# How to Stop Worrying and Start Living: Lessons from Jim Rohn

An episode of [JIM ROHN](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1579900012), 12 Apr 2023, 15 min.

Audio: https://anchor.fm/s/6543d7e8/podcast/play/68459429/https%3A%2F%2Fd3ctxlq1ktw2nl.cloudfront.net%2Fstaging%2F2023-3-12%2F6045e398-1239-975a-9e25-f8c100cf2c3b.mp3

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## Transcript

[0:01] In my seminars the last few years, I have covered what I
[0:04] have found to be those few simple basic principles that can
[0:08] make major changes in life and lifestyle.
[0:12] One of those subjects that gets the most comment is diseases of
[0:17] attitude. And out of that subject, worry
[0:21] and how to kick the worry habit have caused the most questions.
[0:25] So in this brief visit with you, let me give you my best look at
[0:29] worry, how to recognize it and define it and what to do about
[0:35] it, and hopefully these ideas will give you a good chance for
[0:39] confidence over worry. First of all worry might well be
[0:45] killer #1 and if it is not the number one physical killer.
[0:50] Although doctors tell us worriers die sooner than non
[0:53] worriers, and we have all heard the expression worry yourself to
[0:58] death, at least it is the number one killer of dreams and
[1:02] achievement, of energy and vitality and lifestyle.
[1:07] I know the damage and effect of this killer worry firsthand.
[1:12] I will spare you the details, but over a period of some three
[1:16] years I let worry get out of hand.
[1:19] As I've mentioned before I became a super worrier.
[1:23] I was good at it. The combination of small and big
[1:27] worries about my circumstances, what people thought of me, my
[1:31] finances, my abilities, the future, my progress all led to a
[1:36] complete physical collapse, a stay in the hospital, emotional,
[1:41] mental and physical exhaustion, and a deep despair I couldn't
[1:46] shake. A sad picture for a young man
[1:49] who should have been well on his way to carving out his share of
[1:53] opportunity. I am happy to tell you that good
[1:57] fortune came my way. And as many of you may be aware,
[2:01] I met a man, Mr. Earl Schauff, with his ideas and inspiration
[2:07] and the help of a very close friend.
[2:10] I worked my way past the mine fields of worry and disaster and
[2:15] out into the clear air of mental sunshine.
[2:18] And if I did it, anybody can do it.
[2:22] I'm not saying it's easy. It took me almost a full year to
[2:26] kick the worry habit. It took practice and much
[2:30] effort, but it was well worth it.
[2:33] Remember, don't ask for the task to be easy, just ask for it to
[2:37] be worth it. Don't wish it was easier, wish
[2:41] you were better. Don't ask for less challenge,
[2:45] Ask for more skills. Don't ask for less problems, ask
[2:50] for more wisdom. It's the challenge that makes
[2:53] the experience and life and its color and meaning and adventure
[2:57] for you is this collection of experiences.
[3:01] To wish them away is to wish your life away.
[3:05] So let's get to worry and what it is and what it does, how to
[3:09] define it and what to do about it.
[3:12] And let's do it with eager high hope that it won't be long until
[3:17] you will be free of the worry habit and on your way to the
[3:20] life and lifestyle that you want.
[3:24] First of all, let's define worry.
[3:27] There are many ways we could describe it.
[3:30] Worry is fear painting pictures in your mind, and if you watch
[3:34] that mental movie too long, you get a false picture of how
[3:38] things really are. Worry is a mental broadcasting
[3:42] station, and more often than not it is false or at least
[3:46] distorted propaganda. Worry has that sneaky way of
[3:51] stopping short of giving you all the facts.
[3:54] Worry is often the trickery of mentally filtered facts on the
[3:59] negative side and the bold declaration that these are all
[4:03] the facts. Worry has the mental audacity to
[4:06] suggest that the elevator only runs one way down.
[4:12] Many times, worry is A5 alarm bell for a wastebasket fire, and
[4:17] worry is a depletion of constructive emotion.
[4:21] It's wasted mental energy. It's like letting the starter
[4:25] run the battery down when the car won't start.
[4:29] And worry is most often a lack of all the facts, a lack of full
[4:33] understanding, a lack of total information, and an
[4:37] unpreparedness of ability, knowledge, talent, courage,
[4:41] faith, and all the other virtues that should give us a better
[4:45] definition of worry. And remember, left unchecked, it
[4:49] can become like a Mad Dog loose in the house.
[4:53] And the sorrow and pain and regret is too large a price to
[4:57] pay not to do something about it, and to do it Now.
[5:03] You see, if you contemplated the total sum of human suffering
[5:06] long enough, it would drive you mad.
[5:09] You must understand how life is human suffering, man's
[5:14] inhumanity to man, war, disease, poverty.
[5:18] But it must be in what I call it's rightful ratio of your
[5:23] mental and emotional time. So much for what worry is.
[5:32] The next question is what can I do about it?
[5:35] What is the first step? My best advice on this is to 1st
[5:39] recognize worry for what it is, admit what it does and then
[5:44] decide you now want to be free. It first starts with decision on
[5:49] your part and may I add, well, you should decide.
[5:54] Why let worry, Continue to take money out of your pocket and
[5:58] bank account. Why let worry any longer?
[6:01] Keep you from becoming all you can be?
[6:04] Why let it rob you of better friendships, Better Business,
[6:07] better profits, better results, better communication, better
[6:11] family relations? Why impose your worry on others
[6:15] any longer? It's a burden you can get rid of
[6:18] and a monkey you can get off your back.
[6:21] Why not be rid of those sinking, nagging feelings that all is not
[6:25] going to be well, that you can't do it, That it won't work out
[6:30] for the best worry is undue concern.
[6:34] That takes up too much of your mental and emotional time.
[6:39] Now we must all be concerned. Hey, life is no joke except to
[6:44] the jokers. Life and how to live it is a
[6:47] serious matter. It is risky, full of peril, and
[6:51] there are constant threats to the good we want and to the
[6:55] pursuit of happiness. However, it is undue concern or
[7:00] concern that takes up too much mental time that begins the
[7:04] harm. It's like a family planning a
[7:07] wonderful trip. While they certainly should be
[7:10] concerned about the condition of the car, the tires, and making
[7:14] sure they picked the proper route, it would be foolish to
[7:18] allow themselves to be completely turned negative with
[7:21] the thought that they might crash and kill the entire
[7:24] family. If that were the case, even if
[7:27] they went, the entire trip would be turned into one nightmare of
[7:31] fear, with the specter of chaos looming around every curve
[7:36] rather than enjoying the wonderful trip they had planned
[7:39] for themselves and their family. A lot of people do that with
[7:44] their entire life. So start to make these
[7:50] declarations and if you mean it, they will start you on your way
[7:54] to confidence and adventure, free of the worry habit.
[7:59] Say first I've had it with worry.
[8:02] I'm tired of being beaten down and hassled with all those
[8:05] negative mental pictures. I refuse to be tricked by false
[8:10] facts. I'm really not that weak.
[8:14] Never again do I want those sick feelings inside those mental
[8:18] false alarms. I'm tired of the drain on my
[8:21] resources. I'm tired of the embarrassment
[8:25] of the lack of confidence. I don't want people, especially
[8:28] my family, to see me in this state anymore.
[8:32] I've got more to offer. I refuse to let my life be short
[8:36] circuited any longer by letting my mind run wild with a
[8:40] distorted view of the facts. Whether I bring it up or if it
[8:45] comes from someone else, prove it to yourself.
[8:50] Think back over all the things that you worried about, all the
[8:53] fantastic catastrophic events that you're well meaning
[8:56] advisors had told you were going to happen.
[9:00] Be pleased that none of them ever happened to you or else you
[9:04] would not be alive today. 90% of the things you worry about never
[9:09] happen anyway. All of us have had these well
[9:12] meaning advisors who want to appear larger in the eyes of
[9:15] those they wish to advise and who immediately rare back and
[9:20] describe every single bad option they can think of that might
[9:24] possibly happen by the time they have finished.
[9:28] The one who has come for some confidence and some help wonders
[9:31] why he even bothers to live anymore.
[9:34] And the fact is, those things are never really going to happen
[9:38] anyway. Bring to question now what your
[9:43] mind tells you or what others tell you, and pledge not to go
[9:47] for false alarms. I've had it is a good beginning.
[9:53] This first step will start you arguing with your worry
[9:56] thoughts. Soon you will start to examine
[9:59] your fears and worries to see if they are valid.
[10:03] And you won't let your mind play those mental tricks any longer.
[10:08] It is possible to destroy any emotion you have, including
[10:11] worry and fear, by a very simple process.
[10:15] And that is analyze it to death. Drag it out on the table and
[10:20] look at it. Weigh it against all of your
[10:23] past experiences. Make sure this one can stand
[10:27] against all the past facts you have.
[10:30] You will now start to use worry instead of letting worry use
[10:35] you. It's a beginning, being in
[10:38] control instead of out of control.
[10:41] You will now let concern and the first signs of worry prompt you
[10:45] to learn, ask questions and look at all sides in order to
[10:49] evaluate true, positive, constructive action.
[10:54] Now you can say, I will let fear advise me of the facts, but I
[10:59] won't let fear tell me these are all the facts.
[11:04] Nor will I let fear determine my reaction to the facts.
[11:09] I will gladly take up the war of faith over doubt, reason over
[11:14] fear, and positive expectation over worry.
[11:19] So talk to yourself right now, into a change of attitude.
[11:23] Be persuasive. Go all out.
[11:27] Show yourself the hell if you don't, and the good life of
[11:30] answers and progress if you do. Say to yourself what a fantastic
[11:36] feeling it must be to stop the panic drain on my mental energy,
[11:41] emotion and physical strength. Imagine putting all that saved
[11:46] energy and emotion and strength into my action plans for the
[11:52] good life. Hey, accept the challenge.
[11:56] Believe your beliefs, doubt your doubts.
[11:59] Stay on the campaign to give worry a bad time, like being
[12:04] your own conscientious judge. Say I've had it with the
[12:08] presentation of A1 sided story. I sustain the objection that
[12:13] worry has failed to bring out all the facts.
[12:16] I despise these mental courtroom maneuvers that try to belittle
[12:20] my client me. I demand the whole truth.
[12:25] And if worry will not be silent, I may cite him for contempt of
[12:29] the court of reason. You call up that scene often
[12:33] when Worry wants to hassle you with the same old tricks and the
[12:37] same old results. It will work every time.
[12:43] Okay, Let's move on to some really positive steps.
[12:46] If you can survive all that has happened to you up to this
[12:50] moment in your life, in spite of doing and thinking many of the
[12:54] wrong things, imagine how you can succeed by now, starting to
[12:58] do some of the right things first.
[13:02] The best answer to worry is confidence, and confidence
[13:06] starts first with awareness. Here is one of the most
[13:10] important lessons in life. To learn life and business is
[13:15] like the changing seasons, and the real challenge of life is to
[13:20] learn how to handle the winter and take advantage of the
[13:23] spring. In short, that's it.
[13:27] You see, winter always comes, but so does the spring.
[13:32] Night follows day, but also day follows night.
[13:37] Sure, the tide goes out, but it always comes in.
[13:42] Opportunity follows difficulty as surely as difficulty follows
[13:46] opportunity. I have written and recorded much
[13:50] on how to take advantage of the spring, how to cash in on life's
[13:54] opportunities, work hard all summer, learn more ways to plant
[14:00] and protect what you invest and to reap in the fall without
[14:04] complaint, knowing it's your harvest and you've reaped what
[14:07] you've sown. For This subject, however, let's
[14:10] talk about how to handle the winters, those times when worry,
[14:15] like winter, takes its heavy toll.
[14:18] So we tell it like it is. Winter always comes.
[14:23] So does the night. Some happenings in our life will
[14:27] always be a cause for concern. And sometimes concern turns to
[14:31] worry and worry turns to fear. But remember that is to be
[14:37] expected each day, each event, each season, brings both
[14:42] expected and unexpected challenges that we must think
[14:46] about and make decisions on. Life is like a stream that flows
[14:52] continuously. The better we understand that,
[14:55] the better chance we have to produce good results out of all
[14:59] of our challenges.

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