Sit & Talk: The Strangest Secret

We unpack Earl Nightingale’s “Strangest Secret” and connect it to personal development, goal setting, and the everyday thoughts that shape our direction. We challenge conformity as a quiet reason people feel stuck and we lay out a clearer way to define success that can evolve as we grow. 
• why “personal development” fits better than “self-help” 
• Earl Nightingale’s core idea that thoughts drive outcomes 
• success as the progressive realization of a worthy ideal 
• how conformity gets trained through school and social expectations 
• rethinking college and career paths without autopilot choices 
• choosing fitness habits you will actually repeat 
• why goals matter and what “coasting” looks like 
• the farmland metaphor for planting nourishing thoughts 

https://aarondegler.com/

Transcript

Welcome And Weekly Format

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Sit and Talk. Thank you so much for joining us today. If this is your first time for Sit and Talk, each week we just join our live call to discuss a different mental health topic that we can work on, we can make better at, we can improve on. I mean how we apply that to our everyday life. So let's join our live call. We're going to talk a little bit about the strangest secret in the world. It was actually by a guy named Earl Nightingale. Probably nobody has heard of Earl Nightingale. And basically, he was kind of of the day and age now that we would call the OG. What we would call then, I mean what they called it is self-help. And you and probably when you go to a bookstore, probably even you see it now. If anybody's been to a bookstore, I don't know if last time anybody was probably at a bookstore, but if you do go, they have all the different titles of the different books, you know, of the different categories. And Earl Nightingale, the strangest secret in the world, would be under self-help. That's really what they called it then. Earl Nightingale was a, he put out a record, it was on a record, a vinyl record. I mean the 50s, it was early 50s, I think 52, 53. And it was really called the Strangest Secret in the World. There was one side which was the strangest secret. And actually, if you flipped it over, there was actually a test that you could do to test out this secret. You can actually find the strangest secret part one on YouTube, and you can find part two on YouTube. Both very interesting. They're both about 30 minutes or so, but very interesting. Sounds like just a came off record player. But self-help, I'm not a big fan of the term self-help. Because basically, when you help someone, you know, if you think about helping someone, you just help them in that moment. If you help somebody move, you're just helping them in that time. If you help somebody up some stairs, you just help them in that moment. If you help somebody that ran out of gas, you just help them in that moment. So really that's what I kind of think of when I think of self-help. So, you know, you're not when we when we talk about these things and we talk about all the different things we talk about on sit and talk, walk and talk, it's not really about helping in the moment. It's really about development. So instead of self-help, I really like the term personal development. Because when you think of a development, if you think of a housing development, you think of new structures going up, things changing, looking different, the landscape looking different. And over time, you know, if if you've watched Back to the Future as he goes back to his neighborhood, it changes over time. It's redeveloped, it's torn down, bigger things, different things. And that's really kind of what we should be doing on an ongoing basis, is developing and developing ourselves so that we have ideas. Maybe there's some things that we challenge, and so we have some new ideas, and we change those things. So it's a little bit, it's a development over time. We develop over time, which is kind of what we should do. So, so a lot of times um we hear self-help a lot, but I really think personal development is a better term. So, in we're gonna talk go over a little bit about what was on side A of the record back in 1952. And and again, think about the time in the 50s when Nightingale recorded this and talked about it. It was really the time of in the 50s was men would go to work, women would typically stay home and take care of the household, the kids, those sort of things. So when a lot of times when he he talks about in this record, in this recording, he's referring to men. And I think as it still very applies today, but I think it applies to all of us. And so as we in Think and Grow Rich, it was a book written in the 30s by Napoleon Hill. Again, in that Think and Grow Rich, he talked about how to make money, how to get rich financially. And I think you can use those same principles and in that Napoleon writes about Think and Grow Rich in the same, and you can use them in anything. Whatever you consider to be riches, you can use those principles towards that. And it can be any one of those. It can be financial, it can be emotional, it can be spiritual, it can be physical, whatever those are, you can use those things he writes about in that. So the same is true kind of with Nightingale. So on there, he had there was an interview with Albert Schweitzer at the time, he was a theologian, and he asked, What was wrong with men? And and I think we can generalize this now as we might say the human population in general. And his answer was men don't think. And and I think that goes a lot of times for a lot of us, that we don't think. Because even in the Bible it says, as a man thinketh, so is he. And that's so true that you know what we think about is what we become, what we do. So Nightingale kind of talked about what is success, and I and there's several different, we have about 10 or 12 on here. And if I asked each one of you what your definition of success was, you'd probably give me different answers. Maybe one or two are pretty similar, but I bet they'd all kind of be different in different ways. And and I kind of liked how he described what is success, because I think no matter what we believe success is, whether it's financial, whether it is relationships, whatever it is, we can apply this definition of success. And really he said it's the progressive realization of a worthy ideal. So your worthy ideal, what is it? Is it financial? Is it connection? Is it spiritual? Is it emotional? What is your worthy ideal? And then it's the progressive realization. Just like personal development, it's developing over time. We're developing ourselves. A progressive realization is it progresses just like if we do a progressive run. What does that mean? Every little bit we get faster, or every little bit we go up a hill. It's progressive. And the same thing is true for us. It's a progressive realization of a worthy ideal. So that may change over time, the realization of what that worthy ideal is. It's progressive. And I think that's a really good definition that that when we it allows the definition of success to change as we change. So it's not a set fundamental definition of success. I mean, next week we're even going to talk more about the definition of success. We're going to go a little bit deeper into that and what that looks like. And also he talked about Nightingale talked about why are so many people unsuccessful? Whatever they believe is success, and whatever that ideology is to each one of us. He said, Why are so many people unsuccessful? And it wasn't because of lack of courage or coward cowardice, but really it was because of conformity. When we conform to the things that we're really taught, think about the things we're taught over time. What do we do typically at age four or five? Really, now it might even be three, three or four. What do we typically do? Where do we go?

SPEAKER_01 8:11

Go to school.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

We go to school. Exactly. So we might be, we might have kiddos, little ones that are three that we send them to preschool a couple days a week. And then they turn four and then they go to a five-day program. And then they turn five years old. Now they're in kindergarten. And so what are we, what are we really teaching them? We're teaching them you clock in at this time, you clock out at this time. And and when really school was designed like that, it was really during the industrial age. And what was needed during the industrial age? Factory workers. How do you train good factory workers from a young age? You send them to school, you teach them that there's people that you have to clock in, you have to be at school at a certain time, you get out at a certain time, you got to listen to your teachers, all these things, because then when you get into a factory, you gotta clock in, you clock out, you get some breaks, you gotta listen to your boss, all of those things. It's conformity. And and conformity is really acting like everyone else. I listened to this interview. He was interviewing this. This he's a cowboy, he trains horses, but he's really kind of, I love his ideas, I love his thoughts. But the interview asked him, he said, What do you think about kids going to school at five years old? He said, I think it's the dumbest thing in the world. He said, But why? He said they learn how to read, they learn how to begin to write. He said, Yes, but they leave, they don't get the experiences. He said, Leave a kid out to get some experiences at five and six when they're learning the most, and their life can be drastically different because they get to experience things. Yes, they'll still read, yes, they'll still go to school, they'll do those things, but they'll have some amazing experiences that they can engage in at those ages. But why don't they do it? Because we can form to do what everybody else is doing. You know, when I when I graduate high school in '93, what was it that everybody was supposed to do? You're supposed to graduate high school and do what?

SPEAKER_01 10:14

Go to college.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

Go to college. That's the only way you're going to get a real job, a real good job that pays something is you go to college. Now, what is that belief still strong today? It depends on who you ask. I was just talking to one of my clients today, and she was visiting her, visiting her daughter and son-in-law, but anyhow, her granddaughter, I think she's 17. They were going to visit because they were going to look at TCU. They were going to tour the campus at TCU. If nobody knows, one year at TCU is the low, low price of$86,000 for one year. I said, So what is she going to be? What does she want to do with that$86,000 a year degree? Which we all know that'll turn into about$400,000, if not more. She said, are you ready for this? She said, she wants to be a choir director. Choir director. Now, does that make financial sense? Probably not. I wouldn't think so.

SPEAKER_01 11:36

Give us your take on that, right? I have a lot of hot takes about education, but absolutely, if you want to be in the music industry, you don't have to go to TCU for that for$86,000 a year. You might you can get a great degree in music at UNT.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

Yes. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Well, and we you have to apply to the College of Music at UNT, so even then, maybe just go to MSU. It'll be all right.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Or maybe, maybe you could be like Don Wade and just pick up a guitar, go sit on his old rusted chair and sing on TikTok and get 30 to 40,000 followers, making make, as he says, making more money than he does in Social Security on TikTok, playing his guitar, writing parodies of songs. So there are it's not to say it's not saying college is bad. It's saying that there are other ways now that maybe don't cost$86,000 a year. But again, it's conformity of what you know what's expected of us. And a lot of times, because those kiddos that and and those teachers here, those kiddos that act up in in school, in classes, that we're supposed to sit, we're supposed to listen, we're supposed to be quiet, and they act up. They're probably a little thought of as they're a little bit of a problem. They're a little bit of a problem, child.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

They're too hyper for school.

Stop Copying Others In Health

Goals Beat Coasting Every Time

SPEAKER_00 13:14

They're too hyper for school. Maybe they just have some excessive creative energy that needs to be found a way to utilize. Maybe it's not being best utilized, sitting still and being quiet. And there are some of those kids that are just little rotten heathers, but there's some that maybe alternate methods would be very beneficial. So again, it's maybe conformity when we think we have to be this certain way is part of the reason why we're uns we become unsuccessful. You know, I tell people all the time, you don't have to run to be healthy. If you don't like running, don't do it. Because, yes, I'm saying that. You don't you don't have to run. Yeah. I can just I can't hear Crystal. You can't hear it, but I can see her mouth moving like, what? This is amazing. Next, he's gonna say, I don't have to do hills either. This is awesome. But really, if there's something you don't like and in exercise, don't do it. Because if you don't like it, if you don't like it, you're not gonna do it. You're going, this is the worst thing ever. I hate this. Find something that's fun. If you like to just go kill a pickleball and be outside, go do it. And and you can find ways to be just as healthy and just as fit doing the things you love. If you don't like to run, you can walk up a hill and get your heart rate up higher than you can running. There's just all kinds of things. But again, people have told us you got to run to lose weight. You do not have to run to lose weight. If you like running, awesome, go for it. If you feel accomplished when you do it, if you feel successful, awesome, do it. If it's not your thing, don't do it. Do something. Be your own boss. Something that you enjoy doing. Don't conform just because everybody says, well, this is what you're supposed to do. If you think about successful people in any arena, typically they didn't do what everybody else did. They did something different. Chick-fil-A. They said we are closing on Sundays. What other fast food restaurant closes on a Sunday? But yet, what other fast food restaurant outdoes the money that Chick-fil-A does? They don't. Chick-fil-A, hands down, outrevenues all of them being closed on a Sunday. They did it differently. As we talked about last week, um, Savannah Bananas. You can't do it that way. You can't have a granny beauty contest, you can't have a dad bod squad cheers squad. You can't do it. You can't do tricks, you can't do that kind of stuff. And they did it. And they have a huge waiting list, and they have it's just amazing what they've done. But they didn't conform. They didn't say, they didn't do what was generally expected. And and and if you think a lot of in in any arena, think about somebody you believe is successful. I bet that they didn't do it the way everybody else did it. There was something different about them in the way they did it. And so I think that's very interesting. And and something we have to have is to be successful is a goal. Because you know what does coasting look like?

SPEAKER_01 16:59

Just going along, just waiting for the world to take you somewhere. Coasting, just getting by.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

Just getting by, just and and and really when you're a kid and you're riding a bike and you were coasting down a hill, were you doing any work? Nope. Nope. That's why I always said, you know, I like cycling better than I like running or walking. Because in running and walking, there's never a coast. In cycling, if you have to work hard up a hill, you know on the other side it's easy breezy downhill. And if you're heavier, you go even faster. That's the only time.

SPEAKER_01 17:41

As long as you don't hit gravel or a rock.

SPEAKER_00 17:43

Yeah, as long as you don't hit gravel and walk rock and wipe out. But it's there's a downhill you coast. And really, the as we as we talk about the secret, it's it's we have to have a goal that we go towards and that we're working on all the time. Because if I said you can have an all-expense paid trip, you get all the food you want, all expense paid, but on this ship, it'll be on a ship, it'll be out in the ocean. We won't have any crew though, we won't have any way to steer the ship, we won't have any navigation. We're just gonna put you on the on the ship and we're just gonna push it out to the sea. And we'll see you, maybe we'll see you back, maybe we won't. But it's all expense paid. You'll be taken care of. How how fast would you get on that ship? It's just you. Would you get on? Yeah, probably not very fast.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

Or depends on the day.

You Grow What You Think About

SPEAKER_00 18:46

Or depends on the day. Now, if I said, hey, we're gonna give you an all-expense paid trip, it's gonna be fully manned, it's gonna have navigation, it's gonna be about a month, but you're gonna go to this destination and you'll be totally taken care of. How many of you would probably say, I'm there? Yes. Because you have a you know the destination, you know that people are gonna be there to take care of you, you know there's every every worry is taken care of. There's a goal. And at the end of the month, I get back to come my life. Whether it's a good life or a crappy life, I'll still come back to it after a month. So I'll still come back to it. And that's the same thing with goals. When we're coasting, sometimes we don't really have a goal in mind. We're just kind of going along. And it's not very beneficial because we don't have anything to aim for, we don't have anything to shoot for. And and sometimes without, you know, we without a goal, we just kind of reach a plateau. Like, eh, this is, and it may be at work, it may be at home, it may be in our community. Um, it's like, yeah, this is good enough. That's not a big deal, you know. That's kind of when we coast. We go, ah, this is good enough. That's kind of our plateau. And then we have to decide, we have to set that goal of how far above that plateau do we want to go? What do we want to aim for? How do we want to get there? What do we want to do? What's our navigation system? What crew are we going to get to help us? How long is it going to take us until I get to this great destination? So we have to have that goal. And as we talk about all this, we talk about a goal, we talk about our success or we're the ideal, and we talk about how do we conform or not conform, all of those things, the key the key to success and failure is we become what we think about. So if we have a farmer, and we think about our mind like a farmer, like he has farmland. It is the best land there is. Like they would spend lots and lots of dollars for this farmland because it is so great. If he plants poison in that farmland and takes care of it and waters it and takes care of it, it will, it will grow. If he plants corn in that same farmland, he can water it, he it'll, the sun will come out, it'll grow and thrive. So in that same amazing farmland, he can plant either a poison or something that will feed and nourish him. Either one he pays attention to will grow in abundance. And the same thing is true with our mind. We have the most fertile land ever. And we get to choose if we do if we're gonna plant poison or we're gonna plant something that will feed and nourish us. Either one will grow in abundance because either one grows in abundance that we pay attention to and that we think about and then we act on. It grows in abundance. So everybody's probably seen at Walmart or Second Monday. Free dogs. Get a free dog. What's your first thought when you see free dogs, free puppies?

SPEAKER_01 21:53

There's something wrong with them.

Plant Better Thoughts And Take Action

SPEAKER_00 21:54

What's wrong with them? I've had a client that sells those golden doodles or. Something they're like expensive, they're like twelve hundred fifteen hundred dollars for a dog, and and like there's a waiting list for it. I know I said a dog, that's like saying for a baby, I know, but it's for a dog, but people are lined up, so why would they not be lined up for a free puppy? Free. It's because um we often think of free things as I don't know if that's gonna have any value to it. But some of the greatest things we have are absolutely free to us, and we do that same thing to them. We go, uh, it's free. It must not be worth anything. Free, like our mind is given to us free, our body is given to us free, our soul is given to us free, our hopes, our dreams, our intelligence, our ambitions, our love, all of it at birth is given to us free. Free. And then we decide what we use that those free things for. Do we plant the poison or do we plant the thing that nourishes us? And I think sometimes we take those things for granted because uh they must not be that great because they were free. I've always had them. We take them for granted. It's not that big a deal. But all of those will take us anywhere we want to go in life. Our mind, our body, our souls, our ambitions, our dreams, our hopes, our intelligence, our love can take us and have all kinds of experiences by this free thing that we are given. So the challenge is really simply this. And really that is the secret is what we think about, we will become. What we think about, we will we will pay attention to, we will nourish, we'll take care of, and we'll grow in abundance. But it's up to you what that is. So the challenge is what are you planting? What are you planting in the most fertile soil you have? What are you planning in your mind? Because you get to choose what you plant, and what you plant will thrive in abundance. So if you have a lot of negative things going on and you feel like a victim, it's because you planted it and you're taking care of it, you're focusing on it, you're you're putting the sunshine on it, you're watering it, you're feeding it. And if that's not something you want in your farmland, then plant the things that nourish you and feed you, and start paying attention to those and start watering them and start nurturing them and see those start to grow in abundance because what we think about comes about. Why does it? It's not magic. It's because we start putting action into it and we start making changes and we start moving in that direction because we have a goal and and we start working towards that success, which is progressive realization of a worthy ideal. What is your term of success? What is your worthy ideal? And then what are you going to plant to start growing in abundance? Any thoughts, comments, or questions? And thank you to each of you for joining us on Sit and Talk. I look forward to seeing you right here next time on Sit and Talk.