The Top 1% Reprogram Their Negative Mindset. Here’s How To Do It. | Nir Eyal

Key Takeaway

Success isn't about intelligence—it's about perseverance. Research shows successful people fail MORE than unsuccessful people because they keep trying. Like rats that swam 240x longer after learning hope was possible, we unlock hidden potential by replacing limiting beliefs with liberating ones. The key: visualize obstacles, not outcomes, and remember that managing discomfort is the gateway to everything you want.

Episode Overview

Nir Eyal, behavioral design expert and bestselling author, explores the transformative power of beliefs in unlocking human potential. Drawing on six years of research, he reveals how beliefs—not intelligence or talent—drive success through the motivation triangle of behavior, benefit, and belief. Key topics include the famous Kurt Richter rat study demonstrating perseverance, the dangers of positive thinking without action planning, and the difference between pain and suffering. Eyal shares personal stories about overcoming obesity and difficult family dynamics while introducing frameworks like visualization of obstacles, the 'what the hell effect,' and Byron Katie's turnaround technique.

Full Transcript

Transcript of The Top 1% Reprogram Their Negative Mindset. Here’s How To Do It. | Nir Eyal from The School of Greatness. Auto-generated from episode audio; may contain minor errors.

It turns out that people who can persist the longest are the ones who are more likely to succeed. When I did interviews for this research, I talked to billionaires and I talked to people who were broke. And you would expect that people who don't succeed in life that they would have more failures. That's actually the opposite. People who are more successful are the ones who failed more because they were more persistent. And when they persevered, even though they failed more times, eventually if they hit it, sometimes they hit it big.

Wow. He is an author, a behavioral design expert and teacher who focuses on the intersection of psychology, technology and human behavior. The inspiring mere IEL. So what happens if day after day, week after week, year after year, we constantly recite a script about our limitations, about our labels, about what we can't do. It becomes physiologically as well as psychologically true. really if you have positive views about aging at 30 studies have found there's a study at Yale that found that people who had those positive less at 30 lived on average 7 and 1/2 years longer that is more of an effect size than quitting smoking than diet it's more of an effect than exercise how important or terrifying is the words we think or say about ourselves and our limits to our life incredibly important the best things you can do can do can do Welcome back everyone to the school of greatness.

Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Near I Ael in the house and he is an author, a behavioral design expert and teacher who focuses on the intersection of psychology, technology and human behavior. He's sold millions of books worldwide helping people overcome distractions, build habits that stick, and take back control in a world that is designed to pull us off track. Thank you so much, Ne, for being here. Excited about this, man. Thanks. Great to be back. It's got to be fun, man. Uh, this is a topic that I love because most of my life I grew up feeling very insecure originally because school I was in the bottom of my class all through grade school, all through middle school, high school, and college.

Bottom of my class, bottom four, because he used to rank us on our on our grade cards and tell us essentially either how smart or how stupid we are based on the rest of the class. class. class. And I was always in the bottom four. So, I always had this belief that I wasn't smart enough. smart enough. smart enough. It was like this feeling that I wasn't smart enough. But for whatever reason, there was something else inside of me that said, "No, you can make something of yourself." There was like some calling, some voice, some feeling, some essence that was like, "It doesn't matter if you're stupid on your grade card or if you're lack the intelligence in school.

If you have the courage to risk, to put yourself out there, to try and fail, to make mistakes, you can get better and you can do extraordinary things. M things. M things. M and that belief, thank goodness, has carried me over the last 20 years to, you know, excelling in athletics and sports to building a business where I had no skills or like anything about business to launching a podcast to writing bestselling books when I didn't have any of the evidence that those things would be possible.

Yeah. But I had this like essence or belief that I was like, I think I can figure this out if I just if I take the next step, if I meet the right person, if I ask the right questions and then try and try and try, something's going to work out. And that belief has given me the ability to, I think, outperform so many people who are way more intelligent than I am, who are way smarter, who have more degrees, who have higher education than me, all that stuff.

But I just had the courage to believe. believe. believe. And why is it in your opinion that so many people who are extremely smart, extremely talented have all the degrees, accolades in the world still lack the courage or the belief that they can go and launch the thing that they really want to launch? This we see this all the time and the the myth is that in order to succeed, you have to be the smartest. That's the defining trait and in fact in some ways I think that being too smart can be a liability liability liability really really really because you start looking for facts right and it turn so facts are very different from beliefs a fact is an objective truth and in school we're graded by how many facts we can regurgitate onto a piece of paper right a fact is something that is true whether you believe it or not that's one end of the spectrum and the other end of the spectrum is faith faith is a conviction that does not require evidence okay those are two different sides in the middle however is a belief.

A belief is a conviction that is open to revision based on new evidence. So unlike a fact which won't change, unlike a faith that doesn't require any kind of evidence to to be a conviction, beliefs can change. And those people who hold themselves themselves themselves to their beliefs rather than sticking to things that they will only do if they know they are objectively true, they succeed more. can't tell you how many people I've spoken with in in researching uh around the power beliefs who who tell me the same story is that something inside me I just believe that it was going to succeed and it did and that's that's why I've done this research over the past six years is because there is an untapped power that people do not realize that they can access that releases their potential by harnessing the power of beliefs.

My favorite story around this, my uh the my favorite piece of research is the Kurt Richtor rat study where in the 1950s Kurt Richtor took these rats and he put them in a cylinder and he wanted to see at the time. You can't do this kind of study anymore. It's kind of ethically durious, but he wanted to see how long these wild rats could survive swimming in water. in water. in water. In a cylinder with water, halfway filled with water, he put a wild rat inside rat inside rat inside to see how long how survive.

How long they could swim and he sat there with a timer and it turns out the average wild rat can swim for about 15 minutes. before it drowns. It gives ups and drowns, right? 15 minutes. Then here's where the experiment really started. The interesting part, he brought in a new group of wild rats. He put them in the in the water and he wanted to see now what would happen if as soon as he knew that they would give up, as soon as they were about to drown after 15 minutes, he plucked them out, dried off the rat, let it catch its breath, and then put it back in the water.

And he did this a few times. times. times. Wow. Wow. Wow. Okay. Have you heard this study before? No. Okay. No. Okay. No. Okay. It sounds like torture, but it's Okay. So, how long? Now, here's the question. You know, there's a a trick here, right? You know, there's something surprising. surprising. surprising. If originally the rats could swim for 15 minutes, how long could the rats swim after they were conditioned? After they had been pulled out, dried off, caught their breath, put back in the water, how much longer could they swim?

I would say double. Double. That would be amazing, right? If they went from 15 minutes to 30 minutes of extra perseverance, wow, that would be incredible. Wasn't double, Lewis. It wasn't triple. It wasn't quadruple. It wasn't from for an hour. These rats after they had been conditioned conditioned conditioned could swim for 60 hours. What? What? What? Not 60 minutes, 60 hours. 240 times more persistent. Now, persistent. Now, persistent. Now, holy cow. holy cow. holy cow. What changed? What changed? What changed? The experiment was exactly the same.

These rats bodies hadn't changed. Nothing physically made them more uh perseverant. What had changed? We think we can't ask rats what they believe, but what we think happened was that something in their minds had changed. They had now seen the possibility that salvation was possible. They had learned hope. hope. hope. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that made them more perseverance. So what does that mean for us? What's what's the takeaway here? That when we attach ourselves to these limiting beliefs versus liberating beliefs, when we find what those limiting beliefs are, do away with them, and then find the liberating belief that can harness that motivation, we unlock something.

And it's not magic, right? It was always there within us. Interesting. These rats could always swim for 60 hours, but they gave up for after 15 minutes because they thought it was hopeless. And we all do this. So, they had the ability, they had the skill set, I guess they had the physical capacity to swim for 60 hours, but they didn't have the belief. That's right. And so, most of them would die around 50 minutes on average. They would give up. And once they learned the belief system, you know, even as a rat, I guess, you learn hope or this idea that, oh, maybe I can survive or maybe I could go a little longer, right?

longer, right? longer, right? They were able to go 240% more. 240 times. 240 times. 240 times. 240 times more than originally around survival mode. survival mode. survival mode. That's exactly right. Holy cow. Holy cow. Holy cow. Right. And so this is what's being unlocked. It's not magic. It's not anything supernatural. It's that all of us inside of us, we have these powers that we don't even realize are there. And what's holding us back are these limiting beliefs. limiting beliefs. limiting beliefs. I mean, it kind of sounds like the David Gogggins of Rats.

It's like, you know, okay, he talks about once you feel like you're about to die, you haven't even begun. Like your body can endure so much more. It might feel like you're dying, but maybe you do just need a little bit of a rest to the And then you get this thing called a second wind, right? There's this thing called a second wind where you feel like you have all this energy because you can go forever, right? right? right? And that is interesting. Now I'm curious that they went 60 hours.

Did they eventually stop and die after? They've reached their natural limit. And we all have our natural limit. But what we think are our natural limits are way longer than we would expect. There's all these things that are unlocked within us that the that our beliefs hold back. Now, is it a fear of is it a lack of skill of enduring pain that most people have? Is it a lack of skill of enduring humiliation and embarrassment? Is it a lack or skill of overcoming the idea of fear of failure, fear of success?

What is the skill that people are lacking that is holding them back the most? the most? the most? So, when we look at what differentiates successful people, it's not necessarily intelligence. It's somewhat correlated, but that's not at the top. What's really at the top is two things. Number one is perseverance and number two is adaptability. adaptability. adaptability. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Why? Because it turns out that people who can persist the longest are the ones who are more likely to succeed. When I did interviews for this research, uh I talked to billionaires and I talked to people who were broke.

And you would expect that people who are who who don't succeed in life for let's say that they would have more failures, right? People think to themselves, you know, I I I don't succeed because I failed so much. And it's that it's actually the opposite. That people who are more successful are the ones who failed more because they were more persistent. They kept trying and trying. It was just like those rats who kept swimming. And when they persevered, even though they failed more times, eventually if they hit it, sometimes they hit it big.

Do do unsuccessful people just don't try enough? Is that kind of what you researched researched researched that what's lacking is motivation at fundamentally what these beliefs unlock is your motivation but the way we think about motivation is completely wrong. The way we've been taught about motivation is if you do this behavior you'll get this benefit. So that's why we need motivation. Right? That's kind of the stat the the classical economic explanation. I pay you a salary that's the benefit so that you do this behavior. behavior.

behavior. Yeah. I work out for this long and I get a result. I lose weight. But when you don't see the result within two weeks, people give up. Why? So why why do we lose motivation? What's missing? I mean, we have tons of of self-help books telling us what to do. Uh we've got Google, but we can Google something if we don't know how to do it. We can ask uh AI to tell us what to do. We all know what to do. What's lacking is not a lack of knowledge.

It's not a lack of resources. There's something else missing. And that thing that's missing is the fact that motivation is a triangle. It's not a straight line. On one side, you have the behavior, what you need to do. On the other side, we have the benefit, why we need to do it. But holding the triangle together is belief. If I don't believe I'm going to get the benefit, let's say you work for a boss who you don't believe has your best interest at heart. They're not going to give you that promotion.

They're not going to give you that raise. Are you going to be motivated to work for them even if you want the benefit? No. No. What's very likely on the other side of the triangle is the behavior. That if I don't believe in my own ability to do the behavior, yeah, if I have a limiting belief about that behavior, I'm also going to quit. So, if it was just as easy as I want this, so I do that, we'd all have six-pack abs and be multi-millionaires.

Doesn't work that way because of the power of belief. You have to have all three. The behavior, the benefit, and most importantly, the belief. belief. belief. If someone focuses only on I'm going to go do this thing. I'm going to have I'm I'm really excited and motivated to launch this thing because I want this result. I want this benefit. But they lack the behavior or excuse me, they lack the belief that they're actually capable of accomplishing it or deserving and worthy of receiving that accomplishment. What will happen if they lack that belief?

Well, Well, Well, they they lose motivation. They don't keep trying. They're just like those rats that give up and sink. And that's exactly what happened. And when we keep trying, trying, trying, invariably we don't succeed. Now, this isn't magical thinking. This isn't positive thinking. I'm not a big advocate. If you look at the research literature, just wishing for something actually makes you less likely to go out and get it. Uh Gabrielle Oten did this wonderful study where she hooked up people to blood pressure monitors and she tracked what happened to them when they did a visualization exercise when they thought about you know when they manifested when they thought about the future they wanted when they aligned themselves with vibrations or whatever they they thought here's what happened Louis their blood pressure dropped pressure dropped pressure dropped and they became more relaxed and then afterwards they became less likely to do the things that it would take to get the results they wanted.

So what the research shows us that just dreaming, just visualizing about that potential outcome, just manifesting is not enough. In fact, it hurts you. It makes you less likely to get those results because your body interprets that relaxation that relaxation that relaxation as the benefit. Interesting. Interesting. Interesting. It feels like I've already accomplished financial success because I dreamed it in my head. So, how does someone learn to manifest the right way? Specifically from, you know, sports psychology talking about visualizing the outcome, visualizing the process on the court or the field, how you're going to react and respond.

Yeah. respond. Yeah. respond. Yeah. Strategizing and planning in business in the future when certain things happen, how will you react? Like kind of putting yourself in the future, what else needs to happen alongside visualization in order to manifest what you want. So what what the research literature shows us is that just the the dreaming doesn't work. What and this is a great example of how the self-help industry has taken something true and manipulated into something that's false. We hear that visualization works and we hear that athletes use visual visualization exercises which is true.

But what do athletes visualize? Do athletes visualize the trophy? No. Do they visualize the gold medal? No. What do athletes visualize? They visualize the obstacles in their way. They visualize if I'm on offense and defense is coming at me. If I'm going down the mountain skiing, what could be in my way? They're visualizing the obstacles so that they are emotionally ready to deal with it when those obstacles come. obstacles come. obstacles come. So, I I don't know if you remember this in our last interview, but I I might have mentioned I used to be clinically obese, obese, obese, like clinically obese.

Not just overweight, obese. Yeah. Now you're a machine. Thanks. I appreciate lean machine. I appreciate. But how did I do I appreciate. But how did I do that? What was kind of the secret to it? was that I stopped dreaming about the outcomes and instead I started planning for the obstacles. So what really made a difference for me was planning ahead, visualizing in my imagination when I go to that dinner party and someone offers me a drink or a piece of birthday cake, what am I going to do?

What am I going to say? How do I deal with that discomfort of having to say no? What is a pro? I mean, if someone is overweight right now and they've always tried to get healthy or lose weight, but they've yo-yoed or up and down or they've never been able to keep the weight off. weight off. weight off. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What would be the plan in this motivation triangle from belief, behavior, and benefit to say, "I'm actually going to get out of obesity or lose this weight for good." What would they need to do?

Well, so this is my story. First of all, I feel for for anyone who's in that situation, and I still have to do this every day. I have to think about this. It doesn't just go away. It's still a struggle. Now, I'll tell you what happened to me that from a very young age when when I was very overweight from a young age, for a long time. And what I did starting back in the 1990s was uh I would read whatever diet book was the latest fad.

So, it started with lowfat and uh snackwell cookies, right? That's what I ate all day long cuz that's how we thought we would lose weight. And then after that, I went to a vegetarian diet. It was all tofu and potatoes. And then after that came keto. And that's what I, you know, I threw out the potato and tofu and now it was all keto all day long. And then after that, I think it was intermittent fasting. And the interesting thing is every diet worked. Every diet worked.

I would lose weight until it didn't because what would happen invariably every single time, the reason the yo-yo kept going back up and down was that when there was a little bit of doubt, when that doubt crept in, somebody would tell me, "Oh, vegetarians don't get complete nutrients or keto is bad for your kidneys or whatever." whatever." whatever." Question it. You're like, "Huh?" Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Is there a better way? That's right. That's right. That's right. What should I be doing? And then those limiting beliefs crept in so that next time I said, "Okay, I'm going to have that piece of pizza and you know it's whatever.

I'll have a little snack and have some pizza. How bad can it be? What would happen the it's called this is actually a real term in psychology. It's called the what the hell effect." Yeah. I've had one piece. Let me have the whole pie. Exactly. Right. Or for me it would be, you know, let me chase it with with a beer and some fries. Right. Goes what what's the point? Ah, diets don't work anyway. And now I have this this information that maybe the diet I was on don't doesn't work.

Oh, no diets work. And so that became a limiting belief as opposed to opposed to opposed to the liberating belief of okay, I'm maybe I went off track and I had a piece of pizza when I shouldn't. Okay. But I control the next thing that enters my mouth. my mouth. my mouth. As opposed to the what the hell effect, which was a limiting belief. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And so for for not just weight management, for time management, for money management, all these things, what is the core of human motivation, right?

It's not carrots and sticks. A lot of people kind of beat themselves into submission with punishments or rewards if they do the right thing. And this blew my mind that the research now shows that it's actually not about carrots and sticks. That that's not how the brain motivates us. That in fact the carrot is the stick. Explain that. Explain that. Explain that. Right? So it's like kind of like a Matrix moment, right? There is no spoon. The carrot is the stick. What does that mean? that all human motivation, all human motivation is from one thing and one thing only and that is the desire to escape discomfort.

escape discomfort. escape discomfort. Even wanting to feel good, craving, lusting, hunger, desire itself is psychologically destabilizing. So what that means if all human behavior is spurred by a desire to escape discomfort that means time management is pain management money management is pain management weight management it's all pain management so if you can learn to manage that discomfort you can unlock this hidden music yeah so one more time if you can learn to manage pain or discomfort then you can unlock essentially anything you want that's right that's right that's right in any area of life anything that the laws of physics don't prevent you prevent you prevent you Because everything in life, right, you know this is on the other side of that discomfort.

discomfort. discomfort. You want to build a great family, it's going to take hard work. You want to build a business, you know, it takes hard work. You want to get in shape, it's going to take work. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But what blew my mind is that I always separated separated separated I sorry I always I never separated pain from suffering. from suffering. from suffering. What's the difference? That was always synonymous. What's the difference between pain and suffering? suffering? suffering? So pain is just a signal. Where does pain happen?

Where does pain occur? Is pain here? It's pain pain here? Is pain here? It's pain in the mind, right? Always in the mind. It's always in the Where else could it be? Right? If if if you break your arm, the pain isn't here. The pain is registering in your brain. Where else could it be? Doesn't mean it's not real. All pain is real. But the suffering occurs up here. For example, let's say, Lewis, that uh right now now now uh all of a sudden your your heart started beating very quickly.

You were short of breath, dry mouth. Something would be terribly wrong, right? and you would have to go to the ER immediately. But if you had the same physiological sensations while you're on a run or in the gym, that's great. Now you have a positive perception of that same exact physiological response. physiological response. physiological response. And so pain is just a signal. Suffering is the interpretation of that signal. What does that mean? It means that that we can shape how we experience that pain. It doesn't necessarily have to be suffering.

based on our beliefs, based on the filter of perception, we can interpret differently. So, I'll give you a great example. So, some of the research that stopped me cold in my tracks was around hypnosed. Have you ever heard of hypnosed? Like hypnosis? Like hypnosis? Like hypnosis? Yeah. But for surgery? Okay. Okay. Okay. It's mind-blowing. Okay. I've And I Lewis, I would not believe it if I have not seen the tapes. And in the research, I I I did I saw many of these surgeries. There's a guy I I I wrote about hypnosed.

hypnosed. hypnosed. Hypnosed. Hypnosed. Hypnosed. So essentially hypnotizing yourself to not feel pain so you don't have to go under anesthesia. under anesthesia. under anesthesia. Right. And you know me, I'm I'm a pretty scienceback guy, right? It took me six years to write this book. I'm very skeptical, right? Like almost to the point of being cynical, right? Of course. course. course. And so I needed the evidence. And so I had to watch the actual video of the surgery. And it turns out that in Europe, mostly Switzerland and France, this is a technique that tens of thousands of people have gone through.

And so the the the guy that I interviewed, his name is Daniel Gistler. He was a former commodities trader, very numbers guy, analytical, not woo woo in the least. the least. the least. And this guy uh he young 50s, he has this freak accident and he he breaks a bone in his ankle and he has to get uh these these screws put into his leg. And then it's time to get these screws taken out. taken out. taken out. And in the well, this is years later.

He's healed up. He has to do this still. And he learns he comes across this technique called hypnosed sedation. He gets kind of curious. He watches some YouTube videos. He decides to take a class and he prepares his mind to the point where he goes under the surgery for 55 minutes with scalpel cutting into flesh with metal screws being extracted from bone. from bone. from bone. Oh my gosh. Without general anesthesia, without local anesthesia, nothing. Nothing. He just said let me put myself in a mental state to turn off the pain signal.

How does he do that? and then allow you to cut open my leg without me screaming. That's exactly right. And not only not only this and if you Yes. And and not only is he you would think, okay, well, maybe he's feeling the pain but not letting. No, we can see in his blood pressure, in his heart rate, all the things that should be going that's spiking, you know, when when the bane when the body's in in stress mode, nothing happens. nothing happens. nothing happens. He turned the pain signal off.

Well, he turned the suffering off. Not the pain signal. Not necessarily. So what so here's this is this is the heart of of of the research I've done is that beliefs have these three powers. The power of attention, the power of anticipation, and the power of agency. So what Daniel Gistler was able to do and tens of thousands of other people do all the time is that through the power of beliefs, they can choose where to pay attention to the signals coming into their brain. Because what's happening right now, your brain is taking in 11 million bits of information.

right now 11 bits bill million bits of information the sound of my voice entering your ears the light entering your eyes the ambient temperature of the room you're taking all this in okay just to put that in perspective that's the equivalent of reading war in peace every second twice okay that's what your brain is processing right now however your conscious awareness is only 50 bits per second 50 bits versus 11 million bits that means that your conscious brain the perception of suffering is only taking in 0.000045% of the information has available.

So what does the brain have to do? It's called predictive processing. It doesn't see reality as it is. It sees it as you predict it to be. be. be. Bingo. How did you know that? Because you've seen it a million times. These are called our priors. And so our prior beliefs dictate what we see in the present reality. So, how do we shift a prior belief into creating future evidence that we can create something we've never created before? created before? created before? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If we only have proof and evidence that we've been a failure, that we've tried and humili humiliated ourselves over and over again, that we're not enough, that we're someone that's worth being abandoned, whatever it is, right?

right? right? How do we create a belief that we've never experienced? never experienced? never experienced? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To create a new result in our life. There's nothing that frustrates me more than when things don't move with speed. And when it comes to building a strong daily routine for your life, the tools that you rely on at home should make things run more smoothly without interruptions. And that's the thinking behind T-Mobile's 5G home internet. And big news, T-Mobile now has the fastest 5G home internet according to the experts at UCLA speed test.

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Okay, I'll tell you. Um for me it was relationships. I had a lot of limiting beliefs with my relationships relationships relationships like intimacy or like I'll I'll tell you exactly what happened. So uh for me it was my relationship with my mom. Uhhuh. that uh and this is this this particularly illustrates the point. So um a few years ago my my mom had her 74th birthday and I wanted to do something very nice for her and so I wanted to send her some flowers. Now I was in Singapore.

She was in central Florida where I grew up and uh getting flowers from Singapore to Central Florida is no small task. So I called up a bunch of florists. I stayed up till 1 in the morning making sure that the the delivery would happen on time that she would get them that the flowers wouldn't uh wilt in the car in the in the Florida heat. Stayed up till one in the morning. I went to bed and I patted myself on the back. I said, "Where I'm a good son, right?

I did the right thing." I call her up the next morning. I say, "Hey, mom. Happy birthday. Did you get the flowers I sent?" And she said, "Yes, I got the flowers. Thank you very much. But just so you know that they arrived half dead and I wouldn't order from that place again. place again. place again. Oh my gosh. So it's finding the fault as opposed to opposed to opposed to Yeah. So you feel me on this one, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I So I So I You failed.

You failed. You failed. Yes. So I said something uh to the effect of effect of effect of Well, that's the last time I ever buy you flowers again. And that went over just about as well as you'd expect, right? Not so good. And then after the call, uh my wife Julie, she turned to me and she said, "Do you want to do a turnaround on this?" To which I said, "Fo, no. No. I'm pissed off. I want your mumbo jumbo touchy feely." Yeah. Yeah. I was up till 1:00 a.m.

I did my best. I did. You hear what she said? I need to vent. Right. Because that's what we've been told. This lie that if somebody hurts you, you need to tell them how you feel. You need to get it off your chest. You have to vent. Wrong. The research literature shows that that is not helpful. That when you do that, when you vent about people, you're doing nothing but reinforcing your belief about that person. So you don't see people as they are. You see an effigy of what your beliefs say they are.

And so I knew this research at the time. I was I was writing the book. And so I I knew about this. So I stopped venting. I said, "Okay, fine. I won't vent." Which I really wanted to do, of course. of course. of course. And instead I did what what she advised. I did a turnaround. Now this technique comes from Byron Katy and she's been around for a very long time. She's wonderful. And she actually channeled a technique that goes back all the way to Aristotle.

That Aristotle the work. the work. the work. Exactly. Exactly. It's the work. So, so I I did this and I and I really respect it and and you know it's it's a very very long tradition but but Byron Katy really put it into a format that I think is it true? Is it really true? So here's what I did. First step, I wrote down the belief. The belief was my mother is too judgmental and hard to please. So the first question is it true? Duh. Didn't didn't you just hear right?

Okay. Next question. Let's move on. Obviously she's too judgmental and hard to please. Next question. What's the next question? The next question is, is it absolutely true? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Is it absolutely true? Well, well, could there be? Absolutely means in all circumstances. Never ever ever is it not true? Okay. Maybe. I don't know how, but maybe there's a circumstance where it's not true. Fine. Okay. Third question. Who am I when I hold on to this belief? When I hold on to the belief that my mother is too judgmental and hard to please, who do I become?

What kind of person am I? I'm not very patient. I'm not kind. Frankly, I'm not myself. I'm not someone who I'm proud of. And then the fourth question, who would I be without that belief? And when I thought about that, I said, okay, if there's some kind of magic wand and I could wave it and dissolve that belief from my brain, I would be kinder. I would be more patient. I would be who I think I really am. am. am. And so, I really, you know, I I understood that my that belief wasn't really serving me.

Now, here's here's the important part is that beliefs are tools, not truths. Unlike a fact or faith, a belief is something else. A belief is a tool, not a truth. So, it doesn't actually matter if it's true or not. Okay? But I was holding on to belief that to me felt very true. And so, the process you ask, how do you go about changing these beliefs? You look for the diametric opposite of that belief in this turnaround. Okay? But what's the opposite of that belief? My mother is too judgmental and hard to please.

What's the opposite? My mother is not too judgmental and hard to please. Okay. At first, I didn't know. There's no way. I don't believe that. Right. But again, I'm not looking to change my beliefs. The point of a turnaround is not to change your beliefs. It's to give you a portfolio of perspectives that you can now choose from to see which one serves you better. So, I tried it on for size. How could that possibly be true? that my mother is not too judgmental and hard to please.

please. please. Could that possibly be true? Well, let me find some instances. Let me pull the memory bank. Let me or even with this specific instant, maybe maybe maybe maybe she was trying to help me. Maybe she was trying to make sure that I just didn't get scammed from this florist and she was trying to be helpful and not hurtful. hurtful. hurtful. Okay, perhaps. Okay, perhaps. Okay, perhaps. Didn't come off that way, but maybe. Exactly. Now, let's do another turnaround. turnaround. turnaround. Instead of my mother's too judgmental and hard to please, I am too judgmental and hard to please.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Could that be true? You need her to have this perfect response for you to feel like it was was a good job. Bingo. I I I wish you were there because it took me a while to realize that. But that's exactly what that's what I realized is that when I called her and she didn't respond exactly the way I had scripted in my head. Thank you so much for thinking of me. The ausive praise didn't come. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I lost it. And I said something that I regret.

So who was being judgmental? Yeah. I was what is uh I think Tony Robbins says when you trade expectation for appreciation your life will start to change. change. change. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to have appreciation when you have a strong expectation. That's right. That's right. That's right. Even if you haven't voiced the expectation, you have an internal I was up till 1:00 a.m. I did this. I researched for hours to just to get my mom flowers. And I had all these Yeah. And I deserve at least a thank you.

Which is what? Which is a belief. Yes. Yes. Yes. It's just a belief. True. But there's one there's a fourth one which was the most true which was the one I most did not want to believe. Instead of my mother is too judgmental and hard to please, I am too judgmental and hard to please towards myself. Mhm. Mhm. Mhm. Never enough. Never enough. Never enough. How could that be true? Well, now when I thought about it, I realized when I did something and put effort towards something that didn't work out, work out, work out, that I took that as a personal failing.

That I had somehow messed up. That I was incompetent. I couldn't even get my mom proper flowers. And so who was judging who? I was judging myself. Now again, are any of these true? Does it matter? What matters is which one of those beliefs gave me peace? Yeah. Which one serves you the most? Exactly. So now I had a portfolio to choose from. The first belief that my mother's too judgmental and hard to please. There's only one way out of that. She had to change for me to be happy.

Yes. happy. Yes. happy. Yes. It's the only way out. with the other three, I could do something about that. And so that's the real power of beliefs is that when you for me, you said what changed most, changed most, changed most, it was when I could look at my relationships and now I do this probably six 10 times a day when someone annoys me. me. me. I I take a step back and I say, "Okay, what's the limiting belief here? What's the opposite of that limiting belief?

And how could it also be true?" And my life again, it's not about finding facts. It's not about proving the truth. the truth. the truth. It's not about truth. It's about finding peace. Yes. So now I'm happier. I'm more myself. I'm more calm and relaxed. And th those benefits and and what changed all that changed was my my belief. belief. belief. And it's a you could call it a belief or a perspective, I guess, around what's happening in life. That's right. That's right. That's right. And what you choose to see and witness, right?

right? right? That's right. But these limiting beliefs, beliefs, beliefs, we all have them and they're all hidden. It's almost like our face. Right. Right. Now, if I said, "Look at your face." You can't see your face. You can see your hands. You can't see your face. Right? Right? The only way you can see your face is if you hold your face up to a mirror and then you can uncover your limiting beliefs. And we all have them. Doesn't matter how successful you are. We all have them in one area of our life.

life. life. What are the three biggest limiting beliefs of most people in the world? The one I hear most often, there's no time. time. time. I don't have time. I hear that all the time. Uh it's too late. Uh people like me don't do that. or um you know, he she it hurt me or um uh the world sucks or exercise is hard. I mean, where where does the list start? It goes on and on and on. and on. and on. Yeah. It's funny because something that's coming up for me is I've told this story a few different times, but it always struck with me.

I was in eighth grade grade grade and the high school that my middle school was kind of connected to, I really looked up to these senior basketball players. I was playing basketball basketball basketball and I was playing a lot with kind of the upper classmen because I was tall and I had developed some athletic abilities. So, I was playing with like these kind of juniors and seniors in 8th grade practicing with them. And I remember looking up to one specific senior who was the most gifted athlete probably I've still seen today in my life, right?

Like one of the most gifted basketball players, but just athletically could do anything on the basketball court. Probably had a 45 inch vertical, could dunk so easily, looked so smooth. He was a freak of nature. But for whatever reason, when he was playing in a game, he was average at best. M like he he wasn't reaching his abilities when he was just in practice in practice he could do whatever but then in the game something would happen where he was just kind of like huh why isn't he doing what he's capable of.

of. of. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know if this is true or not but what it reminds me of is it doesn't matter if you are if everyone thinks that you can accomplish incredible things. If you don't believe it doesn't matter if the world believes in you. You still have to learn to believe in yourself. But on the flip side, something I learned because I didn't have that athletic ability and people didn't fully I didn't believe that people believed in me at different stages. stages.

stages. That was no longer true later, but that was my original belief. But I was like, you know what? I'm going to believe in me. me. me. Even if no one, if the world's against me, I'm still going to believe in me and I'm going to have the courage to risk, to put myself out there, to try, to train, to be consistent, to do hard things over long periods of time. Yeah. And you could have the world believing you, but if you don't believe in yourself, it's going to be hard to accomplish anything to your potential.

And you could have the world against you, but if you have unwavering belief, you can do incredible things. That's exactly right. That's exactly. And and what's what's maddening about this is that just like you can't see your own face, but you can see other people's faces. You were able to see his limiting beliefs, but he couldn't. Mhm. And that's what's so terrifying about this is that we all carry these hidden limiting beliefs and we can't see them. them. them. Why can't we see them? Because our default is passivity.

Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. We we used to think we used to believe this theory throughout psychology throughout the literature. Everybody knew this concept called learned helplessness. You probably heard learned helplessness. Martin Selman and Meyer. Uh turns out a few years ago they proclaimed that they had got it completely backwards. There is no such thing as learned helplessness. What we have is not that we learn helplessness. We our default state is helplessness. Think about how we're born. Yeah. Right. You just had beautiful twin girls. girls. girls. When your girls were born, they're helpless.

they're helpless. they're helpless. Completely helpless. Completely helpless. Completely helpless. They they rely on someone else to keep them alive, them alive, them alive, right? right? right? So, we've we've started in survival mode, but some of us stay in survival mode for our entire lives, right? Because that actually we that is what provides safety, right? And so that evolution is alive. Exactly. Exactly. So what we have to learn is we don't learn helplessness. In fact, we learn hope. And so the way out of a limiting belief is tiny bits of agency.

The third power belief is proving to yourself, showing your brain how an alternative belief can also be true. So for example, what happened with my mom or what happens uh in athletic ability or an entrepreneurial venture. It's proving to yourself with small steps that that thing that you had held on to as a truth wasn't a truth. It was just a belief. So, how do you recognize when a belief that helped you survive is now limiting your greatness? your greatness? your greatness? You find the areas where you're stuck.

You look at the New Year's resolution that you've had year after year. Year. Yeah. Or that dream you keep talking about that you never take action. action. action. That's right. That problem that persists that you can't find a way around. that relationship that annoys the hell out of you and it's still annoying year after year and you can't find a possible solution. You're a smart person. Why can't you find a way to be happy? That's where you look. So that's the first step is figure out the areas where you have this muck in your life.

And what underlies it is typically not a lack of resources, not a lack of understanding. Right? Before you buy another self-help book, you have to understand that that the OS, the operating software of your brain, it is those beliefs. And unless you fix those, knowing what to do won't help. help. help. Yeah. And we now with AI, you can say, "Give me a detailed step-by-step plan on how to lose weight in 90 days or how to launch a business." It'll tell you everything you need to do.

That's exactly everything. It'll hold you accountable with a daily plan, step by step, give you the research, give you the information backing with the data. You have the whole plan and you still won't do it. Why is that? Why will people not do it when they know the exact plan now on how to get the results they want? It's nothing new. It's not AI, right? Who doesn't know? Basically, for 99% of the population to lose weight, you eat right, exercise, and move more. Yeah. You don't need a diet book to tell you that.

That's it's been around for a very long time. To start a business, you need to do things that other people don't want to do. To have a great relationship, you have to be fully present with people. We know this, but we don't do it because we keep getting in our own way because of these limiting beliefs. We refuse to look at these limiting beliefs. Do you know why? because they feel like facts. They feel like the truth. And there's nothing more uncomfortable to our psychological immune system than changing our beliefs.

We hate it. But of course, those beliefs that feel crazy, that feel like that can't be true, those are exactly the beliefs we should lean into, man. So as a parent, you know, what advice would you give to me as a new parent on how to model and communicate beliefs for my twin girls so that they don't feel like they are stuck when stuck when stuck when things happen that they haven't learned how to do on their own yet? They haven't figured out yet in the future.

Like how do we model and communicate communicate communicate the ability to have agency when you are in survival mode in some ways until a certain stage in your life? Yeah. What I love about what you just said that a lot of people don't say a lot of people say how do I get my kids to to to No, No, No, that's a huge mistake. No, you have to model. Exactly. Exactly. That's the way we change. change. change. Everyone says you they're not going to listen to what you say.

They're going to listen to what you do. do. do. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. That's exactly right. And and it's crazy that you know my uh my second book indistractible was all about technology distraction and people would come to me and say how do I get my kid off Tik Tok? How do I get my kid to stop playing Fortnite and that's what they do. So so just like if you want an indestructible kid you have to be an indestructible parent. In order to model the power of beliefs, you have to be a high agency parent.

You have to show your kids that, hey, here's this challenge I had and here's how I overcame it. Here's what I used to think and be vulnerable. A lot of parents, they think that they need to have all the answers. And I found, at least for my relationship with my 17-year-old daughter, that when I'm the most vulnerable, when I ask for help, not only does she actually help, I mean, she helped me with this book. It's amazing. She she helped me every step of the way through this book as I would talk to her about I'm struggling with this and how do I express that, not only do I learn from it, from it, from it, she learns from it, right?

She gets the most out of it because now she gets to be in a position of authority. She gets to help you out. So, I think that's one of the best things you can do is to honestly don't make it up, but show your daughters when they get a little older. Here's what daddy's struggling with. Yeah. What do you think I could do? I'm trying to figure it out. What would you guys do? Yeah. What would you do? Exactly. And showing them most importantly that you're willing to change those beliefs.

One of the the worst sentences in the English language is that's just how I am. am. am. That's just who I am. That's how I am. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The worst. The worst. I'm not a morning person. I that's my ADHD which I by the way have I used to tell myself all the time whenever I was distracted by something that's my ADHD just the excuse we we hold on to that we don't want to change well what are we doing when we're thinking about that right or or now people my age now my friends say that's I'm having a senior moment wow that's not good why do we do that even if it's true let's say it's true again beliefs are tools not truth so we don't even know if that's true right when I would say to myself and again I've been diagnosed with ADHD and when I would forget something or have or be distracted and catch myself.

I say, "Oh, there's my ADHD." You're you're labeling yourself more. You're emphasizing the belief of why you can't break through that thing to create what you want. Bingo. And so what happens, even if it's hard, still you you're holding on to more of a limit when you continue to communicate and verbalize the belief of that something is hard. Your labels become your limits. Yes. Yes. Yes. And and and what this does is it creates what what I call a a a sociological placebo effect placebo effect placebo effect that there's a a wonderful example in the in the psychology literature of Mr.

A. And Mr. A is uh this guy, you know, he's anonymized in this study. And Mr. A uh took he broke up with his girlfriend. He had a bad breakup with his girlfriend. and he takes an entire jar, a di an entire pill box, uh, a prescription pill box of anti-depressants. anti-depressants. anti-depressants. He wants to commit suicide. And after he swallows all these pills, he changes his mind. He decides he doesn't want to die. And he goes to his neighbor and he asks his neighbor to take him to the hospital.

He rushes into the ER. He collapses on the floor and he shows the nurse the pill box and says, "I I took all my pills. I took all my pills." They take him into the ER. His heart rate is elevated, his blood pressure is dangerously low, and uh he has all the symptoms, all the signs of a critical overdose. Okay, but the the the pills don't say what medicine he consumed. All it has on the on the pills is the number is a phone number. Turns out that Mr.

A was in a clinical trial of these anti-depressants and so he didn't know what he was taking. It wasn't real. Well, hold on. Sorry. Sorry. Sorry. So they call up this number. They say, "What did this guy take? He overdosed. Tell us what this medicine is so that we can, you know, pump his stomach or do whatever. Give him the the antidote to whatever he took." They say, "Give me one minute." They look him up. They say, "Oh, this person took the placebo." Wow. Wow. Wow.

Right. This is a guy who passed out, had low blood pressure, he had a dangerously low heart rate. All these physiological symptoms had manifested because of a belief called the noibo effect, the opposite of the placebo effect. And so let me ask you, Le, if the noibo effect, if believing something can have physiological symptoms that are clearly manifested in the fact that, you know, as soon as this guy discovered that he had taken the placebo, that there was totally an inert substance here. Oh, okay. Oh, okay.

Oh, okay. 15 minutes. That's all it took. 15 minutes, he was revived. He was back to normal. So, let's think. Okay, that's that's when you actually take a whole bottle of pills, right? Which is whatever it was, candy or something. something. something. Yeah, it was it was nothing. It was an inert substance. So what happens if day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, we constantly recite a script about our limitations, about our labels, about what we can't do, it becomes physiologically as well as psychologically true.

So how important or terrifying is the words we think or say about ourselves and our limits to our life? This message is brought to you by Apple Card. It's a great time to apply for an Apple Card. You'll love earning unlimited daily cash on every purchase. That includes 3% daily cash when you buy the latest iPhone, AirPods, and Apple Watch at Apple. Through this special referral offer, when you get a new Apple card, you can earn bonus daily cash. To qualify, you must apply at apple.co/getaily cash.

Apple card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank USA, Salt Lake City branch. offer may not be available elsewhere. Terms and limitations apply. Incredibly important. And this is this is one of the the best things you can do is to because this is this is it's not easy. I'll be honest with you. I wish I had some, you know, overnight solution. It it doesn't work like that. Changing your beliefs is not easy. The one of the first steps you can take is to listen to the words you are actually verbalizing.

When you say out loud, "Oh, that's so like me," or "Just my luck," or "This is why I can't" or whatever the reason, those words that you verbalize, that's the first place to start it because you're actually saying it out loud. Unless they're empowering words. Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. Oh, absolutely. Just my luck. This happens all the time to optimistic person. So, that's how you interpret. interpret. interpret. Gosh, I always get the first like uh you know, parking spot, man. Things money always comes my way easily.

Like, yeah, of course it does. Why not? But most people don't do that. Huh? They don't do that. And and and here's what happens. Uh there was a beautiful study where they had people who were selfidentified optimist versus selfidentifi no sorry selfidentified lucky or selfidentified unlucky. Okay? People who said to themselves, I am unlucky or I am lucky. Right? They had this label and and and they took them into into a room and they said, "Okay, here here's a newspaper. We want you to do this task.

If you count as quickly as you can all the photos in this newspaper, this newspaper, this newspaper, tell us how many photos and you'll collect your prize. It's $250. Okay? So, do it as quickly as you can. Both groups did this. The pessimists took two and a half minutes. The unlucky people took two and a half minutes. The lucky people took 11 seconds. Oh my gosh. Why? What was the difference? Because on page two, one of those pictures said, "There are 40, sorry, there are 43 photos in this newspaper.

Collect your prize." So they just and they saw the lucky people literally saw reality differently. Whereas the unlucky people said okay 1 2 3 4 5 6 and they sat there and counter for two and a half minutes. Whereas the lucky people the people who say good things always happen to me found the opportunity for the good thing to happen to them. It wasn't that they were actually more lucky. They just were more observant. Their beliefs shape what they could see. They could see reality differently.

That's by the way why entrepreneurs tend to be more optimistic. Entrepreneurs tend to think they're more lucky. They think that good things happen. So, one of the things I've adopted since this line of research is that now instead of saying I used to I I hate to admit it. I totally was one of these people that says, "Oh god, this is happening today. Traffic or why is this happening or I got sick or whatever the case might be, I would constantly remind myself of the bad things.

Now, every time something good happens, we say it out loud as a family. We say everything good happens to us." to us." to us." Is that a fact, Lewis? No. Bad things happen, too. But we emphasize that everything good happens to us. Why? Because now we're are more conscious of it. Vanessa Van Edwards, our mutual friend, she has a wonderful uh phrase of not asking people how you doing, right? What do people say? How you doing? Busy. Busy. Busy. Busy. Fine. Whatever. Whatever. Instead, she says what's good.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love that because what it's doing is training us. What's good? I'll tell you what's good. Actually, you know what? I'm alive today. You know, like I I get to breathe like that. Let's start there. just focusing on something so small that is a positive thing rather than what's not working. I like to ask, what are you most grateful for today? What are you grateful in your life? What are you most excited about in your life? Just to get people shifting from a negative into some type of a more empowering emotion or thought.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Absolutely. The more empowering emotions and thoughts we have consistently throughout the day, the more good things will happen or at least we'll feel better. That's right. Even if good things don't happen, we at least feel better. But you can not only do you feel better, you start seeing more of that. So this is one of the three defining traits of what we call entrepreneurial alertness is that people who have entrepreneurial alertness are more grateful. They uh Tina Seligman at uh uh Tina Selig sorry at uh Stanford had has this practice where she just sends thank you notes like you wouldn't believe.

Anybody who makes her feel good or does anything nice, she sends them a handwritten thank you note or an email or quick SMS. And that turns to be one of these these qualities of successful entrepreneurs, successful people, is that they constantly look for opportunities to say thanks. thanks. thanks. Gosh, that's so interesting you're saying that because I've literally been for the last like 3 weeks thinking that I need to order thank you notes, like custom thank you notes, cuz all I want to start doing is sending more.

So, you're another confirmation and a sign that this needs to happen ASAP. And I do that through text and video messages and things like that and calls. But there's something about receiving a letter. letter. letter. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That my dad used to do a lot as well. And I think it's one of the reasons why he became such a successful entrepreneur is because he was just constantly thinking about thinking about thinking about others. Yeah. others. Yeah. others. Yeah. And he was thinking about, hey, how can I send a nice note?

Or I saw something in newspaper. He's back in the day the newspapers. Cut out a clipping and send it to someone with a little thank you note. note. note. It goes a long way and people remember. People remember. And what the crazy thing is, this is called provoked luck. How we can manufacture our own luck. What happens when that thank you note lands on someone's desk and right next to the thank you note is a potential opportunity to do business with somebody. somebody. somebody. Oh, the thinking of that person.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. You're creating your own luck. It's so interesting because um What kind of business did your dad start? start? start? He was a life insurance salesman, which was hard. was hard. was hard. It's hard to reach out to someone, do you want life insurance? Yeah. But he would do that constantly and send people notes and just show up also and just like acknowledge people. acknowledge people. acknowledge people. And so that's something I've just always taken on. And I I think it's one of the keys to keys to keys to being able to be where I'm at in life is constantly thinking about, hey, I saw you doing this thing.

Just want to say congrats. Yeah, you're doing awesome. Keep it up. Not asking for anything. Just, hey, keep it up. You're doing great. Congratulations. Yeah. Congratulations. Yeah. Congratulations. Yeah. And I think when we get out of our own I'm not enoughness or jealousy of what someone else has accomplished or what we're not accomplishing that we see other people doing and we just acknowledge them and congratulate them. Good things are to come back. That's right. And it's not magical. It's not it's not vibrations in the universe.

It's not quantum anything. It's because it changes what we see, what we feel, and what we do. The three powers of belief, anticipation, uh uh uh attention and agency. It's by believing differently that we ultimately do things differently. differently. differently. You talked about there's facts, there's faith, and then in the middle there's belief. belief. belief. How much does faith play into unlocking success in people's lives? So, uh it's interesting that uh um I I grew up uh pretty secular. I didn't pray. Uh I prayed when I was very young.

My my family immigrated to America and by the time I was 6 years old, they had been scammed out of every penny. They some American uh saw that these immigrants barely spoke the language and he he scammed them basically took their life savings which they used to come to America and start a living. So living. So living. So that's that's that's I used to pray then when I was very young um because we were going through such hard times and I didn't I didn't pray again until I started doing this research.

research. research. Really? Really? Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 40 something years later. Well, here's what I found was that you didn't pray at all for the last four decades. decades. decades. Pray I didn't, you know, here's what happened. I used to pray. Do you pray? Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, you do. You have a I I I prayed growing up and then I kind of paused for like a dec not a pause but I wasn't as active a participant in prayer for maybe a decade and then the last four years I've gotten much deeper.

Last four years. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Since meeting Martha. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Since I guess five years almost. And how's it been for you? Game changer. game changer. I mean, there's so many things that we do and I do that support my inner peace. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think going through a a healing journey, a reflection journey, you know, where I looked within all of my hurts and pains and past and all these things and allowed myself to heal over many years years years brought me harmony and peace.

Yeah. But having a sense of faith and a true belief true belief true belief and praying about it every morning and every night gives me more confidence that I'm exactly where I need to be. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that good things are coming. And it's not about me. It's it's about being of service. Mhm. And as long as I continue to show up consistently consistently consistently and essentially following the triangle of motivation of motivation of motivation and doing these things consistently, good things are going to happen.

So I would hear people say that. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. But tell me the the science and Yeah. Yeah. that I'm I'm I'm just I just it didn't resonate. The supernatural part didn't resonate for me. And so I I I would hear people say that and I would be very jealous that you would get all these benefits. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't feel that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it turns out now you're like, "That's just my ADHD. I can't pray." can't pray." can't pray." It turns out now uh people like me are the largest religious group in America.

Tell me. Tell me. Tell me. They're called the nuns. Not Not the Catholic nuns. N O N E. That the largest no religion. The largest religious faith group in America today are nuns. That just happened actually fairly recently. Uh, a lot of them they say they're they're not atheists. No, just no affiliation. Some atheists, some many of them are what they identify as spiritual but not religious. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. What's crazy about that is that people who identify as spiritual and non-religious non-religious non-religious have higher rates of depression and anxiety disorder.

anxiety disorder. anxiety disorder. People who People who People who more than people who are not spiritual, not religious. Wait, people who say they are spiritual but not religious have higher rates of depression and anxiety disorder than people who say they are religious. Much much higher. Really? Really? Really? Yes. Yes. Yes. So when someone says I'm not religious but I'm spiritual. Right. What are they saying? Like they they have some kind of conviction in some kind of higher power but they don't connect with any kind of faith tradition.

tradition. tradition. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Okay. So they have higher rates of depression than those with a religious faith. That's right. Tradition. And we've known that for quite some time that that people who have uh people who pray pray pray have all kinds of benefits. They live longer, they're healthier, they make more money, they contribute more to the community. There's all kinds of benefits to prayer and and I knew that that's backed by science. Many Oh, that's this is well established. Neuroscience, everything else very well established.

Now, I I read this research as I was I was writing this book and I I came across it and uh I was kind of jealous, but I thought it's not for me because I don't have that particular faith in the supernatural. supernatural. supernatural. And then I came across this study that blew my mind. And the study, here's what they did. They took three groups of people and they they uh one was a control group, so nothing no intervention. One were people who prayed from a particular faith tradition.

Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, they had some kind of particular faith uh tradition and one group were people who had never prayed that they taught how to pray. And they said if you don't have any kind of faith tradition, you don't have to say God, say whatever is meaningful to you. Substitute the sum of all forces or mother nature or a higher power. Whatever. It doesn't have to be anything supernatural. whatever it is that you want, substitute that word, but here's how to pray. Okay? And they taught them how to pray like a what, like a 60-second prayer or like like like some kind of they had a standardized intervention.

intervention. intervention. Then they took those three groups and they gave them this is a there's a standard protocol to test pain tolerance. The test is essentially they take your hand and they tell you to put it in a in a ice cold bath, very very cold, painfully cold water. And then they have a researcher who looks at your face and they see every grimace and every, you know, your contortion. And then ultimately when you can't do it anymore, when you have to take your hand out of the water.

Now both the group that prayed out of faith tradition and who didn't have a faith tradition but prayed way outlasted the control group. They were ma way more pain tolerant. pain tolerant. pain tolerant. They were like the rats that could go 60 hours. hours. hours. Exactly. Now what's fascinating about that even the people who didn't have a faith tradition but learned how to pray also had those benefits. They also had greater pain tolerance than the people that didn't pray at all. They didn't pray at all.

And so this is something I've changed when you ask what's the power of faith. It turns out that prayer works even without faith. Wow. Wow. Wow. And so this is kind of my call to action. I think a lot of the problems we have today in America come from the fact that many people like I used to say, I can't step into church because I can't prove that everything that was said here is absolutely the truth. I was looking at everything through the fact lens. fact lens.

fact lens. I I can't either. Like everything for me isn't like how is that really truthful from 2,000 years ago and the translations and this and this. But you still you still go. I still go because I asked this to Arthur Brooks recently. I don't know if you know who Arthur Brooks is. He's like a devout Catholic. He goes to mass every morning like 6:00 a.m. or something. And I go, "Arthur, you're a smart guy. Like you're intelligent. You're like professor this like bestselling author. How can you really say that everything is true?" He goes, "I can't.

But the belief of these things and the essence of it in the stories and the lessons give me more peace. Yes. And help me live a more peaceful life. And that's the goal. So I don't call myself an atheist or agnostic. I call myself a freethinker. And this is a term I learned when I lived in Singapore that you can be a freethinking Christian. You could be a freethinking Muslim. You could be a free-thinking atheist. It doesn't matter. It means that you're not you're not asking that question anymore.

I stopped looking for proof. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what I'm looking for is peace. as you said. you said. you said. Gosh, let's go. That is what people need. They need peace. They don't have it. A lot of people don't have it because beliefs are tools, not truths. I'm not Look, we're we're never going to know. Okay, we're just not going to know. know. know. But what I find when I walk into a church or a synagogue and I I I start with a prayer, which I never used to do since I was 6 years old.

Now I do. It benefits me, right? I feel better. I am better when I adopt this belief that I can pray even if I don't have all the answers. Yeah. You're more you're more present probably. You're less reactive. You're more tolerant. You're more I can solve these problems. Grateful. Yeah. Grateful. Yeah. Grateful. Yeah. Yeah. And so what what I did I went to it sounds like a setup for a joke. I went to five religious leaders. I went to a rabbi, a priest, an imam, a monk, and a swami and I asked them all the all walked into a bar a bar a bar and the same question was how do I pray when I have uncertainties about God?

Oh wow. What do they say? And so I learned these five key tenants of prayer that uh so everybody gave me a different piece of the puzzle. Now a lot of it was overlapping. Nobody has a monopoly on these practices these practices these practices but what I was doing was that I threw out everything. I said well if I can't if I don't have perfect certainty then I can't do any of it. And then I learned from these religions that there's we we can pray even if we do have doubts.

So from the from the rabbi I learned that uh you can do first and understand later. So on Mount Si uh the Jews say when they receive the ten commandment they say first we do then we will hear first we do so that to my in my life first I do the ritual then I will see. Don't ask why why I'm supposed to do this or what the result will be, but just have the faith I guess that you're supposed to do this first. The I would call it the belief, not the blind faith.

Not not, you know, not Yeah. The belief that I'm doing this because it serves me, right? I'm not going to uh accept everything whole cloth. I'm not going to do everything that someone tells me. I'm not I'm not going to be gullible. gullible. gullible. I'm going to What's the definition of belief? It's a conviction that is open to revision based on evidence. So if you know as opposed to before first I need it to be a fact then I can do it first I'm going to do it and then I'm going to see what what comes of it the rituals right from the imam I learned about the simplicity of prayer in Islam you pray five times a day same prayer five times a day doesn't have to be super complicated you don't have to have a prayer that's you know super lurggical and has all kinds of practices you can create a very simple ritual of just sitting and being with your thoughts for a minute and showing gratitude and uh just a moment of peace right to solve these problems on your own Can you can create that in your life whether you have a faith tradition or not.

From the the Catholic priest I learned it was is beautiful. Uh he told me about how people come to church looking for their prayers to be answered and they ask for things right. They say uh you know I I I want to find love. I want to find uh business success. Uh please heal me etc. me etc. me etc. And what they oftenimes don't realize is that the coming to church, the community aspect is many times how prayers are answered. answered. answered. That it's the person down the pew who can help you with your business, who can help you find love, who can solve many of these problems.

It's that community aspect. And that's something that a lot of us who are uh who don't have that faith tradition don't get unless we go. It's true. It's true. It's true. Right. And then from the Swami, from the Hindu uh leader, I learned about how it has to be about something bigger than yourself. How about the power of of of of you know finding a cause, finding a a purpose that's more than just you. And then from the Buddhist, the separation of pain from suffering about the practices in Buddhism, you know, my my wife is Chinese and and something that she heard growing up in her Buddhist household was bitter now, sweet later.

About how you can separate the pain from the suffering in order to sustain motivation, in order to keep going. Wow. And so you can take you every religion has aspects of of all these things. But even if you don't have a particular faith tradition, you can do what I call constructive interpretation. You can walk into a place of worship and say, you know what, I don't need every single thing to be true in order for me to get these benefits. And I think that's what holds a lot of people back.

They need the facts to really like say, well, did that really happen? If not, then I'm going to discount this whole thing, right? And and to be fair, it's not just the believers. It's not just the participants. There's a lot of faith institutions that want a purity test. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Uhhuh. Right. You have to believe. It's not good either. That's not constructive either, right? That pushes people away. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting because every time we go to church, Martha just feels she's so grateful.

She just feels better just going. She's like, "Ah, I feel so much peace." peace." peace." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, if prayer gives you that peace. Now, if it makes you feel bad, I guess it's not good. Don't do it. But if it brings you a peace, why not do that more frequently, frequently, frequently, right? Even if you don't have all the answers. I can't remember I don't know if Wayne Dyer said this quote or where this quote came from, but it's like, you know, a lot of people think seeing is believing, but believing is seeing.

It's like how do we switch it? Like I'll I'll believe it when I see it. No, it's like start believing it and it will reveal itself. itself. itself. That's right. That's right. That's right. Right. Isn't that Did Wayne I thought I came up with that. That's a chapter title. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's exactly right because that's that's what we tend to think. We think, oh, you know, when I see it, I'll believe it. But we do not see reality as it really is. We have this simulation running in our brains because of the, you know, the 11 million bits versus the 50 bits.

We h we all have this simulation. None of us are seeing reality clearly, right? So, when I advocate, so one of the one of the things that sometimes people will say, say, say, uh, is, you know, are you telling people to lie to themselves? Aren't you telling people to gaslight themselves to just be delusional? And the answer is you're already delusional. already delusional. already delusional. You're already gaslighting yourself. You're just in a negative way. Exactly. You're gaslighting yourself with these existing limiting beliefs and refusing to see another potential reality which if you considered could actually be just as true, if not more true than your current limiting belief.

Yeah. But I mean, come on, Neil. You study, you know, psychology and human behavior. behavior. behavior. How can you put all this into prayer? Like that's not what you've lived your entire life. I I feel like you're the um Gosh, who am I thinking of? You're the uh who is uh the the newscaster Dan um S Sullivan. S Sullivan. S Sullivan. No, no, no. Gosh, why am I forgetting his name right now? This is He did the meditation. Meditation. Yes. Not Dan Sullivan, but Dan Harris.

Dan Harris. Dan Harris. Harris. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. You're like the Dan Harris of prayer now. You know, it's like the skeptical like analytical. never gonna believe in this stuff. But now you're saying prayer. prayer. prayer. I believe in the practice of prayer. I'm not I'm not uh I've just stopped asking about the questions that I I don't think I'm going to answer. to answer. to answer. I don't think anyone will. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz you ju just to have blind faith and trust from people from thousands of years ago.

years ago. years ago. That's right. That's right. That's right. For me, that's hard to do, too. But I think the essence of the stories, the essence of the historical things that happened when they did or didn't do certain things. certain things. certain things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can say, how can that relate to my life today? I I think that what's unusual about you is that a lot of times when I talk to people of faith, they they feel a little uncomfortable admitting that. admitting that.

admitting that. Well, cuz I think I've questioned it my whole life. whole life. whole life. You have questioned your whole life? I think I have. Yeah. Cuz I'm like this doesn't make sense. But you But how come you kept going despite thinking despite thinking despite thinking I stopped for like? Yeah. I mean, I stopped just cuz I was just kind of like on my own journey and I was a critical thinker and I was a free thinker. So I was like, "Oh, let me try this.

Let me try this." And I think I still question a lot of stuff. I'm like, why do they do these traditions? Why do they do that? Like all this stuff I question, but I'm like, you know what? Let me if I know it benefits. It doesn't mean I have to agree with every specific thing or I can still question it. But how can I apply the things that I know are helpful for me, for my wife, for our marriage, and our relationship that just help us feel better?

better? better? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Like I don't have to have all the answers. answers. answers. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But I can believe that good things are going to happen for me if I continue to believe them. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And that is a type of prayer. And that is a type of prayer. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In itself. I don't have to say God give me these things. It's just more of like it's more of a gratitude prayer. Thank you so much for the blessings.

Thank you for the opportunities. Thank you for the hard lessons that have given me appreciation. And now it's like a thankful prayer for me that puts me in a state of peace and appreciation. And I think the more grateful I am and appreciative I am of life, I I believe life brings me more to be grateful and appreciative of, whether it's it's it's a law, a science, a belief that I've made up, whatever it is. Yeah. It works, It works, It works, right? right? right? And it gives me more peace.

Well, you're you're ahead of the game cuz I had to like see the studies. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's fantastic. That's that's excellent. I wish Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Go ahead. You wish I just I wish uh I wish it didn't take me so long. Uh and that I wish more people would would find that path. I think would would we would we would be much happier. I think Well, I think a lot of people have dealt with so much pain and then turn pain into suffering from some type of I don't know belief, maybe a religious belief or their parent that was in a religion that then did something wrong to them.

They're like, "Oh, this person." Yeah. And it's like an association with someone that said something to you or judged you or made you feel less than who was a part of some belief system of faith. faith. faith. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And then you associate it and you're like that is bad and wrong. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That this person was supposed to look out for me, take care of me, not lie to me, not cheat on me, not steal from me, and they did this thing and they follow this belief, the whole belief is wrong.

And and if you think about it, it's very protective. protective. protective. Yeah. And so this is why we can't see our hidden limiting beliefs because to us, you know, if we are looking for evidence, evidence, evidence, we'll always find it. We'll always find it. And so that becomes our new belief which we adopt without even questioning it. And so then it's then it's sealed in. We we we become incapable of actually testing and seeing any way. But here's here's the other side of it. I could hear a skeptic, you know, listening to this and say, "Yeah, I get it that you were skeptical.

You found a way." But I'm still skeptical. You know, I'm still skeptical near that. you know, I I I follow your four steps of the the work and and at the end of the day, I still need a boundary in place with my mother because every time pretty much every time I do show up for her, it's a negative comment. negative comment. negative comment. And what am I just going to say? Well, one day she was nice to me and she accepted me and she acknowledged me when I did something for her.

But it just seems so hard. Yeah. So when do boundaries come into play to just to also add to someone's life so they don't either don't get taken advantage of over and over again because they say, "Well, that's not really the belief, they're really a good person deep down inside. I'm going to give them another chance cuz they didn't mean to screw me over." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that just continues to happen. Well, first of all, I'm not here to change anybody. change anybody. change anybody.

I'm relaying my journey. Yeah. And this is what's what's worked for me is that um what I was looking for was that peace that it wasn't helping me in my life when I was labeling people as constantly judging them as evil or this or that. It it wasn't it wasn't making me better. It wasn't it wasn't helping my life. my life. my life. And one of the mantras, one of the the prayers that I repeat to myself um is that love is measured by the benefit of the doubt.

Love is measured by the benefit of the doubt. That to me is very meaningful because because because as a human I want to love my fellow man at least to some amount right we should all offer grace to others but it's very difficult right because we are again our beliefs find it much easier you because we are born into passivity our default state is passivity we find it much easier to stick with what we always have because that's what's protected us in the past but it's like a tool that we keep carrying that's busted and not a good tool for the job.

It's not like a carpenter says, "Oh, the hammer, it's the one and only true tool." No, a carpenter says sometimes it's a saw, sometimes a good tool is a is a wrench, right? There's different tools for the job. So, just because you've always held this this hammer, just because you've always held this belief, doesn't mean you can't take it out and examine, a is this the right tool for the job. So what I found in my own life is that when I held these grudges, when I had these these um these belief filters about people, not that you shouldn't put those barriers on, sometimes boundaries are the right thing to do.

Sometimes it doesn't mean you have to constantly subject yourself to an uncomfortable situation, situation, situation, but without giving that grace. Now what do I mean by love is measured by the benefit of the doubt. When uh when my daughter was born, uh there was this love unlocked for this new human being, right? You just experienced it a few months ago that just comes out of nowhere, right? And and we give these babies ultimate grace, total benefit of the doubt. Why do we do that? Babies are kind of annoying.

Let's be honest, right? Screaming, crying, constant, all these things that they do that you can interpret as annoying, right? But you don't interpret it as annoying. A baby's not trying to annoy you. That's the best tool the baby has is to cry. That's how they get what they need. So we give them this benefit of the doubt. And the more we love someone, how do we measure that love? The more benefit of the doubt you give someone, the more you love them. So what I try to constantly remind myself is that we're all just grown up babies.

babies. babies. Yeah, it's true. We're all just doing our best. Why is it that when we grow up, no, you get no more benefit of the doubt. you have to do anything perfect and if you mess up and if you hurt me, if I interpret you as hurting me, you get no grace. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because you hurt me. Whereas what I try and remind myself now, it's not always easy. What I try and remind myself is that that person is doing the best they can with the tools they have.

It's like me expecting, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know, my daughter to suddenly speak Russian, right? She can't speak Russian. How could she possibly have that tool at her disposal? Like she she doesn't have that tool. when she was a baby, she couldn't speak in complete sentences. All she had was the ability to cry. And people who who harm us, people who hurt us, people who have done things in the past, it doesn't mean that they didn't hurt us. It doesn't mean that that we should just, should just, should just, you know, forgive them blank uh you know, with unconsciously.

It means that we would be better off. We would enjoy life more. We could be more at peace if we have a new belief that serves us better. better. better. Yeah. I'm curious about this. What happens to a person's biology when they expect to fail before they even start with the thing they really want to do? What happens to their mind, their body, their cells? their cells? their cells? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. When they expect to fail or they don't believe it's going to be the ultimate outcome before they even begin the thing they want to do.

Well, we know that if you expect to fail, you will, right? So, someone who's running a marathon, who's more likely to finish a marathon? Okay. someone who says I can't finish this marathon or someone who says I believe I can finish the marathon now we don't know the facts many people don't finish marathons but who's more likely to finish to finish to finish the person who believes they can exactly because if you believe I cannot finish this marathon you quit you're done that's it end of story right so it's not that beliefs guarantee success it's that you're much more likely to achieve success when you believe what if someone's just like believing but they are just so far you know they've never run a mile and they say I'm going to go run a marathon today and I believe I can do this.

What happens when the belief really, you know, you don't have that 240% or times in you really for what you're trying thinking you're going to do. do. do. So belief is not faith. A belief is a conviction that is open to revision based on evidence. So you still got to look at the evidence. It still has to be open to real world assumptions, right? It can't just be miracle cures. You have to look at what actually serves you. But the point you had earlier about about biology, you asked what happens if you don't believe.

Yes. You know what happens when you do believe? believe? believe? What happens? What happens? What happens? We know that people who have positive views about aging at age 30. Okay, if you have positive views about aging at age 30, a person who says uh something like growth is possible at any age. If you believe that that growth is possible at any age versus aging leads to inevitable decline. Now between those two statements, which is true, Lewis, age uh I can learn at any age or uh uh aging involves inevitable decline, the one you believe, right?

right? right? That would that's what's true. Which one is the fact? They're both kind of facts, of facts, of facts, right? But which one becomes which one is manifested as the truth in real life? The one you actually believe. So here's what happens. If you have positive views about aging at 30, studies have found there's a study at Yale that found that people who had those positive leads at at 30 lived on average 7 and a half years longer. years longer. years longer. This is crazy.

Seven. You know what that means, Lewis? That is more of an effect size than quitting smoking than diet. It's more of an effect than exercise. Wow. Wow. Wow. Right now, is it magic? Is it that you're vibrating a certain frequency and because I think that that therefore I do that that that therefore like these things change in my biology and my cells? No. cells? No. cells? No. And what is it? It's got nothing to do with that. It's the fact that if I have positive views about aging from a young age, what do I do differently?

Remember the beliefs, the three powers, what they how what we see, what we feel, and what we do. So, who's more likely as they age to get out there and go for a walk, to start gardening, to see friends, to work out if you believe, oh, I'm having a senior moment. Right. Right. Versus, hey, growth is possible at any age. age. age. Your behavior will continue to to show up to empower you. Yeah, as you age versus an disempowering behavior behavior behavior like I'm having a senior moment.

I'm just going to smoke all day now. Or or or yeah, I can't do that because of XYZ. Let me let me give you another study. Steroids. Okay. Uh there was two two groups. Uh one was told just to exercise per normal. Go to the gym, exercise per normal. The other was told, "We have this amazing new steroid. We want you to take this steroid so we could test its efficacy. Here's your workout routine. Okay, do these exercises. Now, turns out the steroid was a placebo.

Okay, you know there's a trick here. The steroid was a placebo. And yet on that placebo, the men who took the the the pill they believed was a steroid gained more muscle mass. Crazy. Crazy. Crazy. They physically their beliefs became their biology. Just like beliefs can add years to your life, their beliefs became their biology. Why? Wasn't magic. It was the fact that when I believed that I'm on a steroid, I would get one more rep. I would put on a tiny bit more weight. I would work on a little harder because, hey, I've got this steroid in me.

It's going to I I better make it pay off. So, the belief became the biology even though it was completely a placebo. And and it influenced the behavior. That's right. That's right. That's right. And the behavior helped influence the results. results. results. It's all about the behavior. It's all when it comes to placeos. That's exactly what it's all about. Wow. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And this is fascinating. Your book is called Beyond Belief. the sciencebacked way to stop limiting yourself and achieve extraordinary results. I'm curious in this book from all the research you've done, it took you six years to write, edit, rewrite, you know, you know, you know, start praying after 40 years because you had so much research that showed the benefits to it.

What was the the biggest takeaway for you from researching beyond belief? belief? belief? The biggest takeaway for me was that I am and by extension all of us are capable of far more than we know. We're just scratching the surface of our capabilities. And there are many many studies in the literature that I share in the book as well that just blow blows your mind, right? The things that people can do when they believe uh you know monks who can raise their body temperature consciously, they can do that.

Uh there's a a case study that I talk about where someone who had Parkinson's disease, okay, who was bedridden during the day. They're they're in a sleep lab and in the middle of the night they wake up uh they hop on a a table, they raise a piece of furniture over their head and they start screaming alligator alligator because they were having a dream. This is a Parkinson's patient who was bedridden in the middle of the night got up and was fighting alligators in their sleep.

Right? they were sleep they were having a delusion. They were having a like a sleepwalking event because they weren't bound to the reality of their beliefs. They were they were uh unconscious at that moment. And so this this goes on and on and on that this this demonstration as the rats as we talked about earlier that when we unlock our true potential when we remove those limiting beliefs and adopt these liberating beliefs we can do so much more than we ever imagined. What do you feel is possible for your life with all this that you've researched over the next 5 to 10 years?

Hm. For my life specifically, for your life, like is there anything that you felt like ah I'm only going to be able to do books a certain way or I'm going to be researcher or I'm going to be this type of a dad or something that you always had until after this book where now it's unlocked a new hidden potential inside of you that you want to take on over the next 5 to 10 years. I think one when I changed my relationship with my mom, I also changed my relationship with my daughter.

Really? Really? Really? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. How so? you know, typical teenage. Yeah. Like when I tell, you know, one of my friends who also has a teenage girl, oh my gosh, it's the worst, you know, teenage girls and um they have all their issues and drama and all that. And uh that's just a belief. That's just a belief. You know, in uh pre-industrialized countries, there's no such thing as a rebellious teenager. That's something that we've invented in industrialized countries. industrialized countries. industrialized countries. Why? Why? Why?

What do you mean? Why doesn't it happen there? Or why Yeah. Why? Why did we invent it or why doesn't it happen? Because it's a belief. belief. belief. Oh, wow. you know, the the teenage brain that there's all these hormones and they're all rebellious. When I tell people this is not a fact. There is no such thing. It's not a a foregone conclusion that a teenager has to be rebellious. Many cultures don't have rebellious teenagers. People are listening to this and saying, "That's crazy. Why don't look at the science?

Look at the science. Google it. It doesn't exist. The the the sugar makes you hyper. Every parent Every parent knows you can't give your kid too much sugar. It makes them hyper. No, it's false. It's a complete myth. look it up. But but people hate this stuff because we hate challenging our beliefs. We don't like it. We have this psychological immune system. And so if you feel that reaction, if there's a belief that's challenged that you really don't want to believe that sounds crazy, sounds crazy, sounds crazy, those are the beliefs you most need to explore.

explore. explore. It's like principal thinking, I guess, not only is it probably not true, but it's defending you against something, right? What is it defending? When I think to myself, uh, my kid goes crazy when I give them sugar. My kid goes crazy when I give them too much social media. My kid is what? Whatever. Whatever. What is that serving? What is that belief doing for me? It's giving reinforcing it. reinforcing it. reinforcing it. Exact. Not only is it reinforcing, it's giving me something that's much more comfortable.

It gives me passivity. Remember, our default state is helplessness. We like that passivity. That's our default. Man, that is crazy. Yeah, it's interesting. I saw a clip online of a comedian doing an interview with like a talk show host and I can't remember what exactly said, but he said, you know, I heard um like something around like, oh, he has daughters and they're about to turn teenage years, so like 11 or 12. And he goes, oh man, get ready. Like the the interviewer is like, get ready.

It's about to be really hard for you. And the guy cut him off right before and he goes, that's just a belief. Like everyone who says that is just a dad, you know, it's like it's just a crappy dad who didn't know how to like connect with his daughters, you know, and just puts that label in this. Oh, your daughters are about to be crazy when they turn teenage years. Comfortable. Comfortable. Comfortable. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Right. And now I don't have to actually do something like there's something out there that's doing it.

This is, by the way, whenever if I go to the doctor and I need a prescription for something, you know how the doctor has to tell you all the side effects? I don't tell me. I don't want to know them. I don't want to hear the side effect. You don't hear because then you're enforcing them. enforcing them. enforcing them. That's right. You're primed to look for those things. those things. those things. Yeah, that's interesting. This is how I actually I cured my insomnia. I used to have terrible insomnia.

And insomnia, turns out, as I was doing this research, is highly susceptible to the placebo effect. When they took uh they put people in a lab who got great sleep and they told them, "Hey, we were monitoring your sleep. You know, you slept really, really poorly." And then they had them take these objective tests of alertness and cognitive abilities. And guess what? These people who had gotten perfect sleep when they were told you got crappy sleep sleep sleep believed believed believed they no on the objectively on the test they did worse and then they did the opposite.

They took people who they interrupted their sleep they gave them a bad night's sleep on purpose told them you had a fantastic sleep. Wow look at these amazing scores you did really well great great great they did very well their test sharp right and so I would wake up day after day thinking oh I'm feeling groggy I'm feeling tired I had a bad night's sleep you only remember the parts when you're asleep when you were conscious. Yeah, but all that time you were unconscious, you don't remember.

Wow. Wow. Wow. So today I have another mantra, one of these secular prayers that I repeat whenever I wake up at 2 in the morning, which happens sometimes. I repeat to myself this phrase. The phrase is that the body gets what the body needs if you let it. let it. let it. That's all I say. I just take a deep breath in. The body gets what the body needs if you let it. I just say that again and again. And what that helps me do is to divert away from the rumination which causes the leading cause of insomnia.

If I don't get a night's sleep, then I can't perform tomorrow and I've got this interview with Louiswis and it's going to be terrible. Whereas now I just tell myself, look, if I get a bad night's sleep tonight, I'll get a good night's sleep tomorrow. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. And I have exactly what I need for today. today. today. As long as I Exactly. that the body will reconfigure unless you know there's some some exceptions of course. Yeah. If you go for two weeks no sleep then you're like Yeah.

or if you have some kind of severe condition. But for the vast majority of us, this insomnia is produced because of the fear of insomnia. Gosh, that's the worst. That's the worst. Nearandfar.com. Nandfar.com. Beyond belief, the sciencebacked way to stop limiting yourself and achieve extraordinary results. this is going to be the book that you want you're going to want to get because for me as someone who's a a researcher skeptic, if you can learn these things and really see the benefit of them. I feel like anyone who's skeptical and who's analytical and needs like the research to prove certain things, they're going to get it in this.

And I truly believe, it's funny, I truly believe that belief is everything. Like belief is everything. And my whole mission within my book, The Greatest Mindset, is to rid people of self-doubt because I believe self-doubt is the killer of all dreams. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And when you doubt yourself, you will not accomplish your dreams. That's 100%. Like you said, if you don't believe you can finish the marathon, you're not going to finish, right? But if you learn to believe in yourself and you learn how to stay consistent with it and do what you talk about in the triangle of motivation, have the behaviors that match those beliefs and what was the bottom one?

The the benefit the behavior benefit. Yeah. Yeah. Benefit, belief, you're going and if you can stay consistent with that behavior and keep the belief that you can stay consistent with that behavior, good things are going to happen. So I want people to get beyond belief. Um, powerful book, Change Your Mind, Change Your Life. You can get it now. You can get it anywhere books are sold, Amazon, all the places. You're also on social media. I believe Instagram is your main spot, but you might be on LinkedIn as well.

I think I see your content there. So, um, ne9 um, ne9 um, ne9 on Instagram. I believe that's still your Instagram, but nerandfar.com. Got a lot of great resources and content there. Near, I got a couple final questions for you. One, I want to acknowledge you for taking this on because again, you know, you're like the Dan Harris of meditation but now in belief in terms of stepping into new things at this season of life. You're extremely successful as an author, speaker, business person, but to take on your own limiting beliefs at this season is hard to do.

M most people don't risk enough to look at themselves and reflect and say, "How can I try something new on? How can I let go of a belief that's not serving me in my relationship with my mom or other people in your life? How can I create more harmony at this season?" So, I acknowledge you for taking this on and actually applying the research that you found. found. found. Um, I asked you this before. before. I think the last time you were on was like five or six years ago, but I'm curious what your three truths are now.

And if you were able to live as long as you want, but at the end of the day, you have to take all your work with you. All of your writing, your books, your content, it's gone from the world. But you get to leave behind three truths. Three things you know to be true from all of your lessons. What would those three truths be for you? the three truths that I would leave behind. That's so that's all I get to leave these three truths. Three lessons, three truths kind of like from all the things that you've learned up to now and all the things you think you will learn until your death.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You can't leave any of that content behind. behind. behind. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But you could share three truths. I think one is we do not see reality as it is. We see it as we are. Uh I think another one would be that you are capable of far more than you know and that your beliefs become your reality. reality. reality. Your beliefs don't become reality for everyone but your beliefs become your reality. reality. reality. Yeah. Amen to that. Say a prayer. Say that prayer over and over again.

Your beliefs become your reality. Repeat that mantra. Um final question. What's your definition of greatness? Uh so last time you asked me that. The last time I was on, uh, it was about doing what you say you're going to do, right? Living with personal integrity. And I think now I've learned that real greatness is about having control over those beliefs. That it's one of the few things we can control. We can't control what's happening in the world. We can't control there's all these things that are outside what we're able to influence.

to influence. to influence. But you always have the luxury to control those beliefs. Can't control what happened to you in the past. can't control what's going to happen to you in the future. But I think real greatness comes from controlling those beliefs so that they serve you rather than you serving them. serving them. serving them. Yeah. Thanks for being here, man. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Powerful, man. Powerful, man. Powerful, man. Thanks, buddy. Thanks, buddy. Thanks, buddy. The first rule of entrepreneurship is you use what you have.

Every self-made billionaire and millionaire was in the exact same position as you because they were self-made, which means that you have the same exact ingredients they had, which is nothing but also nothing to lose. And that's the piece that I think anyone who starts out misses. If you lose it all, you're still at zero. You have unlimited shots on goal.