Larry & Earl

Meet Larry and Earl: The Part of Your Brain That Files Reports About Things That Are Not Real

Here’s the deal. Today I want to talk about a concept of my own invention called Larry and Earl. I thought about it because so many people are struggling with negative thoughts and believing the thoughts are them. When I talk to my kids, to people at church, and to people at boot camps, the number one issue people deal with is their own thoughts, the negative ones. It is an issue, but it can become an opportunity.

Your Brain Is Built to Keep You Safe

I have learned this from some pretty reputable sources, some good books and some trainings on mindset and spirituality, and I can give you those references if you want them. Here is the point. You have a survival brain. Some people call it a caveman brain. It is designed to keep you safe. It is not designed to tell you the truth. It is a survival method.

Back in the day, we dealt with lions and tigers and bears. People in some parts of the world still do, and if it is not lions and tigers and bears, it is something else. Our brains are designed to keep us safe from those things.

Now put that same brain into modern society, with electricity, clean running water, sanitary sewer systems, comfortable homes, heating and cooling, vehicles, and more acceptable social structures. We are safe and protected. Our brain does not see lions and tigers and bears anymore, so it has to make mountains out of molehills to do its job.

The Analogy: 100 Employees Inside Your Brain

Let’s say you have one hundred employees inside your brain, all doing different things. It is a little like the movie Inside Out, where little operators in the mind each handle an emotion. One employee is in charge of creativity. One is in charge of happiness. One is in charge of logic.

Then you have Larry and Earl over in the corner. They are little emotional, neural pathway employees, and they are employed to keep you safe. That is the only skill they went to school for. They have a master’s degree in keeping you safe, and now they have doctorates in it. They have no other hobbies. They cannot flex into other roles. All they know is how to keep you safe.

Larry and Earl do not want to lose their job. They want to add value, according to the only thing they know how to do. The problem is that nobody has seen a lion or a tiger or a bear in forever. So they sit in the corner and think, this is bogus. Larry says, the boss is going to fire us if we do not start doing something. Earl says, there is nothing to do. Then Larry has an idea. Maybe we can make him or her scared or paranoid about things that do not actually exist.

There is no real difference between reality and imagination when it comes to mindset, so they check the rules. Nothing says the danger has to be real for them to write a report. Real is not part of their criteria. So, they get back to their desks and start typing up reports and sending them to the mainframe.

The Reports Larry and Earl File

Larry and Earl start telling us to be afraid, paranoid, or neurotic about very small things. Here are some of the reports.

• Your boyfriend sent a text that is not worded perfectly, so he must hate you or want to dump you.
• Your parents asked you to clean up your room, so they must not respect your time.
• You made a mistake at work, so you must be really bad at what you are doing and you are probably about to get fired.
• As a mother, you did not spend that time reading a story to little Johnny, so you must be a bad mother.

They make mountains out of molehills. One superintendent once described it as pole vaulting over mouse droppings.

When We Believe the Reports

The problem comes when we stop remembering that it is Larry and Earl. This happens with our teenagers, our coworkers, our employees, the people in the congregation at church, and ourselves. We start to believe the reports. We start to think they have substance. Then we worry about them, fear them, and get paranoid about them, and that is when everything takes a turn for the worse.

Is it easy to control and maintain our thoughts? No. Is it totally normal to struggle with these things? Yes. But when you have an argument with your daughter and leave the house, and your brain tells you she does not love you, it helps to realize it is Larry and Earl. It is not real, and it is not you. Let me say that again. It is not real, and it is not you.

What You Can Do with a Thought

You can choose, and this is where the hard part comes in, how to handle it.

• Let the thought float off into space.
• Write it down, cross it out, and write the truth behind it to get clarity on what is actually going on.
• Filter through the titles of Larry and Earl’s reports, and only pick up and believe a report when it actually has a bear, a lion, a tiger, or someone hanging over the side of a cliff about to fall.

All the other reports, we just let pile up on the desk. We do not have to tell Larry and Earl we are not reading them, because it is not worth our time.

Why This Matters to Construction

This matters to construction because we are not going to reach the measure of who we can be and who we can become until we can understand what is real and what is noise. Hal Macomber recommended a book called Signal and Noise, which I have not read yet. What he told me before I read it is that there are real signals you should pay attention to, and there is just noise. We cannot loop all of it together and waste our time.

A lot of those really stupid thoughts, and I call them stupid because you did not come up with them and they are not you, are just noise. They are not true. If we can discern between signal and noise, and understand that Larry and Earl are just trying to be busy, we can filter out those thoughts, live a happier life, and respond to real concerns.

Larry and Earl Still Have a Job

We care about Larry and Earl. One of these days we are going to be out in the wilderness and see a bear, and they will have a real function. So we are not going to take them out, numb them, surgically remove them, or criticize them. They are doing their job great. The key is to understand they are trying to stay busy. Say thank you, Larry and Earl, and appreciate them being busy, but filter through the titles of their reports.

You are not your thoughts, and Larry and Earl produce a whole lot of thoughts that are not true, because our brains are designed to keep us safe. In modern society, without lions and tigers and bears, the brain is quite confused about what to do without that frame of reference.

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So here is the challenge. The next time you have a thought that is not productive, ask whether it is Larry and Earl. Let it float off, or write it down, cross it out, and write the truth behind it. If you ever want additional resources on what to do with your thoughts after that, please reach out to me.

Jason Schroeder said it plainly: “It’s not real, and it’s not you.” Learn to tell the signal from the noise.

On we go.

FAQ

Who are Larry and Earl?

They are a metaphor Jason invented for the little emotional, neural pathway employees inside your brain whose only job is to keep you safe. They have no other skills, and without real lions or tigers or bears to report on, they make reports about things that are not real.

Why does the brain make mountains out of molehills?

The brain is a survival brain, designed to keep you safe, not to tell you the truth. In modern society we are safe and protected, so the brain no longer sees lions and tigers and bears and has to make mountains out of molehills to do its job.

What can someone do with a negative thought?

They can let it float off into space, or write it down, cross it out, and write the truth behind it. They can also filter through the titles of the reports and only believe one when it actually has a bear, a lion, a tiger, or someone about to fall.

Why does this matter to construction?

Because we will not reach the measure of who we can be and who we can become until we understand what is real and what is noise. Discerning signal from noise lets us filter out untrue thoughts and respond to real concerns.