Matt's Mix Tape, Vol. 133

Mar 04, 2022

Hi, I’m Matt Tillotson, and this is Matt’s Mix Tape: essays + links on living a healthy and creative middle life.

This week’s Mix:

Transforming your public speaking energy
The limiting beliefs trifecta
What a Star Wars coin set taught me about limiting beliefs
How to train if you have an injured limb
Florida photo

Transforming your public speaking energy

Thursday, I held my first mentor session in Write of Passage.

For most of my adult life, if I had to so much as present something at work, my anxiety raced off the charts. Let alone speaking to 50-250 students in this course.

But through repetition, I now feel excited energy—not fear—when it’s time to speak.

If you struggle with public speaking:

Keep showing up
Put in the reps
Find an environment with positive reinforcement

I’m not exactly Tony Robbins these days. But I’m comfortable speaking. And that makes me much more effective.

You can transform the way you feel about public speaking. I’m proof.

The limiting beliefs trifecta

Author Mark Manson laid out the three kinds of self-imposed limiting beliefs:

Limiting beliefs about yourself
Limiting beliefs about the world
Limiting beliefs about life

Limiting beliefs about yourself make you feel you can’t do something because something is inherently wrong with, or lacking, in you.

I had a limiting belief about myself exposed this week.

I believed I couldn’t write about my faith because I haven’t studied theology. I don’t work in a church. I’m not a minister.

One Write of Passage student feels there aren’t enough people writing about Christianity from outside the church. That outside voices are needed because people inside the “church industry” can’t apply the lessons to the real world in the way the rest of us can.

Limiting self-belief, obliterated.

Limiting beliefs about the world make you feel you can’t do something because no one will let you.

We’re waiting for permission. Or we’re afraid of judgment.

For example, I long thought I couldn’t write about fitness. I’m not a trainer, scientist, or doctor. I thought people would just dismiss me.

That was BS.

I’ve kept myself in shape for over 30 years. I’ve tried all kinds of exercise. I’ve been vegetarian. I’ve done stuff. I learned stuff.

Turns out I can write about fitness. And people do read it.

Limiting beliefs about life make you feel you can’t do something because it’s too difficult, or “too late,” or will take too long.

Examples include:

I’m [too old] or [too young] to start a business
I can’t write about that—it’s already been said
That business idea has already been taken

The good news about limiting beliefs is they are self-imposed. And that means we can remove them.

The first step is to notice our limiting beliefs. Then we can do something about them.

What a Star Wars coin set taught me about limiting beliefs

This is an autographed coin set from the cast of the Star Wars TV show “The Clone Wars.”

When my oldest daughter was eight, we attended a presentation featuring the show’s cast while at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

They asked for volunteers to come up on stage and do a scene.

My daughter looked up at me and said, “I’m gonna get up there, dad.”

I immediately tried to reset her expectations. “Oh, Maddie, it’s fine, we’re just enjoying the show, don’t worry about it.” I knew how disappointed she got when things didn’t go her way.

Suddenly, she’s on her chair dancing and yelling.

And out of hundreds of people, they chose her to go on stage. She played a Jawa. She had a blast.

She was right to try. I was wrong to impose limits on her.

The cast gave her the coin set.

Now I keep the coin set in my office as a reminder not to put limiting beliefs on others—or myself.

How to train if you have an injured limb

This blew my mind.

If you have an injured arm, leg, or joint that prevents you from perform your normal strength training exercises, the answer isn’t to rest. Instead, keep training the healthy side of your body:

In fact, research has shown that correctly tailored exercise has not only been shown to strengthen the uninvolved side but maintain strength and sometimes even muscle mass in the injured limb!
Resistance training is a powerful stimulus for neuromuscular adaptation. (1) These adaptations are not limited to the working muscle and have in fact been shown to result in increases in strength and neural drive in a contralateral, resting muscle. (1)

In other words, training the healthy side of your body not only speeds recovery but aids in strength muscle retention on your injured side.

Keep showing up. Even with one “good” side.

This week’s Florida photo

Waiting for the Jurassic World VelociCoaster at Universal Studios. With a beverage.

I’m not the biggest roller coaster fan. But this one, from the ride queue through the track itself, is well done and very fun.

Hello to 28 new subscribers!

Thank you for reading.