Viktor E. Frankl: Man's Search for Meaning
EPISODE 211
Our final step in the wisdom series is here with a bang! One of the most influential books ever written is Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl.
Psychiatrist Viktor Frankl's memoir has riveted generations of readers with its descriptions of life in Nazi death camps and its lessons for spiritual survival.
Between 1942 and 1945, Frankl laboured in four camps, including Auschwitz, while his parents, brother, and pregnant wife perished. Based on his own experience and the experiences of others he treated later in his practice, Frankl argues that we cannot avoid suffering, but we can choose how to cope with it, find meaning in it, and move forward with renewed purpose.
Frankl's theory-known of logotherapy, from the Greek word logos ("meaning")-holds that our primary drive in life is not pleasure, as Freud maintained, but the discovery and pursuit of what we find meaningful.
Runsheet
INTRO
Vickor Frankl introduces the show by discussing how you can find meaning, even in the darkest moments. Finding Meaning in Despair (3m14)
ATTITUDE
Wisdom for Life reminds us that we have the freedom to choose how we react to a situation. You have a choice (1m52)
Brian Johnson introduces Frankl’s idea of conscience and success. Happiness (1m47)
HOW TO DO IT
Always Improving references the idea that anyone can survive any situation, as long as you think about it correctly, and have a ‘why’ to live. Have a purpose (44s)
OUTRO
Vickor Frankl makes the case that we should celebrate hardship. Youngsters need challenges (4m17)
Buy the book summary from Blinkist
Transcript
Show 211 - Viktor E. Frankl - Man's Search for Meaning
Hello and welcome to the Moonshots Podcast. It's episode 211. I'm your co-host Mike Parsons, and as always, I'm joined by Mark. Pearson Freeland. Good morning, mark.
Good morning, Mike and good morning listeners and members. We have sadly come to the end of our Wisdom series on the Moonshot Show. But Mike, I'm not gonna lie to you, we do have a pretty inspirational and revealing episode as part of episode 211 today.
I think you might be saying that we are bringing it home strong. We're wrapping up in a good way.
That's right. Listeners and members we. Finishing off and completing our current series on Wisdom with Victor e Frankel's. Man's Search for Meaning an Incredibly, and I think it's a little bit of an understatement, Mike, to even use the word incredible, incredibly inspirational as well as powerful autobiographical account of Franco's experience, as well as the application of his trademark therapy Luo therapy.
During the imprisonment that he experienced in Vienna, Austria during World War ii, and without going into all of the history, Mike, I think the invitation that perhaps we're gonna have for today's show and how we're connecting it into the world of wisdom and moonshots learning out loud is really the application I think of.
Going through something that's very tough and being able to survive through it, don't you think? Yeah. It was, his life story is epic. This is definitely, top shelf on the moonshots, a library. If you enjoyed Grit by Angela Duckworth, Victor e Frankl's book, this Man's Search for meaning is an old time classy.
So if you want to find. The capacity to keep going when challenge comes your way. This is your book, and today we are going to break it down. We're gonna tear it apart. We're gonna decode what Victor Frankl has to teach us, and we are gonna try our damn best to apply it into our lives. So whether you are at work or at home and you are looking to lift your game to push through, The challenge, the discomfort.
Then this is the book for you, the amazing testimony he has for surviving a concentration camp. The observations he has from his own survival. He lost everyone. I'm saying he lost his wife in the concentration camp, his family, his parents. And he still found meaning, he then became a profound contributor to science, medicine and the art of wellbeing.
So if you wanna find. A little bit of extra over this vacation and holiday break. This book will set you up. It will lift you up and give you a reason for being, and it will show you how to do it. Mark, I am so excited about this one.
I couldn't agree more, Mike, and I think to build upon your epic introduction, we can only really hand over to Victor e Frankel himself, who's gonna continue introducing today's show, episode 211.
And discuss one of the biggest insights and ideas that he experienced and wrote about within his book, man, search For Meaning. And that's all about how you can find meaning in despair.
Let me present you, confront you with a somewhat strange definition of despair as I'm used to proclaim is that despair can.
Explained in terms of a mathematical equation, D. Capital B equals S minus M. What does it mean? Despair is suffering without meaning. As long as an individual cannot find, cannot see any meaning in his or her. He or she will certainly be. To, in its suffering. I wanted to say no meaning in the suffering. He or she will her will certainly be prone to despair and under certain conditions to suicide, but at the moment, they can see a meaning in their suffering.
They can mold it into an achievement, into they can mold their predicament into an accomplishment on the human. They can turn their tragedies into a personal triumph, but they must know for what should I do with it? But if people, like so many segments of present day society and population cannot find any meaning whatsoever in their lives, cannot see anything meaningful, they more often than not have to to something to live.
I say at least enough to live by. We cannot see anything to live for. What is the answer to the question? Why me? Why did this happen to me? The answer to such a question is nothing that a psychiatrist or any other type of a scientist can come up, but. Would not share the opinion of s Jean who said We have to accept and to shoulder courageously heroically the absolute meaninglessness of our lives.
But what I think is rather that what we have to accept is the incapacity. Our, of our humanness, the incapacity, to recognize the ultimate meaning in intellectual or merely rational terms. This is the only thing we have to accept, but still we may believe. In a, in ultimate meaning, but to lead someone, say a patient, to to e the way for him to such a belief to faith is of course not a business or job to be carried out by a psychiatrist, but rather by a theologian.
What this is. Victor Frankel laying it on for us here. Matt, there is so much inside. It is. I don't know where to go with it. It's so full of ideas whether you look at amazing athletic performances that seem to defy human capacity. As examples, if you look at Victor Frankl's own story, or if you look at some of the inspiring people that we have studied on this show, I think we see so many people encountering hardship, challenge despair.
They're getting so uncomfortable and finding meaning in it to me. There's so many places to go of all that spectrum. Mark, where do you process this story, this idea from Victor Frankel?
I think you're right. There's a lot of connections and threads that we can build to a number of different individuals as well as series that we've done.
But for me, Mike, based on Victor Franco, Equation that he shared right at the very beginning. D equals M minus s despair equals suffering without meeting. Meaning actually leads me back towards our happiness series and tbe shahaz the Science of Happiness, even Neil Pus reaches the Happiness Equation.
The idea that you can apply a mathematical or scientific almost application towards interpreting what you experience in your life. Almost not gamified, but at least put it in perspective and put it in the awareness and the memory that everything does move on. You're not stuck in one mindset or one situation forever.
You can enter an another level, let's call it, depending on how you interact and interpret that situation. I think. Invitation that Franco's really, or the call out that Franco's really giving us in that first introduction clip is the fact. Don't accept that life is meaningless, right?
Instead, think about it as a, an opportunity to try and go out and learn something from it. C, either A, the meaning in a certain experience, or B, work on creating a meaning for yourself that then allows you. To get through those
challenges. So when we talk about finding a meaning in life, what are some of the practical examples that you've seen which have inspired you, where you're like, ah, they have meaning, they have purpose.
Like, where do we see this? I saw that particularly when we were doing the Dar Lama show on the the Art of Happiness, that Handbook for Living, where the Dar lama broke down the idea of your brain, as well as the concept of happiness as a muscle. And the more you work out a muscle, whether it's going for a run, lifting heavy weights, it can get stronger.
And what I liked about that analogy is that if you go out and practice, let's say gratitude, and you notice, oh, I love it when the sky is this blue, the next time you see the sky is that blue, you think, oh wow. I really do the fact that the sky is blue. And that concept to me is a great demonstration of how you can take owner.
Of your happiness. It's not a disconnected and the same, I think is true with despair, which is where Franco, I think is taking us in his autobiographical book. It isn't something that you just experience and can't control. You can actually influence, your emotions, whether they are happiness or whether they are despair to a certain degree based on how you are interpret.
Things around you. So when I am learning from the Dalai Lama with regards to happiness, when I'm learning from Victory Frankl with regards to despair and finding meaning, I think they're both great examples of how you can step back and take control of how your brain reacts to those events within your life that perhaps feel like you're totally outta.
Maybe you're in some kind of spiral or you dunno which way is up, but actually you can control to a certain degree how you are going to react and take action against them. Yeah. It's the power and the choice that comes with saying, I'm gonna focus on the things I control. I'm gonna have a growth mindset and embrace challenge knowing it's part of the equation.
And I think also setting our objectives to. Goals and objectives that have real meaning for us, real impact and create good vibes with others, like doing things that matter that help support, inspire or entertain other people. This has to be part of the equation. We're gonna tear it all down. We're gonna understand what it takes and the whole system that Frankel.
Presents to us, but the first step we're gonna take, I think Mark would only be fitting it, which is to a bit of a tip of the hat to our ever-growing cohort of Patreon members. Look, these Paton members, Mike, they're the individuals that we wanna extend. Huge thanks. A support, love and appreciation to, aren't they?
So please welcome Bob John, Terry Kenmar, Byron Marja, and Connor and Yasmin our PAT members for over 12 months now. Again, as usual, hot on their heels are our other members and subscribers, including Lisa Sead, Mr. Bonura and Paul Berg Cowman, David and Joe Crystal, Ivo Christian and Hurricane Brain, Sam Kelly, Barbara and Andre.
Matthew, Eric, Abby, Chris, Deborah, Lassie, Craig and Daniel, Andrew, Ravi, Yvette and L gv. Raul, PJ niwa, and Ola Ingram. Sarah, Dirk, Emily, Harry Catholic, Vanatta, Vira, Marco, and a brand new member. Sunis. Thank you so much. For everybody who's continuing to support us and brand new high Fives and appreciation to Sundi for joining us on the Moonshot journey.
Yeah. Welcome. And we are eternally grateful for your choice to support us, and the great news is you also have a choice when it comes to thinking. Feeling and perceiving the world around us. So let's continue our adventure into the work of victory. Frankel Man's search for meeting. Kill a book. Get it on your Christmas hamper right now, because we're gonna hear from Wisdom for Life, and they're gonna bring to life this idea that you have a choice.
You always have a choice between stimulus and response. There's a gap, and in that gap is the ability to choose how you respond to any given situation. There'll always be external forces acting upon you that you can't control, such as the traffic, weather and so on. What you can control are those internal forces.
Your response, never forget that you have the freedom to choose your reaction. It doesn't matter what life throws your way. What matters is how you respond to the situation. It's your attitude towards your existence that makes all the difference. And in the words of Vitor Frankl, everything can be taken from a man.
But one thing, the last of the human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way, you and you alone decide what your life will be in the next moment. Man is capable of changing the world and can change himself for the better. You have the freedom to change at any instant, even in a concentration camp where you have no freedom at all, you can behave like a swine or a saint.
Which one depends on decisions, not on conditions. Let's look at an example from the book. A man's wife died and he was depressed. So the doctor asked him, what if it was your wife that died? She would suffer. No. He says, oh, yes she would. The doctor says, okay, then you are the one to take on the suffering instead of her.
Isn't that what you would prefer? The man says, yes, of course. So that's an interesting way to look at the suffering. Did the situation change? No. The only thing that changed was the old man's attitude towards the situation. That's a great example of someone finding meaning in suffering by changing how they respond to the circumstance.
It's not about your situation, it's about your attitude towards your circumstances. When we are no longer able to change the situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Mike, this is a huge insight and it's one that I think we've encountered within the Wisdom Series, but even on the Moonshot Show, outside of our current series, and in fact, I'm callbacks specifically to the stoics and the work that we did on Ryan Holiday, the ability to control one's attitude when perhaps something goes wrong in our day-to-day.
Let's say in my case, I might get an email or a telephone call, or I might be in a meeting and it doesn't quite go right, or maybe I'm out and about. I get a bad coffee, somebody cuts me off on the, in the middle of the road, whatever it might be, or the bus drive straight past and doesn't stop for me. I can choose to become.
Pretty grumpy. Maybe blame other people. Maybe. In fact, it goes one step further and that action, maybe a bus driving past without stopping from me can then mean I am grumpy to my colleagues or my wife or my family later. Those things are being influenced by somebody else's behavior and they are changing my attitude and probably the way that I would normally interact with a certain example.
They're ultimately changing my person. To a certain degree what Franco's really calling out and wisdom for life is helping articulate in that clip is the fact that you can't take away somebody's attitude if that individual chooses to maintain their attitude no matter what the situation. So I think that's a really big call out straight away, don't you think?
I cannot even begin to tell you personally how much I've had to wrestle with this one, because you have a choice and it is like an intersection. You can say, I'm gonna blame the world, be angry at the world, be angry at others for the situations that I'm in. Or I can say, This challenge was meant to come my way.
I will be stronger as a result, which is total Zaha ha did one of my favorite shows we've ever done. She took all the challenges in life and said, they are literally building this kind of code of armor on me. I'm getting stronger. This is very much like Goggins and I think that the simple little moments that I have where I have a choice, I had this the other day.
Had a busy day and I wasn't running. It was only a walk day. So I went to my favorite cafe, grabbed a coffee. I was walking, drinking coffee spills and coffee, and I got angry. And man, it's just I didn't even spill the whole lot. It was just like a little bit, I didn't even get it on me. And it didn't go on any of my clothes.
It literally got on maybe two fingers. And you know what? I was so angry. , , and I know we all do this, but that was a choice. At least I have the awareness now. I caught myself in the moment. Mike, get over it. It's just coffee. But the point is, that's like just one little thing in life where you can just, c, we can giggle about it, can't we?
But whether it's spilled coffee or spilled milk, it doesn't change when we talk about when challenge adversity. When discomfort comes our way, we do have a choice to say, Hey, I'm embracing this cuz this is part of where I'm going. This is what I need to get done. Not hitting the snooze alarm.
It's a choice. Choosing daring to step into the arena as Brene Brown would have us do that is a choice. I cannot even I have to go back to this daily and weekly to make sure that I'm being the best version of myself and not taking the easy path, the path of where I'm like, eh, it doesn't matter. Oh, I don't have to do that.
I've done so much this year. Who needs to work hard today? But if I have a mission that's calling, That I should get up and not hit the snooze button. I should do the work, whether it's easy, hard, or everything in between. It is a fundamental choice that we all have in front of us, and I think a lot of the time we fail, especially in our younger years, to appreciate that there is even this choice available to us.
Yeah I couldn't agree more. I think similarly to some of the insights we found on the show, there's a lot of elements within life that you never get taught as a child. And even in your young career. It's only through the appreciation and digging into, these books and these life lessons and learning out loud perhaps.
Certainly for me, the ways that I can learn about these different mindsets and behaviors, and I think you're totally right, Mike. There's been plenty of times, whether it's coffee or whether it's an accident that's happened or whether it's just inspiring or motivating myself to go out and work hard today.
It's a daily struggle for all of us and the way that I like to try and expose myself to those opportunities for. As Kara DW would call out is through. Trying to do something new each day. We've spoken about mantras, we've spoken about things that inspire us each day and make sure that we stay on track with what we're trying to do.
One of my goals, one of my reasons for meaning, I suppose you could say, is to try and be exposed to something new each day. Maybe that's an extra long cold shower. Something very simple. Maybe it's going out and speaking to a. Or speaking to an individual that I haven't interacted with before.
Or maybe it's just looking up something new on the internet. Maybe it's YouTube, whatever it might be. Trying to keep my brain ticking over is a way that I find a bit of meaning in my life because not only do I enjoy it, but it means that when I do come up against, let's say with cold water, the opportunity of getting back into the ocean, ooh, it's a bit cold.
I'm somehow stronger because I have experienced it a little bit more. I've done a little bit of practice.
Exactly, Exactly. And I think once you know that you have a choice on how you wish to perceive events and things that come towards you, you are making one step towards satisfaction, fulfillment, reframing life.
And maybe as we're about to hear, you'll be on track for just a little happiness.
Victor Franklin, he says again and again, I therefore admonish my students in Europe and America. Don't aim at success. The more you aim at it and make it a target, the more you are going to miss it. For success, like happiness cannot be pursued.
It must ensu, and it only does so as the unintended consequence, unintended side effect of one's personal, dedicat. To a cause greater than oneself or as the byproduct of one surrender to a person other than oneself, happiness must happen, and the same holds for success. You have to let it happen by not caring about it.
I want you to listen to what your conscience commands you to do and go on to carry it out to the best of your. Then you will live to see that in the long run. In the long run, I say Success will follow you precisely because you had forgotten to think about it.
It's amazing. So this idea that success cannot be pursued, it must ensu from our commitment to something bigger than ourselves.
We talk about this again and. We're not gonna go into details on that right now, but I will suggest what is it that you're committed to Think about that? What's the thing you're committed to more than anything? And we can go after success and we'll get a certain amount of success. We won't have the true deep sense of joy and fulfillment and a deep connection to our highest source unless we're committed to something bigger than ourselves and our own little success.
And the irony is, in my own experience, as we commit to this thing that's bigger than us, giving our gifts to the world and greatest service to the world.
Oh, Mike, there's only one word that's really coming through in Brian Johnson's breakdown of Viktor Frankl there, and that's the idea of legacy, isn't it?
Yeah. What are you committing to that's bigger than yourself? I, this is if, for our listeners who are probably tuning into this, just before the vacation holiday, Christmas break it's a big question and I think it's a perfect thing to reflect upon as you transition into a new. What are you committing to?
What outcomes, what impact? As you said Matt, what legacy do you wish to have? How do you want to be remembered? What's the thing that you want people to recall? It's a great way to gauge, am I on track or not? Am I fighting for the right thing or not? And when you really hold that deep conviction for this thing that you are committing to, it could.
Something athletic, an athletic goal, maybe a big swim or a big run. Maybe it's just I'm gonna get up every single morning at six o'clock and go for a walk. It doesn't matter. Whatever you are committing to, whether it's the impact of your work, your craft, your art, the story that you need to tell, the impact or the service that you are to others in this world, whatever it is, coming back to that, writing about it, journaling about it, sharing it, making sure that you are present and committed in that cause or impact that you wish to have becomes.
By stealth, the path to feeling satisfied with your day, fulfilled with your week, and maybe when you reflect on your year, you think I'm really happy with this year. I'm feeling pretty good about it because you did work that matters. And that's how when you know you are doing work that matters, you don't hit the snooze alarm, you get the hell outta bed and do the work.
You grind it 1% better every day. It is impossible, I believe, mark, to continue grinding it out. Getting up early, like you jumping in the water when it's really fresh and swimming. You cannot continue to do that if you're not fighting for something bigger. And I think that. What a gift in the work of Victor.
I think you're totally right, and I think I, again, I'm hearing the connection back to somebody like Neil Pacha and Neil PA's happiness equation had this idea about wanting nothing and working hard doing anything. In order to eventually have everything, and I think there's a shared concept, an insight here, which is a, don't aim at that success, or as Brian calls out, don't aim out happiness because it will be a byproduct of going out without perhaps expectations and just doing the grind.
But in order to do the grind, in order to stay motivated, I think you're totally right. Having a the meaning and having a reason for continuing is exactly how Vitor Frankl would've searched gone through this idea of the meaning behind the suffering and despair is the only reason why he was able to stay motivated enough to get through the experience and then write about it and create a piece of work for us and.
Here's some of the crazy things, mark. He was given a way to escape the concentration camp, but declined the opportunity because it was too important to care as a doctor for the other people still in the camp. How insane is that? Talk about fighting for something bigger, committing to a bigger idea than yourself.
He gave up freedom to serve the other in.
Yeah that selflessness holy smoke is a pure moment of legacy, isn't it? Oh, that's something that he can look back at during the rest of his life and know that he dug in deep, worked hard, and that's something that I think we're all striving to. To try and do, isn't it?
To try and be the best version of ourselves. Now mark, we actually did a whole master series on finding purpose, and we've done lots of shows and there is a place out there far away on the wide world of the internet where you can access all of that. Isn't that right?
You could say it's a location sitting up on top of the moon, and that's a place called www.moonshots.io where you can go and listen to all of our latest episodes members.
You can find our show docs and notes. You can find reading lists, host information. Eventually even become a member. And if you become a member, you can dig into our master series. You can listen to our breakdowns on the wisdom of the stoics, on goals, as well as lean startups, and even happiness, Mike.
And we also dug in deep into the idea of shared visions and this idea of finding your goals. But you can only do that by popping along to www on moonshots.io signing up and also checking. What else is to come in the future?
Yes, so head of moonshot.io, you will get everything you need to make that choice, as Victor Frankel would say, to choose your perception.
There's so much inspiration there. We have a whole master series unhappiness on purpose. Become a member. You can get access to the Moonshot Master Series. We got so much going on over@moonshots.io and we've got a lot going on this show. Mark. Just to recap, we are breaking down the work of Victor e Frankel, his book.
Man, search for meaning and it is one epically hugely popular. It just, it is a timeless classic. It's one of our favorites in the moonshots library. And we have realized through his work that it's all a choice. We can perceive the things around us however we want. We can embrace discomfort, challenge, we can overcome all of the challenges that come our way.
And if we commit to something bigger than ourselves, satisfaction, fulfillment, in a dash of happiness, it's all there for the taking. So this brings us to a very important point, which is purpose. How do we have a purpose? And the great news is Mark, we have a great clip from always Improving on YouTube, and they're breaking down the work of Victory Frankel and answering the notion, the calling for having a purpose.
He has a why to live. Can bear with almost any how VI Franco got through the terrible time in the concentration camp because he knew he would take what he was learning from the situation and write a book. He knew that book would really help others. He chose to focus on how he was going to help other people because of the situation he was in, and he didn't focus on the terrible things that were happening around him.
He thought of something bigger than himself. The way other prisoners got through the camp was to be extremely generous, giving away some of their future of the prisoners. This would give them a huge sense of purpose. These prisoners gave themselves a real purpose, a reason to keep going. They had a big why, because they were staying positive for other prisoners.
When you are working towards something, you'll find it much easier to keep going if your main aim is something bigger than. . Big insight there, Mike, from always improving, breaking down victory. Frankl's Insight here, and I love this this call out, the idea that if what will, help others, or if you know what your wire is, that's much bigger than just yourself, making money or driving a nice car.
Whatever you are doing that is much bigger than. That then inspires not only yourself, but even perhaps, I think what I'm hearing in that clip is you can inspire other people to do a similar piece of behavior as well, and that helps the group community, whether it's individuals who you are working with, maybe it's your family or even your neighbors, you can all go through it together and I'd, I quite like that little connection there as well.
Is that something that was standing out to you in that clip, this idea of community connections?
It just instantly makes me go to the work of Simon Sinek and start with why and this, how good is this? He who has a why to live can bear almost any how and. It just corresponds so nicely with the work of Simon Sinek, who's people don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it.
And when he says buy, it's bigger than just a purchase in retail. He's saying people get into, you want to be with, you want to be around your company, your brand, if they are energized by the bigger mission. Because if there's a bigger mission that's not just about you. But about them or perhaps about us if we really raise it up, this is when people.
Get excited. They become fans or friends professionally, personally, if you are clear on this mission as an individual or a brand or a business, there is so much to get from it. Think about it. A company that's got a really exciting mission and vision and the impact they want to have in the world has a much easier time recruiting people than those that don't.
People who want to live a happy, healthy life, they're just great to be around, aren't they? Yeah
exactly. And I think you are this build on Simon Sinex y is an interesting connection, isn't it? Because what we're now understanding and learning is that the essential concept around struggle is.
Transferable perhaps into this idea of entrepreneurship and business. And you are all, any business is probably going to have struggles with compe competition or finances or dealing with managing people and so on. Unless you have a. Core direction that you are working towards as a business. And we dove into this in our Achieving Your Goals series as well with OKRs and managing the directions of KPIs and so on.
I think what I'm hearing from that connection, Mike, is without a why. Nothing, whether it's business or personal, can really function to the best of its ability. Unless you have a meaning without, unless you have a purpose. Unless any of us have something that we are getting up in the morning to go out and do.
What do what, what inspires us? What motivates us to, to do anything. Yeah. And you
know what? As you're talking there, Mike, where my brain goes is, oh, hang on a second. There's a real aha for me. If you don't have a purpose, as soon as the struggle comes, you are tempting the gods of self-doubt.
Because let's think about it. If you are pursuing something that's hard, but you don't really believe, You're not really committed to it. The hardship starts and then you're like, oh man, this is really hard. I'm not sure if I can put in the energy. If I don't put in the energy, I'm gonna look stupid to others cuz this ain't gonna work.
And this really I cannot begin to tell you how much, when I was young, I was avoiding. Doing the hard work, avoiding the struggle for fear of failing publicly. And so when I reflect on this, here's the interesting thing. When you really gave it everything you got, because you really cared about it, the outcome is like the technical outcome is.
Marginal in the end because you left it all on the field to use a great sporting analogy. You gave it everything you got, so you know, you worked hard, you couldn't have worked any harder. Things will be what they will be and you accept those, but it's when you haven't signed up. In your heart for something when you haven't signed up and committed it to your mind, into your habits.
As soon as the rough waves come, you abandon ship and go back to shore, don't you ?
Yeah. And actually to build on that, Mike w for me, in my career particularly when I was younger, I struggled with. Understanding what the point of doing, a particular job was because I didn't have the meaning.
I didn't have the purpose. So the feeling of not knowing what you're trying to work towards, the feeling of not really knowing why you're doing something is a, an incredible Very easy path to follow, to feel dissatisfied. Everything might be great. You might be getting maybe good friends, good relationships, maybe even good money, but not really having a direction in your mind that you are comfortable with.
And this is something I never really worked on. Again, going back to the idea that you don't really learn about this stuff until you perhaps have exposure to, to these lessons from individuals such as Victory Franco, without having. The advice to go out and be satisfied with the direction that you've carved out for yourself.
You don't really go and do anything. There's no meaning, there's no inspiration. There's no motivation to go out and try and work on yourself or go and do a race or go out and work your hardest. You just floundered down. Yeah.
So this, what are you fighting for? What are you committed to that's just bigger than you.
Said differently. Are you really striving to have impact on people around you? Are you looking to bring some positivity, some life improvement or solving a problem that others have? This is like profoundly important if you want to be the very best version of yourself. Not in the future, but I'm just talking.
If you wanna wake. With some energy, some juice in the engine, and ready to go every day. You have to have this because we know life is full of compromises, mistakes and learnings, and if you don't have this inner driving force of will commitment, mission, and vision to something beyond yourself, you are gonna be halfway out to sea.
The seas are gonna get big. You're gonna turn around, you're gonna come in and say, forget it. I'm not navigating this one. And if we don't make the choice, For vision, mission, impact, and purpose, we're gonna be sitting on the shore watching others sail out and feeling not so great about the world. , I'm guessing
back
Yeah, exactly. Without that inspiration or guidance, yeah. You're not gonna find a reason to be patient with others to go out and do your best work, if anything, for me. It goes back to the blame game. Yeah. The easy route is to point the finger and blame somebody else.
I think if you, and we all, and the first thing here, and this has been a big theme on the Wisdom Series, everybody faces self-doubt.
Everybody is prone to judgment or questioning themselves. Those that succeed get through. So again, David Goggins talks about how hard it is to get out and go for a run sometimes, and I'm really glad to hear that because he does some big runs like hundred miles, hundred 50 miles. So the difference between Michael I'm gonna stop.
The difference for fuck sake. Hang on one sec, The difference is that when you have this. Energy force that you've decided to have of purpose, you will every day stick to it. Get a little bit better Every day, you will get more and more ambitious in your goals, in your dreams, cuz you will uncover the potential that lies within us. And that is that we have these choices and if we fight for something big, we can do something big every single day.
Mark. I think this is really exciting because this is reaffirming to us at a really important time as you transitioned into a new year to ask ourselves, what are we really finding for writing down our purpose, sharing our purpose, going to the Moonshot's Archive and listening to the old shows about purpose.
This is one big refresh on our why.
I think you're totally right, Mike. It is a timely moment if ever there was one to pick up that journal, pick up your icky guy, revisit the shows that we've done on finding. Finding why exactly. Th this is it. And again, it's something that we've really delved into within this wisdom show series, Mike.
If unless you really have that confidence and comfort, then you are not really going to go out and give it your best go. And for me, it's certainly something that. I need to revisit quite regularly, and the great news is you can, if you write it down, I've got goals for 2023. I had goals for 2022 that I'll try and write.
I haven't written my 2023 yet. I need to do it before before the beginning of the year, just guiding principles, things that I might want to consider, maybe things I've been putting off for a while, or behaviors that I want to have for those who I'm collaborating with or who are around me all the time.
Revisiting them, whether they're in a journal or on your phone. They can be great signposts as you go down. That journey. That journey like we found out on the Wisdom Series with Don Miguel Rs, the four Agreement Wisdom book. I think it's a wonderful little narrative story of going down the root of life.
But actually, Mike, we're a role on that root of life. We can all choose which paths to take and. Those guiding principles are what keeps you on the right path. Yeah. So
on that note it is only fitting that we return to Victor Frankl himself and see what he has to say about, getting comforta, getting comfortable with discomfort, maybe embracing the hardship.
So here is for the final time, Victor Franco, giving some thoughtful advice to youngster. Most of us have never been in the concentration camp experience. We've never had to go through that horror and tragedy. And so one would think that today it would be easier to find meaning in life, and yet I sense that it's more difficult in a sense today than it was in years past.
Do you think that you are absolutely right. So why is that? Because we are living in a society. Either in terms of an affluent society or in terms of a welfare state as we in Austria are living in anyway, these types of societies virtually, or at least they are out virtually to satisfy and gratify each and every human.
Except for one need, the most basic and fundamental need operating man, the need for meaning consumer societies, even creating needs, but the need for meaning, or as I'm used to referring to it, the way to meaning remains unfulfilled. It's what I'm used to as calling recently. The unheard cry for meaning you scarcely will find any reference to what is the most fundamental and basic concern of man.
Neither pleasure nor happiness, nor power, prestige, but originally and basically his wish, his desire to find and fulfill a meaning in his life or for that matter. in each single life situation confronting him. And if there is a meaning to fulfill, if he's aware if he becomes cognizant of such a meaning, then he's ready to suffer.
, he's ready to offer sacrifices. He's ready to undergo tension, stress, and so forth without any harm being done to his But if there is no meaning available, no meaning in in in his visual field, then he takes his life. Can you imagine a situation for a human being which is more full of stress than Auschwitz?
and virtually all erotic symptomatology disappeared in Auschwitz, and the degree to which suicide took place in Auschwitz and Tako was astonishingly surprisingly low. On the other hand, in the welfare state of Austria, a teacher showed me a list of question. His students, his pupils were allowed to ask him.
And what was top ranking on the list as to the frequency of the questions? Suicide among youngsters of 14 to 15 years of age in a welfare state such as. suicide, there were virtually no stress or tensions because they are pampered. , nobody allows himself to challenge them. What young people need are ideals and challenges, personal tasks and to begin with in the first place.
Examples, personal examples. But not the cowards who coward. People who don't venture to confront them with anything because they might become angry because they are challenged. Neither parents nor school teachers are courageous enough to challenge them. Don't ause tensions. Don't create tensions.
Don't put stress. . See, people are today. They're not over demanded. They are under demanded.
Mike a meaty, confronting, but appropriate closer and outro clip for our episode on Victory Frankl's Man, search for Meaning. I think the key thing for me, Mike, as we come to condense what we've learned from this book is the connection with the growth mindset.
Oh yeah. And as Victor Franco's calling out that clip, the meaning of. In to condense. I think what he's saying, the meaning of life is to actually train yourself to find meaning in every moment of life. And when you have. Got to that state. And what I mean by that is to find meaning in sitting down and recording a podcast or finding meaning in taking the dog for a walk, or finding meaning in waiting in line for a coffee or the bus, or the meaning in a stressful email coming in from somebody at work.
If you can get to that level, then suddenly everyth. That you encounter is something to to be passed. Nothing is permanent because you can look at stressful moments as well as happy moments, as opportunities that, just come up. There's no blame game, there's no poor me. It's just an event that you are going along with.
It's like the waves on of an ocean. Listen, you're just riding.
Isn't the crazy though for him to talk about? All these people living in comfort having a higher suicide rate than Auschwitz or some concentration camp. And it is like the ultimate scientific test of you need to be fighting for something and you will be amazed at your own fortitude.
And capacity. This is what David Goins talks about so much. We don't even realize what we can do until we put our mind to something, until we fight for something. And I think that if we want to have an alert system, if it should be this. If we're getting too comfy, if it's all getting too easy, there's no stretch goals.
They talk about good OKRs being those that have real stretch, like you should never achieve all of your objectives and key results because then you've set it too easy. There's always gotta be a bit of stretch. Likewise, there's always gotta be a little bit of discomfort because that's when you are growing.
If you're going to the gym and you never saw after it, then you would question, am I working out enough? Yeah, exactly. So surely the same goes with life and that's what we've just learned. Beautiful.
What a great call to action as we end this wisdom series from Victory Franco saying to all of us. Go out and embrace those difficult moments because that is when you are growing, that's when you are stretching those muscles.
That's when you are adapting so that you are better at the fight or flight or just putting up with challenges and obstacles. What a great call to
action, Mike. Beautiful piece of work. Mark, I want ask you, out of all of the things we could take from Victor Frankel's work, what's gonna get your attention?
What's gonna get your follow up?
I think the core piece for me is the idea of agreeing a meaning. The concept of having a meaning and a why, and a reason for going out and being the core focus so that I can. Always, stay on the right path, but also interpret obstacles as moments to just become maybe a little bit better and a little bit stronger at that ultimate goal of why.
What about you, Mike? What's standing out from today's
show? Uh, I think as we're doing the show, it just is screaming to me that I need to refresh, rewrite my purpose. I need to remind myself of it. I need to bring it to life and do some work on that so that I have the ultimate turbo charge, which is fighting for something bigger than myself.
Some good homework for all of us. I want to thank you, mark, for your contribution as we studied the work today of Victor e Frankel. But more importantly, I want to thank you, our listeners and members for joining Mark and I on this journey into Man's Search for Meaning Show 211, studying the work of Victor.
E Frankl. And boy, what a show it was. And it began with this idea as there is meaning in everything, even in despair. And we have a choice. We have the freedom to choose how we react to any situation. And if we do that Frankl's idea, Of consciousness and success comes through the commitment. Fighting for something bigger than ourselves said differently.
We must have a purpose because it's the ultimate energy source. Because as life is known to do, it will bring us challenge and we shall overcome because we're gonna learn out loud together. We're gonna be the best version of ourselves, and that's what we can do together here on the Moonshots podcast.
Okay, that's a wrap.