You Have the Power to Rewrite And Take Control of Your Life Story | Ed Mylett

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So if you're gonna take creatine every day, make sure it's the best. I love using Momentus and their supplement stacks because I care about the quality of what I take, and there's nothing better than their products. If you wanna try Momentus Signature Spec Creatine, head to livemomentus.com and use code MYLET for up to 35% off. That's livemomentus.com, promo code MYLET for up to 35% off. Livemomentus.com, promo code MYLET. Welcome to Sephora. I'm looking for a perfume that's not too perfumey. I got you. Serum moisturizer or moisturizer serum. Let's get into layering. My concealer is making me look worse. Sounds like the wrong shade. Let's get you matched. There's only one store that really gets what you're going for. Get beauty from people who get beauty. Only at Sephora. Hi, I, let's get you a basket. This is the Ed Mylet Show. Hey, everyone, welcome to my weekend special. I hope you enjoy the show. Be sure to follow the Ed Mylet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. You were born to do something great with your life. I'm gonna say that to you again. Listen, please. You are born to do something great with your life. Listen, please. You were born to do something great with your life. And I just wanna be a person who reminds you of that today. Maybe you say, Ed, I haven't felt that way in a long time and I don't know how to get going. I'm gonna talk about that today with you. You might say, Ed, I'm on the road to doing it. And I'm here to tell you today, I think we can do it faster and bigger. And I want your dreams to get bigger. I want you to stretch your vision. It's very difficult in life to stretch our own vision. It's very difficult to see beyond what we already see. And my challenge to you today is just to remember that as a person of faith and as a Christian, whatever you believe in your life, but in my faith, I believe he holds you in the palm of his hand and he made you in his image and likeness and great DNA runs through you. And maybe no one's told you that in a while. And maybe you're going through a difficult time and you need someone to remind you of that and maybe give you some hope and some skills. And I'm gonna do both of those things today for you because I love you and I do believe in you. The reason I believe in you is because I know where you come from. And if you're already doing something great and you're on the road to doing that, I want to assure you that that dream in your heart is real. It's not a hallucination. It's not, you're not crazy. It's a preview of what's possible for you in your life. Everybody has a dream. Most people don't realize it. And the reason they don't realize it is they expect it to be easier than it is. They expect people along the way to help them. They have an improper narrative about their life. They've had some kind of trauma in their life and that story has stamped them and marked them in a certain way that they've never overcome that story. And so today is about the story of you. And I want you to step back first of all and realize that as human beings, we are living in patterns. About 90% of what we do every day is in a pattern. Our behaviors, our thoughts, the words we use, they're all about 90% the same every single day. About 10% is variable. Human beings and you and I are a series of patterns. Those patterns though, where do they come from? They come from a story. And so each human being that's operating, that's above about five years old, is beginning to build a story about themselves. And by the time you get to a particular age, usually in your early 20s, if it doesn't happen then by 30, maybe a trauma happens in your 40s, but you become a story. And a human and you and I as humans will do everything we can to live consistently with this story we tell ourselves. So first thing I wanna say, that if something traumatic happened to you when you were a child, there was some kind of trauma when you were young and that started the story for you. And that's not everybody. But it happened in my life and it happened in many of your lives. I wanna say something to you that I want you to hear. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not your fault. Please remember that. And you were born to do something great. And if you could drop that narrative that somehow you caused something or there's something wrong with you or your bloodline or your family, it's just not true. For some of you go, that didn't happen to me. But stuff has happened in your life where you become a story. And most people are unaware of the story they're telling themselves and they're unaware of the reticular activating system in their brain. So let me just explain something to you. I talk about the RAS often. If you know my work, it's the centerpiece of a lot of the things I teach. But there's a part of it that I've not talked a lot about before, which is that it's a story confirmer. So if you believe something, I'm a victim, I'm hurt, I'm an underdog, I'm not enough. I was, I used to be. Whatever you believe about yourself, the reticular activating system is going to prove you right. It's going to see circumstances that validate it. It's gonna find you people that will confirm that thing you believe about yourself, this story. It will let you hear things, feel things, see things, experience things, watch and listen to things that confirm this story because everything about being a human is to be consistent with the story they tell themselves. That's why Tiger Woods became the greatest golfer of all time because he had this story being told to him since he was a little boy over and over. Did he have to put the reps in and the work and hit the golf balls and have some genetics, all that? Yeah. But the bottom line is it's to confirm a story his mom and his dad told him as a little boy. He had to confirm it. You're confirming a story that you're telling yourself about you every day. And if you want to change your life, the key to changing your life, the beginning of it, there's many keys, it's not just one thing, but the beginning of it is taking control of the narrative, changing the story, even if it served you. I'm constantly changing my story. And by the way, it's been a pretty good one, but I don't want to repeat last year. I don't want to repeat my 40s. I don't want to repeat my 30s. I want to get better. As I said many times, I'm addicted to the expansion of my being. And I'm an imperfect person. I've made so many damn mistakes in my life. I'd like to make fewer. I'd like to create more stuff in my life that's beautiful. I'd like to be happier. I'd like to be more successful. I'd like to make a bigger impact. I'd like the people around me to feel more love. I'd like to feel loved more. And the only way I do that is I don't hang on to whatever the story is I'm telling myself. Now, I was raised by an alcoholic dad. I could have told that story the rest of my life. I've also made lots of money. I could be telling that story. I've influenced a bunch of people. I could tell that story. I could be an underdog. I could be a victim. I could rest on my laurels. But I know the key begins with the story. So we are a series of stories and you're trying to prove it every single day. Let me tell you how big your pattern is. Cross your arms right now. I'm crossing my arms if you're watching YouTube. Just cross them. You know, you cross your arms, okay? Now change it and do it with the other arm. Doesn't that feel weird? Doesn't that feel weird? That's change in your life. Something as simple as the way we cross our arms is so habitual that even changing one arm to the other feels awkward, feels uncomfortable. And guess what we will do? We will revert back to the way it feels right because it confirms the pattern. And that's what we do in our lives with our story. That's why most people don't change because they don't change the story. You can't just change your habits, right? You can't. It's not just changing your habits, although that's part of it. You can't just change your associations, although you need to. You gotta start by changing the story. And that begins by knowing one thing. The lead character of the story of your life is you. You are the author. You and God are the co-authors of the story of your life, however you view God. That's your business. You all know how I view God, but you view it your way. You're the co-authors of the story of your life. And once you understand that and that you can create in your life and if you ask for the right blessings, you're prayerful about it, that great things can come into your life, that if you plant the right seeds, that there's a harvest that comes at some point in your life. So we are a story. Now, here's the thing to understand about our story. The higher the emotion level, the more the story sticks. So that's why when you meet most people, if you get to know them for any length of time, think about people that you meet. Within the first meeting or second or third, they're gonna tell you about a particular time in their life. And you know when they're gonna tell you about typically? The most emotional or their childhood or both. Most people will tell you, I was raised here. My dad was this, my mom was that, I was this. And then they'll tell you the story about an emotional time. My dad died, I got a divorce, someone broke up with me, I had a bankruptcy, someone had a setback, I made this huge mistake, I got hurt over here. So the emotion makes the story stick. So if we're gonna create a new story, it has to be emotional for it to stick. We have to work on that, we have to create the emotion. So first off, number one today, what's your narrative? Have you looked at it lately? Like who are you as a character? And be honest, it's just you and I. And I can't see you or talk to you right now. So who are you as a character in your life? Are you a person who's a character that you're hurt? Are you an underdog, an overcomer? Is your story you're not enough? Is your story I used to be, I was? Are you a victim? Just be honest. Is the deck stacked against you story? Is that your story? Is your story, and by the way, it may be. You may really have had someone screw you over. You may really have the deck stacked against you. You may really have been hurt. You may really have had issues in your family like I did that you're not proud of. I always used to wish when I was a little boy, why can't I be in that family where there's no yelling in their house? So the truth is, it may be an accurate story. The question is in a minute, we'll ask you whether it serves you or not. Maybe your story is I'm better than. I'm better than them, I'm doing better than they are. What's your story? And be honest about it and be real. Who are you as a character? A lot of my friends are always overcoming life, which is a noble thing. Hey man, I'm overcoming, I'm overcoming. That sounds good, and if it gives you motivation, great, but life should not always be just about overcoming everything. What a crappy way to go through life. Everything you have to overcome. At some point, it ought to be able to shift where you're living a dream. I have people that I know that were overcomers when they needed to be, and now they've got a dream life, and they still live like they're overcoming all the time because they never changed the story. So what's the story, number one? Number two, how really true is the story? How true is it? The problem with answering this question is your reticular activating system has validated so many circumstances that you've seen that have proven you right. So you're gonna have to step out of all of that and say, how true is this story? Like, you know, how long are you gonna wear the badge of that divorce, and that be the story? Is there a shelf life on that? Is there a moratorium? Are we going to the next decade on it? We're gonna go the next 30 years on it? That breakup you've had, like, okay, it's true, but how long are we gonna go? Is it still valid? That thing you believe about yourself that's the deficiency, is it true? If it is, you can acknowledge it. It's true because I'm in a career that's dominated by men and I'm a woman, and so that's difficult. Or it's true, I'm in a career that's dominated by women and I'm a man. Or I have a language barrier, or my race affects me. All those things can be very, very true. And you can actually answer the question, yes, it's true. And that can be the answer to number two, or you know, maybe in some cases you go, it's actually not true anymore. I've exaggerated it, I've overcooked it. I'm not that big of a victim, and I keep living like it, and so I keep finding people that make me a victim. I keep seeing circumstances that validate my very narrow worldview, and I'm proving it over and over again. Yet there are other people from the same exact background of an alcoholic father, or an alcoholic dad, or have had a divorce, or are in my ethnic group, or speak my language, and they're winning. So they've found a way to see a different path forward, even if it is true. Third, how old is this story? How old is it? Okay, just ask yourself that story. It's fresh, it just happened, okay. Was it a year ago? Was it two years ago? Was it five years? Is it 10 years ago? Like, what's the story? How old is it? Four, here's a big one. You ready? This is where we begin to change. Does this story serve me? Not whether it's true. That was question number two. For half of you, the story isn't even true. For the other half of you, you said, no, it's actually true, Ed. And by the way, I will always acknowledge that. If it's true, it's true. Maybe you didn't start life on third base, right? Maybe you didn't even start at home plate. You've been overcoming a lot. I have so many friends that, the ones that I'm the most proud of are not the ones who started on second base and got to third or home. I'm most proud of my friends that didn't even start on the field and have found a way to get on the field and found a way to move around the bases of life and win. Those are the most inspiring friends of mine, the most inspiring stories. And so, does it serve you? Does it serve you? Is it causing you to win? Is believing what you believe serving you? And then five would be this What would the story need to be? So that it would serve me so let's say You found out who you are as a character the dominant character. You're a victim. You're an underdog. You're not enough. I'm too much I'm this I'm Whatever your story is the character that you're playing to How true is it Really honestly, okay, and if it is true How old is it and if that's you got the age on it? Does the story serve you if you said it really doesn't serve me? It doesn't serve me in my success or it doesn't serve You may say the story has served me because it's made me financially wealthy But that same story has kept my emotions my fulfillment at a minimum So I had stories that I've told myself over the years that have caused me to accumulate a lot of wealth But that same story did not serve me Emotionally and so at some point once I got the wealth I had to change the story so that I could live emotionally healthy Some of you may say it's made me feel very comfortable and safe, but it's cost me from progress It's cost me a relationship. It's cost me money. It's cost me my career. It's cost me recognition It's cost me contribution and the difference I could make in the world and as I keep telling the story So what's it serve you and then what would it need to be? So that it did serve you a good example of that might be like the fact that I was raised by an alcoholic father and But I was blessed the fact that my dad did eventually get sober But I could have you know, you could look at a family my family all the siblings turned out I'm really proud of my sisters But oftentimes you've seen this in many families two kids can be raised in the exact same environment One becomes an alcoholic and a drug act just like their parent the other one doesn't and becomes very successful There's a lot of studies like in the way that I was raised with drug addiction or alcoholism and families Usually the kids go one way or the other they usually not in the middle They're either really have a major problem in their life and they've got an addictive personality or they actually become type a very very Successful people but same environment you can take two different conclusions because the story took on a different meaning In my case that story meant I wanted to be the one in my family I wanted to change our family forever. My dad certainly set the table for that by getting sober But I wanted to be the one I wanted to be successful I wanted to change our bloodline I wanted the my let's to think differently I wanted the my let's to be healthy productive giving contributory people which by the way, my father became once he was sober, but Also what I took from my dad's sobriety was that people can change I watched him change his life So I'm a big believer people can change that's the meaning I took from the story Rather than using it as an excuse not to be successful or to be happy. So what would you need to believe? About that story so that it would serve you and everything I'm saying today I say to you with no judgment very short intermission here folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify links are in the show notes You'll never miss an episode that way your enterprise knowledge stays Independent of any single model provider with access to 40 plus open and frontier models glean Routes tasks based on performance and cost without locking your business into one provider the result team spend less time on Coordinating and leaders can turn strategy and execution Glean is the context platform for enterprise AI because AI needs more than a capable model to do useful work It needs context about your business clean preserves your existing permissions and security boundaries while giving employees and AI Agents the context that they need teams spend less time coordinating and leaders can turn strategy into execution So I got to tell you some very close friends of mine use it and they love it. They rave about it Go check it out. Glean the context platform for enterprise AI visit glean calm My let to unlock an exclusive offer just for listeners of the Ed my let show that's GLE a n Dot-com Mylet terms and conditions apply. All right This is your last official call the holidays are right around the corner And if you're still got names on your list like I do That you haven't got a gift for uncommon goods makes it easy to still be the coolest gift giver in the room Even at the last minute in just a few minutes you can find something personal clever and totally unexpected One of my favorite gifts I received was my custom wine and whiskey glasses with my initials on them something custom to me makes it Extra-special it tells somebody hey, I didn't just go grab this. I thought about you when I was doing it So shop now before they sell out this holiday season It's affordable too and with every purchase you make from uncommon goods They give back a dollar to a nonprofit partner of your choice. They've donated more than 3.1 million dollars to date Super cool. So times almost up So don't wait cross the last names off your list before it's too late to get 15% off your next gift go to uncommon goods Comm slash my let that's uncommon goods comm My let for 15% off uncommon goods. We're all out of the ordinary so this week's topic by the way is About meaning and how it alters our life in every single way possible the meaning we attach to events. Remember this It's not the events of our life that define us. It's the meaning we attached to the event and When you learn to control meaning in your life You control your life to some extent far greater than you do if you don't have that and Even as a parent or as a leader I want you to listen today about whether or not you're correctly framing meaning to the people that you lead in your company in your business whether you're framing I call it and Attaching the right meaning to your children for the events. They're going through in their lives and then in your own life How good are you at attaching meaning? I believe this is one of the secret skills that happy and successful people both possess you can become successful and produce a bunch of external results often in life and not be happy and What we really want in life is both That's the ultimate in life is to be fulfilled to be contributing to other people to be winning but to be fulfilled in our lives Meaning drives everything. I want you to write this down meaning drives memory Meaning drives the story in your life and the story you tell yourself you live up to So meaning in life when an event happens whether it could be childhood trauma Sale that you just missed a fight. You've had with somebody a failure a perceived failure anything in life meaning drives a memory in your life and meaning drives a story and what we do as human beings as we try to live up To and be consistent with the stories we tell ourselves So I want to talk today a little bit about learning to frame things so that they serve you in your life But also if you have a family serve your children serve your spouse if you have a business Serve the people in your business by learning to frame and attach the right meaning To what's going on in the world in your life in your company? Remember this I'm giving you a bunch of sayings in the beginning and then we'll teach it perspective drives performance and Meaning attaches memory as I've said So like for example, if you had childhood trauma in your life, and you still sort of working through it You can't it's not the trauma or the event that took place the divorce a form of abuse as many of you know My dad was an alcoholic and there what comes with an alcoholic father is certain events and moments in your life that aren't very pleasant that aren't very pleasing and It's not those events that define you. It's the meaning you attach to those events Not the event itself. And so if we can learn in our lives going forward, that's true when you're a child It's true in everything in your life Oh Interest rates are being cut or interest rates are going up or there's strife in the world or there's an election I got all that the meaning you attach to these things is going to dictate everything in your life. So also in life perceived worry and pressure is All meaning you're worried about an event or something happening because of what you think it will mean to you Because what you think it'll mean to you pressure comes from what it means athletes that I work with all the time many of you know I coach some of the top athletes in The world and one of the things I do when I first start working with them as I listen to them I want to understand what questions they ask themselves, but I also want to listen I'm listening very closely, but they don't know it for their meanings that they attach to different things I mean If you're over a pot to win a golf tournament and you attach the wrong meaning to that if I miss this putt What will it mean people will make fun of me? I won't get sponsored you start running this crazy meaning that elevates the pressure But if you could be over that same putt and be asking yourself the question What will it mean when I make this right that changes your physiology in fact sometimes? the best thing to have happen when you're under pressure is to realize that it's not going to mean that much one way or the Other and then that reduces the pressure, but in every single case meaning is truth It's your truth, and then the last thing that I always look at when I visit with people coach them mentor them is Their overall worldview meaning this drives almost everything. It's the narrative of your life So if you're a victim you will find evidence to prove and be consistent with that story if the world's out to get you if you Always get a bad break if you never win if everything always doesn't go your way Whatever that might be people don't believe in me people don't like me people don't trust me people don't think I'm smart people dismiss me People don't think I'm attractive whatever it might be you're right Because meaning drives everything so if you want to change your life, you will change your ability to frame meaning So I want you to watch a clip because I think this is very illustrative That I've selected from the great Tom Brady Arguably the greatest football player of all time some people believe the greatest athlete of all time certainly the greatest Quarterback of all time and him talking about his childhood and the framing that his parents did for him around certain events or around practice around His dreams and how critical he believes now later in life The framing and meaning that his parents gave him take a listen to this Let's tell this story about my parents when I had these dreams of being a professional quarterback You know or even go to college to play my parents were there to say Go for it like there was no Hey, maybe you should think about you know, let's say a plan B or I don't know That's really hard or you know, I don't know There's a lot of people that want to do those things and you should really try something that's you know Maybe less risky, you know, I was all in on on that Maybe that was a little bit naive, but there was no plan B for me and I had parents that fully supported that So when I wanted to go to the batting cages at night because I wasn't hitting the ball the way I wanted to in Baseball my dad was there rolled up his sleeves took me there You know We hit two batting practice for 30 minutes and we drove home and we talked the whole way home about did you see that dad? And I hit that one great And then when I wanted to go learn to be a better quarterback We go to a football camp and he'd track down there with me and he was saying go for it, son You got this, you know, you're gonna be in there and my mom god bless her You know, I was like the slowest player that ever ran at the combine like ever in history You can look it up and my mom would be like honey. You're so fast. You're so fast, honey And I'm like mom I'm slow it's okay. No, no. No, you're just you're trust me. You're fine out there So that's just what unconditional love and support can do for you as a child that don't ever you know I always tell parents don't ever tell your kids they can't do something this you don't know Yeah So isn't that incredible when you hear that about not only the meaning of having his dad be present say at the batting cage or ever But to go for his dreams not to say things like well Everybody wants that or not Everybody can do it when you start sewing that into people as a child they begin to live consistently with it They begin to settle they begin to come average and ordinary. So sometimes as a parent as a leader, it's the invisible things We we don't even know we're doing with our children that are attaching belief systems and meanings in their minds that they carry with them Their entire life They're like mind viruses that were installed by our family when we were young or we are Installing in our children and we don't even realize we're doing it in these subtle things we do or do not say to people I have to also tell you this we do it with ourselves But the the conclusion we reach by what an event meant I'll give an example with my dad because I think this has something to do with Many of the blessings and good fortune that's happened in my life. I'm not an extraordinarily talented person I don't have a particularly high IQ. In fact, I think it's actually some cases a little bit low You know, I'm a motivated person, but I don't know that I'm more motivated than other people But I have been raised in a way where meaning was framed well for me and let me give you an example of this because it's been invisible to me until I was about 50 years old, but My dad, even though he was an alcoholic and a drinker and used drugs as well was incredible at framing meaning for me I'll give you a great example when I would play baseball and I ended up playing at a division one college level I was fortunate that I was a pretty good player and I'd have a game. I went over four with two ground outs strikeout and a fly out I'm walking off that field going I've failed today. I Failed today and what most parents would do is I get in the car and go so what happened on that curveball? Why'd you move your hands over like that next time get your hands up or that's why we got to do batting practice That would be their frame and you would think well, that's a valuable lesson It isn't initially because what you've done is you framed the meaning So what we always want to do in our lives is go What's this mean and then take the instructions of what we need to do next? This is something probably never been taught to you before my dad didn't even know he was doing this But I'm not exaggerating this when I would tell you that he's done this hundreds of times for me. I'm walking off that field I'm not very good, you know all for four Joey on our team had three home runs. He's so much better than me whatever it is that I was thinking as a young man, and by the way, this is from Little League all the way through college and I'd get in the car and my dad would go. Hey, so I gotta tell you something I don't know if you could hear the other dads in the stands But that ground ball you hit too short Mike you flew down that line. You almost beat that thing out It was incredible how fast you got down line goes Eddie The other dads were saying I don't I don't think there's a kid faster than little Eddie My let the entire league they're blown away by how quick you got down the line. It was awesome And I'd say really dad cash. It was like a blur And all of a sudden He took this ground out that took place and he's got it framed for me where we're focusing on the thing that I did which Was bust my tail, even though I knew I was gonna get thrown out Blew down the line my dad go You know what a lot of guys man They just jog that thing out because they know they're gonna ground out not you You hustled all the way through and people notice that stuff Eddie dads were talking about it By the time we would get home. I felt great about myself I took the right meetings way and then he could say by the way, let's take some extra bedding practice this week See if we can't get your hands up a little a little bit, drive through the ball. So do you understand the difference? The meaning of when I did the batting practice was completely different than it would have been had he not framed that event. And none of it that he told me was untrue. He picked apart the things that served me to believe. He didn't lie, because if you're doing that, if you're telling somebody something they know isn't true about, that they didn't run down the line or they weren't fast, it's finding the evidence of the good in it, finding the lesson in it first. The other games were, you know, maybe I didn't have a very good game as well, but I'd make a great catch. My dad would go, hey, I watched you before that guy got up, Eddie. I watched you move over two steps to your left. You didn't, because you read the scouting report. You knew he likes to pull the ball in the right center field gap. I go, yeah, dad, I knew, right? And he goes, man, the jump you got on that, you did everything right, right leg back first. First step back as an outfielder, that step was back, busted your tail the way you got up. I didn't think you were gonna get to it, because by the way, people are saying it, you can't get to it. When they got shocked, what a great play. That was awesome, way to contribute to the team. That's the first thing he would do. And it became where I got addicted to hearing my dad's meaning about what my games looked like. And then it built a pattern in me where I looked for the good meanings in things first, then I made adjustments. So let's just be clear here. That's everything in life. You miss a sales call, it's what did you do well? What went well? What are you gonna do again? What was great? Pull the right meaning from it. And then this is a learning experience. What do I need to learn to get better? And then you're a learner, you're a grower. And so by the time that's done, you're gonna get through all the things you need to do, but the meaning surge you. Not I suck, I can't close, I'm in a slump. Going into a sales meeting, right? Going into that meeting, you attaching this, if I don't get this sale, it's gonna be blah, blah. Now you've changed the wrong meaning because nothing's life or death like that. You've attached the wrong meaning to it. Now you've increased the pressure because you've attached a wrong meaning. And now you don't perform to your best because the pressure's elevated. But if you attach the right meaning to the meaning, I may change these people's lives today. This is gonna go great. If it doesn't go great, I'm gonna get another one, right? There'll be other sales in my life. It's not life or death. I know a lot's on the line, but everything's gonna be okay. And I'm gonna help these people today. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Now on to our next guest. Today in particular is really an honor for me because I'm gonna introduce somebody to you that some of you will know, but many of you will not know. And I wanted him on the show today solely because of how good his work is, how solid his content is in helping people change their lives and perform at a higher level. I'd call him like a peak performance expert. There's all kinds of different terms I could come up to describe this man, but he's got a book called The Breakthrough Code that is outstanding. And I like the way it's written. He was a Wall Street guy for a while, then went to work to train in Tony Robbins companies. He's been training top athletes and corporations for many years, and he's just great at changing people's lives. And so Tom McCarthy, welcome to the show today. Yeah, it's an honor to be with you, Ed. And I'm just amazed at what you've done in such a short period of time, Ed. It's incredible. Well, thank you. I think we have lots of stories we tell ourselves, and most of them we've told ourselves so many times, and we've gathered so much evidence in our life to prove our story true that we're so buried in it. If you're a small business, the right hire can make or break your company. I talk about this all the time on the podcast. Hoping the right people see your job post is not the best growth strategy. Indeed Sponsored Jobs gets you quality candidates when you need them the most. In the minute I've been talking to you, companies like yours made 27 hires on Indeed while we're sitting here talking. According to Indeed data, worldwide, that's the stat. Spending less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes, less stress, less time. Bottom line, more results. When you need the right person to cut through the chaos, this is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. And listeners of our show, they get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeed.com slash podcast. So just go to indeed.com slash podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on the Ed My Lead show. Indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply. Need to hire? This is a job for Indeed Sponsored Jobs. Welcome to Sephora. I'm looking for a perfume that's not too perfumey. I got you. Serum moisturizer or moisturizer serum. Let's get into layering. My concealer is making me look worse. Sounds like the wrong shade. Let's get you matched. There's only one store that really gets what you're going for. Get beauty from people who get beauty. Only at Sephora. Hi, I, let's get you a basket. We're not even really aware that we are actually living a story we've told ourselves. And if we're both right about that, and we are right about that, how does a human being begin to change the narrative of their life? Do they just sit down and say, I'm gonna write a new chapter in my book, and I'm a new character? Or what would you recommend somebody do to start to say, look, I do need to, I'm not even aware of all the stories I'm telling myself, but I do wanna tell myself a new one. Where would they begin? Well, the first thing is dig into the pain and let go of, start letting go of that. Like really, and that's, I mean, I'll probably do that to the day I die, right? You know, I'm not feeling good, not that motivated. I'm not just gonna go, you know, I feel great, I feel great, I feel great. I mean, that can work short-term. But I really wanna go, what the heck's behind this? Like, what is dragging me down? What am I thinking? What's popping up? Where's that coming from? And then, you know, I shred it or whatever. There's tons of different things. I love the shredder. I love yours too. Lots of different things you can do. But that's the first thing is to really free up because, and people probably can't see, but if I'm holding this bottle in my hand, and then I'm trying to put another bottle in, you know, a better bottle, like I can't do it. As a matter of fact, do this, this is a funny little exercise. So start, take your right foot and just start doing it clockwise and every, so just kind of spinning clockwise. And now while you're doing that, I want you to take your hand and do the letter six. So put your hand up, the letter six. But no, take your right hand. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So letter six, and it is, what's happening to your foot? My foot went the other way. Because your mind can only do one thing at one time. You sucker, that just happened. Yeah, yeah. Your foot started spinning the other way, right? Yeah, it started going the other way. Because your mind is like, hey, wait a minute. It's very powerful, but it can only really do, focus on one thing at one time. So we've got to get the garbage out, the old baggage out. And it's a continual process. Cause stuff, it reminds me of like at college, when you went to the cafeteria and you took a plate and then another plate pops up. Remember that? Yes. And that's what's going to happen in your life. So you're never going to be done. Like, you know, people look at, oh my God, Ed's so successful, he's so amazing. Hey, he's still working on himself, I bet. I know I am. A hundred percent. And I'm older than you. Yeah. So. It's really good to have someone on the show older than me, bud. That's awesome. It's so good to have. Yeah. What about old patterns? So you got a story and then you got patterns, right? And I have friends, I know you do this. One of the downsides, if you're a movie, I have movie producer friends. And one of the things that just sucks for them is they can't watch a movie the same way anymore. Yeah. Because they're like, ah, the editing this, the lighting that. They can't actually enjoy the movie, right? Yeah. And for me and you, because we're in sort of a part of what we both do is the human behavior business. Sometimes it's hard for me, even with my friends to watch them because I'm like, God, they're doing their pattern thing right now, you know? Because I notice patterns in people. Yet most people are oblivious of their pattern. So you have a pattern of thinking. You have a pattern of emotions. You have the story you're telling yourself. But just discuss a little bit like old patterns and replacing those patterns and how important that is in our life. Because this pattern produces the emotion, produces a behavior, produces a result, but just kind of keeps happening over and over again with our patterns. Yeah. A couple things pop in my mind. Like the pattern that got me in trouble with chronic fatigue was like not resting and thinking I always need to be on, always have my mind working. I was traveling all over the world, not sleeping. I had to change that pattern, right? That pattern would have, I mean, the chronic fatigue was a gift. It was terrible. And I felt like a 95 year old man, but it was a real gift for me. But I had to shift that pattern. It wasn't just taking a medication. It wasn't just, you know, I mean, I did all sorts of alternative things, but what I really found that worked from this guy that got over it quick, I had to basically reset my amygdala. You know, I was in fight or flight like all the time. I had that pattern. I had to fix that pattern. Then my health returned. When I was working with the water skier, going back to that story. So she said, you know, this person could never be beat. I'm really struggling. I'm really nervous. When I get there, I don't want to go. When I look at the back of the boat, I look at the judges and I'm thinking, oh my God, I'm going to make a huge mistake. And this, she was ranked number two in the world. But we got rid of that stuff. All those old memories, shredded that, got rid of that. And then I said, all right, because the world championships she was getting ready for. I said, if you could have anything happen in the world championships, what would you want? What do you think she said? I hope she says you want to win a gold medal. I thought she was going to say that, but she didn't say that. She said something actually even cooler. She said, you know what? I want to nail my routine. I'm working on this routine. I want to nail it. And whatever happens, if I nail it, that's all I need to do. I said, I like that. And I said, yeah, and this is what you do. And so then you work backwards, right? That's the result you want. And I don't even say goal. Goals to me, like when I think of goals, it's like, oh, there's a goal I want. I might get there. Result is like, you got it. It's nailed. So I said, what result do you want? And she said, I want to nail my routine. I said, all right. If you knew you were going to nail your routine, what would you be thinking when you were waiting there for them to call your name? She said, oh, I'd be thinking, let's go, baby. Call my name. You know, call my name, call my name. I'll probably be saying that. And I said, when you get in the water and you look at the judges on the back of the boat, what would you be thinking? If you knew you were going to nail it, like if you're absolutely certain you're going to nail it. She said, well, I'd look at them and I'd be thinking, you're in for a treat. I said, don't say that out loud, but I like that. And she had like a series of things, a new story that she was going to tell herself. I remember leaving though, and this is interesting because this is what happens with pretty much everybody. I remember leaving there and she'd come up with this great story and she was so excited about it. I'm getting ready to leave. She goes, stop, stop. I said, what? She goes, it doesn't feel real. I go, of course not, you just came up with it. I said, so what you have to do is every practice with your coach, imagine it's the world championships and even have your coach go, you know, Sandy, you're up next and feel that, right? You know, yeah, it's my turn, let's go. Get in the boat, get in the water, hold the whatever thing you hold, like the tow rope, right? And look at the empty boat or maybe it's just your coach, but imagine those judges there and look at them and say, you're in for a treat today, I got this. And she did, you know, over time. And I worked with her one more time. She goes into the world championships with this incredible story and she finishes eighth. I'm just kidding, that would be a terrible story. That's not true. I'm like, what? Yeah, no, get out of the studio right now, he's gonna say. That's good, eighth, all right. She won the world championship. That's freaking awesome. And she beat this person that had never been beaten for, but not only that, sometimes someone's gonna have a bad day. She set the world record. Oh my God. And then she came back the next year just to prove it wasn't a fluke and won again. Oh, that's so good. But, and that wasn't me, that was just her changing her story. Yeah, that's awesome. When you help someone, it's not you, I didn't do anything. Of course. I just helped you kind of figure out what your story needs to be. 100%, and you said something so huge there, which is that when you first begin this picture or a new story, I don't believe it's real. It's not supposed to, but eventually, stay with this, everybody. This is why you have to keep doing it. Eventually, our minds always move towards what it's familiar with. So right now, you keep moving towards your old story because it's so familiar. So the first time you tell the new story, it doesn't feel real. The second time, the third time. But somewhere along the line, all of a sudden it feels 40% real. Then it feels 70% real. And then eventually, like any thought you've ever had, it eventually becomes familiar to you. And familiarity is where our mind is going to move. And so if you continue to repeat that story to yourself, there will be a point where it is real. And then you begin to gather evidence from your life. Oh, this is right. This happened, this happened, this happened. And then you become superhuman in regards to that one vision you have for your life. So you'll always move towards what you're most familiar with. That's why most people quit on it. It didn't work. I tried your thing. I tried that thing for like, how long? Well, two weeks. Really, two weeks? How many times do you do it? Three. Well, yeah. Come see me in nine months. Come see me in 18 months. See me in 24 months. When not only your subconscious is doing it, but now your conscious is picking up actual evidence of your life that this is true. And eventually, it does become who you are. By the way, that's how you got where you are now. That's right. You are where you are now, because at first it was just some stupid thought you had, but then you had it again, and then you had it again, and then you had it again, and then you proved it, and then you proved it again, and then you had it again. And now, you're familiar with it. And you live it. What a great conversation. And if you wanna hear the full interview, be sure to follow the Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. Here's an excerpt I did with our next guest. All right, welcome back to Max Outt, everybody. I'm so excited to have this guest here today. By the way, she's made a huge sacrifice. She's, at the time we're recording this, there's a storm where she lives in Texas. Snow's rolled in. There's no power. She went and got a hotel room so that we could do this today. So if you see the background, that's where she is. And you wouldn't know it from the background, but this is one of the most remarkable people I've ever talked to in my life. I had the great honor of being on her show. She's a cognitive neuroscientist, which just even saying those things is a miracle that I can get that out of my mouth, nevermind understand what it is. She's one of the most brilliant people you're ever gonna meet in your life. She's a bestselling author. She's got a PhD in communication pathology. She's brilliant. And you're gonna write a bunch of notes today. I mean, like a bunch of notes. So Dr. Caroline Leaf, thank you for being here and making the sacrifice to be here today. Oh, Ed, I wouldn't have missed this. Thank you so much for that lovely introduction. And I just absolutely love talking to you. We had the most amazing talk on when you. when I interviewed you and I think you're incredible as well. So thank you. Thank you. Let's start out a little bit because we're talking about thinking. So I was thinking about thinking when I was preparing to talk with you and I think it'd be a good place to start because I don't think most people understand it. What is a thought? How does a thought work? That is such a great question and I'm really glad that you asked that because it's a good place to start. Okay, a thought is something that you actually build. So it's the consequence of three actions and those actions are thinking and when you think, you feel. And when you think and feel, you choose. Those three, like my fingers are like stuck together, those three always go together. You're always thinking. When you're thinking, you're always feeling. When you're thinking and feeling, you're always choosing. And that is mind. And when mind happens, which always happens, you never, your mind is never not with you. You wake up with your mind. You go to bed with your mind. You get dressed with your mind. You eat with your mind. You have discussions with your mind. They're using your mind now. Your mind never stops. So you're always thinking, feeling and choosing. And thinking and feeling and choosing has a consequence. And the consequence is a thought. So the thought is the result of thinking, feeling and choosing. So during the course of the day, you think, feel and choose in response to the experiences of life. It begins as you open your eyes in the morning. And at night time, when you close your eyes and go to sleep, then the building part of thinking, feeling and choosing, building, you think, feel, choose and build thoughts all day long. And then at night time, your mind is still going, but now you're sorting out the thoughts that you've built, kind of a housekeeping, regenerative function, why we dream, get prepared for the next day and all that kind of stuff. So thought is a real thing that is holding the data of the experience. And it holds the data in terms of information and emotions, because you think and feel and choose. So it's data and emotions. So a simple way to understand this is all the listeners and viewers now, as you introduce me, you would have like literally sown a seed in the ground to use that analogy of this is some kind of thing about thinking and mind and brain and whatever. And then as we're speaking, we're growing little roots. So as I'm speaking, they're growing roots. Those roots are protein structures, and they are holding my words as vibrations. And as I'm giving more information, so you're growing more of these little protein branches in your brain. And it's all connected and coordinated. And you're doing it in your own unique ways. Every listener would be building their own roots. And it's filled with data and emotions because you're thinking and feeling and choosing as you're listening to me. And then you go like a little tree trunk, which is your angle, how you view this information. And then that produces little branches with leaves. I've got some analogies here, here's a thought, that's what a thought looks like, the roots you can't see, but there's the tree trunk, and there's the branches with the leaves. And the branches with the leaves are the memories of how you are seeing this information. So it's the behaviors and the motions of how you see this information. So my words are down here in the roots, and your interpretation are in the branches and the leaves. And so that whole thing is a thought. And like a tree is made of branches and roots. So a thought is made of root memories and branch memories. And collectively, this then produces what you're saying, what you do, it produces your actions. So everything that you do, all your communication, your writing, speaking, talking, running, dancing, jumping, relationship, work, all of that stuff is coming from thoughts that we've built. And we're doing this all day long, we're building thoughts. And then at night, we sort the thoughts out. And that's a healthy thought. For the viewers and those that can't see, if there's some just on audio, this is a toxic tree, a toxic thought. So I'm using a wiry thought, also a tree, but you can see it's very much the living dead Game of Thrones stuff. So it's very much alive. But there's the roots, the trunk and the trees. In your brain, your thoughts look like trees. That's why we say that thoughts have an arbor-like structure, tree-like structure. And this is healthy, our brain is wired for this. It's not wired for this. This is a good, nice folded protein, nice balanced chemicals, all the right stuff. And this is incorrectly folded proteins and chemicals and creates a massive response in our immune system in the brain, which thinks that this is something like COVID. It doesn't like this at all. So the immune system will send out the same kind of immune army, the B and T lymphocytes and macrophages and all that kind of thing to fight this toxic thought in the same way to fight COVID or any virus in your body. So that's how real they are. Wow, okay. So let's unpack that a little bit. So first, think, feel, choose is something everybody can take from this right now and understand that you're processing information that way. This idea of the root with the tree is brilliant. I understand that, so I'm still with you. You got it. But you know, when you and I have talked in the past, I want to ask you about this. So it sounds to me as if past experience, past thought informs future thought. Absolutely. If we're not conscious of it. So let's assume I have a pattern of responding to stimulus in a particular way because of this root's gotten bigger and bigger and the tree's gotten bigger and bigger and so these past experiences, these past thoughts are informing how I think, feel and choose currently. How does one overcome the negative implications potentially if they're toxic thoughts of not doing detrimental damage to us now? Excellent question as well. So you're totally correct. Every experience we have is basically built into our brain and into our mind. So already the implication of what I'm saying is that mind and brain are not the same thing. So we can go there in a moment, but to answer your question, we have to be, we and when I say we, we with our thinking, feeling, choosing. So we, you, me, that's mind. So we've got this part of our mind that's what I like to call the wise mind. It's this instinct that we just know. For example, it's like when you, someone comes to you for advice and you just give them this great advice and there's just this, wow, I didn't even know I knew that. Or you have a great conversation or something like that. This is this instinct inside of us of what's right. Okay. And that's what I call the wise mind. And that's thinking, feeling, choosing. So we've got this at our core. And so we're drawing on that, that sort of, that wise mind psychologically, it's a gravitational field scientifically, and that we use to then self-regulate the stuff that's driving us crazy or the bad habits we've got or the whatever. So we have to get into a system of mind management. We need to manage our minds through self-regulation. And we see from neuroscience and from mind-brain integration research, which has been my field for nearly 40 years now, that we can do that every 10 seconds. I'm not asking you to check on your watch, like on your Apple watch, every 10 seconds or your timer. I'm just saying basically we should be supposed to be when you're conscious, you should always be self-regulating to the extent where, like for example, now we're talking. So whoever's listening, whoever's watching, just look at your hands, look at your facial expression, be aware of your body movements, be aware of the impact of what you're saying, and how you're saying it or how you're listening. I'm watching all of that at the moment when I'm speaking, I'm extremely aware of it, because I'm saying it, I'm looking at your face, I'm seeing your responses. So that self-regulation is what we should be doing all the time. When you self-regulate yourself like that, you'll self-regulate how you're thinking, feeling and choosing in response to every experience, the conversation, the things that irritate you, the things that frustrate you, the patterns in your life. You'll start seeing, oh, I always respond in this way when this kind of thing happens, or my husband or wife or business partner or child or whatever, we always seem to have the same kind of argument, there's a pattern. So you can start identifying the toxic patterns when you self-regulate. Then you can start identifying the repetition and then you can start thinking, observing, for example, that maybe you're highly anxious five times a day or almost every day. So you start seeing these patterns in your life and all those patterns, that's self-regulation. Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. Don't forget to follow the show on Apple and Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. I want to talk to you about perspective today, and I think one of the most critical components in life to bring you more fulfillment and more success, more bliss, more happiness, more of the things you want. And that is to start to become aware of the lens through which you see the world, through how you experience your life. Most of us do this unconsciously. And because we do it unconsciously, oftentimes we default to a mode that we really don't want. One of the critical things in life is to be able to see the world through the lens, through the filter, through the prism that serves us the most, serves our bliss, serves our success, serves our productivity, our joy, our peace. And in the power of one more in my book, I write about two lenses. I'm going to give you two more today. But the two lenses I write about in the books, I say there's two types of people. One type of person views the world through history and memory. And they basically walk through life kind of living in the past. When they reference something new, it's usually connected to something of the old. And by the way, people do this on positive and negative things. Some people live through past successes. Some continue to live through history and memory and the past of failures, setbacks, things that have gone wrong, traumas. But the bottom line is most of their filter is the rearview mirror of their life. The second type of person, which is more rare, they see things through dreams and imagination. They're in the present, but they're looking forward. They use their imagination. They use their dreams. They don't spend a lot of time in the rearview mirror. They're looking more through the windshield of life and looking forward. And I find those to be the people that create, that innovate, that are more happy, that grow, that expand. But there are a couple other filters that I want to talk to you about this week. And there's really two lenses that I want to go through with you. And one type of person scans for God and favor, protection, safety, increase, light, love. They see all these things. When they scan the world, when they experience the world, they see more God. They see more favor. They see more protection. They feel more safety. They feel more increase and light and love. The other types of people scan for things they're afraid of. They see the negative. They filter into their lens evil, loneliness, darkness, despair. And these two people are in the exact same world, yet they experience two totally different lives. And really the life you experience is seen through the lens that you feed yourself. And so which of those lenses? Are you history and memory? Or are you imagination and dreams? Are you someone who sees light, love, favor, protection, increase, growth, beauty? Or do you scan and see a lot of things you're afraid of? The negative, the people taking advantage of, the evil, the loneliness in your life. These two lenses will feed you the life that you see. And it's really important because if you're not aware you're doing it, you can begin to think your reality is the only truth. When in fact the same people going through the same type of life are having a totally different life experience than you simply because of the lens. And most of us do it unconsciously, but we can become conscious of this lens and start to scan for the things we want. Listen to me. It's a mental act of ignorance to scan for the things you're afraid of, for the negative, for evil, for loneliness, for darkness, for despair, for lack, for what you don't have. That's a mental act of ignorance. And after today you will be doing it consciously because I've pointed it out to you. And the reason that I pointed out to you is because I've done both and I do both. But I probably lived at least half my life as somebody who scanned for, you know, how lonely I was or how I was being taken advantage of or the past or trauma or darkness. I'd see the, I'd be on an airplane and I'd scan for the loudest most obnoxious person rather than the kindest and most gentle and the person who's helping everybody put their bags away, you know, and the most polite person. You know what I'm saying? Those are same exact flight, two totally different experiences. So what if you became somebody, what if you were one of those people who began to believe that good things are going to happen to them? Because the people who believe that good things are going to happen to them, they're usually right. And the people who believe that average and ordinary or negative things or maybe just the same things are going to happen for them, they are also usually right. The world reveals to us that which we're most certain of. And if we're not cognizant of our lens, because you do have one, and maybe it changes from time to time, maybe a certain trigger triggers a different lens for you. When you're slighted by somebody in your personal life, your spouse or a boyfriend or girlfriend or they're passive-aggressive with you or whatever it might be, or maybe you miss a sail, it switches the lens and now you're scanning for all the other negative things. But I'm telling you this lens is your life. And I think when you get to the end of your life, it's going to be revealed to you through a different lens. And I think at the end we want it to be revealed through the ones that we most hopefully want to see through. So remember this, people who believe that good things are going to happen to them, they are usually right. Not every time, but far more of the time than if they believe things aren't going to work out for them. What if you started to move through your life like you think it's rigged in your favor? You always say, hey the system is rigged. Okay, well it's rigged for somebody. And that somebody doesn't necessarily have to be different than you. And I'm not suggesting that there aren't lots of people in life where they didn't start on third base. Heck, they didn't even start at home plate. They started and they weren't even in the stadium. They were born on the wrong side of the track. Or their parents weren't even married. Or they grew up incredibly poor. And that there are disadvantages to that life. Because there are. But if you're scanning for proof of that all of your life, you'll prove it to be true. But if you begin to scan like, well, however, there are certain things that are scanned in my favor. And I'm favored. Because God's going to give you the life that he most wants to give you. But your lens is going to process it. A lot of times in life, your expectations are the most important thing. If you expect things to go well. If you have an expectation that you're going to get a hit when you're up to the plate. Or make the putt when you're putting. Or close the sale. Or get the date. Or have a good time. Or that people are going to think you're interesting and funny. Most of the time your expectations are accurate in life. More times than not. Remember this. Confidence bends reality. It does. When you walk into a room confident that something's going to work out in your favor. Or you walk into your day. It begins to bend reality and the truth of the matter is reality is reality but what it does is it begins to change your filter. And that filter is your life experience. What if you started to walk like you just got the best news of your life? What if you talk like, man, the universe is listening to me. In my case, God is listening to me. He's hearing my prayers. You have to remember that this is important stuff. But if we don't start to be conscious of it, we're going to continue to produce the same life because we're seeing life through the same lens and the same filter. And so you can have 10 people treat you great but if you believe you're a victim to something, that 11th person is all you're going to see and experience and feel. If you believe you're not going to close sales, you're not going to close the majority of the sales. So what if you started to walk through your life like it was rigged in your favor? And you go, well, it isn't though. What if you worked so hard that you made it so people just like you with the same disadvantages, the same hardships, the same setbacks, look, I grew up on welfare, I had a drug addict and alcoholic father, I could easily see the world through, man, I didn't even get a good hand when I was born. We didn't have any damn money. Nobody in my family was ever financially successful. So I'm not going to be, or I can go, I'm going to be first, I'm going to change this family curse of this addiction stuff. And so that confidence began to bend reality. So the same people would have entered my life probably either way, but I filtered for the ones who could support what I was seeing as opposed to filtering for the ones that would support the negative things I was seeing. There's going to be enough people, enough circumstances, enough situations in your life to deliver either reality to you. But your reticular activating system is going to scan to prove you right. And so starting to wrestle this, I'm going to be someone who operates out of imagination and dreams. I'm going to operate as somebody who walks through life like it's rigged in my favor. My confidence will bend reality. I'm going to get the world to conspire to my dreams. God made me in his image and likeness. He holds me in the palm of his hand and he will never leave me nor forsake me. I'm not alone even when I filter through life and feel alone. I think when we get to the end of your life, all those moments you felt lonely, all those moments you felt alone, I think God's going to whisper to you and go, I was with you the whole time. You were never alone. You were never alone. You never felt that way again. What if you gave yourself the gift of saying, there's a loving God who's got my back, who made me in his image and likeness, whose DNA runs through me, man, this is rigged in my favor. I woke up today with another breath. Maybe you woke up today and you don't have a disease that millions of other people have. Maybe today, no one that you love passed away and so many other people woke up today and lost a loved one. Maybe you woke up today with food in your refrigerator and water and two thirds of the world doesn't have it. So what if you started to walk like you just got the best news of your life? Talk like the world is listening. Remember this, energy is magnetic. The energy you put out is like a magnet. It draws to you that which you're putting out. That's what you see. You know, here's the truth about you. You've come a whole lot further than you realize, and you've overcome a lot more than you give yourself credit for, haven't you? Just for a second, right as you sit there today, think about how far you've come. Now I know some of you are listening to this or watching this today, and it's not an uptime in your life. It's a downtime. But just stay with me for a second. Look how far you've come even to have this downtime. The way you grew up, the situations you've had, the people who have hurt you, taken advantage of you, abandoned you, lied to you, talked bad about you, the opportunities you should have been given but you weren't, maybe because you weren't born on third base, maybe because you weren't even born in the stadium, maybe people have always overlooked you, always underestimated you. Man, you've come pretty darn far, haven't you? And you've overcome a lot more than you give yourself credit for. In fact, those of you that had the most disadvantages, the most negative things happen, you overcome a lot more. Now if you could overcome all that, this next 10 yards isn't such a big deal. Oftentimes people ask me, what's it like to have been so blessed and have had, you know, a measure of success, hundreds of millions of dollars, beautiful homes, influence, great friends, beautiful family, overall, until the last year or two, good health. I'm very grateful for all of that. But every once in a while I go, man, I've overcome a lot. I've overcome a lot. And thank God I had this filter and scan for the world most of the time that found the light that found the person who could help me, not hurt me. If you keep drawing people into your life that are hurting you, that's a you issue. You're filtering for them. You are finding them and you are bringing them into your life. If most of the people in your life are just kind of a neutral charge, they're not so great. They don't lift me up and they're not so bad. That's what you're scanning for. That's your lens. But when you have a lot of people around you who love you, who believe in you, who support you, who do even more than support you, they go to work on helping you make your dreams come true. They go to work on trying to help you be happier and more at peace and more faithful. You're scanning for that. If you look at the current conditions of your life, it's what you've been filtering in. It's a hard thing to accept. I just started to accept that in my late 20s, that I'm responsible for my life. In some way, I've actually created this because I filtered through my lens these people into my world, these circumstances into my world. And if I don't change this lens, they're going to show up in a different body with a different name, but it'll be the same person. They'll show up in a different situation, a different business, a different product, but I'm going to get the same business results. Got to change that lens. Before we start the interview with my next guest, just want to remind you all that you can subscribe to the show on YouTube or follow the show on Apple or Spotify. We have all the links in our show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. Welcome back to the show, everybody. I love this week's topic. We're going to talk about your emotions, and it's something that I want to talk about more on the show, but finding really qualified people to help you is not easy, and so when I do find them, I chase them down to get them in front of you for an hour. And so I have found somebody today that I know is going to help you. First off, his last book, Chatter, I read in two days, and it made a huge impact on me. And some of the things you even hear me teach and say, guys, came from that book. He's a professor at University of Michigan's psychology department. He's already had a bestselling book, and his new book, Shift, Managing Your Emotions So They Don't Manage You. And I know you all want to know how to do that, so Dr. Ethan Cross, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me. I've been looking forward to this conversation for a while. There's something in here that I thought was super unique, because I think music, to many people, they go, yep, I get that one. That's one I use already. You know, I'll get my music to get me going in the morning, or if I'm a person of faith, I'll listen to worship music. Like before I speak in front of big arenas even, I am very often feeding myself different types of music to put me in that state, and it, by the way, different music for a different type of message in my case. So it is a huge trigger for me. But there was something in here, I'm going to just phrase it like this and then let you go. The inner voice benefits, and then thinking versus writing, and the difference between those two things. Because I think this is a huge tool that many people aren't aware of, and the power impact of it. So we just talked about sensory shifters. Let's go to perspective shifters. How do we change the way we think about our circumstances? This is a powerful tool that is unique to us as humans. We could shift our perspective, look at that bigger picture, tell ourselves a new story that helps us move on with our lives. There we go. In the words of a very good friend of mine, a distinguished physician, I can't help but smile every time I tell the story. We're coming back from dinner one night. My wife and I, and this physician and his wife, and he's having some problems at work. And he's pretty negative about the situation. His wife says, well, just think about it more positively. You'll feel better. And he goes, yeah, easier effing said than done. Really exaggerated. Which I think taps into something that so many of us feel so often. We know we can, and we maybe should think differently about what we're dealing with. Because the way we're thinking about it is taking us in the wrong direction, but we can't seem to do it. And indeed, a lot of this book, Shift, is about how to help you do it, how to give you tools to do it when you want to. So to go back to your question, though, about thinking versus writing, we often try to think through our problems. And sometimes that just makes it worse. It takes us down the doom and gloom, tailspin, thought looping, chatter, rumination, worry, not good. Part of the reason why that happens is we don't have any guardrails when we think. We're just pinballing all over the place. Thoughts are firing. It's very fragmented. It's very emotional. What we've learned is that if you actually have a person sit down and ask them to write about their deepest thoughts and feelings about something for just 10 to 15 minutes for one day to three days in a row, no, don't worry about grammar. Just let yourself go. What that does, what research finds, is that that helps people create a story, a narrative to make sense of what they're going through. And it gives structure to this very disorganized frame of mind that we're in when we're, what if this, what if that, you know, like the mind goes all over the place. You think things to yourself that you wouldn't dare admit to another human being. Sometimes when you're putting those thoughts on paper, guess what? We learned from the time we're little kids how to write sentences. Sentences have a beginning, a middle and an end punctuation. So does a paragraph. There's a structure to it. And as we work our way through that story, we wrap that story up and when we wrap that story up in writing, we wrap it up in our minds and that allows us to move on. So this is called expressive writing and it's an effortful tool in the sense that you do need to sit down and take 10 to 15 minutes to do it, but let's be real, 10 to 15 minutes of writing for a few days compared to some much more heavy handed and destructive interventions that people engage in regularly for their emotions. That's a pretty good trade off. I got to tell you everybody, I want you to really dial in here. Stay in, okay? This is important because all of you are going to have, all of you right now have had some point this last week where you'd like to change or regulate your emotions to shift them. You've also, or you're going to have them. And I got to tell you, this idea of expressive writing, this was recommended to me a few years ago. I'm just going to share this with everybody first. Number one, I'm not a great writer, okay? And I don't have the patience to write. By the way, any of you that read my books, you can validate this. It's not my great skill. And I started this process and I have to tell you, number one, there's different shifts in the book. One of them is a perspective shifter. For me, when I write down my feelings or even when I want the story to look like you guys, it changes my perspective because almost like my thoughts and emotions are now outside of me and they're on the paper. I get some separation from them. It's almost like therapy for me when I write. I also start to just think differently, like that maybe I have some influence over this story that I'm writing, that I'm the lead character and the writer of this story and that the pen in my hand indicates to me that I can start to write a new chapter or a new page of the book of this moment or of this time in my life. Don't take this lightly. Finding 10 or 15 minutes a day where you journal or write your feelings down or the story you're going through, it's the number one perspective shifter for me. Music is an obvious one, I think, for many of you, but this is a huge one for me. Also, I want to kind of merge your work together a little bit because this idea of chatter and the shifting of the chatter, the both kind of works together. I kind of want to merge us together here a little bit if we can. So tell us how chatter is and what it is and then what is a pattern interrupt or a tool you use? Is it the shifts you use to change the chatter in your mind or are they totally two different things? So I'll give you the, here's the quick origin story of chatter and shift. So when I got to college, I took my first psychology class and halfway through the semester we got to this topic of introspection. This capacity that is unique to human beings to be able to turn our attention inward and work through problems. This is what has made you and so many other people so unbelievably successful. This is what has made the human species so incredibly successful. We can use our minds to solve problems, but a little bit deeper into that class, I learned this very same tool was one of our greatest vulnerabilities because when we have emotional issues, we reflexively try to work through them, but we don't come up with clear solutions. Instead, we just get stuck. So we start spinning in ways that lead to such misery and make it hard for people to think and perform and just create enormous human suffering. And once I came across that, that those two sets of findings, it was like a light bulb went off. Um, I just couldn't stop thinking about it, became really passionate about it so much, so much. So that I'll share a funny anecdote. I remember, um, like walking on the weekends to parties or the bars with my, my buddies and it'd be like 11 o'clock in West Philadelphia and I go, Hey Dan, did you know that people sometimes end up getting stuck in rumination? I can't get out of it. And he looks at me and he's like, what's wrong with you cross Saturday night. What are you talking about? But I couldn't stop thinking about this stuff. So I went to graduate school, um, to learn how to use the tools of science, neuroscience, psychology to figure out why does this happen and what can people do? do when they find themselves going down the rabbit hole. Chatter, my first book, was my attempt to share what I had learned about what are the tools that exist that people can use to manage this voice in their head more effectively, rather than sometimes having it take hold. And then I went on book tour for an extended period. And something interesting happened on book tour. After I'd give talks on Chatter to audiences, people would come up to me and they'd say, yeah, this was fascinating. I learned a ton. I'm going to try these tools out. But what do you think about A, B, C, D, E, F, and G when I'm angry or envious or this and that? And I actually tell the story in Shift. It felt like I had just given a talk on how to combat inflammation. Really important thing. But people also wanted to know about dealing with diabetes, heart disease, and every form of cancer that was discovered. And so that lit another spark. And so what I did with Shift was I wanted Shift to be a book about your emotional lives. Actually, chapter one is called Welcome to Your Emotional Life. And what the hell are emotions? Why do we have them? Why do we have bad ones? Are bad ones really bad? And most importantly, when you find your emotions taking you in directions you don't want to be, what do we know about the tools that exist that you can use right now without side effects to start getting more control? And it took two and a half years to write that book, but that's how they're related. And so some of the tools overlap, but there's a lot of new stuff that's different, I'd say, in Shift. I am a professional mental time traveler. Oh, I love it. Which is great as a business person, as like a dreamer and a visionary. So it serves me there. It's debilitating in terms of worry and fear. And so I want to talk about this for a minute. Before you go further, I just want to pause you right there, Ed, and I just want to point out what you just said, though, because you're an enormously successful individual. And you just talked about one of the secrets to your success, but also the fact that you sometimes, maybe more than sometimes, have some worry, right? Like it happens to you. And I think that's such an important message to share with people, because so many people think that they are alone when they find themselves experiencing worry or ruminating about things. It is the rule, not the exception, as far as I know. Well, I have discovered in my life where it came from. So I believe that people are patterns. And so my dad was an alcoholic, he got sober. My audience, most of them know that story. And those of you that are new to the show, you can go hear those stories. But one of the things that happened from my dad's drinking when I was a little boy wasn't just what kind of a mood would he would be when he came home or anything like that. It was that I learned to worry about my dad as a young boy. Is he going to come home? Is he going to be hurt? Is he going to hurt somebody else? Or mom and dad going to stay married? And so his drinking wired into me this pattern of worry that has never escaped me. And so, and what worry is to me, and you talk about it in Shatter a little bit, it's like kind of, it's like mental time traveling. You're actually projecting into the future things that have not happened yet and traveling there. And what's worse about it is you do it over and over and over again. And what you think everybody is, if I keep traveling there in my mind and I keep thinking about it, I will solve this problem. The 900th time I've thought about, there's gotta be something that didn't occur to me about this thing that's not even real. If I think about it enough times, I'm gonna figure it out. And I've just learned in my life that I can keep traveling into the future all I want and I can do it 900 times. And the 900th time, I'm not gonna come up with a different answer to something that hasn't happened yet than I did the first time. And so because I'm that way, I'm gonna ask you a two-part question about it. I say that to lay that out for everybody. I also have found as I've gotten older, that for the most part, it happens around the same time of day. So there's actually a pattern to the time. And in my case, it is typically middle of the night or when I wake. And so I'm wondering what you think about what I just said and whether there's some persistent habit in people's life that it actually shows up at a similar time and what is a shift out of that or a strategy out of that? Yeah, I'm a 2 a.m. chatter kind of guy. So I'm with you on that one. Okay, so there's a few things to unpack here. So first of all, what you just described about mental time travel, I love the way that you talked about both the positives and the negatives. We have a tendency in society right now in our culture to throw the baby out with the bathwater, which is to say, well, mental time travel clearly gets a lot of us in trouble a lot of the time. I mean, I'm saying it's a universal. We all worry about the future and ruminate about the past at times. So you know what we should start doing, Ed? We should stop mental time travel. Just focus on the present. Be in the moment, right? Yeah. I have been meditating. Five years old, my dad, I wanted a bicycle. He took me to get a mantra. It's a true story. I was devastated. Like I was not a happy kid. But I've had experiences with meditation and mindfulness my whole life. It can be a great tool for some people some of the time. It is impossible to always be in the moment. Our mind evolved to time travel. This is a strength that we possess that we can do this. This is what makes you so incredibly successful. So my challenge to you and everyone else who's listening is not to shut down this capacity. It's if you find that mental time travel is sometimes not serving you well, let's learn how to time travel more effectively. Yes, it's true. Sometimes we time travel into the future, the negative future or past, and we get stuck. It's like back to the future, right? Like we just get stuck there. When that happens, coming to the present can be effective or doing some other things. So just wanted to get that out there because I hate this notion that you should always be in the moment. Not possible, not desirable. So lots of people have the kind of the worries, the whispers in the middle of the night. This happens to me once every few weeks. I go to bed with a smile on my face. I wake up, terror, like everything bad that is happening. You said 900, 90,000 simulations are happening in my mind at warp speed, right? My hack for managing this is I fight that with a new kind of time travel. I ask myself, how am I going to feel about this problem next week, next month, next year? What that does for me is very simple. Your whole life, you have experienced the following. An emotion gets triggered and then as time goes on, it eventually subsides. All of us, all emotions have that trajectory. When we get stuck worrying about things, we zoom in on the peak, on the awfulness of the moment. And when we do that, we lose sight of the bigger picture that as time goes on, things are gonna fade. When you jump into the time travel machine and you think about how am I gonna feel about this tomorrow morning, next month, next week, month, year? We could be flexible here. It automatically activates this understanding that what you're going through, as bad as it is, you will eventually feel better. That does something incredibly powerful for a mind that is wrapped up in this chatter and these big emotions. It gives you hope that things will get better. And hope is an antidote for those kinds of reactions. So that's time traveling into the future. I will give you one other time travel option. It's equally powerful for me. You could also go into the past. You know, again, when we get stuck, we zoom in on the awfulness. My grandparents were Holocaust survivors. Their families slaughtered, lived in the woods for three years, Eastern Europe. The worst kind, crazy kinds of experiences. Lots of people have them. They hid home from me because I heard their stories growing up. And, you know, sometimes the stuff that I cook up in here, it seems terrible. Like, oh my God, it's all gonna go to crap right away. All right, I jump back 60 years, however long ago. Ah, 70 years, 80 years. I tell you what, like, no matter what I'm dealing with, it pales in comparison to what Bubby and Papa experienced in the frozen woods of Eastern Europe. Oh, yeah, that really puts my experience in perspective. It really does it. So these are like ways of shifting your perspective, being really flexible. And those are two things that work for me, but one thing I wanna mention to all listeners is there are no one-size-fits-all solutions. We documented this scientifically. Different tools work for different people in different situations. It's like exercising and nutrition. If I asked you to gather your 10 closest friends and I had them write down their nutritional regimens and fitness regimens, my guess is that we would see variability across all of them. Is that a fair assumption? Fair, yes, yes. Same is true when it comes to manager emotions. The tools that I use are different from the ones my wife uses. They're different from the ones my best friend uses. And that's the beauty of all of this. Like, our emotional lives are different. So why would you expect the same tool to work for everyone? Very short intermission here, folks. I'm glad you're enjoying the show so far. If you wanna hear the full interview, be sure to follow The Ed Milet Show on Apple and Spotify. Links are in the show notes. You'll never miss an episode that way. Now on with the show. So I saw this quick video this week that these are not my words, but they made an impact on me and I wanted to share the words in this video with you because they were so compelling for me. And I think it'll be a gift for you as well. And then I would give you some takeaways that I took from these words. So here we go. I asked God, why are you taking me through troubled waters? He replied, because your enemies can't swim. I asked, why do I always feel like I'm failing and struggling? He answered, because your growth and accomplishments come from facing challenges and overcoming difficulties. Every failure is a stepping stone to success. I asked God again, why do I sometimes feel like life is filled with pain and helplessness? He responded, because in your weakest moments, I am by your side. I use your pain to shape your character and your helplessness to showcase my power. Continuing, I inquired, why do I have to experience disappointment and setbacks? He replied, because in disappointment, you learn to trust. In setbacks, you learn to persevere. I am with you every step of the way, guiding you towards victory. Finally, I asked, why do I always feel confused and lost? He answered, because you overlook my plan for your life. When you focus on me, I will smooth your path and provide you with clear direction. Trust me, everything is within my control. This had a big impact on me, a profound impact, because I think oftentimes, we do wonder why certain things happen in our life, and I think perspective is everything, you know? When I talk to people that are a little bit older than me, I'm always blown away by the perspective that they have. I recall when Max was about six years old, every weekend on Saturdays, I would take Max down to the car wash, and we would get in my car wash, and it was back in the days where there really wasn't a lot of internet at the time, so there was a man there that we would see every Saturday, an older man, and he was reading his newspaper, and I think he sat there for hours, frankly. I always wonder, like, this guy's car took a long time to get washed. I think he would just come down there and read his paper, and maybe his car was being, maybe it was being detailed, or he just let them work on it while he sat there, and so he would always, we'd always say hello, and he was a nice man, and, but I could tell that he wasn't happy. I could tell there was something unsettled in his spirit, and I watched him several times. This looks sad to me, and I took notice of it. You ever just feel someone's energy? And I remember several times seeing this man feeling some kind of sympathy for him, and I'll never forget this, because he, one Sunday, he goes, so how old is Max? And I said, he's six years old, and he gave me great advice. He said, well, enjoy the six-year-old, because when he turns seven, that six-year-old's gone forever, and if you're a parent, you know that's true. That six-year-old really does go away, and there's a brand-new person at seven, and he goes, in fact, enjoy the seven-year-old, because once he turns eight, that seven-year-old's gone forever. They become a whole new person and remake themselves, and you know what, and enjoy him when he's 16, because when he turns 17, that 16-year-old teenager's a completely different person. They just, they keep changing and growing, and I didn't even mean it in a mean way, but I remember I turned to him, and I said, sir, when did that process stop for you? And he put the paper down. He said, again? I said, when did you stop remaking yourself every year? And he sat back, and he went, I don't know. I guess maybe, maybe my early mid-20s. I said, you should evaluate that. I said, one of the things I'm most obsessed with in my life is that the 33-year-old me will be gone forever when I turn 34, replaced with a whole new, better, growing version of me, and I hope someday, when I'm 40, that when I turn 41, the 40-year-old's gone forever, just like the six-year-old Eddie Mylett. There was a new version of him, an improved. Now, obviously, you take parts of you into your future, but there's a new and improved version every year. I'm remaking myself. You know, you can look into your body, your lung tissue, your digestive tract. Even your bones are remaking themselves on a very regular basis. It's part of nature to be reborn and remade. But so many people lack the perspective in their life, and that lack of perspective causes. them to not grow anymore. There's this great quote that I used to throw around all the time that said, most men die in their early 20s, we just don't get around to burying them until they're in their 70s. Too many people right now are not remaking themselves and wondering why they're not happy. This requires growth, this requires perspective and I think that quote that I read you earlier about God, whatever your version of God is in your life, however you look at that, everyone knows how I look at it, but however you look at that, that it changes your perspective and that the things that happen in your life take on a different meaning. See, everything in life is what does something mean to us. If you can change the meaning of something, you can change everything in your life. But once we stop growing and changing, it all starts to feed the same meaning. They would say, well you keep telling the same story to yourself, that's a big thing in personal, change your story and you should change your story. But in order to change the story, you have to change what you believe things mean. And so that's why the questions that that person was asking that God was answering changes the meaning of when things happen. So I'm a big believer that you are supposed to be replacing yourself. So if you're 28 years old and you're listening to this today, one of your ambitions ought to be to take all the great things with you into your 29th year, but to grow and improve so that 28 year old's gone forever and there's a new better version of you at 29. If you're 40 years old listening to this today, that by the time you're growing all year long, that by the time you turn 41, that 40 year old's gone forever, just like the six year old you was gone forever when you turned seven. Just like when you turned eight, the seven year old was gone forever. And just like when the 16 year old turned 17, the 16 year old was gone forever. If you look back at your life, you've changed and grown quite a bit, haven't you? But what pace, at what percentage, how much, right? And to what perspective do you need to accelerate this? Your sausage McMuffin with egg didn't change, your receipt did. The sausage McMuffin with egg extra value meal includes a hash brown and a small coffee for just $5. Only at McDonald's for a limited time. Price and participation may vary. Promotion pricing may be lower than meal pricing.