Ep. 30 - Momentum

Ep. 30 - Powerful Momentum

[00:00:00] Kent Thalman: [00:00:00] hi, I'm Kent. 

[00:00:01] Anna Thalman: [00:00:01] And I'm Anna

[00:00:02] Kent Thalman: [00:00:02] And this is film and family, a podcast for filmmakers who want to see real progress in their film, careers without sacrificing their health or relationships. Hit subscribe to never miss an episode. 

[00:00:13] Anna Thalman: [00:00:13] Let's jump right in. 

[00:00:14]Kent Thalman: [00:00:14] Great. we are going to talk about momentum. The backstory leading up to this wonderful podcast episode is that I met my desk preparing my day. I've got tons of things to do. I'm about to enact a marvelous plan for an extremely productive morning at which point. My wife steps into the door and says, we record the podcast right now. 

[00:00:41] Anna Thalman: [00:00:41] I did not say it like that!

[00:00:43]Kent Thalman: [00:00:43] I'm saying no, but I've, I've got all this energy. I'm moving forward already on all this stuff I'm doing. My, my brain is completely focused on all that I've just [00:01:00] barely planned. And I was just about to jump into it. So, what are we doing the podcast episode on today? And she says momentum. So for your enjoyment edification and, Souls we are doing a podcast on momentum and specifically cognitive momentum. 

[00:01:26] Anna Thalman: [00:01:26] And at the expense of your own momentum And I'm sorry, 

[00:01:28] Kent Thalman: [00:01:28] I shifted my momentum. I tried to be, I tried to channel my chi, you know,

[00:01:35] Anna Thalman: [00:01:35] I don't know what that means

[00:01:36] Kent Thalman: [00:01:36] tai chi's all about taking the momentum of your attacker and redirecting it. So I'm redirecting the momentum of the moment. We have, we have maybe 20 minutes. Yeah. This will be nice and short. because there's a Mr. Rogers episode, keeping our children at Bay.

[00:01:55] Anna Thalman: [00:01:55] Yeah. You might hear a little bit of the trolley. You might hear kids come in. We'll see what [00:02:00] happens. This'll be exciting. But, yes, we're going to talk about momentum and, in my own defense, we're doing a table read of the script tonight, which is usually when we record our podcasts. So we. Are going to do this in the morning. You get to join us in our morning day. It's a little different 

[00:02:17] Kent Thalman: [00:02:17] Hmm. We'll probably not be as sleepy. 

[00:02:19] Anna Thalman: [00:02:19] Yeah. So, some of you might be on our, list, subscribe to our blog. So you get the blog posts. we recently did one on momentum, but in case you aren't. we're going to go into that today. And if you are, we're just going to go into it in a little more depth. I think this is a really important concept to understand. I learned a little bit more about this from Jody Moore, one of my coaches who I love and admire. and then I've added to my own thoughts to it as well. 

[00:02:46] Kent Thalman: [00:02:46] Yeah. So let's talk a little bit about what momentum is just in general. We understand that momentum comes from, Newton's laws of motion regarding that, the idea that something that's moving [00:03:00] wants to stay moving, unless it's acted upon by some force, and something that's at rest wants to stay that way. So objects want to keep doing what they are doing or not doing. And that property is also described as inertia. But, the dictionary defines momentum as a property of a moving body that determines the length of time required to bring it to rest when under the action of a constant force. So if you're applying a constant force to a moving body, that is, that has the mass, the amount of time that it takes for that constant force to bring that body to a stop. Is high, I guess. Do you measure the momentum? so yeah. 

[00:03:45] Anna Thalman: [00:03:45] Yeah. And, Just so that you get an idea of why the science lesson is related to film and family. this applies to emotions as well, but the equation for momentum, 

[00:03:57] Kent Thalman: [00:03:57] I think you wrote this wrong

[00:03:58] Anna Thalman: [00:03:58] did I write it wrong? 

[00:03:59] Kent Thalman: [00:03:59] It doesn't [00:04:00] sound right to me. 

[00:04:01] Anna Thalman: [00:04:01] This is what Google said, it said momentum is speed times velocity, or not mass times velocity. I mean, 

[00:04:09]Kent Thalman: [00:04:09] Uh You wrote speed times velocity 

[00:04:11] Anna Thalman: [00:04:11] Velocity is speed. So I wrote that wrong. 

[00:04:14] Kent Thalman: [00:04:14] Yeah. You wrote it wrong on your email

[00:04:15] Anna Thalman: [00:04:15] Well Good thing we're doing a podcast. So if you're really confused, then now we'll have some clarity 

[00:04:20] Kent Thalman: [00:04:20] or just not confused, but just feeling superior to, the intellect of your emailer. momentum is mass times velocity.

[00:04:29] Anna Thalman: [00:04:29] Sorry. I knew what I was trying to say and you probably got it. I'm sure you did. So I used a few examples in the email talking about a bullet, something as small as a bullet, once it gets going fast enough, it's very hard to stop as we know

[00:04:43] Kent Thalman: [00:04:43] yeah very small mass, extremely high velocity. 

[00:04:46]Anna Thalman: [00:04:46] Yep. So you can be very high in one or the other. And obviously if you're multiplying them together, the higher you have of both the higher, your momentum is going to be so. Karate experts know this. They'll use this to [00:05:00] use their bare hands to break through bricks by getting just a fast enough velocity. if you think of an example of mass, I think a train is a perfect example. These trains are huge. They carry a giant mass on each of the cars. So to stop a train takes a long time for it to slow down because it,

[00:05:18] Kent Thalman: [00:05:18] yeah

[00:05:19]Anna Thalman: [00:05:19] it has such momentum from its weight 

[00:05:22] Kent Thalman: [00:05:22] trains. Aren't super fast, frankly. They can be kind of fast, 

[00:05:26] Anna Thalman: [00:05:26] but they're slow to stop. 

[00:05:27] Kent Thalman: [00:05:27] But I mean like, motorcycle could go way faster than a train, but a train is so, so massive. I think when I think of massiveness and momentum, a train is probably the greatest. Example. It's just so easy to understand momentum. When you think of a train, it just takes forever to stop it. And that brings me to sleep, which is something that Anna, I, this is a marital thing. Another example is that I have described myself as a train when it comes to sleeping patterns and habits, and Anna [00:06:00] is sort of a little, Yaris like a Toyota Yaris

[00:06:04] Anna Thalman: [00:06:04] You said I was a prius 

[00:06:05] Kent Thalman: [00:06:05] or a Prius. Yeah, Prius is fine. A compact car. That's very small. That Has great gas mileage. So when I'm awake, I kind of want to stay awake and. Mind you I'm disciplined. I will put myself to bed and I will wake myself up. I've had times and seasons where I'm better at this and times and seasons where I'm a little worse at this, but even right now where I feel like I'm not doing so great, I'm still waking up at 6:00 AM. That's a tangent. I just am, you know, I try not to judge myself, but I try to wake up at five, but it's very hard for me to go to sleep. And it's very hard for me to wake up because once I'm going. I really want to keep going. Whereas Anna she's like, She runs that train

[00:06:49] Anna Thalman: [00:06:49] You're the train, you're the train 

[00:06:51] Kent Thalman: [00:06:51] yeah I'm the train

[00:06:52] Anna Thalman: [00:06:52] You're like Slow to start you know, 

[00:06:53] Kent Thalman: [00:06:53] really hard to get it going

[00:06:54] Anna Thalman: [00:06:54] get your gears goin. 

[00:06:54] Kent Thalman: [00:06:54] And really hard to stop the train Go really hard to stop the train, 

[00:06:57] Anna Thalman: [00:06:57] then really slow to 

[00:06:57] Kent Thalman: [00:06:57] because I'm, I'm Massive I'm [00:07:00] five, six, and a half and massive And Anna, is like this little peppy compact car that just. you just start it and you know, the prius, you can't even tell when it started

[00:07:12] Anna Thalman: [00:07:12] You can't tell when it's on 

[00:07:12] Kent Thalman: [00:07:12] and you just got the gas, 

[00:07:13] Anna Thalman: [00:07:13] you just press the button, 

[00:07:14] Kent Thalman: [00:07:14] you hit the button and then you push the pedal and it's just, boom, it's just going. And then when she has to stop, you hit the brake and it's like on a dime. Nope, no big deal. It's the teeniest little car. And so when she runs out of energy, She just dies and shuts down and like at 9:00 PM everything's done and she's completely unconscious and cut off from the world. And so anyway, 

[00:07:40] Anna Thalman: [00:07:40] I can fall asleep very quickly. 

[00:07:42] Kent Thalman: [00:07:42] Now what we want to talk about. 

[00:07:44] Anna Thalman: [00:07:44] And wake up very quickly

[00:07:44] Kent Thalman: [00:07:44] It's true. And then she wakes up and she's boom recharged and ready to go.

[00:07:47] Just like a little, imagine like a Tesla motorcycle or something. The point here is that the same thing applies to. Our brains and emotions. 

[00:07:59] Anna Thalman: [00:07:59] Yep. [00:08:00] So emotions have a mass and velocity of sorts as well. If you think about emotions that are fast, I think of fear and anger. Those are the ones that come on quickly. They kind of. Give us an energy where we want to move quickly. 

[00:08:14] Kent Thalman: [00:08:14] Adrenaline can be really fast. 

[00:08:15] Anna Thalman: [00:08:15] Adrenaline, Yeah. They're a little harder to control because they gained momentum quickly. Cause they travel through your whole body very quickly. And that's, you know, for our survival, that's a, a reaction if we're in danger and we have fear and we, are threatened for our body to quickly respond so that it can, be ready in time. So that's good. But that. That speed also can lead to a quick momentum that is sometimes hard to stop and a little more difficult to yield, to control 

[00:08:44] Kent Thalman: [00:08:44] wield, 

[00:08:46] Anna Thalman: [00:08:46] wield. Yeah. 

[00:08:47] Kent Thalman: [00:08:47] the emotion itself might be different for each of us. I would think in terms of what emotions are fast, what are slow, which ones have a lot of mass and which ones have a lot, or less mass, I suppose. [00:09:00] I've seen some people where they get angry super fast, and then they just get over it fast. 

[00:09:04] Anna Thalman: [00:09:04] Yeah. 

[00:09:05]Kent Thalman: [00:09:05] they sort of just calm right down and they're very, there's like certain family dynamics where the relationships are such, that that kind of energy is like, they're very quick to forgive each other and they're sorta just like, yeah. You know, that's life and they just move on. Whereas other families, maybe it doesn't happen very often. And there's a little more of a culture of respect, but. Boy, if something kind of falls by the wayside, it can affect people. Some people hold on to stuff for weeks this, although it might be a little different for each of us because of where our current brains are wired. Right. We all have certain neural pathways that we've ingrained deeply and others that aren't, by doing sort of the emotional, I guess, the cognitive thought work and trying to get ourselves emotionally healthy and mature, allows us to, Like you said, sort of wield and control the emotional mass and momentum and, and such so that, maybe something really, really crazy happens or [00:10:00] whatever, and you weren't totally emotionally prepared for it, but you're able to be patient with yourself and kind of take it in stride accept it more quickly and move forward, as opposed to beat yourself up about it all day. And. Sort of burnout and then stay stuck for the whole day or the whole week. I think examples would be helpful, but I think we kind of think of, times in our lives where we've either had a really big high or a really big, low that kind of went on for a while. 

[00:10:25] Anna Thalman: [00:10:25] Yeah. So that's sort of like, we've talked about velocity. I also want to talk about weight a little bit or mass

[00:10:31] Kent Thalman: [00:10:31] different things

[00:10:32] Anna Thalman: [00:10:32] I do think yes, you corrected me but those are two different things, but they're kind of the same, like they're really related. so I do feel like certain emotions have a weight. they feel very heavy and those emotions can also gain momentum and get you down and be kind of hard to lift like that emotional weight. So you can also notice which emotions have. That sort of weight for you and what kind of momentum is that creating? [00:11:00] But I also just had this thought while you're talking Kent that maybe there is a degree of personality that comes with this, like you're a train, right. And I'm a Prius. And just knowing that about ourselves might apply to our emotions as well, I actually do think I'm pretty, I'm more quick to anger or to. maybe feel an emotion, but then also quicker to turn it off and just be like, okay, that's done. And I think you're like slower to anger, but maybe it takes you a little longer to get out of that as well. So maybe that's just something that we also look for is what sort of momentum do you kind of have in your emotional personality?

[00:11:41] Kent Thalman: [00:11:41] Yeah And I just want to push back just enough to say personality is something that can be. Productive or not productive to understand. I don't like it. When we talk about personality as if it's this unchangeable ingrained, born with thing that you can't really control. but I mean, personality is whatever your current [00:12:00] wiring is. I believe it's changeable. Honestly, 

[00:12:02] Anna Thalman: [00:12:02] yeah

[00:12:02] Kent Thalman: [00:12:02] I do. It's a ton of work, but it's possible. And, I think it's important to just accept our personalities, whatever that is, wherever. It is at this point,

[00:12:12] Anna Thalman: [00:12:12] at the moment

[00:12:12] Kent Thalman: [00:12:12] at this point in your life. And so in that way, like as you're defining personality, sure. That can be helpful. But at the same time, I don't want to just think that thought, I am a trainer, I am this personality. I am, this is unchangeable kind of a thing. Now, certain physical attributes of my body. That's a circumstance that I might not be able to change. I can improve my health and whatnot, but certain circadian rhythms and sleep habits and such, to some degree I suppose, are, You know, five, five, six, and a half. I can't change that. You know what I mean? Like, my my eyes are Brown. I can't change that. but in terms of cognitive stuff, I think that's very, very malleable unless there's, sort of literally something, Sort of happening there, but that would be more of like a disease or something that you could really, really, really diagnose 

[00:12:53] Anna Thalman: [00:12:53] but even if it, even if it is changeable. I think knowing where you're at right now is helpful and then you [00:13:00] might decide it's not worth it. you might decide it's worth it to make the change, to do the work to change, or you might just decide I'm going to work with what I have and just kind of be aware of. What my tendencies are. 

[00:13:12] Kent Thalman: [00:13:12] Yeah.

[00:13:13] Anna Thalman: [00:13:13] That's sometimes is the better or easier route to go. 

[00:13:16] Kent Thalman: [00:13:16] Yeah. And I do think that it's always helpful being able to see a clear picture of who you are and where you're at is necessary. I think about, Sort of knowing that maybe it takes a while to slow something down. sometimes I think we don't want to stop or slow down or do what it takes to restart. because especially if we feel like we are a train and we're getting this massive amount of momentum. stopping sounds really inconvenient. It's like, yeah, but I'm, going so fast. I'm making such progress, but if you're emotionally falling apart, the best thing in that moment to do is stop the train.

[00:13:54] Anna Thalman: [00:13:54] Well, and this is if there's a negative momentum, 

[00:13:56] Kent Thalman: [00:13:56] exactly

[00:13:57] Anna Thalman: [00:13:57] and it's not going the direction you want. 

[00:13:58] Kent Thalman: [00:13:58] exactly I think one [00:14:00] of my favorite phrases or quotes or whatever is, "Doing something wrong extremely well, it makes you more wrong." It's like, I guess I should call it a concept because I'm not quoting anything. but I see some people that are like that they're so fixed in how well they're doing a thing, but it's the wrong thing. And I guess I won't give too many examples. I guess the word wrong is something you can decide for yourself, given the circumstance, but . If you're doing something that isn't leading you to the result you want. but you're so fixed on the thing that you're doing, that you just have to be doing it once again, you're getting stuck in the means and forgetting the ends like we've talked about before, in a previous episode about means and ends. And so stop the train, right? If you're not going where you want to be going, and if you're emotionally. Not where you want to be. We're doing what we do. We almost always do what we do to accomplish a feeling. we're trying to reach goals for a feeling we're trying to, get things or do [00:15:00] things or become things because of the feeling we believe it will produce. And if the process is making us super angry, We need to stop and do the thought work to address that anger and then start back up again so that we're in the right place while we're moving the train. And so, if you have a Prius, it might be really easy to just, you know, I guess I should say when we become emotionally healthy, maybe it is becomes a little more of a Prius, where you can stop the vehicle, address it and then make the turn and. Or I guess even slow down sometimes 

[00:15:33] Anna Thalman: [00:15:33] There's pros and cons to either

[00:15:33] Kent Thalman: [00:15:33] if you're, if you have to turn a vehicle, you have to slow down. Same with the train. If you have to, if you have, if you're rounding a turn, you slow down, you don't, blast to that turn at full speed. Yeah. Yeah. 

[00:15:45] Anna Thalman: [00:15:45] I think there's pros and Cons to both, you know, because a little Prius will never have as much momentum. it can start and stop quickly and that's nice, but it. It doesn't have the momentum of a train and the power of a train. And so [00:16:00] it's a little light thing, you know, there's, there's pros and cons to both, and sometimes you can get momentum in a positive direction and that can be really powerful and just, you know, People who've changed the world because they just had enough momentum around a cause that they just moved forward and nothing could stop them.

[00:16:17] Kent Thalman: [00:16:17] Yeah Yeah

[00:16:17] Anna Thalman: [00:16:17] Or on the other hand, your momentum can be carrying you the wrong direction and feel out of control where you feel like I can't control my emotions, or you're afraid afraid of your emotions because they build and they build and you're like, Oh my gosh, it's, you know, I can't stop this. So if you're feeling that way, it's good to know that The thing that's creating the momentum is that mass and velocity of emotion. So you can, first of all, stop slow down the velocity, just slow down, focus on one thing right in front of you and just do it slowly. even if that's, I just need to sit down for a minute. 

[00:16:56] Kent Thalman: [00:16:56] So I really want to apply this. We're talking about this in terms of [00:17:00] cognitive and emotional, Spheres, but I want to think about this in terms of career. So we're filmmakers, and we understand that we're in the entertainment industry. think about something like a movement, like Anna just said, thinking about the civil rights movement, for example, think about the momentum that it took for a single personality, like Martin Luther King and all the people around him. And also just the thousands of people and millions of people across the United States that it took to get the momentum of that movement going. and it's interesting that it's called a movement, I think. and the change that's required for that. Long-term big change now. think about it in terms of your own careers. Think about celebrities. I feel like we look at these celebrities that are in pop music or acting or whatever it is. And when your career starts to gain a lot of momentum, it can start to feel one of two ways. Like you're on a train that you can't steer or control or decide [00:18:00] where it's going. or you are. Moving it where you want it to go now, let's take it back from celebrities and just say, I have friends, for example, that are so, so skilled at post-production that they feel like they can't do anything else. They want to, they want to write screenplays. They want to direct, but they feel like they've been pigeonholed into post-production. They feel like their career has this momentum that they can't seem to divert or deflect or redirect in any way. And, I think about the people whose careers seem to skyrocket. It always starts really small and really slow. And the momentum builds both in terms of the mass of the vehicle and the velocity of that vehicle. Both grow a little at a time. And maybe there's a time where you're growing the mass and there's a time where you're growing the velocity. And you could apply that analogy in various ways. [00:19:00] One could be hungry for profit versus hungry for growth in terms of business. which is a concept we've talked about before. It's a Clay Christiansen concept, at least that's where we learned it. so my point is, is I've noticed that, there were some trains I had to just jump off of. I did wedding videos for a long time, and that was a fine thing. And if you do wedding videos, that does not mean you're not a filmmaker and it's not below you. I just say that because I learned a ton, I got hundreds and hundreds of hours of experience using. 

[00:19:29] Anna Thalman: [00:19:29] Documentary film, basically 

[00:19:30] Kent Thalman: [00:19:30] all sorts of camera, rig, editing, coloring, sound mixing. I got to know the basics of all of those things on wedding videos and just 

[00:19:39] Anna Thalman: [00:19:39] even story telling

[00:19:40] Kent Thalman: [00:19:40] give me A lot of confidence. and

[00:19:41] Anna Thalman: [00:19:41] I think you were very good at saying, let's establish these characters. Let's get to know these people in this moment and, and approaching it as a documentary event and creating a story. 

[00:19:52] Kent Thalman: [00:19:52] I was really Really fixated on making it as narrative as possible. eventually that just wasn't cutting it for me. I wasn't very happy [00:20:00] chasing clients, on a one-off basis and I didn't love the events themselves. I felt some pride and joy when I finished stuff. and I do feel like I was providing a lot of value for couples. , but it really was, it was never my goal. It was never anything I wanted to do. Long-term and it wasn't producing the joy , that I was seeking. And I just kind of took stock for myself. And by the way, your career doesn't produce joy for you. , it doesn't produce emotions for you because that's a circumstance, but, , it was just a decision. I. Didn't really feel was serving me anymore

[00:20:35] Anna Thalman: [00:20:35] well I love that idea of jumping off the train and just 

[00:20:37] Kent Thalman: [00:20:37] I jumped off that train. And I had to, I set a date where I said, I'm not going to do weddings ever again after this date. And I've set that date. And I jumped off that train and I decided I was going to try and build momentum in other areas of my life where. I could build maybe better momentum. 

[00:20:53] Anna Thalman: [00:20:53] Well, It's true. Like if you imagine a train and you don't have a track laid down, for example, you haven't prepared for [00:21:00] that momentum ahead of time, then that train is just going to crash and burn. So like when you're scaling your life or scaling your business, You have to be very careful that you're prepared for the growth that's about to come because when you grow, you grow everything, you know, so you grow the problems, you grow the money. If you have a lot of stress already, you're going to grow the stress. so you need to make sure that you can handle what's on your plate. And that that's pretty. Pretty good before you grow all of it. , 

[00:21:29] Kent Thalman: [00:21:29] but the wedding videos are going so well and you're making so much money and you're doing all this stuff. The momentum of it is going. And so once again, no matter how well you're doing something, if it's the wrong thing, What difference does it make? The more you do 

[00:21:44] Anna Thalman: [00:21:44] it's not taking you the direction you want to be going, 

[00:21:46] Kent Thalman: [00:21:46] yeah the more and the better you do the wrong thing

[00:21:48] Anna Thalman: [00:21:48] the momentum just gets you farther away, from your goal or practicing piano is something I think of , if you are practicing it wrong, you're practicing, trying to play a piece and you're not playing it [00:22:00] correctly. You're going to actually get it more and more stuck in your head with the wrong technique. So. Bad practice just gets you really good at playing it badly. 

[00:22:10]Kent Thalman: [00:22:10] Yeah. So going back to the cognitive stuff, , that applies every day, career that's big decision stuff. And if you're on a path that you feel like is good, just keep going. And you'll slowly build the mass and the velocity of what you're doing. And, , I would recommend. Noam Kroll, once again, we've mentioned this a lot compound effort compounding effort, , which is this idea that , if you invest a little bit of time every day towards something over time, that all adds up into this massive amount of compounding effort, a small amount of money a day invested in an interest bearing account creates compounding interest, , until, that starts to sort of explode. The same thing is absolutely true for. , our careers, but bringing it back to cognitive, , [00:23:00] things, , 

[00:23:00] Anna Thalman: [00:23:00] to a really small scale, 

[00:23:02]Kent Thalman: [00:23:02] ,the thoughts you think, and the beliefs you, , grow and, think over and over and over again, it's like this investment and it will grow in velocity and mass the longer. And the more often. You think it, so if you think it once a day or you think it 10 times a day, if you just keep reminding yourself of certain beliefs that are taking you in the direction you want to go are generating the emotions and feelings you want to have surrounding certain things. Then you will start to see progress in those directions in your life.

[00:23:38] Anna Thalman: [00:23:38] Yeah, that's just how our brains work. What we focus on, we create more of in our life and we create more evidence for in our life because your brain wants to be right and wants to hold onto the beliefs that give it some structure and some rules to operate within. And so if you are thinking, Oh, the world is so cruel, everyone's out to [00:24:00] get me. And that's a thought that you go back to, it's just a random example, , over and over again, then your brain. It's just , on the daily, in the background looking for evidence, it says, Oh, you're focused on this. You must be interested in this topic. Let me show you evidence of how the world is cruel and evidence of how everyone's out to get you.

[00:24:16] Kent Thalman: [00:24:16] And here's why your brain does that because your brain is wired for momentum. 

[00:24:20] Anna Thalman: [00:24:20] And effeciency

[00:24:21] Kent Thalman: [00:24:21] Yeah. Well, momentum is inherently going to give us a degree of efficiency. Once the train has a ton of momentum, it doesn't take much fuel to maintain that extremely high. Momentum velocity, , and the mass of the object moving at a certain velocity, your brain wants to be right. In other words. Yeah. Even if it believes something wrong, it wants you to believe that it's right, because it wants to protect that rightness everyone's brain does this. And so if it finds something , that disagrees with it, even if it's right and good, and going to actually take you where you want to go. Your brain will put up some resistance. It will be [00:25:00] hard to redirect the momentum of the thought, even though that thought isn't serving you, 

[00:25:03] Anna Thalman: [00:25:03] it will see it as irrelevant to your current neural pathways, which is more work for the brain to rebuild neuro-pathways 

[00:25:10] Kent Thalman: [00:25:10] cause, the train is moving so well in the wrong direction. And so it says, well, this is inconvenient for the direction we're going now, but if it's not the direction you want to be going, you've got to rechannel those thoughts. And so if you're thinking everyone. Hates me or , these are all very self victimizing thoughts we're thinking of. Can we think of like a very specific thing? Like, , my kids are manipulating me to get what they want. That's something I think we think often that, where we found ourselves thinking, , that thought, , you can find tons of evidence for that. It's not even hard. , is it really true? Well, I guess it depends on what the word manipulating means, but, , There's a lot of thought where you could do around that to get to a point where maybe you're thinking, , my children , are going through a natural point in their development, where they are testing boundaries and the more I help them realize where those boundaries [00:26:00] are, the safer they're going to feel, even though they're going to resist those boundaries. And I can teach them those boundaries without getting angry. , it's normal for them to look for those boundaries and I'm helping them by showing them where those boundaries are changing, like shifting and practicing that paradigm. Even just now saying it for me is probably a good thing saying that and practicing that paradigm eventually is going to generate. a way more productive longterm trajectory, because if it's, my children are trying to manipulate me, I'm going to have a ton of resentment and anger toward my children. And that relationship is going to be really sour. And that's going to lead to, I mean, you can imagine all the negative, results that that's going to bring in our lives. Whereas just saying, this is natural. This is a phase that all children that are developing and healthy go through where they're testing boundaries and I'm going to be helpful and accepting as they test those boundaries. And if I get a little impatient, I can be accepting of myself and be like all parents that are developing, go through a little bit of a, you know, Hey, , this is normal. Then, we can all be accepting and forgiving of ourselves and [00:27:00] our children. And hopefully that generates a family culture that starts to become, more pleasant even though. Our brain might sometimes really want to assert itself and say, no, can't you see how they're manipulating. that's normal, a healthy brain does that.

[00:27:14] Anna Thalman: [00:27:14] And that's your default, you know, that's the default wiring that you have in your brain. So when you're trying to

[00:27:19] Kent Thalman: [00:27:19] it might be

[00:27:20] Anna Thalman: [00:27:20] Redirect

[00:27:21] Kent Thalman: [00:27:21] we'll speak personally, you might be in a healthier place, 

[00:27:23] Anna Thalman: [00:27:23] in this example, in this example, that's the default. And so when you do want to go a new direction and you want to practice that new belief that actually does take work to build that momentum and that direction. And, I think it's really helpful to have a practice of writing down those beliefs. Like the one you just said, so you can revisit them, re read through them in your brain and reinforce them, going kind of back to the emotional side, we've sort of talked about how to, get rid of momentum when it's going the wrong way is by slowing down in other ways, by lightening up. Humor is so [00:28:00] useful to us under stress because it helps us lighten up those heavy emotions. having a sense of humor about what's going on or struggles that we're facing. I just think that's a really good way to lighten, lighten 

[00:28:12] Kent Thalman: [00:28:12] it up. I think lighthearted is a virtue. I think lightheartedness. In my mind. I don't know if that phrase is familiar to you or not, but lightheartedness is a, to me definable as being very accepting. And also I think being very accepting can lead to a really sweet sense of humor, where you can find, people's biggest flaws sort of endearing and funny and not funny in like a rude way, but funny and like, a, I love that flaw about that person or about myself or whatever. And not that you love it, that you want it to just keep going and be flawed more. But I think sometimes we think that doing that will make us flawed or we will never change or progress. The opposite is usually true. Once you [00:29:00] accept something, it can move on and you can kind of see that thing, fade away, both in yourself and others. When you won't accept certain flaws in others, it actually kind of makes it sometimes harder for people to grow. in our lives, whereas if we can really accept them, it helps them maybe feel like they can accept themselves and that leads to growth. so that lightheartedness can be so, so valuable.as a virtue that's the really maybe definable as our ability to accept is our ability to redirect momentum and be able to, move something that might be massive and moving at a high velocity. In a remarkably fast and efficient manner, if we are extremely accepting of ourselves. 

[00:29:41] Anna Thalman: [00:29:41] Yeah. I always think that's powerful, like in a coaching session, say on Parenthood where someone's talking about how hard it is. It feels very serious and very big. When I can help them get to a place of laughter like, Oh wait, you didn't get the manual. You know, they give you a manual at the hospital. Like you didn't get it. Like [00:30:00] this is supposed to be easy. You know, you can kind of just laugh at yourself and laugh at what you're going through and lighten things up. On the other hand, you can use this in a powerful way, towards the direction you want to go to build momentum towards it. And we all know this feeling where there's a thing on your to-do list that you don't really want to do. You're like, I don't really want to clean out the closet. You avoid it. But then as soon as you just decide to do it, and you start doing it, you start building momentum in that direction, and then suddenly I'm like, wait, I'm cleaning the closet. Don't stop me. I'm almost done. I want to finish. 

[00:30:29] Kent Thalman: [00:30:29] I want to keep doing that thing that I didn't want to do that I was resisting. 

[00:30:33] Anna Thalman: [00:30:33] Yeah, exactly. So you. Can build this in a positive way, which is interesting to think about how do I build positive momentum through velocity? I think, that that's probably a lot of what Tony Robbins does, which I, I'm not like a huge fan of this method, but he talks about how motion and emotion are connected. And so I know at his events. He gets people moving. He gets them like jumping up and down and dancing. And I think that builds [00:31:00] a positive sort of velocity of moving these emotions. And,I don't necessarily do that, but even just like running exercising, Building excitement building, a group feeling I think can build mass. Like we talked about a movement as that movement builds velocity and mass. I think it's more people joining in and adding to the energy. So I think we can build mass by like finding people with similar beliefs who can reinforce that and we can all together sort of embrace a mindset or an energy and build that momentum in a positive way.

[00:31:36]Kent Thalman: [00:31:36] Yeah. I don't know if I have any concluding thoughts, but I feel like, this might feel conceptual, but hopefully we've covered some really great ground in terms of not just the concepts, but how they apply and, how it can be applied to help us understand our brains, our relationships, and our careers in a little bit of a, um, [00:32:00] clearer way. And. In terms of putting this powerfully into practice, I can't really think of a better way. to do that then by trying coaching. So, if you have more questions on coaching continue to listen to the podcast, look at some of our past episodes, or get a free consultation with no obligation. Those consultations are actually really valuable in my opinion. even if you don't book, but, it is a great way to invest in yourself And investing in both the personal, emotional, familial, and career based momentum in your life. And so, anyway, 

[00:32:35]Anna Thalman: [00:32:35] yeah. I think it's easy to say, like how can I afford to invest in one more thing? There's always so many things to invest in, in film, but I really don't know how you can afford not to invest in your own health and your own wellbeing while you're. On this journey and that's kind of what we've tried to create in the film and family program is just those tools for your own mental and emotional health, as well as career advancement and the guidance. Like [00:33:00] that's what the coaching is, is being able to see what's going on in your own brain

[00:33:04] Kent Thalman: [00:33:04] yep and our personal and our relationship health. Health's when they run out and die, then the momentum of everything dies in our lives. so your career is included in that. So you cannot maintain a high level of momentum in your career. If your physical health fails you, or if your relationships fall to pieces. those things will demand attention when things on the train start to break, or if the train track itself starts to fall to pieces. not only will the train lose its momentum very, very fast, but pretty disastrous stuff can happen. and we see that every day on Google and on news in our newsfeeds regarding the industry, but all these people who finally the piece breaks that they were just neglecting or, It's totally compromising. and that's when the fairs and the sex scandals and the, 

[00:33:52] Anna Thalman: [00:33:52] drug overdose 

[00:33:53] Kent Thalman: [00:33:53] the drug overdoses, and the emotional fallouts and the people that just totally like abandoned their career because they can't maintain it anymore. [00:34:00] And, there's really no need to let everything get to that point. We can invest right now in our health, in our families, in our relationships and in our careers in a way that lets it keep growing until you can be Christopher Plummer who just passed this week. After, over 90 years of a remarkable career. And he won his first Oscar in his eighties because he had this momentum. I mean, he smashed it in sound of music decades before he ever started winning Oscars. And then he won, two Oscars in his eighties and he was doing like his best movies at like 89 and 90. I feel like knives out. It was like one of his best movies and, and it was like a year or two before. he passed away. because I guess he was healthy enough to keep acting and, he kept his life together enough, I guess. I don't know much about his personal life. and who knows how well his marriages were or whatever

[00:34:52] Anna Thalman: [00:34:52] I think of Meryl Streep too. 

[00:34:52] Kent Thalman: [00:34:52] Yeah. But Meryl Streep is a good example 

[00:34:53] Anna Thalman: [00:34:53] she has been married to one person her whole life, and she's been pretty steady and healthy, I think [00:35:00] in a lot of ways.

[00:35:00] Kent Thalman: [00:35:00] And look at her career has her career slowed down? Like everyone says women can't act past the age of 40 because. No one wants to cast them. Cause they're not attractive enough. And young enough, but, Meryl Streep, I can think of other examples, Melissa. Leo, totally go against that. Right. They're winning Oscars in, in their sort of later years. 

[00:35:20] Anna Thalman: [00:35:20] it's process is just compounding as well. 

[00:35:22] Kent Thalman: [00:35:22] Yeah, these are actors specifically, but it can apply to anyone's career anyone's personal lives. You know, save the best for last and if you can keep your life balanced and keep moving forward. And when you fall down and keep getting up, then can be unstoppable. So, yeah. Thanks for joining us on this episode. 

[00:35:38] Anna Thalman: [00:35:38] Yeah. And if you like what you're hearing and you think of someone who comes to mind who could benefit from this, one of the best compliments you can give us is a referral to pass this along to your filmmaker, friends and, a five star review's also great helps other people find this podcast easier, and we'll leave you with that. We'll visit you again next week and tell you about Our film that [00:36:00] we're going to be in the middle of. 

[00:36:01] Kent Thalman: [00:36:01] All right. Peace.