Chapter 2

Get Out of That Pit!

As human beings, it is innate for us to want to improve ourselves and strive for a better life, and I’m sure we’ve all had those bursts of desire to look after ourselves, to do better. Have you ever been in the mind-set, for example, in which you decided to get fit? You know the feeling — you feel like it’s time to turn your life around, to go from being a lazy loafer to a lean, mean, healthy machine.

You start the week like the reincarnation of Olympian Jesse Owens. You set the alarm for 5:30 a.m. The moment it goes off, you spring out of bed and change into your exercise clothes. Off you go, with a bounce in your step and a vision of being the next marathon winner at the Olympic Games. You get on the treadmill and push up that hill. You hop on the weight machines and complete three sets on each. The sweat is dripping from you like Niagara Falls. Ahhh, what a workout!

Day Two. (It’s probably safe to say it’s a Tuesday.) Beep! Beep! Beep! The alarm goes off. This time, you have a little conversation with yourself:

“Gosh, I feel really tired this morning, and I’ve got a huge day at work ahead of me. My legs are so sore from yesterday’s workout. I really think I should take it easy. I could do some serious harm if I overdo it. Maybe I’ll sleep in this morning and go to the gym after work. My muscles won’t be as sore by then. Yeah! I’ll sleep in. I deserve it!”

You hit the snooze button.

Have you ever been in this headspace? We usually go there when we want to implement change in our life — whether it’s exercise, eating, communicating differently, completing assignments or work projects, or even vowing to be more patient with our kids. It’s that crucial moment when we decide to take a certain path.

So what’s the key difference between staying in bed and getting up to go for that run? The answer for me is Flipman or Pitman?

In everything we do, we have two possible paths of thinking. One enhances our now, and the other causes us missed opportunities (too late). I have turned these two mind-sets into two characters with whom we can easily identify. The superhero (Flipman) creates and enhances our being. The villain (Pitman) represents the destructive, negative state in which we can exist. I wanted us to have this simple metaphor so we could call ourselves on our own game playing — a metaphor that would make it easy to identify any feelings, thoughts, or behaviors that did not help us move through our pain and out the other side. I wanted us to be able to choose our response to life’s events in a simple but powerful way, and to stop avoiding the brilliant yet sometimes excruciatingly painful path of self-discovery.

Flipman and Pitman are the lead characters in the internal movie that we play every day inside the movie theater of our mind. This movie enacts our moment-by-moment perceptions of events and situations that occur in our day-today life. The plot of this internal movie is the story of our life as it unfolds. With every decision and choice we make, we train our brain to support us in either a Pitman way of life or a Flipman way of life.

When we choose to live in the moment, the now, and embrace each experience and what it has to give us, we don’t wait to be great. We move forward and evolve — this is Flipman.

When we avoid our pain, whatever that is — the discomfort, the fear, the anxiety of “what if” or “if only,” the sadness, the anger, the grief, the frustration, the jealousy, the resentment — we put our life on pause, and Pitman becomes our constant companion. We continue to create results that we don’t want and then complain that someone or something did it to us.

Rather than making this another philosophical way to live, I wanted us to have a strategy, a process that we could implement whenever we wanted to choose a more empowered way to live — I wanted us to be able to choose Flipman’s Strategy and not Pitman’s Path. When we wait to be great, we miss the moment; it’s gone, and it’s too late. By also understanding Pitman’s Path, we can easily identify what stops us from taking action, now. In order for us to disempower Pitman, we need a full comprehension of the grasp he can have on our life. Chapters 2 through 9 explore when we are in danger of taking Pitman’s Path; Chapter 10 onward shows us how to create the life that we want and how to implement Flipman’s Strategy.

I am often asked why I use the name Flipman. Originally (and for many years) I used the name Stickman, quite simply because I would draw a stick figure to explain the process to my audiences. One day I was feeling quite frustrated in my attempt to quickly introduce the concept to a new colleague verbally. He just wasn’t getting it until I blurted out, “You just flip it. When you’re being a Pitman you flip your negative thinking, feeling, and behavior to the opposite.” As soon as I saw the instant understanding on his face, I knew the name Flipman was so much more appropriate. Please note that the term “Flipman” is not meant to be gender-specific. The “-man” represents human. Over the years, people have fondly personalized Flipman. We now have Flip-woman, Flip-chick, Flip-boy, and Flip-girl. Just for commonality (and simplicity!), in this book we will be calling him Flipman.

But first, let’s meet Pitman.

Pitman

To fully understand this twosome, let’s get a really clear picture of who Pitman is, so that we can instantly recognize him when he wants to play havoc with our life. We can all relate to him. My two sons know all about Pitman (as with Flipman, no specific gender is intended). When Jackson was little, if I sent him to his room for inappropriate behavior, I would hear him chanting, “I love Pitman! I love Pitman!” Even as a small boy, he knew he was in the Pit — hence, the chanting to annoy me!

So where does Pitman live? In the Pit, of course! But he doesn’t live in just any old Pit; he lives in the Pit of Misery! We all know the Pit. It’s the place we go to when life seems wretched and lonely, when we feel beaten, when everyone is against us and no one understands us. When we feel isolated and all alone. When it looks like it just won’t get any better. We’ve all been to the Pit, haven’t we?

We visit the Pit when we think we haven’t got enough money, or when we think we’re too fat, too skinny, too lonely, too sad, too tired, or too lost, or when we’re just fed up! We go there when we think we’re being picked on, left behind, criticized, or pushed too far. We go there when we feel underwhelmed or overwhelmed or even just plain bored. Consequently, we can begin to feel helpless, angry, mean, paranoid, nasty, empty, afraid, and Pitiful — like a victim. It’s the place where we feel sorry for ourselves when life gets a little too hard. When we are in the Pit of Misery, we are a living, breathing, walking, talking Pitman! Some of us go to the Pit for an hour, others go there for a day, and there are many of us who go to the Pit a bit too often and for a bit too long. Some people live their entire life in the Pit. We all go to the Pit; it’s how long we stay there that makes all the difference.

One of the most powerful aha! moments that I have ever had was this — if we know how to do Pitman, then we know how to do Flipman. It’s exactly the same strategy — we just flip it! Some of us may deny that we consciously set out to create a miserable life, but as we continue this exploration into what it takes to create an empowered life, we will begin to see that it is our habitual, unsupportive behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that keep us in the Pit. And it will be our new conscious behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that create the life we want. Same process — just the opposite outcome.

It’s also very important to note at this point that when I talk about Pit behaviors and reactions, I’m not talking about healthy emotions, such as grief, sadness, shock, respectful anger, or frustration. Life can be challenging, and we need to be able to express our real feelings when they arise. These are therapeutic emotions that need to be experienced and expressed in order for healing and growth to take place. We’ve all had our fair share of Pit days — the days when we just want to dive into bed, pull the covers over our head, and hope the rest of the world goes away. The problems arise when we don’t move through these emotions. We cling to them and react with bitterness and/or self-pity for the wrongs done to us or by us.

Pit behavior is any behavior that has a negative effect on us or those around us. We make excuses for why we can’t act now, so we postpone our life of greatness. Now, if you’ve just thought to yourself, “Yeah, but you don’t know how bad my life is!” — that’s serious Pit talk. We need to recognize when we’re in the Pit so we can choose to climb out. There are many telltale signs of Pit behavior, and being able to identify them is half the journey. When we’re being a Pit person, we take on Pit posture. We walk with our head and shoulders down and with our eyes and mouth downcast — a defeated posture. We tend to walk slowly, dragging our feet behind us. We feel heavy, as if the weight of the world is on our shoulders. Sometimes Pit people even have aggressive body language. They throw their hands in the air, roll their eyes, and give looks that could decalcify a spine at six hundred yards!

You can see a Pit person coming from a mile away. You hope he or she goes the other way, but it doesn’t happen. In your cheeriest voice, you ask the question you should never ask if you don’t want it answered: “How are you?” His or her shoulders droop further, and he or she replies, “Oh, don’t even ask!” Instantly, you can feel your energy being sucked right out of you. When I was in my early twenties, my boss at the time called people like this “energy suckers.” What a great term for exactly how we feel when we’re around someone who lives his or her life in the Pit. Another friend of mine uses the term “emotional vampire.” Suffice to say, we all know what I mean when I say Pit Person.

“What’s wrong with this person?” you ask yourself. The answer is usually quite simple! This person has usually made the Pitman state his or her habitual way of life. Remember, we can all fall prey to Pitman, and it can happen slowly and seductively. Over time, this “flat” feeling can actually become a habit, and some of us can actually get used to feeling flat or numb. We can get used to having bad posture to the extent that the muscles actually modify into a hunched position. There have been many psychological studies on the effects of body posture and emotions. Next time you’re feeling down, check your stance. Then do the same the next time you are feeling great. I’m sure you will see that the way you carry yourself is vastly different. How we hold ourselves physically affects how we feel emotionally (as well as vice versa).

Eventually, we can get so used to looking for the downside of life that we cease to notice the fabulous things that are occurring all around us. Later I’ll cover how to protect ourselves from falling into Pit habits, but for now, just pay attention to how you carry yourself. Without necessarily realizing it, our carriage tells others a lot about how we may be feeling, even if we’re not feeling that way. It’s interesting to also note that we are not necessarily born as optimistic, happy-go-lucky people. In fact, our brain has been hardwired to expect the worst. In our earlier Neanderthal days, we did not come out of the cave singing, “There’s a blue bird on my shoulder!” We ventured out with intense caution and fear. We expected to be attacked by a ferocious animal and killed at any moment. That has been hardwired into our reptilian brain, so it’s natural for us to feel pessimistic and negative at times. It’s natural for us to have our low days and our tough moments, and it’s unnatural to be happy 24/7. So relax — you’re normal!

Having said that, it does not serve our goals, or ourselves, if we get stuck in those moments. Living in the NOW is allowing ourselves to feel all of our emotions — the good feelings and the not-so-good feelings — so we can experience them and then release them, thus allowing ourselves to move forward. We don’t wait; we get on with doing what needs to be done to create “great.” But Pitman does not want us to have that sort of freedom, so it is our responsibility to pay attention when he is lurking around, trying to entice us back into that Pit.

My Pitman comes out on those cold mornings just before my run. He’s there with his little face at my window, whispering in his seductive, enticing voice, “It’s cold out here, Terry. Stay in bed where you’re cozy and warm. You know you’re sore and tired. Do it!” It takes all my might to ignore him. Pitman is everywhere. Watch yourself!