G'day leaders, in this podcast we talk about something I'm very passionate about and that is
the difference between a victim mindset and having agency or accountability over your life.
It has an amazing impact or positive impact if you become accountable and develop agency
and has a negative impact if you develop and catch the mind virus which I call victimhood.
Enjoy.
Why did it count backwards?
I don't know, we're now recording.
What? Hello captain.
Come fly with me, let's fly, let's fly.
What are we going to talk about?
I don't know, leadership, life and everything else.
And we're live.
No.
Oh we haven't put the on air sign on.
Can you click it on?
Sure.
Yeah okay because we've got to have it on when we're recording.
Exactly, we're recording.
Alright yeah you've got me there.
Now we're live and recording in the studio.
Hey Michelle.
Hi guys.
You can call me Turtle.
I can, I can.
Yeah because you're Michelle.
So funny.
First bad joke of the day.
Well I'm excited about this episode.
Why?
Because it's on a topic that's really, well discovering it and understanding it and applying
it, what we're going to talk about has changed my life in many many ways and it's something
that I'm quite passionate about talking to other people and it's something I call a mind virus.
Yeah I, when we were speaking about it on our walk I thought I have definitely been a victim of.
What we're about to talk about.
That's right.
Which you've probably let people know what we're going to talk about.
Well I hadn't labelled it.
You hadn't labelled it.
No.
Well yeah it's the difference between having a victim mindset or being accountable or having
agency over self.
Yes.
Something that I have been caught up in at different stages in my life.
It's a mind virus, a mindset's in your head, it's very hard to
recognise that you're in it but that is of having the victim mindset where things are happening
to you.
Yeah that's right.
Rather than for you.
That's right and the reason it came up on our walk today was that you've just recently spoken
about it, it was in one of your training workshops.
Yeah it was with a local council so we do a lot of work with councils around Australia and
where I was working with some fantastic field service guys and we were doing resilience
and anti-fugility training and it came up and it's an interesting discussion because
when you start to look at it, it's basically a choice.
You have a choice between having what's called a victim mindset or having an accountability
mindset.
Once you're in a victim mindset it has so many impacts on so many areas of your life.
But then if you are able to get yourself out of it and get yourself back into an accountability
or an agency, we'll talk more about what agency is, again very very positively affects your life
rather than negatively.
And people around you as well.
Yeah so no, that's why we brought it up on the walk because I had a fantastic discussion with
a few of these people at the council.
Yeah so okay we'll start with what is victim mindset?
What is victim mindset? It's basically where you are focusing on negative things that have
happened to you and that's how you see them, that they happened to you, that you're the victim
of circumstances, you're the victim of bad events, you're the victim of the things that have
happened to you and you spend a lot of time focusing on that and you become quite negative.
So your default mode network which is the part of our brain that is working when we're at rest or
if we're just contemplating life and that sort of stuff, the default mode network, if you've got a
victim mindset the needle is very much towards the past.
So you constantly go back to the past and you constantly relive negative events that have
occurred and you start to get the oh woe is me, nothing is going on, you're not going to be
oh woe is me, nothing ever works out, everything always negative happens to me and you start to
develop these thoughts and these thoughts then travel down into your subconscious mind,
nothing ever works out for me and now your subconscious mind has to do its job and its
job is to find evidence of that. And so now the filter that your brain operates on is
searching your environment, searching your experience for evidence that you have been a
victim, that nothing ever works out for you and it will only ever bring to your attention
the stuff that isn't working the way that you want it to. A negative detective. A negative, oh I love
that, can I steal that? Absolutely. Your brain becomes a negative detective. Oh that's brilliant,
I love that term. Yeah. Coined by Michelle Huntington on whatever date this is. So bad things
do happen and so it's not dismissing those or saying that nothing bad does happen and
now you look at it. It's potentially I suppose it starts out as a coping mechanism. That's what it
is, it actually is and I've read about how as a child if you feel powerless, if when you're a
child and you feel powerless you don't have agency over self, you're very much controlled or whatever
or like me very shy, sensitive, insecure little kid and you know just struggling being in the world
because you're so sensitive to things. Yeah when you feel powerless it's a coping mechanism
that I think your brain adopts to put the blame elsewhere so that you don't pick on yourself.
Yeah and so how it appears to others is when, so some of the ways that you can tell if someone is
or you yourself are, if you're self-aware enough and catch yourself could be blaming others.
Oh yeah it's all about everyone else is to blame, circumstances are to blame.
Like the world, feeling like the world's against you. Excuse me yeah the world yeah the world is
against me, the world is out to get me. Well you were talking about the default mode network
and how your brain, the negative detective, finds things to confirm and validate. That's right so
self-sabotage almost to make sure that happens. Yeah yeah it has to find evidence of your internal
belief so if your internal belief is that you're a victim, that your things happen to you, nothing
ever works out for you, your brain will find evidence of that and that's all you see which
then validates it and then it's self-fulfilling and self-justifying. It's yeah.
Okay. It reminded me of a time in my life where I was flying and I remember being on a particular
flight with a captain and you know there's a long time in the office, you've got many hours together
over many days quite often and I hadn't seen flown with this captain for probably six to eight months
and he said to me oh how's everything going and even his tone of voice was
it was empathetic and I thought it was a little strange and then he made you know I was like oh
good and he started asking me about particular events that had happened in my life that weren't
so great but he then made a statement and I was shocked by it. It felt like I'd been punched in
the guts actually and he said oh everything bad always happens to you, you have such a bad life
and I thought what no I don't but and I questioned it I said why do you say that and he said oh well
every time I see you something else bad has happened and I thought do I say that but maybe
I do and I realized that he and probably others had communicated we had communicated in a way
and our habit was talking about the bad things or emphasizing things in our life that hadn't
gone so well and only talking about that rather than it be yet part of my life but not the
good part and I saw myself especially that day when he said it to me as having a great life and
everything worked out for me so when he said that it was a real like slap in the face of thinking
oh I've really got to change my language. Maybe he'd caught you in a in a period of time where you had
caught the mind virus. Oh absolutely you know there were there were and it can feel a bit like that
and then I was attracting people like that to my life which he and potentially others were also
helping me stay in that little hole. Well that happens yeah when you when you when you catch the
mind virus which when we discussed on the walk we we both have caught it a few times in our life I
had it from my early childhood that you do attract others because you surround yourself with people
who validate you who make you feel like you are okay for being you so you're not going to
surround yourself with people who are the exact opposite. No. Yeah so it does attract people
towards you and regrettably then makes it more challenging to to get out of that mindset because
it becomes the normal and you may have been in networks of friends where the and I've been guilty
of this where when you see them you go straight to discussing the negative things that have happened
and and I remember the like I'm certainly not in that now but I remember one particular period of
my life where I was in it I caught myself whinging and I don't like whinging I think the world is a
fantastic place what have we got to whinge about really and I caught myself whinging and then I
kind of stepped outside of myself and I started to look at why was I doing this why I don't know
I'd gone through a you know a tough time and and that I'd been whinging with all my friends and
then I thought to myself if I was my friends I wouldn't want to be hanging around with me I'm
very lucky I've got amazing friends who you know even if I was having a whinge at the time they'd
sit there and they'd listen and they'd show compassion and and it was it was beautiful
having them at the time when I was in this victim mindset but then I looked at myself and I thought
I don't want to be like this and I know what's happening and I know the effect it's creating and
I know that this isn't the full picture this is my mind only seeing negatives yeah and I didn't like
being around me at that time in my life and I'm sure my friends were lovely they didn't say oh I
don't want to catch up but when then once I pulled myself out of it it was such a relief to just let
go of the mind virus and go back to the way I'd like to live my life is that I have control that
I have agency over my life I contribute to every event that happens and I am in control of how I
react to those things and and what I'm going to be doing moving forward.
Oh I was in a mother's group when my twins were babies and um which was you know great I hadn't
been when I had my first son we were in remote um New South Wales and I thought oh this is an
opportunity to form a bond with women who are going through similar things you know they're just given
birth to babies as well and I thought we had a bond a common bond because basically sleep deprived
new babies um first time yeah I know for you it wasn't the fact but yeah and and so that cohesive
group and I really craved that community and longing but I actually removed myself from that
group after a couple of months because it became a bit of a bitching session and apologies to anyone
for the language but it it really uh appeared to me to be an opportunity for a group of new mums
to get together and hate on their husbands and just talk about the bad things when I didn't need
that I I needed support and community and we celebrate the things and sure you know we talk
about oh I only had this much sleep or whatever and laugh about it whilst having our fifth coffee
for the day at 10 o'clock in the morning but um that that's what I thought it was going to be
so my expectations yeah were not met and I could see that if I stuck around I too would start to
have that opinion of my husband and and so I yeah I removed myself and made excuses initially and
kind of edged my way out of that group it's so easy to fall into the trap though isn't it
especially when you're around other people it's contagious because it's an easy mindset to have
because you can blame everyone else and you don't have to do anything yeah yeah the opposite is
that you have to take accountability you have to have agency over self and that takes effort well
if you keep doing it it's becomes a learned helplessness it does it does and then it's
very much linked to pessimism and and anxiety and depression so if your default mode network
needle is kind of skewed towards the past then you're going to be falling into depression because
you're focusing on the negative things if your default mode network needle is you know more
angled towards the future you're worried about things that are in the future and you think that
bad things are going to happen so you're more inclined to more anxiety and those sort of things
yeah so it's um one thing I have noticed is people who are in it and you feel for them you
really do because you don't want anyone to be in a bad situation in your life or be thinking bad
things is that um those people if you yourself have something so they're in a they're in their
mindset yeah and you're empathizing with them and trying to help them and being a shoulder for them
you know support but if something ever happens to yourself and you're you have a bit of a stumble
and you question or oh yeah don't know what to do about this they have a really um obvious lack of
empathy towards your stuff even though you may have been supporting and not that it's a give take
sort of thing you know you don't do it as a transactional giving empathy but you find that
they have a lack of empathy for anyone else's problems it's very self-centered um and and
inward looking it reminds me of a set of characteristics personality traits i've seen
uh in the past where um these people will actively ask questions about negative aspects in other
people's lives without sharing any of their own which you typically do when you're trying to do
that building reporting oh yeah i've had a similar situation in my life and you which is called an
autobiographical response but there's these people who will ask you things about your life that are
negative and bring up things that you may have discussed in the past that are negative even
though you know you might have put it to bed and got over it and they're doing this because when
you're in your victimhood they feel better about themselves oh that could have been the captain
old mate he could have possibly possibly i don't want to project that onto onto everyone and
i'm really lucky i only ever surround myself with amazing supportive compassionate people
that's a choice that's a life's choice and so none of my friends do this but i have i have seen
this and recognize this in other people where they actually want to want to drag other people
into their victimhood so that they can sit there and go oh at least my bad at least at least my
life's not that bad sort of thing and that's something i've seen as well which is certainly
a character trait to avoid if you can
then is victimhood or a victim mindset is it a symptom or a personality trait it's
oh okay great question i well it becomes it can become your persona um if you surround yourself
if you've grown up like it with the victim mindset the negative of the pessimistic sort of the needle
towards the negative um and you surround yourself with other people who are like that you're not
even aware you're not even aware you're not aware that you're creating your own reality
by telling your subconscious mind to only find evidence of where the world is shit and where
the world isn't happening the way you want it to happen so i'm going to suggest it's
i wouldn't describe it as a trait or a personality or a symptom it's it's it's it's a mind virus
and i think i think it's i've felt myself actually catch it even during periods like the last few
years have just been amazing in my life i'm the happiest i've ever been the most content i've ever
been but occasionally you can just feel it this this virus just so it's not going to jump into
your head for a couple of days and wants to sit there and and re uh ignite old negative neural
networks in your brain and then you sit there and you go oh look at what happened and you can feel
the energy dragging out of you and then i'm lucky every time i recognize it now i just
no no no that's not the way i'm living life yeah so if you do start to notice that you might have
a few of these traits coming in yeah and you've got that self-awareness or you've got an opportunity
to kind of sit outside yourself and realize hey maybe i've been doing this or i'm not liking what
i'm projecting out here into the world or my friends family etc yeah how can you change it
well i think that the best thing we can all do right now in this moment whether you're driving
in your car you're at home you're wherever you're listening you and i are standing here behind these
microphones make a decision right now to not be a victim to basically say to yourself i am not a
victim things don't happen to me they happen for me i have agency over my life i am accountable for
everything that i do so therefore every experience that i have and the universe will not throw
everything good at me it will throw both good and bad but what i have the option to do is choose to
be in control of my actions so i'm going to focus on what i can control focus on the things that
are within your locus of control so that then you have agency over your life not being a victim of
circumstances it's kind of stupid to think that the world will never throw shit at you yeah of
course it will yeah but if you have the mindset that you're a victim when the world throws shit
at you you're going to go oh well it's me and you're going to become the victim but if you've got
somebody who's got agency over their life and you've got it and you're accountable when the
world throws that shit at you you can go okay all right well what do i do now what's within my
control how what lesson can i take out of this and that's what you talk about in your keynote
i love the bit on anti-fragility that you talk about in your keynote about how you know adversity
is a gift because it provides an opportunity for you to grow to learn to get stronger and if you
have that mindset that adversity is a gift in the future when things happen to you you go okay
what's the lesson here what am i going to gain how am i going to strengthen what am i going to do
you know this is happening for me not to me a friend of ours rich who has come over to australia
for a couple of weeks on holidays from singapore another pilot and he shared with me just yesterday
actually the um a post on social media about is it elena dockage yes the tennis player yeah and her
story she's amazing she is and her story's pretty shit really um but her attitude now she is amazing
i've actually got goosebumps on my arms it's it it was so was it an article it was an article on her
and so inspiring she is like i i've flown her actually to albury on rex when i was um working
for them and and she was in her tennis you know um era but she i and i didn't know any of her story
to what has happened to her um continuously for so long and how she's come out the other side and her
attitude to it and it's exactly what you just said it's happened for her not to her and she's in a
place that she now credits what happened to her um to how she is now it like amazingly how she is
now so thank you rich hi kylie and um isn't she a ball of energy kylie and derek and me but um
hello everyone yeah they it really it was a great great article and i will i will share it with you
actually i'll put a link um in the podcast notes as well if anyone else wants to to read it but
it was just um a great reminder that regardless of of what you've been in and and it is easy to
to fall into that why was me and you know but yes very inspiring so and i interrupted so as
far as how to change as well i think understanding that there are alternatives which is what you were
saying about the anti-fragility yeah it becomes a choice yeah a simple choice humans have the power
to make a decision about anything in their life the problem with choosing to be accountable is
that you have to uh just release this need to blame others and blame circumstance um and it can
be challenging for people because you're basically saying to yourself the way of thought in the past
was wrong but it's not that that you were wrong in the past yeah it's that that the way you were
thinking was creating a certain result yeah and that is negativity and pessimism and lack of energy
and all the negative things that come with victim mindset and there's a different choice well i hear
you talking like this to the kids you you say you know when they they get upset they get frustrated
they get angry about they can't do something straight away or they've you know that what
they're wanting to do fails or breaks or whatever and you say to them rather than saying i can't do
it i'm hopeless i can't do it yet or that way hasn't worked so far yeah let's try a different
method yeah the growth mindset language changing the language yeah yeah yeah so instead of becoming
the oh well with me i can't do it yeah that's that's very much the growth mindset stuff so that
you don't you never say i can't do it you say i can't do it yet yeah you don't see failure as
failure you see it as a learning opportunity um i hope this is true it's on the internet so it's
got to be true edison was asked mr edison how do you feel about failing 10 000 times because
apparently he had lots and lots of patents uh trying to invent the light globe and he said sir
i did not fail 10 000 times i found 10 000 things that do not work and i love that that attitude
because that's that's somebody who's got agency well that's reclaiming your story or rewriting
your story isn't it it is it is being being responsible being accountable i i have um
yeah agents i love that word agency over my life
um one one thing we did discuss for new year's eve also was to set healthy boundaries so um
they're the habits or um that we now set so as soon as we start to go down a certain way of
thinking it's when i start to think this i do this so we've got rules yes mine is um drink a glass of
water and so when you do catch yourself or if you do catch yourself starting to think
starting to say then um you know have a rule that when i start to i have to do this 10 push ups go
drink of water yeah whatever yeah my my new rule is radical acceptance which helps with this
so radical acceptance is it happened it is what it is everything is as it should be or everything
is as it will be yeah instead of oh that shouldn't happen oh whatever it is so radical acceptance
really helps me i want to talk about um what we can do when our friends are in the victim mindset
yeah yeah so um the what they want and what they need in that moment is compassion to start with
they need the compassion the empathy from from from you as their friend or or you know acquaintance
or even a colleague but the next step i think is the most important step once you've shown the
compassion is that you actually play what's called responsibility tennis i love responsibility tennis
it's one of my favorite topics to talk about especially in the leadership workshop and the
coaching and mentoring workshops because responsibility tennis is when somebody has
a winch to you they complain about something you can either sit there and be in that energy
and you can yeah catch the mind virus um or you can play what's called responsibility tennis put
them back into agency and the way you do that you say okay so what can you do about it what's within
your control what have you tried what else could you try who could you speak to who's an expert in
this area that's done this before so in other words you're hitting the responsibility of fixing
the situation back into their court which gives them agency and if you're asking questions you're
putting them in control so you're actually compassionately asking them okay i see the
situation you're in i have compassion for you now what are you going to do about it yeah yeah and
you can do that for yourself as well yeah yeah so it's a it's a technique to make sure that you're
not catching the mind virus of victimhood i like that i have so how would you do it to yourself
to yourself so what okay so as i said before everyone just today make the decision that you
have agency over your life it doesn't matter what has happened to you it's happened for you just
just just adopt that mindset and so in the future when you find yourself whinging when you find
yourself being the victim when you find yourself being negative looking back in the past and being
depressed about something that's happened just sit there and go okay i have an opportunity to
rewire my brain to change the way i think about things and i can look at what's happened what i've
learned what i'll avoid doing in the future what i'll do differently in the future and just focus
on what's within your control and then just get yourself back into a mindset of that you have more
input into what happens in your life than circumstance so ultimately you have a choice
you have a choice everyone has a choice and it really i know it's not black and white victim versus
accountability it's not a black and white thing no shit will happen to you yeah but expect that
in fact even look forward to it well that's part of anti-fragility is the expectation so setting up
systems that you've actually thought and gone through the process of what if yeah and it's
and so you're prepared for the shit yeah and then because you are it's not the first time it's not
a shock your your shock response is reduced yeah and you then go into fix it mode that's it that's
it that's why a psychologist will always say to you what's the worst thing that could happen
because when you identify what is the worst thing that could happen and then you identify what would
you do in that situation you're now back in control yeah yeah so if you expect it don't walk around
expecting bad things to happen yeah that that's that's again the negative detective yeah but just
know that things will happen from time to time but great things will also happen and if you have the
mindset and we both share this one that great everything works out for us yeah it does we say
this to always we say this it does everything works out for us uh i will always get a car park at the
shopping center yes and when you get it you go oh i got a car park but if you go i never get a car
park you drive around the car park going and you don't somehow you don't see yeah true and it
shifts the way you feel quite dramatically yeah it's it's i i love this topic because
it's something that has affected me deeply in in many years ago when things happen i fell into the
victim mindset i became a whinger the sort of person i don't like uh i didn't want to be um but
then when i realized that i have agency i have control i have decisions i can make in my brain
that makes my life mine to create and mine to dictate and mine to i i'm steering the ship of my
ship of my life yeah yeah i've so to sum it all up yeah how to change it is awareness awareness
so no yeah make it know that you're in it yeah so so then acceptance of it yeah okay yeah guilty
guilty um make the decision now i'm going to be in control of my life that's right so decide on
alternatives yep and then shift your self-identification so change your language
and reclaim your story yeah as it from the different perspective yep surround yourself
with people who lift you up yeah and help you focus on the positive don't don't don't get
don't surround yourself with negative people who are always in trauma yeah um if you do have people
you know be compassionate but play that responsibility tennis so that you get a
bit of a boundary there be that annoying person that's always up and then people are wanting to
be in the in the in the mud and they'll either soon extricate themselves from your friendship
circle because they don't like your positivity yeah or the responsibility tennis and your energy
lifts them out that you may have been what they needed to kind of go oh hang on why aren't i like
that oh that that reminds me of the story i was teaching um at a company here in sydney and we're
talking about optimism and pessimism and when we go on to the topic of optimism there was a lady in
the course she said oh i know something like that and i said okay please share and she said oh she's
at my gym i said okay she's yeah she's the instructor every morning she's up there you
and oh you just want to throw a brick at her and i went what she said oh nobody could be that
positive and like i didn't obviously i didn't go i didn't want to expose what was happening in the
in the classroom at that time i didn't want to make her feel kind of sad or you know exposed in
front of her colleagues because she did a good enough job of doing that anyway she had visceral
hatred towards somebody who was optimistic ah but it would have been okay if the brick that she
wanted to throw was 10 kilos one week 15 kilos i'm getting stronger throwing these bricks yeah it was
it was basically she couldn't be that person in the morning so she had visceral angst and
i wouldn't say hatred but like whatever words you want to throw onto it towards this other person
because you're making me feel bad because i'm not as energetic as you in front of the classroom i
just thought that was hilarious that you know people some people actively avoid positive people
because it makes them feel bad about themselves but i prefer to surround myself with them and i
want to be that person that injects happiness and we i know we've spoken about brett's uh our friend
of ours in the past he always leaves people that he meet feeling better than when he arrived in
every shop every cafe you go to you can just see the person who's got more energy than before we
were there and that's something that that i'm going to try and do for the rest of my life
in inject energy give compliments when you walk past people we've spoken about that on another
podcast and be the sort of person that creates a world that is positive we're catching up with
brett tonight we are we are captain my other captain mate yeah he's a skipper captain you're
you're the uh the up in the air captain yeah all right well i've loved this topic thank you for
agreeing to do to do this one michelle oh that's been fun good good for awareness again oh one more
quick thing it's about your mental diet right your mental diet if you're if you're somebody
who is addicted to drama just take a step back and think why am i doing that big does that then
validate my victimhood so i've often noticed that the sort of tv sheet shows that people watch will
determine whether they are somebody who has agency and accountability or if they're somebody who is
more of a victimhood sort of person people who watch um shows like grand designs and uh how to
fix this and how to do that so action-based learning-based entertainment yeah or humor
based entertainment tend to pick people with more agency and accountability people who love the drama
shows oh those are housewives where people are just whinging and whining about each other and
being negative about their circumstances yeah they tend to have more victimhood so just consider
that as well what sort of mental diet do you have physical diet is very important for for mental
health but mental diet what you watch what you listen we don't neither of us watch the news
listen to the news we just wait for people to tell us what's going on in the world and we try and
fill our lives and our heads full of happy stuff yes yeah yeah that's right that was good yes i
enjoyed that one excellent great to see you again michelle yes you too guys oh now bollinger where
are you yes yes bollinger boes lint yes reach out reach out if you want some merch on our website
captaintheclown.com we have t-shirts and caps um and they're they're getting some great feedback
yeah the moor dogs comment on them that's right it's been fun wearing them around actually it is
i need a new one i've worn this one all night i was gonna say you do need to update it it's a bit worn
out now anyway take care everyone bye bye well that was fun that was fun you're such a clown
that's my lady and who's gonna listen maybe i'm not thanks mom