Episode 30: Lee Wells | The Negativity Vortex

On this episode of The Ranch and Table, Lee delves into the impact of negativity on individuals' lives, highlighting the importance of recognizing and combating negative thoughts. He shares insights from a psychologist, Price Pritchett, outlining strategies to combat negativity through the 'five C's,' emphasizing the need to reduce complaining, criticizing, over-concern, commiserating, and catastrophizing. The episode stresses the detrimental effects of negativity and offers practical advice on fostering a more positive mindset.

Transcript

  Welcome to the ranch and table podcast, where we discuss all things related to our Texas ranch and  our ranch to table restaurant located in downtown Rockwall.  I'm your host, Lee Wells. 

Welcome everybody to another episode of the ranch and table. And I am so glad. You have chosen  to take your time to be part of this podcast today.  I want to tell you, I am excited about  getting to this subject today and what we're going to talk about. I think it's something that touches every one of our lives.

But first let me just thank Sterling tea for being awesome. The best tea, the best folks, just one of the best partnerships that we have at our restaurant and you you may not even know you like tea, but you should try some of theirs and you should order some, you should tell them how much you love the ranch and table podcast by ordering some. 

And sterlingtea. com is the place to get it. They import from all over the world  and they're true professionals. I go to sterlingtea. com and then use your code wells20. And thank you for joining me today. I want to talk to you about something  that I really do think really affects us all. Have you ever found yourself being negative? 

Have you ever just looked at yourself, stopped and said,  man, you're being negative.  Does anybody else do that? Be honest. There's probably no one else listening right now. It's probably, you probably have me in your headphones. I'm maybe in the car. You're by yourself. I don't know, but could you be honest for a second and say,  it just some days you just want to slap yourself and say, would you stop being so negative?

I call it the negativity vortex. And I made that up just for this podcast, but it is that way. And we spiraled downward in this pattern that we find ourselves in. I consider myself pretty positive. I'm pretty positive guy. Now I'm not your rainbows and sunshine. There's some people, I think sometimes they put on because they just are always bouncing in.

They're just always on top of the world. Now, I'm not that way, but I'm pretty steady, I think, positive. I'm pretty, pretty steady in my approach to life and, I'm a problem solver. That's what I do every day for a living. And I think you have to be positive  to, to be a problem solver. And so I'm considering myself pretty positive,  but Sometimes  I can get negative and life can get negative and it, sometimes it feels like even as a positive person, I have days where I have almost more negative time than positive.

Or more negative than normal. And I don't know if you can relate to what I'm saying or not. I know there's people who are negative all the time. I know some people personally who are never positive. So hopefully you're right there in the middle or you can relate to what I'm saying today. Almost like our thoughts some days more than others.

They trend negative rather than staying positive. And maybe you understand what I'm saying here.  I can't as a leader, always disclose all of my thoughts. I've got a job to do if I'm in front of people,  I can't be negative. I can't go down that negative road, but there's times inside that I'm struggling  with negativity.

And I think that's your, just your garden variety life that happens.  And I want to talk to us today about this. I came across something. This week, and you know how you're mindlessly scrolling through reels or something and you, something, it's just, here's a motorcycle jump that goes bad, or here's a skateboard.

I'm telling you what my reels look like. Cause that's the kind of stuff I think are hilarious. All the different crashes and all the things that happen. And and then. As you're scrolling through your phone and through Facebook or Instagram or what, just whatever you're on  and something gets you, something stops you in your tracks. 

This is what happened to me this week. I was just scrolling through  minding my own business and a guy I have never heard of. Now I'm probably the guy living under the rock. I'm probably the guy that's never heard of this guy. I looked him up. He's super famous. He's like 80 years old and he's been doing speaking and author.

And he's a psychologist and everyone on this podcast may know who I'm talking about when I tell you who it is, but I saw this clip, it's just a minute or so, but he packed so much good stuff in this clip. I stopped. And I saved it. I never saved reels. I never save any of those kinds of things just very rarely I'll forward stuff, funny stuff to people, but I hardly never save anything.

And I saved this and I want to come back and look at it. And it turned into such a point in my life that I wanted to share it with you and I could have just said hey Go look at this clip, but I don't think people do that  I can't share it to all of you because I don't know you so I figured I would take a few minutes on this podcast And share what he had to say now.

I'm not taking credit at all for what he says I'm not the one trying to get any credit. These are his points his words, but I really do feel like It is something that can really be beneficial to us to talk about. As I was scrolling through, this came up, his name is price Pritchett. Now I'm going to feel really stupid if y'all write in and say, oh, of course, everyone knows who prices, maybe everyone knows who prices, but he's an author, speaker, psychologist.

He was the. I don't know. He was ahead of some board of psychology. Just some very well studied spoken man. And I looked him up before this getting prepared for today. And he says he's 82 years old. He doesn't look at, he doesn't speak it. He sounds great. He's doing great. I believe, I think this is all current stuff. 

And so this is the first time I've come across him. So I tell you all of that so you can go look him up. Not right now, but when this is over and learn more about him and listen to him talk and take his ideas and wisdom, because this is not from me, but I did want to share it because it did It affected me in a pretty deep way, and it resonated, I guess is what I'm saying.

It resonated and the clip opens up with the question,  what is more important,  more positive thinking or less negative thinking,  and that intrigued me right away when that start. When that started up like that,  that caught my attention. I don't know the answer to that, which is better, more positive thinking.

Or less negative thinking.  And then he says the studies are completely clear.  Unequivocally clear.  That less negative thinking,  outweighs by a landslide of more importance.  So if you were to keep thinking positively,  you need to do that.  But negative thoughts, and these are my words, almost void or eat the positivity and the positive thoughts.

And so put that as a word picture in your mind. We have to keep being positive, but what hurts us the most is our negative thoughts. The negative thoughts we keep are what they were. They're what determined the outcome more often. And And so negative thoughts, he says, are the villain voice in our head.

They're the critic in your head. They're the demotivator  that you have to contend with.  They're the discounter.  They're the doubt raiser,  the voice that's arguing  with the positive thoughts inside our head.  And I could probably just stop right there and say, have a great day. And we could be done because if we could get ahold of that's pretty powerful stuff.

That's good. That's real good.  The villain voice that's always speaking that negativity into our hearts. And then the critic always undermining and that de motivator, that  I need to get up and do this and that, but then that voice that comes in and says, it's not going to matter anyway.

The discounter man, you're not that important that's not that important. Don't worry about it  the doubt raiser. You're not worth it  I mean, however, this translates into your life. Let it translate into your life  But that voice that's always arguing with the positive The things you know to do, those things that you should do, that procrastinator voice that's inside of your head, that's the negativity.

That's the negative that we all contend with. No matter how positive you are, we all contend with it at some point. So with practice, he says, with practice, we can silence the negative in our heads.  With practice, it takes time,  but we can learn to silence a negative. So the positive can live.  I think that's a very powerful statement.

I think that in itself speaks that if we take the time, we take the discipline, we practice, we recognize what's going on. In our head when it's happening  and we say, Nope, not today. That I recognize that voice and you silence that voice. Now, when we learn to silence that negativity.  The positive has a chance to actually live and  be predominant in our actions.

And an interesting statistic that he shares is  that while we think we're aware of our negative thoughts, he says, we think that we're aware of our negative thoughts,  that studies show that about 70 percent of our negative thinking goes unnoticed by us.  70 percent of our negative thinking, we don't even recognize that we're doing it.

It is so embedded in our daily behavior. It is so what we do every day.  We don't even perceive it. We don't even recognize it.  And maybe it's in these are my words, but maybe it's just the way we're taught to think. Maybe it's the way we were taught to talk. Maybe it's how we learned from  our parents to deal with the world.

I don't know,  but studies show that 70 percent of the negative thinking that you have in your brain right now, you don't even know you have,  that's powerful. And so  maybe it's the co workers you're around that's causes you not even to recognize how negative you are.  And it's just embedded in our daily behavior. 

Just maybe it's because of how much junk you've dealt with in your life,  because life is sometimes negative. There is negative swirling in completely surrounding us all the time.  So because of maybe just our environment that we're living in,  we find ourselves with this kind of predominant thought life and perspective of the world. 

And it's.  We're just used to it.  It's just there.  It's just part of  how we operate. So Mr. Pritchett gives a method  to how to remove negativity from our thinking. And this is just amazing stuff. This is the kind of stuff that I believe if we can put into our life, it can change the way we live our everyday life.

It can change how we think. How we perceive the world and how we attack the problems that we have to deal with how we succeed in business how we succeed in our families how we do a better job living our own lives how we're at peace with ourselves because We have dealt with some of these things that plague us  And so let me tell you what he says.

He calls them the five C's and that again, not original with me, this Mr. Pritchett, he gets all the credit for this, but I love this part. It's so practical and it's so true. Number one,  the first C is complaining.  This is how, when you recognize what you're doing, this is how negativity lives within us.

So we have to recognize it so we can stop it. We have to recognize it so we can quiet it. We have to take authority in our own thinking. Over these things and say, I will not think like this. I will not do this anymore. And when I recognize that I am, I'm going to stop myself from doing it. Complaining, griping, and it's hot outside.

You can't do anything about the temperature.  I don't make enough money,  the hardness of life,  and we complain about it.  And then the second C he talks about is criticizing. My boss is an idiot. He doesn't even know my job, let alone his own job. He shouldn't even have the job.  My wife burned dinner.

There's some things you just can't do anything about you. He didn't smile. You criticizing is a way that fosters that negativity. And keeps it alive within us when we can when we criticize and then Concern that he's very clear to differentiate not a genuine empathy concern like I'm concerned about Your health or something like that But he's talking about over concern worry When you worry about things you can't change like inflation would we all like to change inflation?

Of course. Has anybody that's on this podcast figured out how to stop inflation? Not really. There's nothing you or I can do about that. More of the president's real knucklehead. We sure he is. He absolutely is. He's incompetent. We all know that,  but when you're over concerned with things, you can't change.

And it becomes a super worry of your life.  It creates negativity. And then number four is commiserating.  And this is when you agree with other people griping, other people's criticisms, and other people's over concern about things they can't do anything about. And then you get to commenting and talking and having a conversation and it begins to build negativity not only in you but in each other and everybody else that's in that conversation. 

And then number five, he calls it catastrophizing, whatever.  When you make everything a catastrophe,  blowing everything out of proportion,  it's all coming to an end. Oh my gosh, the sky is falling.  We're going to break under the weight  of our government.  Oh, we're not. If I've learned anything in the last month and a half Of my work in the panhandle and the people around me We don't need the government actually what we need is the government to shut their mouth and get out of our way That's really what we need.

But that's not this is not me being negative  But we really shouldn't  Let things get so blown out of proportion  That oh my gosh, it's all just going to end. It's all just going to crush us  That's making everything a catastrophe  He wraps up by saying,  if we'll start paying attention to these patterns. 

If we'll recognize when we're doing the things that we do to keep negativity alive inside of us, we can start recognizing what to not say and what to not do and what conversation to shut down. And when you start doing those things and commiserating and start talking about it to each other, it just.

Completes the doom cycle and circle, and it just keeps everything alive and fresh and there's no way you can be positive  when that kind of negative is being emphasized in your life.  There's no way you can move forward with a smile when you're always over concerned about everything in your life. 

There's times where we should be concerned, and there's times where we should say, that's something I can't fix.  There's certain things in life we just can't solve today.  And it'll bring you a lot of peace when you start realizing that.  And you just have to back away and say, man, I really wish I could fix that, but  I can't,  I just, there's nothing I can do for that right now. 

And if we could pay attention to these patterns  and if we could see how much we do this,  and I'm talking to myself, of course, as I'm talking to you this has already been talking to me all week. I, you might be able to tell that a little bit. But when we're talking about these things in life, can you see how  your positivity gets just completely eaten?

Just completely destroyed.  There's no way in the world. Positivity has a chance to survive in that environment.  And so  we're surrounded by negativity. It's true.  There's plenty of things to gripe about. Absolutely.  But is it productive or is it destructive?  Is it productive  or is it creating a  negativity  false  outcome that we would never be able to achieve? 

Is it destructive? I call it the negativity vortex.  When my brother and I were kids,  We were  on the ranch. We grew up out in the country and we never had a real swimming pool.  We had a big stock tank a big trough around water trough that we would fill up with water. And that was our pool. And so what we would do is a big tank.

It was big to us just big water tank. And it's probably, oh, I don't know,  12 feet across or something. I'm guessing. I don't know. And we fill that up with water and we would  splash around and cool off in the summer.  And what one thing that we did is we would grab ahold of the side of the pool of our pool.

And we would both get. Going around in a circle and we pull ourselves faster and faster on that edge, moving our body around the edge and we would make this whirlpool, we would make this big swirl and we would go as fast as we could go. And we get that water all moving as fast as it would, then we'd let go.

And we'd let that water spin us around a few times. And it was fun. It was it was we lived a simple life that was the height of the enjoyment of our day, but it was still a great time.  And sometimes, if we're not careful,  we'll create such a force of negativity  when we grab a hold of these circumstances and these types of patterns, and we just spin and spin that when we do finally let go, we get swept away with the force that we've created. 

In that negativity and that vortex. And when that happens,  we lose control. Have you ever lost control of a day?  Have you ever just sat down and not been productive because  you were so overwhelmed by the negativity of life?  When we were kids, it was fun and you'd play in the water.

But  now I'm not talking about fun. I'm talking about when negativity and worry and all the fret. Get you swirling out of control  and you lose control of a day, maybe even a few days. God forbid a week, you're immobilized by things that you can't even change  things that you can't even fix.  I don't know about you, but I have too much to do. 

I have too many responsibilities. I have. A wife and two kids. I've got a great restaurant. I've got a great ranch and I've got a lot of things going on in my life. I don't have time to be paralyzed by the negativity vortex of life.  And so I hope  somehow, some way this podcast has brought you hope.  Maybe identified some patterns. 

I'm not a psychologist, not a psychiatrist. I'm not a PhD.  I'm just a regular guy,  but when I watched that reel and he began to say what I have relayed back to you with some extra commentary of my own,  I really appreciated it and I hope you appreciate this. And I want to just leave you with this. I've told people for years,  turn off the news. 

It's just negativity.  No good comes from  just stewing. In the news. I remember when I was a young guy, we'd go over to my grandmother's house and if I'm not mistaken, they would watch the five o'clock or the six o'clock news,  and then they would watch the 10 o'clock news and then go to bed.  And it was a different day, to some degree,  but I don't know if that's what I want in my mind as I'm going to sleep  and I've been on some news.

I've been on some 10 o'clock newscast. I don't hope I'm not being hypocritical when I tell you I was a good story on the negative news hour, but  Take it for what it is. I'm trying to get a message out to help other people, but I'm not a fan of the news I'm, not a fan of what they say and how they say it and how they  Dramatize the whole hurt of others.

I don't I'm, not a fan  And as for me, I'm not going to watch that stuff and listen to it right before I go to bed.  You do whatever you want to do. You live your life. That's just me.  But I hope that some of what I've said may cut down on some of that negativity. Remember 70%, you don't even realize that you were being negative  and there's absolutely no good that comes out of negativity.

That's what I wanted to share with you today. If you haven't gotten my book yet burger brilliance is  At leewellsofficial. com. If you go to leewellsofficial. com, you can see on the wildfire page, we're still raising money and bringing awareness to the ranchers and the pan handle.

And this week we are building five miles of fence out there for three different landowners care for covering the ends of their property right up against the highway and doing that for them. And so if you would like to. To get involved in anything that we're doing, leewellsofficial. com, and then go to the wildfire relief page.

And you can see everything going on May 5th Cinco de Mayo. We have a concert series at Sweetwater grill. It's going to be from two o'clock to eight o'clock. We have 10 different artists coming out to play and sing. And we've got all kinds of things, a 50, 50 raffle. We've got. An auction that's going to happen.

We've got just all kinds of things that are going on trying to be creative and have fun, but also at the same time, help the ranchers out in the panhandle who have lost everything. And so thank you so much for being a part of this podcast. It really means a lot to me that you would take time to to listen and be a part of this.

And I want to just close out by saying this podcast has been brought to you by Sterling T. Use wells20 at sterlingtea. com and then of course I always want to mention  our friends at It's Fate Creamery in downtown Fate. It's ice cream done right across from the fire station there in downtown Fate and check out their socials for flavors of the week and it's just a great place, great folks running that.

And I always look forward to your feedback. Send me a message off the website, get on Facebook, talk to me. Let me know what you think about all of it right there on YouTube. You can let me know your thoughts and comments. I always appreciate that.  And as I always say, I'm Lee wells on the ranch and table podcast.

Till next time we say adios, farewell, goodbye, good luck. And so long.