29. Rollercoaster Theory

This is a good one! 

I learned about Rollercoaster Theory a few years ago...and I've only just started applying it!!! 👀

Transcript

Copy Transcript Copied

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Hello beautiful people and welcome to the podcast. I'm Dan, your illustrious host, and I think it's nice just to acknowledge that I'm glad you've joined me for this. Sounds a bit weird. I don't know why I went all formal there, but for some reason I just thought it would be nice to have a bit more soul in the introduction because someone commented the other day that they love listening to my voice because they think that I'm a fantastic storyteller. And you know what? I've I don't think I've ever had anyone describe me as a fantastic storyteller before. I've always thought that my voice sounds terrible on recordings, but maybe that's just that thing where when you listen to your own voice on video or anything, it always sounds terrible. I don't think anyone likes the sound of their own voice. Unless you're a narcissist. I've got a friend of mine who is absolutely obsessed with narcissism and narcissists, and everything is a narcissist. Everyone is a narcissist. Oh yeah, and to be honest with you, I don't think I could actually tell you with any degree of confidence what a narcissist actually is. I think I know what one is, but yeah, when when my friend talks about it and he describes everyone as a narcissist, even though in my eyes he's probably the biggest narcissist I've ever met. Uh yeah, I don't know. Maybe maybe my um maybe I need to consult the dictionary on that one because yeah, I don't think I'm actually too clued up. Anyway, I wanted to talk a little bit about an idea that I've been thinking about for a while now. And um, do you know I read a book maybe five years ago. I can't remember what the book was called now, but there was a thing in this book called the roller coaster effect, and I think it's something that everyone has felt and everyone probably knows about on some deep, you know, internal level, but it's not something that you would ever think to apply well, I would never think to apply it day to day, but it's been on my mind recently, and what the roller coaster effect is as I remember it from this book, it's basically when you choose to get on a roller coaster, you might sit down, you know, the bar comes down over your head. If you're anything like me, you get massively claustrophobic then and feel like you want to die, um, and then it sort of starts moving off. And normally, you know, with a lot of roller coasters, it will crank you up this big slope, and you know when you get to the top, it's gonna suddenly lurch over and then whoosh, you're gonna be off. And it's normally on that way up that you might start having doubts, right? Or second thoughts about actually being on the roller coaster because all of a sudden it looks really scary, you're really high up now, and it's going k-klink, ka clink, ka clink, and you kind of think, Oh god, is this can this actually is this gonna just collapse and fall backwards? How how well do they test this thing? And you start panicking, but by that point, it's too late, you're already on the roller coaster, it's not gonna stop. It's not as if you can shout over your shoulder and tell someone to push a button and slowly return you back to where you started. Once you're on that roller coaster, that's it, you're on it for the ride. And then once you finish the ride, once you get off, you only ever feel fantastic about the ride. You go and tell everyone how good it was, you feel brave and important because you managed to go on it, whereas other people might not have got on the ride, and blah blah blah, and you feel fantastic. And then you know, you know, you might go on one of the highest roller coasters in the country or the world, even, and that's more kudos because you can say you did it, blah blah blah blah blah, but when you're on it, you're shitting yourself. So, this this roller coaster effect basically applies to anything that you want to do in life, but don't actually start. And I'm sure, like me, you've probably had hundreds, if not thousands, of ideas in your life that you think that would be brilliant. I'd love to do that, and it never happens, you never get to the point where you actually start the thing. I've done it, oh my god, countless times. Where I have a fantastic sometimes, I'll be laying in bed at night and I'll suddenly go bing, and I'll wake up. I even sometimes wake up and write the idea down. I think I need to do this, this is what my next 20 years of my life is gonna be about because it's such a good idea, I could make that work, and that could be that could be my new income. I'd wake up every day happy, this is the thing, this is me, I'm gonna do this, and then you probably start to think about possible hurdles, problems, things that might go wrong, and before you know it, you've got a list of things that might go wrong, and then you know, you start firing off solutions to those problems before they've even actually happened. So you're just you're trying to fight fires that haven't even ignited yet, basically, and and then you know, and then life gets in the way, you're busy, you don't have much free time, works hard, you look forward to your weekends and don't want to use them up, and the thing never happens, it goes back on the shit heap with the rest of the stuff that you said you were gonna do and never did. So the roller coaster effect says that all you need to do is basically get on the ride, commit to something that you can't come back from, or that would you know be very hard to come back from, and then once you're on the ride, you have to do the thing, and then once you're doing the thing, you pretty quickly find out that it's actually what you wanted to do anyway. You say you're like the roller coaster, you feel once you're on the big drop on the other side of it, weeeee it's like the best thing in the world. And then once you've done it, once you've reached your first goal, then you feel fantastic because you can tell everyone that you reached that goal, you did the thing, you're amazing, well done, you've done something that loads of other people are too scared to do, or too lady to do, or blah blah blah blah blah, and that's that's the roller coaster effect. And I've been thinking about times where this has happened, and it normally happens through necessity because I think that the pain of not doing something has to be greater than the pain of doing it for you to tip the balance. Yeah, yeah. If you've ever had like a parking ticket, say, and it might you'll get a letter through the door, oh you've got a parking ticket, it'll be I don't know, say £80. Uh, but if you pay it within 14 days, it'll be £40. And then for whatever reason, because you know in my case I'm just a a Muppet, I I'll leave it till it goes past that 14 days. Now the bill's 80 quid, and I think, oh shit, why didn't I pay that? And then you put that off as well, and you just don't want to put it's you know, the the pain of doing the thing outweighs the pain of not doing it, basically, and then eventually, if you leave it long enough, you'll get a letter through the door saying, Alright, so now um if you don't pay it within 14 days, basically we're gonna take you to court, so and then you know you're probably gonna get hit with a massive fine, then, and then you pay it, because at that point, the the pain of not paying it is basically stronger than the pain of paying it, so then you'll just do the thing, and again, you might be really pissed off, you might be like, Oh no, as you as you're typing in your your card details into the website, whatever, you might be seething and you might feel like shit, this is getting cranked up the roller coaster, right? And then you know you hit you hit pay or whatever, and off it goes, and then the receipt comes through, and then once you've done it, you realise it wasn't actually that bad. Now you've done it, it's a it's a weight off your mind, you don't have to worry about it anymore. It's done and dusted, you can carry on with your life, everything is gravy now because you've sorted out, you know, you're always gonna lose that money anyway. So now it's got you've lost more money than you would have done if you paid it in 14 days, but either way, you have to do it. So that's like where that's that's what happens, I think, more often than not, is that we we get forced into getting on the roller coaster, and that's when you know it tips. So, all like you know, like I've I've said I've heard of people that I know actually that have um they're about to be made redundant or they're gonna shift to a new role, their department's closing, something like that. And they get told you've got to do this thing, you've got to pass this training, do this course, it's a very tough course, but if you don't pass it, you're basically gonna You're gonna lose your job. You'll you'll be you won't have a job because it'll be gone. Um and people just have to get on the roller coaster and do it, and whether you want to or not, you have to, and then you do it, and then it's really hard at first, and it feels horrible, and then once you're over that top hump, and then you eventually get off the roller coaster at the end, you've now got a new job, everything's brilliant, there's no more stress, you're not laying awake at night worrying about whether or not you're gonna be able to pay your mortgage, everything's sweet, and it's that's the thing, isn't it? So the question then becomes how do you get on the roller coaster without having a gun to your head, basically, because I think it's more it's difficult as well because I'm thinking of this in terms of getting a business up and running that and to a point where it's successful, because at the moment that is my goal, so that's I'm sort of kind of flavoring everything in that direction just because that's what I currently want to do. But you know, you'll have different things that affect you and different different goals, and you'll have different roller coasters that you want to ride. But for me, it's really difficult because 99% of the people I know don't want to start a business or don't know how to, or you know, it's not something that they aspire to. They're quite happy to work for someone, they're quite happy to go to work every day. Some some people quite enjoy their jobs, and they're they're you know, Monday morning is not a bad thing for them because they can just get up and go into work, they like their colleagues, they don't mind or enjoy their work, they get paid you know reasonably well, they're happy with that, they've got a pension on the way, they've got annual leave they can use, they've got sick pay if they need it, maybe they've got a union they're in that protects them. Yeah, some people are happy with that. So, those people, if you tell them what that you're gonna look to start your own business, will either laugh at you or they'll try and talk you out of it. So that's active friction that's stopping you from getting on that roller coaster, right? And I've I've had a lot of that in my time, and then if you soldier through that, if you you know if you're determined, if you you're motivated and you push past that friction, jump the hurdle. Now you're on that road of doing this thing by yourself, and it's a lonely road when you first start out. I mean, it's still a lonely road for me, it's just you operating by yourself, and initially it's very hard to start a business because people is hard at first when you've got no clout behind you, and you've got no trust, you've not got an audience, you've not got anything to lean on, you've not got a team of people around you, you don't have loads of sales training, you get so much rejection, and when you're being rejected and rejected and rejected, and you're alone. Everyone else around you is trying to lead a different lifestyle, you're alone, you're getting nothing but rejection, and initially you're not really seeing any rewards for all of this effort either. You're not you're not being you're not making loads of money from it, certainly not, and you're putting in loads, loads, and loads of work, all that energy, all that effort that goes into it for very little payoff initially, and you have to stick to it because the only way to actually succeed is to be consistent and to keep pushing forwards through the valley of despair, through all the lonely nights where you're up late working, through all of those rejections. The only way to succeed is to push past all of that and make the thing happen, to have confidence in yourself and to just be consistent. So, again, this is the roller coaster, but you is I bet maybe that's the difference. Maybe this is this is like one of the highest roller coasters in the world, and it's a really steep climb to the top, and it's rickety and it's rattling around as you go up. Maybe that's it, but you know, I've I've got another couple of roller coasters in my life, different different fields of play, and I feel like this one trying to start a business is the most rickety, it's the one that gives you the most heartache, the one that drains you completely. So, yeah, but how do you do that? How do you fire through and get on that roller coaster regardless? Because there's you know, there no one is gonna hold your hand and say, Come on, let's get on this roller coaster together, let's do it, I'll support you, I'll help you, I'll soothe you, massage you as you're going up the first bit, I'll make it easy for you. I can even control the speed if you want. No one's gonna do that. It's literally down to you. So, and there are countless examples of people who have done this and done it flawlessly. You know, I've read a couple of books where whether the I don't know how accurate the the dates and the time frames are in these books, but I remember reading one once about this guy who in his basement uh in his mum's house, he basically made some sort of protein bar just in the basement, and then ended up within a year, he had made it up to the company was up to I think something like 20 million dollars worth or something like that, and he then he sold it to Kellogg's or something for it was like some ridiculous amount like 200 million dollars or something stupid in a year. In a year, when he's living with his mum, he's operating from her basement, so yeah, it's possible, but generally speaking, it's more of a marathon than a sprint, from my experience. And I know a lot of people that do own businesses who are rich, and they'll tell you the same thing: that it is a marathon, it's not something that you can just click your fingers, do loads of hard work for a month, and then have it all happen, even though there are examples of that, which is kind of depressing, if I'm honest. I've actually just thought of another example of one of these roller coasters, and that is getting in shape or going down the gym specifically, because I think most people, when they first start going down the gym, they first start exercising, it it's really difficult to get in your car, drive down to the gym. Maybe it's cold, maybe you've had a long day at work, you're really tired, maybe you're hungry. To get in the car, go to the gym, get out, walk to your locker, get changed, go do like a 45-minute to an hour workout, then to come back, have a shower, get changed, all that stuff, come home again. That seems like a bloody marathon. So I know when I first started going to the gym, it felt like that. It still does now, to be fair, sometimes. But when that thing of having to get in the car and do it, that is getting on the roller coaster, I think. Because once you're in the car, once you're off and you're on your way, especially like once you've walked through the door of the building where your gym is, you're on the roller coaster. There's not really any turning back, you've already done the hard part, and that's actually getting on and allowing yourself to be clamped in and then allowing it to start. That's that's the difficult thing. There are so many things like that. What about I about what about actually running a marathon? That's another thing, right? Running a marathon, you that is a marathon more than a sprint. But when you if you're someone who's never run before and you decide you want to do a marathon in I don't know, a year's time or something, the idea of going out for a run and first getting your 5k and then your 10k and all that stuff, when you can't run, when you're shattered, out of breath, you want to be sick, that's horrible. And you know, you'll do it the first time, realize it's actually quite hard, and then the next time you go to get up to go out and get your gear on to go running, it's gonna be a it's gonna be difficult because you know what's coming, right? And you know, the weather might be shit, it might be raining outside. Suddenly it's not it doesn't look as good as the Instagram videos of people running along in their really flashy trainers and their compression shorts and all that sort of stuff. It's not it's not the same thing, it's hard. So that is getting on a roller coaster as well, isn't it? And like that's again, that is a long drawn-out process because fuck me, that's a long roller coaster, actually. Training for all about these people that train for an Iron Man who have never done any running before. Iron Man training is insane, especially towards the end. Friend of mine was training for an Iron Man, and I remember him telling me that towards the end of it, he had to train for six hours a day, and it was like five days out of seven for a week per week, six hours a day. How does anyone fit six hours of training in a day? That's your whole life if you're working, that's like literally every spare second you've got you are training. And how does your body recover from that kind of I don't know, but that's a roller coaster, and once you're on it, once you're on the ride, it's a hell of a lot easier because I'm sure when when you first crack 5k and you know you can run 5k without stopping and you can start building on your personal best, suddenly it's probably quite enjoyable, and then you actually want to get out and do it because you're kind of competing with yourself. And if you've got a friend that you run with as well, you join a running club at that point, that's all enjoyable. So you're on the roller coaster and it suddenly gets good. So this roller coaster effect is it actually useful, or is it just a nice analogy, a nice metaphor to explain how hard things can be when you first start out? I do think it's useful because I think that basically the reason this came up in my mind, the reason I've been thinking about it, is because I had this realisation the other day. I was on the train on my way to work, and I don't even know what sparked it. Maybe it's this I've been reading this book called The Um The Midnight Train by Matt Haig. Literally love Matt Haig. His books are my favourite, he's my favourite author, flat down, hands down. And uh maybe that's what put me on this way of thinking, but it occurred to me that my I think yeah, this isn't I'm not just talking just about me here, I'm sure there are plenty of other people in the world who have the same thing. But due to my life experiences and my childhood and all the things that I've gone through in my life, I think that the part of my brain, like the circuitry that keeps you protected, keeps you safe, you know, your thing that spots threats. I think that for me that is like ultra hyper super duper sensitive. So, but only in certain areas, I think there are certain things that when I see them, it's like oh, danger, cancel, stop what I'm doing. That's you know, that's the whole the tiger in the bushes sense. The is it the limbic system? That thing is really sensitive in me, right? And I think that that thing, if there's a if there, if you imagine a horizontal line where on the left it starts off at failure, and then right at the other end is success. Imagine that success, that's where you want to go, that's what you want, that's the thing you're heading towards. Somewhere along there, there's a line, bosh, and that line kind of signifies fear. And I think that this over-protective, super duper sensitive part of my brain has been the thing that's prevented me from going past that line, that fear line. So, you know, when you're trying to do something and it gets to a point where there's something hard that you you know you need to do, and for some reason you just never seem to do it, and you you you might kind of like almost try and trick yourself into thinking that you've done it or you're gonna do it, but you just don't do it, and ultimately the reason for that is you're spotting that fear, and then what you do, or I do, is your brain tries to create stories that make sense of that fear, so you don't necessarily say, Oh, there's a scary thing, I'm a bit worried about doing that, I won't do it. Your brain concocts this big elaborate story to prop up your what's basically to keep you safe again because it's trying to make you understand and like let you off the hook. That's why I've not crossed that thing, because of this, it's something else, some external factor that I have no control over. That's the thing that's preventing me from crossing that line and achieving the thing. And the the story, I've I've got a handful of stories that are world-class Stephen King could have written, and they're so legitimate, they all seem to make sense, none of them seem crazy, they all seem like perfectly good reasons not to go past that line. And I've been telling myself those stories and completely missing the fact that this line here exists, this thing that's stopping me from moving forwards, for years and years and years. So that's why this roller coaster effect made me that's why I thought that's why I thought about it because that getting past that line, that there's got to be a way where you realise, oh hold a minute, the reason I'm not doing that isn't because of this big story I've been telling myself, it's actually because my brain is trying to keep me safe. This this thing here is a bit scary, it's a bit hard. I'm not sure if I can do it or not. So I've I'm just I've just gone with this story, and that's the point where I now will say to myself, hang on a minute, get on the roller coaster. Don't faff around, don't go with this story, don't shy away and slap yourself into victim mode. Nope. Jump on that roller coaster because you know that's the thing you need to do to get where you want to go. You know that ultimately you're gonna feel good when you get off that roller coaster at the other end. You know that this is all gonna come together and you are gonna feel fantastic, you're gonna get where you want to go. So get on the roller coaster now, and then you know, and then you do it, and it's kind of like you trick yourself or you motivate yourself into going past that line, and then you start doing the hard things, and once you're on the roller coaster, there's not really any coming back, so you've committed to something. Now, and then you make the thing happen, and that's that's I feel like there's I don't know if the way I'm explaining this will resonate with you because maybe this is just me, the way my brain works, the way that I make sense of things, the way that I think through things. This is just the language, the way that I've decided to articulate things because it makes sense to me. Maybe this is something that just naturally you understand, maybe I'm just weird, maybe I don't know. But the reason I'm talking about this is because I think this could really be helpful to some people because if you're anything like me and you do have the same kind of problems and you do want something and you've never really managed to get it, even though you've been working really hard and it just hasn't happened, this could be the reason why. And I might actually put I might actually post with this um like a little diagram of this these this line I was telling you about with the fear thing because I look at that every day now and it shows up in so many areas of life. And do you know what I've actually started doing? There's another there's a project that I've started recently, um it's a basically a band, kind of like that, it's called Boom Yard X, and it's gonna be bucket drums and other instruments. I'm gonna get kids to play in a band and we're gonna perform at shows and things ultimately, but it's in the incubator stage at the minute because I'm sort of aware that summer holidays are coming up, and you know, if you're gonna start a group like this, the worst possible time to do it is at the beginning of summer holidays because things like this grind to a halt, people go away, they're busy, they have childcare to think about. There's so much stuff that gets in the way. So I'm thinking come September, I'm gonna drop this. But first of all, I've got lots of planning to do because you know I need to advertise this, I need to get some footage, I need to get everything in order so that it's gonna hit the ground running come September. So, the reason I say this is that I know without shadow of a doubt, there is gonna be, there are gonna be, loads and loads and loads of obstacles. There are gonna be things that come up that I'm gonna dither over and stress about, and I've already started thinking, oh, what if this happens? I'm looking for problems to solve before I've even started the thing. I'm not on the roller coaster yet, right? So instead of another way of getting on this roller coaster that I've recently come up with is to actually list out all of the ways that my self-doubt, or these stories I've been telling myself to avoid that fear line, all the ways that I'm gonna legitimately stop myself from getting on the roller coaster, and I'm gonna list them all out. And I've I've I've done this for the for um Boom Yard X, and like as I'm writing them, it's so clear to me how stupid they are and how easily they can be avoided. So I'm gonna do this with everything. Every time I start anything, every time I plan anything, every time I have an idea, I'm gonna do this. So I'm gonna write what it what the thing is, what I want to achieve with it, what it's gonna look like, and underneath I'm just gonna start writing down every single possible story that I could tell myself, every worry, every doubt, everything that could go wrong, all this stuff, everything that could um prevent me from getting on this roller coaster. And honestly, it's so easy to quickly just put all of those fires out with a quick splash. And uh yeah, that's my new thing now. Roller coaster theory. Yeah, whether it resonates with you or not in this language and the way I've explained it, I don't know, but something to think about because I'm sure there are plenty of people out there that suffer with the same problem that I have done for the last six to eight years. And maybe this can help you because you know, like we've all got things that we want to do, ways that we're not showing up in life, ways that we want to express ourselves, ways that things that we want to do in our life that may never ever happen if we don't get on that roller coaster. So, yeah, have a think about that, and I would be really really interested to hear what you think of this because if this does resonate, or if you have a story, if you have some more insight on it, let me know, and um I can actually talk about it in the next podcast if you like. So, yeah, please also another thing before I go, is this podcast is slowly growing now. I'm starting to get some really regular followers and it's kind of gaining a bit of traction. So, please, please, I'm just gonna ask you really nicely, can you like and subscribe to this? Follow my channel on Apple Podcasts or on Spotify or wherever you're listening, just hit follow and also tell people about it because you know it's it's a good deed you'd be doing for me because I want this to continue growing, and I don't I don't like asking for things like this because it just feels cringe. But you know, I also really want to grow this podcast, and the more it grows, the more time and energy and resources I will have to throw at it. So it means that I can start really consistently filming this podcast, and I can start using a nicer studio, and I can start chopping things up into bites and putting more stuff out to people. Um, yeah, so please do share it around with people, get as many people as you can to listen to it and like it and follow me. And if you want a shout out, or if you want to say something, or if you want to come on the podcast, again reach out to me and I'll happily help you out and uh get you involved if that's what you'd like. Alright, then, friends, lots of love, talk to you soon.