Ep #208: Blair Dunkley: Stop Asking Why — Language Patterns That Keep You Stuck
episode
Business Growth Architect Show: Founders of the Future
32 min
1 speaker
8 chapters
transcribed 10 days ago
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Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Why do we get stuck when we keep asking “Why?”?
My students had reported that when they had a major trauma in their life, their mindset Well It broke for me too. We behave to the meanings of our words. Why holds us stuck? Wise generate reasons, excuses, rationalizations, and justifications. We beat the living crap out of ourselves. What might I do? What might I do differently right now? You're not necessarily stuck unless you choose to stay there.
Have you ever felt that life is just happening to you, no matter what you're somehow stuck in at the mercy of all these things that just seemingly happened to you and you and you and nobody else? You've done everything. You follow the coaches, you've done the outlines, but you still feel like you're stuck. So today we talked to Blair Dunkley from Rewiring the Mind. And Blair, my My first question to you is why? Why do so many high performing, capable people still feel that they're stuck and frustrated and feel like things are happening to them?
Well, I've done a ton of research on language patterns and how language patterns impact your life. Because I one of the things that I say is we behave to the meanings of our words. And the question that you just asked, right out of the gate, why?
What is the “why‑hole” and how does it keep us stuck?
Well, I have a big ton of research around that, and virtually all of that research points to why holds us stuck. Using that word, I refer it to as the why hole. We have wise generate reasons, excuses, rationalizations, and justifications. And that means that we also wind up judging ourselves as opposed to evaluating what's going on. We have that internal self-judgment. We beat the living crap out of ourselves. It's not even funny. I mean, so, so many people do this virtually automatically. Number one. Number two, why, if you think about it, if it's a true why and not what I referred to as a disguised what or how, true whys are 100% past based. In other words, all of this, the answer to a why has to come from something that you've already done, or some experience you had, or some information you found out, and it's all past information.
It's all past. There's no ability to change, adapt, do anything. Do we need to collect information sometimes? Absolutely, yes. But we're when we are stuck in our Y hole. It's like I referred to it as a Y Hole hotel.
So question question for you. I wanna jump in here. So what I'm hearing you say is that this isn't about using a language that I'm gonna have to really figure out how to ask this question properly. But are they like trapped is what I'm trying to say. So they're trapped because they are using a language where there is no way out. What should they be doing instead?
Great question. First thing. Change the question and notice, are you getting a question that is actually present tense? Is it something that you can do right now? So it replace What you did right now is you changed your why question that you asked me into a what question and a how question. So, you know, what can they do? How can they do it? So that's literally the answer that you just did. Most people don't because they're self-criticizing at this point. They're beating themselves up and they're stuck in their why hole. Then they look for what. caused past tense this to be, that's a disguised why. But if they ask themselves simply two questions, What might I what might I do? Or the second one is what might I do differently right now?
To get yourself out and looking around and seeing looking for change. Cause if you don't find a different way out of where you are, can you get out of where you are?
So are they running? A bad pattern? I mean,
yes.
Let's maybe talk about NLP, neurolinguistic programming. And you you've studied this a lot. So give us maybe some For somebody who's never heard of it or has heard of it, it's not really entirely clear what it means. What is N L P?
Which two present‑tense questions can instantly restore agency?
Neurolinguistic programming is a study of how people use their brain in a pattern recognition issue to acknowledge where they are. So they have neurolinguistic, which neurolanguage programming basically is the language of programming the brain. I've studied that thoroughly.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Why do we get stuck when we keep asking “Why?”?
0:00–1:49
2
What is the “why‑hole” and how does it keep us stuck?
1:49–5:13
3
Which two present‑tense questions can instantly restore agency?
5:13–12:03
4
How do the Three E’s (Effective/ Ineffective, External/ Internal, Evaluation/ Judgment) reshape thinking?
12:03–18:15
5
What is Neurolinguistic Programming (NLP) and how does it relate to mind models?
18:15–26:20
6
How does changing perspective (looking up vs. looking down) affect our emotional state?
26:20–31:35
7
Why is acceptance the first step to breaking destructive patterns?
31:35–32:20
8
How can listeners access Blair Dunkley’s free Three E’s ebook and masterclass?
32:20–32:46