What you feed your mind is as important as what you feed your body

Karen works in the city, works long and hard hours, and is very happy with her career but her life is very narrow. She talks to the same people every day, many of them partial to gossip and judgemental comments of others. When her long work day is over, she goes home to her partner. They don’t socialise very much outside of their respective workplaces and only go out socialising maybe once a month with the same couple.

Tessa works in a large organisation, she meets a variety of people from all different backgrounds, from labourers to CEO’s. During the week she plays sports with two different groups of unconnected people and at the weekend, spends her time socialising with friends and family and once a month she volunteers. Tessa’s life is very broad and varied.

An observer might say that they are just two entirely different personalities and what suits one may not suit the other. But those of us who know will explain that much of the difference in life satisfaction is the result of the difference in the mind food consumed by the two people.

Every farmer knows that if he puts plenty of fertiliser on his crops, he's going to get a bigger yield. Our thinking must be given additional nourishment if we want to get better results.

A story from The Magic of Thinking Big by David J Schwartz

My wife and I, along with five other couples spent a wonderful evening last month as guests of a department store executive and his wife. My wife and I lingered just a little longer than the others. So, I had a chance to ask our host whom I know well, the question that had been on my mind all evening, this was really a wonderful evening. I said, But I'm puzzled about one thing. I'd expected to meet mainly other retailing executives here tonight, but your guests all represented different fields. There was a writer, a doctor, an engineer, an accountant, and a teacher. He smiled and said, Well, we often do entertain retailing people. But Helen and I find it very refreshing to mix with people who do something else for a living. I'm afraid that if we extend our entertaining to people who only have interests like our own, we'd find ourselves in the old well-known rut. Besides he went on. People are my business. Every day 1000s of people of every occupational group imaginable, visit our store. The more I can learn about other people, their ideas, interests, and viewpoints, the better job I can do in giving them the merchandise and service they want and will buy.

Here are a few simple dos to help make your social environment better.

1. Circulate in new groups, restricting your social environment to the same small group induces boredom, dullness, and dissatisfaction.

2. Remember that your success requires that you broaden your understanding of people by being interested in all that there is to learn about people. Studying one small group is like trying to master mathematics by reading one short book.

3. Make new friends, join new organisations enlarge your social group by adding variety. People like variety and like anything else it adds spice to life and gives it a broader dimension. It's good mind-food to select friends who have views different from your own.

In this modern age, the narrow individual hasn't much future, responsibility and positions of importance gravitate to the person who is able to see both sides. Whatever your political or religious views, associate with opposites, but be sure that they are persons who will enrich your understanding.

4. Select friends who stand above petty, unimportant things. People who are more concerned with the size or cleanliness of your home or the car that you have or don't have than with your ideas and your conversation are inclined to be petty.

5. Guard your psychological environment. Select friends who are interested in positive things, friends who really do want to see you succeed. Find friends who breathe encouragement into your plans and ideals if you don't, if you select petty thinkers as your close friends, you'll gradually develop into a petty thinker yourself.

We're a poisoned conscious society, we guard against body poison - that is every restaurant is on guard against food poisoning. Just a couple of cases of it and his customers won't come near his venue. We've got loads of laws to protect the public against hundreds of body poisons. We put our poisons on the top shelves or in secured containers so the children can't reach them. We go to any extreme to avoid body poison, and it's good that we do.

But there's another type of poison that is perhaps a little more insidious - thought poison.

Thought poison differs from body poison in two ways. It affects the mind more than the body and is more subtle. The person being poisoned usually doesn't know it.

Thought poison is subtle, but it accomplishes big things. It reduces the size of our thinking by forcing us to concentrate on petty, unimportant things. It warps and twists our thinking about people because it is based on a distortion of facts, and it creates a guilty feeling in us that shows through when we meet the person we've spoken ill about.

Thought poison is 0% right thinking it is 100% wrong thinking – both men and women are equally exposed to a poisoned environment.

Every day thousands of judgemental comments are had by men and women on topics such as the neighbour’s marital or financial problems, and people treading on other people to get ahead in business. What the school Mum’s wore and how they looked – gossip!

Conversation is a big part of our psychological environment. Some conversation is healthy, it encourages you. It makes you feel like you're taking a walk in the warm sunshine of a spring day. Some conversation makes you feel like a winner. But another conversation is more like walking through a poisonous bog of eternal stench. It chokes you. It makes you feel ill. It turns you into a negative conversation vampire sucking the life out of positivity and empowerment. Negative conversations about people become the norm and the victim of thought poison begins to think he enjoys it. He seems to get a form of poisoned joy from talking negatively about others not knowing that to successful people. He is becoming increasingly unlikable. And unreliable.

One of these thought-poisoned addicts walked into a conversation some friends and I were having about an inspirational speaker we had recently heard. As soon as Mrs Killjoy learned the topic of our chat, she came through with her choice bits the speaker’s personal life in a negative way. Perhaps it might have been true, who knows? The point is, the speaker’s personal life had no bearing on the discussion at hand, and I couldn't help being glad that we weren't discussing somebody whom we knew intimately. Talk about people. Yes, but stay on the positive side. Let's make one point clear. Not all conversation is negative or judgemental.

You can test your level of thought by asking yourself these questions:

1. Do I spread rumours about other people?

2. Do I always have good things to say about others and myself?

3. Do I like to hear reports of a scandal?

4. Do I judge others or myself only on the basis of facts?

5. Do I encourage others to bring their rumours to me?

6. Do I proceed with my conversations with don't tell anybody?

7. Do I keep confidential information confidential?

8. Do I feel guilty about what I say concerning other people?

9. Do I see the good in myself and others?

10. Do I lift myself and others up, or tear myself and others down?

The right answers are obvious. Meditate on this thought for just a moment.

Taking an axe and chopping your neighbour’s furniture to pieces won't make your furniture look any better. Taking an axe to your own furniture won’t prove any point to anyone. And using verbal axes and grenades on another person or yourself doesn't do one thing to make you a better version of yourself or me a better version of myself.

 What we feed our mind matters, we would soon get bored of eating exactly the same meals every day 7 days a week, 365 days a year. yet as humans, we err towards habitual behaviours. Same clothes, same activities, same routines, same hobbies, pastimes, things we watch on TV etc.

We pay attention to the hygiene standards of food retailers and restaurants, there is big business in making sure you don’t poison your body yet few people pay attention to how they are poisoning their minds - every day.

Be impeccable with your word. It is an excellent rule to follow in everything you do, including the things you say to and about yourself.