learn from it and then let itgo.
But to give you a practical toolthat you can actually implement
(12:53):
this with, here's how you catchthe second arrow almost in real
time.
It's not gonna, it might be thesecond arrow, it might be the
20th arrow, but it gets betteras you you practice this, right?
So the first time it might bethe you know, 22nd arrow, and
then all of a sudden it's the12th arrow, and then it's the
(13:13):
second arrow, right?
It gets better just like anyskill, any anything that you do
in life.
Working out's not super easy thefirst time, but you keep working
out, you get stronger, so forth.
This memory skill also works thesame.
So, step one, you have to nameit, right?
The second arrow has to have alabel on it, has to have a
meaning to it, has to have aessentially title.
(13:39):
The second part is to pause themovie.
Notice that you're replaying it,you're not reliving it.
So I'll say that again.
I want you to pause the moviethat's playing on in your head
because you're replaying it, andyou need to know that you're not
reliving it.
It's not happening right now, italready happened.
(14:01):
The next part is once yourealize that and you can stop
that memory loop, is ask is thishelping me or is it hurting me
again?
Is this making me feel that waveof emotions again?
Is this starting to make medoubt myself?
And then lastly, when you doanswer that, don't just give a
(14:22):
self um a service-level answer,right?
Understand why it's making youfeel like that.
Extract the lesson.
You don't need to extend thesentence that you're putting on
yourself, almost like jail time.
You extract the lesson, youdon't extend your sentence for
(14:46):
for whatever happened that youhad no control over, and realize
and think about what would youdo differently?
What would you do next time?
What's a a simple process thatif that happened, I would do?
How would I counteract this?
(15:08):
For example, let's say youmissed a deadline.
Next time, instead of being, youknow, you you miss a deadline,
whatever happens, happens, andthen all of a sudden you're
embarrassed, you're you know, X,Y, and Z.
Realize it, stop the loop, andbe like, okay, next time I'm
gonna maybe set a midweekcheckpoint, a calendar
(15:30):
notification on my phone.
Um, I'm gonna make sure that I Icommunicate earlier if I'm
running late.
I'm you know, there's certainthings that you can do to make
sure that if you so that youwon't miss the deadline, or that
you essentially, even if you aregonna miss a deadline, how would
(15:51):
you improve the you know,missing it?
Communicate with the person thatyou're gonna be running a day
late on the project.
Communicate that you're you knowrunning a little bit late to the
meeting.
And then another part I want youto realize is that since that is
(16:16):
the old you right, that is adifferent version of you.
That was a version of you thatwhatever the first arrow had hit
didn't know the first arrow wascoming, didn't know that the
first arrow was even there orwhat it was, but that's not the
version of you now.
Now you know that first arrow,now you know what happens, now
(16:38):
you know the outcome, thefeelings, the whatever.
And so you have to have somecompassion for that version of
you and not put so much blame onyourself or be so hard on
yourself because that doesnothing for you moving forward.
It has a ripple effect.
I know you've heard me say thatmultiple times, a ripple effect,
but the ripple effect is thatsecond arrow, and it could be
(17:04):
positive, it could be negative,right?
You basically not shooting thesecond arrow has a positive
ripple effect.
You shooting the second arrowand the 22nd arrow and the you
know 200th arrow, that has anegative ripple effect, right?
Let's say, for example, yourconfidence.
(17:24):
You're beating yourself up isgonna be taking more time and
more energy away from what youneed to do to move the needle
forward, and so now you're notgonna be as confident the next
time you need to do that thing,right?
Or send the text, or you know,ask a girl out or a guy out.
(17:47):
Um let's say, for example,actually, I want you to to
realize that you know the peoplewho win long term aren't the
ones who never get hit by thatfirst arrow.
That's honestly something foryou to realize that sometimes we
(18:10):
see people succeeding or doingbetter than us, and we think
we're the only ones being shotwith those those first arrows,
and that's just not the case.
The ones that are succeedinglong term or just seems like
they're always winning, they'rethe ones that are not shooting
(18:31):
the second arrow, and they'renot stabbing themselves
afterwards when they get shotwith the first arrow, they're
not reliving it, replaying it intheir mind.
So I just want you to take youknow, find a little takeaway is
life's gonna hit you, right?
Life's gonna shoot that firstarrow.
That's honestly, I can probablyguarantee you that.
(18:53):
At some point or another, if youhaven't been hit by a curveball,
probably gonna hit by acurveball.
But that doesn't mean you don'tstep back up to the plate.
That doesn't mean that justbecause you got hit by the first
arrow, there's gonna be a secondarrow of the same thing.
The second arrow is you, it'syour choice.
(19:13):
Shoot it, don't shoot it, is onyou.
That's controllable.
So take the lesson, drop the setthe second arrow, drop the
weapon, and walk forward.
Walk forward lighter, walkforward more confident.
You now got to experience it andbe grateful that you experienced
(19:34):
it because now you have a lessonand you have something else that
other people don't have.
Right?
I mean, one of the other sayingsthat you know I realized this
with business, and it was like aself-reflective thought of
common sense is only common tothe person that knows it.
Well, now you experiencing thatsecond arrow, if it gets shot
(19:55):
again, it's common sense on whatto do.
But someone else that hasn'tbeen hit by that first arrow
doesn't have that common sense.
So hopefully, I hope thishelped.
I wanted to kind of take alittle bit of a different
approach.
I know that life life is hardsometimes, right?
And I just want you to know thatwhatever you're going through,
(20:19):
other people are going throughit too, or have gone through it.
So there's no point in youbeating yourself up over it
because that doesn't do anythingfor you moving forward.
You have to start believingyourself, realize that you're
replaying something in your headthat was of a different version
of yourself, and move forward.
(20:41):
You got this.
Just like I talked about acouple episodes ago, sometimes
it's okay to borrow theconfidence and the and the
belief others are instilling inyou because they may see
something that you're not seeingwithin yourself.
But the same thing for this: something happens to you, you (20:55):
undefined
get shot with that first arrow,and other people are telling you
it's okay and telling you,giving you um almost
self-confidence boosters.
Realize that it's probablygenuine.
They're not just saying it tomake you feel better.
Realize that and then take itin, and you need to stop the
replay and move forward.
(21:18):
But if you guys ever need me,I'm here for you guys.
I appreciate you guys.
I love you guys.
If you guys need anything, sendme a DM.
But otherwise, I'll see you guyson the next one.
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