Latest / Success Story with Scott Clary / Nir Eyal - NYT Bestselling Author & Fmr Stanford Lecturer | The Science Behind Why You Can't Trust Your Own Thoughts

Transcript

Nir Eyal - NYT Bestselling Author & Fmr Stanford Lecturer | The Science Behind Why You Can't Trust Your Own Thoughts · Success Story with Scott Clary

• 0:00
  The big aha moment for me was that beliefs are tools, not truths.
• 0:04
  They don't necessarily have to be true in order to be useful.
• 0:07
  Now, I pray because it works.
• 0:10
  What if the world around you is designed to distract you?
• 0:13
  Near AL has spent years studying the psychology of habits,
• 0:17
  how products hook us, and why we keep coming back.
• 0:21
  I'm actually not happier. I just suffer less.
• 0:23
  I don't think that evolution designed us for happiness.
• 0:26
  You don't want to be happy all the time.
• 0:28
  It's that disquietude that keeps us hunting.
• 0:31
  Makes us want more that makes the world better.
• 0:33
  What you want is motivation without suffering.
• 0:36
  The studies find the number one reason that we don't achieve our goals.
• 0:38
  We quit. We all tend to quit at that 15-minute mark
• 0:41
  way before we're actually exhausted.
• 0:43
  He didn't just study distraction.
• 0:46
  He helped build the systems behind it.
• 0:48
  Today, he breaks down how to take back control of your attention.
• 0:51
  Build better habits and become truly indistractive.
• 0:55
  How do I decrease suffering?
• 0:57
  But keep motivation. It turns out you need to learn
• 1:00
  how to use your beliefs in order to change what you see,
• 1:03
  what you feel, and ultimately what you do.
• 1:05
  About 40% of your brain haver is done on habit.
• 1:08
  People who are high achievers in every field
• 1:10
  are able to do the things that the rest of us think is really hard
• 1:13
  without suffering.
• 1:14
  You don't create reality, but you do create your perception of reality.
• 1:28
  Near, you haven't prayed since you were six years old.
• 1:31
  Now you pray every day. What happened?
• 1:34
  Well, I grew up very secular.
• 1:37
  And when I was six, my family went through some really tough times.
• 1:43
  They got scammed by some con artist for pretty much every dollar they had.
• 1:47
  And my parents argued every day I can still remember the sound of
• 1:51
  they're screaming at each other.
• 1:52
  They almost got a divorce.
• 1:54
  And we were days away from having to leave the country
• 1:57
  because they ran out of money.
• 1:58
  But thankfully, they pulled it together and we were able to stay.
• 2:02
  But that's when I started praying.
• 2:05
  When my parents were going through this really tough time
• 2:07
  and I felt super alone, I remember I would go out
• 2:10
  so I grew up in Central Florida.
• 2:11
  I would go outside and I would lay it on the driveway.
• 2:15
  And I'd wake up before my brothers and I would lay there
• 2:19
  and I would look up at the sky and I would talk to a voice.
• 2:22
  And I remember that that voice was super comforting.
• 2:24
  And to me, I called that voice God.
• 2:26
  But as I grew up, I became more skeptical
• 2:31
  and I didn't feel a connection to any particular faith tradition.
• 2:34
  And I stopped praying because I thought,
• 2:36
  well, if nobody's listening, what's the point?
• 2:38
  And I never lost the skepticism.
• 2:41
  I still don't think of myself as very spiritual
• 2:44
  and I kind of lost touch with that.
• 2:47
  And it turns out I'm not alone.
• 2:49
  That the largest religious community in America today
• 2:53
  are the nuns, not the Catholic nuns, the N-O-N-E's,
• 2:57
  the people who don't affiliate with any particular faith.
• 2:59
  And the data is overwhelming
• 3:02
  that people who don't have some kind of faith tradition,
• 3:05
  particularly those who call themselves spiritual but not religious
• 3:09
  have higher incidences of depression,
• 3:11
  of anxiety disorder, and other mental illnesses.
• 3:15
  And it turns out that prayer, the power of prayer,
• 3:18
  is highly psychologically protective.
• 3:20
  It has these extreme benefits and we see it in study after study.
• 3:24
  And so I just thought, well, that's just not for me,
• 3:26
  that if I don't have a particular faith tradition,
• 3:28
  well, I can't pray because I don't think that everything
• 3:32
  in the Holy Book is true, so it's not for me.
• 3:36
  And then I came across a study that blew my mind.
• 3:38
  And what happened was in this study, they had three groups.
• 3:42
  One group of people who didn't pray, and they didn't teach them to pray.
• 3:45
  Another group of people who did pray,
• 3:47
  and they prayed with some kind of faith tradition.
• 3:49
  Catholic, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist,
• 3:51
  they had some kind of faith practice already.
• 3:54
  The third group was the most interesting.
• 3:56
  The third group, they taught them how to pray,
• 4:00
  but they told them you can substitute the word God for whatever you want,
• 4:04
  whatever's meaningful to you, mother nature, some of all forces,
• 4:08
  the universe, whatever's meaningful to you,
• 4:10
  you can substitute that word.
• 4:12
  And then they had these three groups do this standard pain tolerance test.
• 4:17
  And it turns out that people who prayed not only did they have much higher pain tolerance
• 4:23
  than the group that didn't pray,
• 4:24
  but even the group that prayed without faith,
• 4:28
  just the practice of prayer greatly increased their pain tolerance
• 4:32
  as much as the group that prayed with faith,
• 4:33
  but way higher than the group that didn't pray at all.
• 4:36
  So in study after study, people who pray live longer,
• 4:39
  they have more friends, they're happier,
• 4:41
  they have fewer incidents of mental health issues,
• 4:43
  they make more money, they contribute more to their community,
• 4:45
  all these good things happen to people who pray.
• 4:48
  And my kind of revelation, if you will,
• 4:51
  I didn't become spiritual,
• 4:54
  I didn't start believing the supernatural,
• 4:56
  but rather I changed my mind about the purpose of religion,
• 5:00
  that I stopped holding religion to this matter of fact or faith.
• 5:05
  You see, fact are things that are objectively true.
• 5:09
  They are true whether or not you believe in them.
• 5:10
  The world is more like a sphere than it is flat.
• 5:13
  Sorry, flat authors,
• 5:14
  doesn't care what you believe, that is a fact.
• 5:17
  It's an objective truth.
• 5:18
  Faith is a conviction that does not require evidence.
• 5:22
  Okay? God rewards the righteous.
• 5:24
  That is not something that I can convince someone to not believe
• 5:27
  and if it's a matter of faith, right?
• 5:29
  Nor should I.
• 5:30
  Beliefs are in between.
• 5:31
  Beliefs are not facts and they're not faith.
• 5:33
  They're in between.
• 5:34
  Beliefs are conviction that are open to revision based on new evidence.
• 5:39
  And so the big aha moment for me was that beliefs are tools not truths.
• 5:46
  Beliefs are tools not truths that they don't necessarily have to be true
• 5:50
  in order to be useful.
• 5:52
  So now I pray because it works because it makes me better.
• 5:56
  And I don't have to believe that every single thing that is in some holy text or when I go
• 6:02
  into a religious institution that I have to think that everything is fact,
• 6:05
  that I have to have blind faith.
• 6:07
  No, that I can still get the psychological benefits of prayer,
• 6:10
  still be a member of a community,
• 6:12
  still connect with something bigger than myself and get all the psychological benefits,
• 6:16
  even if I have doubts.
• 6:18
  And the way I came to this conclusion, I actually went to five religious leaders.
• 6:21
  It sounds like a setup for a joke.
• 6:24
  I went to a rabbi, a priest, an imam, a monk, and a swami.
• 6:27
  I went to five religious leaders walk into a bar and I asked them all the same question.
• 6:32
  How does one pray if you have doubts about God?
• 6:36
  And essentially, they all told me that doubts, everybody has doubts.
• 6:41
  Even people that we think are super religious, you know, they also have doubts that
• 6:44
  doubt can be a very healthy thing that blind faith, in fact, doesn't necessarily serve you.
• 6:48
  I'm not a big fan of blind faith.
• 6:51
  I think that makes you cheap, right?
• 6:53
  That makes you do whatever the religious leader wants you to do.
• 6:55
  But we don't have to have blind faith.
• 6:57
  We can actually use these practices that are thousands of years old,
• 7:00
  that I rejected, that I just thought wasn't for me.
• 7:02
  Because I can't prove they were true.
• 7:04
  Well, they don't have to be true.
• 7:05
  They just have to be helpful.
• 7:07
  It's very interesting how you went on this a little bit of a
• 7:12
  not a religious journey, but a spiritual journey that I think a lot of people,
• 7:17
  especially in modern day go on, where they, some people, of course,
• 7:22
  subscribe to more traditional religions, but I think the people that don't,
• 7:25
  they seem very lost and confused and depressed.
• 7:30
  And I've always, I've had conversations before about how
• 7:34
  traditional religion provides so much framework for life
• 7:39
  that I don't think was replaced with anything really,
• 7:43
  meaningful.
• 7:44
  And I think that this is what
• 7:46
  you're sort of discovering.
• 7:47
  Like there's so many good core tenets to a traditional religion.
• 7:51
  Even if that's not what you subscribe to,
• 7:53
  they're just completely removing them out of your life,
• 7:55
  probably isn't the answer.
• 7:56
  A community belief,
• 7:57
  like these are all like,
• 7:59
  like these are scientifically proven to be beneficial to a happier,
• 8:03
  healthier life.
• 8:04
  Now, even before we pressed record,
• 8:06
  you mentioned something.
• 8:07
  You said when you, when you write a book,
• 8:10
  you love writing books because you have this problem that you're trying to figure out
• 8:14
  in your life or in society and you can't find this perfect solution to this problem.
• 8:19
  So you research and then you go on this journey and you figure it out,
• 8:22
  then you have this like this codified proof or body of research and sort of
• 8:28
  help somebody understand this problem you're trying to understand yourself.
• 8:31
  What was the, what is the problem that you saw that actually led to you,
• 8:36
  to you actually writing this book?
• 8:37
  But what was the, like the book is beyond belief, it's out now.
• 8:40
  I'll link it below.
• 8:41
  But what was the problem that you saw in your own life and society
• 8:45
  that sort of led you to want to tackle this problem and answer this question?
• 8:49
  What is belief? Are we missing belief?
• 8:52
  Is belief good for us, bad for us?
• 8:54
  It's, you know, I did a webinar recently for people who bought the book,
• 8:57
  you know, people who subscribed to my newsletter and one of them asked this question that,
• 9:02
  that, you know, this is after the book is now done.
• 9:04
  You know, and this is someone who bought my previous two books.
• 9:06
  They've known me for, you know, 15 years since I started my writing career.
• 9:11
  And they asked, you know, near, why do you seem so much happier?
• 9:15
  Like you, you seem different.
• 9:17
  Why are you happy?
• 9:17
  Are you happier after writing this book?
• 9:19
  And I'm actually not happier.
• 9:22
  I just suffer less.
• 9:24
  That, um, that's what, that's what I was looking to understand.
• 9:29
  That, that big picture, it's how do we enjoy life more?
• 9:34
  Not by thinking we have to be happy all the time.
• 9:35
  I actually think that's the wrong approach.
• 9:37
  I don't think that evolution, uh, designed us for happiness, right?
• 9:41
  If you think about, if there was ever a tribe of people who were blissed, you know,
• 9:46
  blissed out and they were contented and they were super satisfied with life.
• 9:49
  And they were totally vibing with happy thoughts all day.
• 9:53
  If our ancestors, what would have happened if our ancestors would have come across those people?
• 9:57
  What, what would they have done?
• 9:58
  I tell you exactly what they would have done.
• 10:00
  They would have killed them and eaten them because you need that bit of dissatisfaction.
• 10:05
  You don't want to be happy all the time.
• 10:07
  Happy, being happy all the time is not evolutionarily beneficial.
• 10:10
  It's that disquietude that keeps us hunting, that makes us want more, that helps us
• 10:15
  invent things that helps us overturn dictators that, that makes the world better.
• 10:20
  So it's not that you want happiness all the time.
• 10:23
  What you want is motivation without suffering.
• 10:29
  That's what I was looking for.
• 10:30
  How do I stay motivated without suffering?
• 10:33
  Why is that so important?
• 10:35
  Because if you think about it, why don't we achieve our goals?
• 10:39
  Whatever they might be.
• 10:40
  I want, you know, financial wealth.
• 10:43
  I want to get in shape.
• 10:47
  I want to write a book, whatever it might be.
• 10:49
  I want to start a successful podcast.
• 10:51
  Why don't we reach our goals?
• 10:53
  The number one reason, it's not intelligence, although that helps.
• 10:57
  It's not resources, although that helps.
• 10:59
  The studies find the number one reason that we don't achieve our goals.
• 11:02
  It's super obvious.
• 11:04
  We quit.
• 11:04
  Of course.
• 11:06
  I mean, yeah.
• 11:08
  So what if you could unlock motivation to sustain yourself long enough to succeed at whatever
• 11:17
  you want for yourself?
• 11:19
  It's not that persistence guarantees success.
• 11:22
  It's that quitting guarantees failure.
• 11:25
  And so let me tell you the one study that absolutely blew my mind and actually really
• 11:28
  inspired me to dig deeper.
• 11:31
  There was a study done in the 1950s by a biologist by name of Kurt Richter.
• 11:35
  And Richter had a very simple question.
• 11:36
  The question was, how long could a wild rat swim in water biologist he wanted to know?
• 11:43
  So he took a wild rat.
• 11:44
  He put it in a cylinder of water.
• 11:45
  And he stood there with a stopwatch and waited until the rat died, until it drowned.
• 11:51
  And it turns out that a wild rat dies after about 15 minutes floating in water,
• 11:55
  just peddling.
• 11:56
  It's kind of an unethical experiment.
• 11:58
  You can't really do these kind of studies anymore.
• 11:59
  But the rats are dead, you know, since the 1950s, so might as well learn from them.
• 12:04
  And so now he that he knew that the rats would kind of give up after 15 minutes.
• 12:08
  He wanted to see could he lengthen that time?
• 12:10
  Could he get them to be more persistent?
• 12:12
  So here's what he did.
• 12:13
  He took a new group of rats.
• 12:15
  He put them in the same cylinders.
• 12:17
  And this time, right before the 15 minute mark, just as the rats were starting to struggle,
• 12:23
  he reached in to these cylinders, took out the rats,
• 12:27
  dried them off, let them catch their breath, and then plunk back into the water, it went.
• 12:32
  Now, he did this a few times.
• 12:34
  He conditioned the rats to expect that if they persisted, that salvation might be possible,
• 12:40
  something might save them.
• 12:41
  So I want you to guess, Scott, maybe know the answer, right?
• 12:43
  I'm not sure.
• 12:44
  Do you know the answer?
• 12:45
  How much longer he could get them to swim?
• 12:47
  Don't say it if you know it.
• 12:48
  I've listened to a few podcasts, but go.
• 12:50
  Okay, so you know it already.
• 12:52
  Okay, so if you didn't know it, I wouldn't ask you to guess.
• 12:54
  But most people guess, okay, how much longer?
• 12:56
  Twice as long.
• 12:57
  Three times as long.
• 12:58
  I mean, four times as long.
• 12:59
  Maybe they went from 15 minutes to an hour.
• 13:01
  That would be incredible, unprecedented.
• 13:03
  Imagine if you could, you know, run a race for four times longer,
• 13:07
  or you know, work on that hard task.
• 13:09
  You know, take that test for four times more persistent.
• 13:12
  That'd be amazing.
• 13:12
  How much more successful would we all be if we could stay persistent four times longer
• 13:16
  than we're actually able to?
• 13:17
  But the rats didn't go from 15 minutes to 60 minutes.
• 13:21
  The rats went from 15 minutes to 60 hours.
• 13:25
  60 hours of non-stop swimming.
• 13:29
  Why?
• 13:30
  Well, nothing changed in their bodies.
• 13:32
  Same rat bodies.
• 13:34
  Nothing changed in their environment.
• 13:36
  Same exact experiment.
• 13:37
  The only variable left is that something changed in their mind.
• 13:40
  That some flip was switched.
• 13:42
  And suddenly, these rats became way more motivated
• 13:46
  to persist 240 times longer than they originally had when they originally gave up.
• 13:51
  So I think that study demonstrates what's in all of us.
• 13:55
  What we don't realize, and what I didn't know until I spent six years researching this book,
• 14:00
  is that we all have these hidden powers within us.
• 14:04
  Nothing mystical, nothing spiritual, nothing woo at all.
• 14:08
  We have these powers to persist in ways we can't imagine.
• 14:12
  We can do things that you wouldn't believe.
• 14:15
  And I, you know, have documented cases,
• 14:17
  after documented cases of people carrying chronic illness.
• 14:20
  People going under surgery without anesthesia.
• 14:23
  People sustaining themselves way, way longer than they ever imagined.
• 14:28
  Doing things that most of us would think are impossible.
• 14:30
  Things that are beyond belief.
• 14:32
  That actually are within all of us.
• 14:35
  That we all tend to quit at that 15-minute mark
• 14:38
  way before we're actually exhausted.
• 14:40
  And so backing up, what was I really trying to answer?
• 14:44
  How do I decrease suffering?
• 14:46
  But keep motivation.
• 14:47
  And to do that, it turns out you need to learn how to use your beliefs
• 14:52
  in order to change what you see, what you feel,
• 14:55
  and ultimately what you do.
• 14:57
  It's so interesting because for years,
• 14:58
  you actually spoke about habit formation.
• 15:01
  And habit formation seems to be a very trendy topic.
• 15:04
  How to achieve the life you want, right?
• 15:06
  We all figure out there's a couple books behind me.
• 15:09
  I'm sure that talk about habit formation as well,
• 15:11
  which are very good guides,
• 15:12
  but it seems like they don't work for everybody.
• 15:15
  I think you even wrote about how we all know what to do,
• 15:19
  but knowing is never the problem.
• 15:21
  We all know the habits we should take.
• 15:22
  We all know whether or not it's the baby steps
• 15:26
  or setting the goals or like we know the action
• 15:29
  more often than not that we should take next in pursuit
• 15:32
  of whatever it is we want to do.
• 15:34
  But for some reason, we wake up 10, 15 years later
• 15:38
  and our lives are more or less still the same as
• 15:40
  as they were when we first set out on whatever journey we set out on.
• 15:44
  So this is the missing component.
• 15:47
  The belief system is the missing component,
• 15:49
  the X factor in achieving.
• 15:51
  Now that begs the question,
• 15:52
  if the belief system is the missing component,
• 15:56
  how do we form a belief system?
• 15:58
  Because even at the beginning you said,
• 16:01
  well, belief systems aren't as popular as they once were
• 16:04
  because people don't really know how to define belief systems
• 16:07
  in a modern era.
• 16:08
  Belief systems used to subscribe to a God,
• 16:11
  not some sort of life goal.
• 16:14
  So how do we build a belief system
• 16:17
  that increases our motivation,
• 16:19
  decreases our suffering,
• 16:20
  and actually allows us to accomplish what we want to accomplish long-term?
• 16:23
  I get frustrated sometimes
• 16:25
  because you know I'm a big proponent of habit.
• 16:26
  My first book was all about habits.
• 16:28
  But I think we have kind of reached peak habit.
• 16:32
  You know, when people talk about habits,
• 16:34
  they basically, what they're really saying is,
• 16:36
  I'm looking for the autopilot button.
• 16:38
  Right? Like I want to form a writing habit
• 16:41
  because I hate writing.
• 16:42
  I want to have written.
• 16:43
  I don't like writing.
• 16:44
  So can't I turn that into a habit?
• 16:46
  I hate exercise.
• 16:47
  But you know, I want to have exercised.
• 16:50
  And I can't just push autopilot
• 16:51
  and just make it happen.
• 16:52
  And so we're looking for a hacker.
• 16:54
  We're looking for like hacks and sort of cuts together.
• 16:56
  Exactly. And it's true.
• 16:57
  So 40% of your behavior,
• 16:59
  according to Wendy Wooder researcher,
• 17:01
  about 40% of your behavior is done on habit,
• 17:03
  is done on this autopilot.
• 17:05
  But here's the thing.
• 17:06
  What is a habit?
• 17:08
  Right? Let's start with the definition.
• 17:09
  First principle is here.
• 17:10
  The definition of a habit
• 17:11
  is the impulse to do a behavior with little or no conscious thought.
• 17:16
  How exactly Scott do you write
• 17:19
  with little or no conscious thought?
• 17:22
  How do you do anything?
• 17:23
  You can't.
• 17:24
  How do you meditate?
• 17:25
  I want to form a meditation habit.
• 17:27
  I want to form a gratitude habit.
• 17:28
  I want to form an exercise habit.
• 17:30
  You can't.
• 17:32
  There's certain.
• 17:32
  Okay, some things.
• 17:34
  Like if I take a walk,
• 17:35
  okay, that's exercise.
• 17:36
  And I can do it with little or no conscious thought.
• 17:37
  I can be on the phone talking to a friend,
• 17:40
  you know, while I'm walking.
• 17:42
  But if I'm trying to break a PR,
• 17:44
  right?
• 17:45
  That's not a habit.
• 17:46
  That's hard work in a habit technique.
• 17:49
  We'll fail us.
• 17:50
  Yeah.
• 17:51
  And so like, you know,
• 17:52
  doing anything difficult in life,
• 17:53
  things that are painful,
• 17:55
  habits don't work.
• 17:57
  Habits don't work.
• 17:58
  This is what people don't realize.
• 17:59
  Because habits are impulsive to do a behavior
• 18:00
  with little or no conscious thought.
• 18:03
  If you're meditating with little or no conscious thought,
• 18:05
  you're doing it wrong.
• 18:06
  You're asleep, right?
• 18:08
  Because meditation requires conscious thought.
• 18:10
  It's exactly the synthesis of a habit.
• 18:13
  What we want is a routine.
• 18:16
  A routine is just a series of behaviors
• 18:18
  frequently repeated.
• 18:19
  Now you say semantics, right?
• 18:20
  Who cares?
• 18:21
  Tomato, tomato, what's the difference?
• 18:22
  Well, here's the problem.
• 18:24
  Is that when people believe
• 18:26
  that, hey, I can just build a habit out of something.
• 18:29
  And then if I do it for x number of days,
• 18:31
  there's all this false information out there.
• 18:33
  If I do it for 28 days or 44 days or 60 days,
• 18:36
  then poof, it's going to become a habit.
• 18:37
  There's no such number.
• 18:39
  What happens is once they reach that
• 18:42
  day count, and it's still hard,
• 18:44
  the writing's still difficult,
• 18:45
  the relationship that you're trying to repair
• 18:47
  still sucks, the exercise is still really hard.
• 18:51
  Who do people blame?
• 18:53
  They don't blame the technique.
• 18:55
  They blame themselves.
• 18:56
  They think that they're broken.
• 18:58
  They're not broken.
• 18:58
  It's this technique that doesn't, that's misapplied.
• 19:01
  So what we want is a routine.
• 19:02
  And a routine looks at something completely different.
• 19:04
  A routine doesn't care if it's easy.
• 19:06
  It's just a series of behaviors frequently repeated.
• 19:09
  So I think what we need is a different skill set.
• 19:11
  We have to, and what we see with high performers,
• 19:14
  is that they don't require it to be easy.
• 19:18
  That's the secret.
• 19:20
  That people who are high achievers in every field,
• 19:22
  the arts, sports, business,
• 19:25
  entertainment, doesn't matter.
• 19:26
  These people are able to do the things
• 19:28
  that the rest of us think is really hard.
• 19:30
  And we give up on,
• 19:32
  they are able to do without suffering.
• 19:36
  That is the magic unlock.
• 19:38
  Quick question.
• 19:39
  What's your go-to when you got 10 minutes before a meeting or a workout?
• 19:43
  For me, it just used to be whatever I could grab,
• 19:44
  which usually meant skipping meals entirely,
• 19:47
  or just grabbing something that left me crashing an hour later,
• 19:50
  because it was just full of garbage.
• 19:51
  That's why I'm partnering with Hule.
• 19:53
  This black edition, ready to drink, is a complete meal.
• 19:56
  So it has 35 grams of protein,
• 19:58
  6 grams of fiber, 35 essential vitamins and minerals.
• 20:02
  It is no sugar added, gluten-free, under 5 bucks.
• 20:06
  I always keep a few of these in my fridge.
• 20:08
  And honestly, it's solved the whole back-to-back meetings,
• 20:11
  go-go-go, non-stop, no time to eat problem, super well.
• 20:15
  And this one's new for me.
• 20:16
  It's Hule's Daily Greens.
• 20:17
  I had the blueberry this morning.
• 20:18
  Honestly, first impression, it was way better than I expected.
• 20:21
  It's developed by registered nutritionists and dieticians.
• 20:24
  There are 42 vitamins, minerals and superfoods,
• 20:26
  only 25 calories, four grams of fiber,
• 20:29
  and just one gram of sugar.
• 20:30
  I throw one back first thing
• 20:32
  before my morning calls every single morning.
• 20:34
  Look, if you're running a business, time is the most valuable asset.
• 20:37
  Hule makes healthy eating simple,
• 20:39
  and they also just launch into target source nationwide
• 20:41
  so you can get it everywhere.
• 20:42
  Try both products today with 15% off your purchase
• 20:45
  for new customers with my exclusive code,
• 20:48
  Scot at Hule.com slash Scott.
• 20:51
  Try both products today with 15% off your purchase
• 20:53
  for new customers with my exclusive code,
• 20:55
  Scot at COTT at Hule.com slash Scott.
• 21:00
  Use my code, fill out the post checkout survey
• 21:03
  to help support the show.
• 21:04
  That is Hule.com slash Scott.
• 21:06
  They really make healthy living case amazing.
• 21:08
  Even if you're on the go, healthy eating,
• 21:10
  healthy lifestyle, doesn't have to taste bad,
• 21:12
  it doesn't have to suck.
• 21:13
  NetSuite is the number one AI cloud ERP.
• 21:16
  It's trusted by over 43,000 businesses.
• 21:18
  It's a unified suite that pulls your financials,
• 21:21
  inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM
• 21:23
  into a single source of truth.
• 21:25
  That connected data is what makes the AI smarter.
• 21:28
  It doesn't just guess it knows.
• 21:30
  It can automate routine tasks.
• 21:31
  It can deliver actionable insights.
• 21:33
  And it can help you cut costs
• 21:35
  and make fast decisions with confidence.
• 21:37
  And now with the NetSuite AI connector,
• 21:39
  you can use the AI of your choice
• 21:40
  to connect to your actual business data
• 21:43
  and ask every question you've ever had.
• 21:45
  This isn't just another bolted on tool.
• 21:47
  It's AI built into the system
• 21:49
  that actually runs your business.
• 21:51
  So whether your company earns millions
• 21:52
  or hundreds of millions,
• 21:54
  NetSuite helps you stay ahead.
• 21:55
  If I needed something like this for my business,
• 21:57
  I'd use NetSuite, then you should too.
• 21:59
  So if your revenues are at least in the seven figures,
• 22:01
  get our free business guide,
• 22:03
  demystifying AI at NetSuite.com slash Scott Clary.
• 22:07
  The guide is free to you at NetSuite.com slash Scott Clary.
• 22:10
  NetSuite.com slash Scott Clary.
• 22:13
  Okay, so I'm going to use myself as an example
• 22:15
  because this podcast is a ton of work.
• 22:18
  And I put a lot of energy into the research
• 22:20
  and finding the guests and doing the homework
• 22:23
  and then obviously all the marketing of it.
• 22:25
  But it's not like there's no suffering.
• 22:29
  Like there's like a fair amount of suffering.
• 22:33
  So what do you mean by no suffering?
• 22:37
  Because I don't want people to misconstrue things being hard
• 22:41
  because anything they're going to do, it's going to be hard.
• 22:43
  Like I have a big belief system
• 22:44
  in why I'm doing this.
• 22:45
  I enjoy it. I love it.
• 22:48
  I wouldn't give it up for the world.
• 22:49
  I could do it till I die.
• 22:50
  But there's days where I feel like
• 22:53
  unless that's the wrong definition of suffering, I don't know.
• 22:56
  So we're talking about the people, the top of their game, right?
• 22:59
  What we find with those folks is that they do things.
• 23:07
  They succeed because they persist, right?
• 23:08
  There's no such thing as an overnight success, right?
• 23:11
  When you look at Mr. Beast or Bill Gates or Elon Musk
• 23:16
  or like name your athlete, name people who are at the top of their game.
• 23:21
  There's no overnight success.
• 23:22
  They work their butt off really, really, really long time.
• 23:26
  And so the way they did that is that they see the six,
• 23:31
  they see the same signals that the rest of us feel,
• 23:34
  the pain, that pain doesn't become suffering.
• 23:37
  What, why is it so important?
• 23:38
  Difference between pain and suffering.
• 23:39
  That's the difference.
• 23:40
  Exactly.
• 23:41
  The difference is the difference between pain and suffering.
• 23:43
  Now what is the difference between pain and suffering?
• 23:45
  You know, one of the biggest myths that the brain tells us
• 23:48
  is that we see reality clearly.
• 23:51
  We don't.
• 23:51
  None of us do.
• 23:52
  You have no, you do not accurately perceive reality.
• 23:56
  Why do we not accurately perceive reality?
• 23:58
  And I can prove it to you.
• 23:59
  I can show you optical illusions.
• 24:00
  If you look for the checkerboard illusion,
• 24:02
  the checkerboard illusion,
• 24:04
  you can see that square A, there's two squares.
• 24:07
  Square A is darker than square B.
• 24:10
  But then when I show you that, in fact,
• 24:12
  it's just an optical illusion that they're exactly the same color.
• 24:15
  And I can prove it to you,
• 24:16
  but I'll put a strip that's the same shade of gray
• 24:19
  through both squares.
• 24:20
  And you'll agree with me and say,
• 24:21
  yeah, I guess it is the same shade of color.
• 24:24
  The thing is, if I show you that first image,
• 24:27
  square A still looks darker than square B.
• 24:30
  Like, do you understand to implicate like,
• 24:32
  how crazy that is that even when you know the truth,
• 24:35
  your brain continues to lie to you?
• 24:38
  That's the power of beliefs.
• 24:39
  Why?
• 24:40
  Because of your priors.
• 24:41
  Because of your prior beliefs.
• 24:42
  That's the way checkerboards are supposed to work.
• 24:44
  And so you can't see it any differently.
• 24:46
  So the reason this happens is because your brain can't process
• 24:51
  reality as it is.
• 24:52
  None of our brains can.
• 24:53
  Because your brain is currently processing right this second,
• 24:56
  11 million bits of information.
• 24:58
  Right now, 11 million bits are entering your brain.
• 25:01
  The light entering your retinas,
• 25:02
  the sound of my voice in your ears,
• 25:03
  the ambient temperature of the room.
• 25:05
  Your brain is processing all that information.
• 25:07
  That's about the equivalent of reading war and peace every second,
• 25:11
  twice.
• 25:12
  It's tremendous amount of information.
• 25:14
  But your conscious awareness can only process about
• 25:18
  50 bits of information.
• 25:19
  50 bits of information is one sentence per second.
• 25:22
  So war and peace flashing in front of your eyes every second,
• 25:25
  twice versus just one second at a time.
• 25:28
  So your brain can't take it all in.
• 25:29
  So what does it have to do?
• 25:30
  It has to see reality through this tiny pinhole of attention.
• 25:35
  And what it focuses on is based on your beliefs.
• 25:39
  So some people take in information and process
• 25:44
  that same data as suffering.
• 25:46
  They judge it as bad as as something that hurts
• 25:50
  that they don't like and they try to escape.
• 25:52
  While other people take the same exact data
• 25:55
  that is pain can be pain.
• 25:57
  Pain is just signal.
• 25:58
  Pain is just data.
• 25:59
  And they process it differently.
• 26:00
  They see it as something that excites them,
• 26:02
  that encourages them.
• 26:03
  That tells them they're getting better.
• 26:05
  And that's what makes them sustain over the long term.
• 26:08
  And of course, sustaining over the long term
• 26:10
  increases their odds of success.
• 26:12
  So we have these.
• 26:13
  We have these.
• 26:14
  It's not that we don't have belief systems.
• 26:16
  It's that we have these subconscious pre-encoded belief systems
• 26:21
  that are shaping our entire world view.
• 26:23
  And we don't have the mental bandwidth because we're human
• 26:25
  to actively apply a belief system to a given situation.
• 26:29
  It would just default to what we already have.
• 26:30
  We default to what we have, why?
• 26:33
  Because the brain doesn't care if you're happy.
• 26:36
  The brain doesn't care if you're flourishing.
• 26:38
  The brain doesn't give a shit
• 26:39
  if you're meeting your full potential.
• 26:41
  No.
• 26:42
  Your brain has evolved to keep you alive and procrating.
• 26:46
  That's it.
• 26:47
  That's all the brain wants to do for you.
• 26:49
  Right?
• 26:49
  I mean, that's what evolution has.
• 26:52
  That's the way evolution works, right?
• 26:53
  It's keeping you alive so that you can make more babies.
• 26:56
  So the safest thing it can do
• 26:58
  is to keep you doing what you have always done.
• 27:01
  Because you survived before.
• 27:03
  So just keep doing what you've done before.
• 27:05
  So keep believing what you've done before.
• 27:06
  Because that's how the brain sees the world.
• 27:08
  The brain doesn't see the world as it is.
• 27:10
  It sees it as it predicts it to be.
• 27:12
  That checkerboard looks the way it looks.
• 27:14
  Square A looks darker than square B,
• 27:16
  even though you know they're the same color.
• 27:18
  Because that's how checkerboards are supposed to work.
• 27:20
  You've seen tons of checkerboards.
• 27:21
  That's the way they always work.
• 27:22
  And so your brain cannot see it any other way.
• 27:25
  And so in your own life,
• 27:27
  when you're in an argument with somebody,
• 27:29
  when you have a business disagreement,
• 27:32
  when something is hard and it's causing you suffering,
• 27:35
  when you're stuck, it's always
• 27:38
  because there's some kind of what we call a limiting belief.
• 27:41
  What is a limiting belief?
• 27:42
  A limiting belief is a belief
• 27:44
  that decreases motivation while increases suffering.
• 27:48
  And so to answer your earlier question of like,
• 27:50
  well, what do we do with this?
• 27:51
  How do we use beliefs to help us rather than hurt us?
• 27:54
  The trick, and this is what the book is all about.
• 27:57
  This is what took me six years to figure out,
• 28:00
  is to identify those limiting beliefs.
• 28:02
  They're always hidden to us.
• 28:04
  It's very difficult to see them.
• 28:06
  We always need a tool to see them.
• 28:07
  To identify those limiting beliefs,
• 28:09
  see them for what they are,
• 28:11
  and then reprogram ourselves
• 28:14
  with what's called a liberating belief.
• 28:16
  I would assume there's also the reason why it's so difficult
• 28:21
  for us to change our limiting beliefs.
• 28:23
  And I think people have heard this term before,
• 28:25
  but I've never heard somebody actually explain what it actually is.
• 28:28
  Outside of just something that doesn't serve us,
• 28:30
  but on a subconscious sort of biological level,
• 28:36
  I'm assuming there's an efficiency there too,
• 28:38
  because a belief that we already have
• 28:41
  probably takes less energy for the brain to run that function
• 28:45
  than to adopt a new one.
• 28:46
  And I think the brain is all about efficiencies
• 28:48
  and not doing more than it has to
• 28:50
  from a survival perspective.
• 28:53
  So that's exactly right.
• 28:54
  Okay, so brain is helping us survive,
• 29:00
  not necessarily helping us pursue our goals or our dreams
• 29:03
  or getting back into the gym if we have to get back into the gym.
• 29:06
  The brain is not helping us get there.
• 29:07
  So we got to figure out a way to reprogram.
• 29:12
  I would say to reprogram,
• 29:13
  we first have to figure out what we actually believe
• 29:16
  that we don't even know we believe.
• 29:18
  So we can understand what those believe.
• 29:20
  And I'm assuming it's coming from parents,
• 29:23
  guidance counselor in grade 12,
• 29:25
  like a friend that made fun of you in grade three.
• 29:28
  Like I'm sure there's belief systems
• 29:30
  that are probably rooted in drama.
• 29:33
  Like you got to find a way to unpack all that stuff
• 29:35
  so then you can actually adopt a belief system
• 29:37
  that actually benefits you.
• 29:39
  How do we go through this process?
• 29:41
  So first of all, so you're right that they do come from our past,
• 29:44
  but it's not the past fault, so to speak.
• 29:49
  It's not your fault either, right?
• 29:50
  Because what happened to you happened to you the reason
• 29:53
  that checkerboard illusion you can't see it as it is
• 29:55
  is because you've seen checkerboards that way your whole life.
• 29:57
  It's your prior belief about how the world works.
• 30:01
  And so that came from your past.
• 30:03
  Now that's not your fault that your past happened to you,
• 30:05
  but it is your responsibility.
• 30:07
  So one of the things that we've seen increasingly
• 30:10
  in the psychology community is that trauma-focused therapy
• 30:13
  that dwelling on the past, blaming the past,
• 30:16
  blaming our parents, blaming whatever has happened to us in the past,
• 30:20
  really doesn't work.
• 30:21
  It's not very effective.
• 30:23
  It doesn't have the best track where it works for some people,
• 30:27
  of course, and whatever works for you,
• 30:28
  and this is not medical advice.
• 30:29
  So whatever works for you if it's working, do it.
• 30:32
  But in general, what we're seeing is kind of the pendulum swing the other way.
• 30:36
  More of a focus on the present moment.
• 30:39
  And to do that, what we have to do is to realize that our limiting beliefs
• 30:43
  and everybody has them, right?
• 30:45
  A limiting belief is like your face, right?
• 30:47
  We all have a face.
• 30:49
  But if I told you to look at your face,
• 30:51
  you can't look at your face, right?
• 30:53
  You can't look at your...
• 30:54
  Not the way you can look at your hands or look at your feet.
• 30:56
  In order to look at your own face,
• 30:58
  you have to look in a mirror.
• 30:59
  You have to reflect.
• 31:00
  So you need something outside of you to show you your own face.
• 31:04
  Same thing goes with our limiting beliefs.
• 31:06
  What's interesting is we can see other people's limiting beliefs, right?
• 31:09
  If I told you...
• 31:10
  I said very easily sometimes,
• 31:12
  yet we can't look inside.
• 31:13
  It's super easy.
• 31:14
  Yeah, you know, whether it's your spouse, your siblings,
• 31:17
  your coworkers, your boss,
• 31:18
  oh, you can see all their problems, easy peasy.
• 31:21
  But when it comes to our own, not so easy, why?
• 31:24
  Because to us, our beliefs feel like facts.
• 31:27
  They feel like objective truths.
• 31:29
  Yeah, you don't understand.
• 31:30
  Like, see, my situation is different, right?
• 31:32
  Like, the reason I can't do that thing,
• 31:35
  that the reason I'm not ready, the reason I'm not good enough for it,
• 31:37
  the reason, you know, I have imposter syndrome.
• 31:39
  I've got this diagnosis.
• 31:40
  I've got this going on in my life.
• 31:42
  I've heard it all.
• 31:43
  I've said it all to myself, right?
• 31:45
  Like, I wrote this book because I wanted to figure out
• 31:47
  how to overcome my own limiting beliefs.
• 31:49
  So, it turns out you need a process.
• 31:51
  It's not something you can just say,
• 31:52
  oh, yeah, there's my limiting belief.
• 31:54
  I'm done with it.
• 31:54
  It takes, for most people, and everybody has it, right?
• 31:58
  Like, you know, the person I interviewed,
• 32:00
  people who were billionaires and people who are broke,
• 32:02
  we've all got these limiting beliefs.
• 32:03
  And what's interesting is we have them in different areas of our life, right?
• 32:06
  The person who's super successful in business,
• 32:08
  neglects their health or their family,
• 32:10
  or you can swap any of those variables.
• 32:14
  Typically, you know, people who are doing well
• 32:16
  are doing well in one area.
• 32:18
  And then there's that other area,
• 32:19
  whether it's their relationships,
• 32:20
  whether it's something that they're neglecting,
• 32:21
  that they're just stuck in.
• 32:23
  And that's usually what's at the core
• 32:25
  is some kind of limiting belief.
• 32:26
  Is there a meta skill that makes us better at identifying these?
• 32:31
  Yeah, exactly.
• 32:32
  So, one of my, there are many, many techniques.
• 32:35
  And it's definitely not dwelling on the past.
• 32:38
  So, that's the wrong way to do it.
• 32:40
  Okay, gotcha.
• 32:41
  Yeah, another wrong way to do it
• 32:42
  is the positive thinking stuff.
• 32:46
  And I hate to tell you,
• 32:47
  yeah, this is not positive thinking.
• 32:49
  And in fact, positive thinking has turned out to be,
• 32:52
  to have psychological backfire effects,
• 32:54
  that manifesting, that vision boarding,
• 32:56
  that these things that everybody's talking about on the internet,
• 33:00
  there are really good studies we can talk about,
• 33:02
  about why that stuff backfires.
• 33:03
  But let me get to your question about how do we do this?
• 33:06
  How do we actually, like, what's a technique
• 33:08
  that we can actually use to improve our day-to-day lives?
• 33:11
  So, this is called inquiry-based stress reduction.
• 33:12
  And so, what this, this is a technique
• 33:14
  that came out of, was developed by a woman
• 33:16
  by the name of Byron Katie, decades ago.
• 33:19
  And now has had a lot more scientific validation.
• 33:21
  Actually, what she was doing was channeling a technique
• 33:23
  that's thousands of years old.
• 33:24
  Aristotle did something very similar.
• 33:26
  And what this technique does, it essentially asks you
• 33:30
  to ask yourself four questions
• 33:34
  in order to develop what's called a portfolio of perspectives.
• 33:37
  Because you see, your brain hates changing its mind.
• 33:41
  Your brain hates changing its mind, right?
• 33:44
  It's much more comfortable believing what it's always believed
• 33:47
  and doing what it's always done,
• 33:48
  because that's what it protected you in the past.
• 33:50
  So, it is going to fight tooth and nail
• 33:51
  against any proposition of you changing your mind.
• 33:54
  Now, these four questions force you to question these beliefs.
• 34:00
  And then you do what's called a turnaround.
• 34:01
  Maybe I can share a story of how I did this in my own life.
• 34:05
  Yeah, please.
• 34:06
  Yeah, so it was my, and then we can do your story.
• 34:08
  I'd love to see if you have any limiting beliefs.
• 34:10
  But with me, I have no doubt in here.
• 34:13
  I have many.
• 34:13
  No, none, totally.
• 34:15
  None at all, none at all, totally none at all.
• 34:18
  You're turning a little red there.
• 34:19
  What's going on there, Scott?
• 34:22
  All right, I won't put you on the hot seat if you don't want to,
• 34:24
  but okay, so here's what happened to me.
• 34:25
  I'll share my embarrassment here.
• 34:28
  So a few years ago was my mom's birthday.
• 34:31
  And I wanted to do something nice for her.
• 34:33
  It was her 74th.
• 34:34
  And I wanted to center some flowers.
• 34:36
  The problem was I was in Singapore, where I am right now.
• 34:39
  And she was in central Florida, where I grew up.
• 34:42
  And so sending her those flowers wasn't so easy.
• 34:44
  I had to look around, call a bunch of florists,
• 34:47
  figure out who could deliver on time.
• 34:49
  You know, I had to make sure that they had the right arrangement.
• 34:51
  It was a lot of work.
• 34:52
  Anyway, I go to bed around one in the morning.
• 34:54
  I pat myself on the bag, so you're, you're a good son.
• 34:57
  She's going to love them.
• 34:58
  She's going to thank you so much the next day.
• 35:00
  But that's not what happened.
• 35:02
  What happened was that I called her up the next morning.
• 35:04
  And I said, hey, mom, happy birthday.
• 35:06
  Did you get the flowers I sent?
• 35:07
  And she says, yes, I did.
• 35:09
  Thank you.
• 35:10
  But just so you know, those flowers were half dead.
• 35:13
  So don't order from that florist again.
• 35:16
  To which I said, well, that's the last time I buy you flowers.
• 35:20
  And it didn't go over so good, but as well as you'd expect.
• 35:24
  My wife, who is on the call as well,
• 35:27
  after the call she turned to me and she said,
• 35:29
  would you like to do a turnaround on this?
• 35:32
  To which I said, no, I don't want to do your touchy
• 35:36
  feeling, focus, focus, mumbo jumbo.
• 35:38
  I need to vent, right?
• 35:40
  I need to, that's what we're supposed to do.
• 35:41
  We're supposed to get things off our chest.
• 35:43
  We're supposed to speak our truth.
• 35:44
  We're supposed to tell people how we feel.
• 35:46
  You're not supposed to hold your feelings inside.
• 35:49
  Well, I knew enough at that point looking at the psychology literature
• 35:51
  that that is exactly not what you're supposed to do.
• 35:54
  That it turns out that venting does nothing
• 35:56
  but reinforce what we believe about people.
• 35:59
  Because we don't see reality clearly.
• 36:00
  You know that pinhole of attention?
• 36:02
  We don't see reality as it is.
• 36:03
  We definitely don't see people as they are.
• 36:05
  We see people as we believe them to be.
• 36:09
  So it's not that we see things...
• 36:10
  So it's almost like it says we are.
• 36:12
  It's doubling down on the negative perception when you vent.
• 36:16
  Okay.
• 36:17
  That's exactly right.
• 36:18
  You're reinforcing this effigy of the person.
• 36:20
  Every time you say she's always like that,
• 36:22
  there she goes again.
• 36:23
  She always does this kind of thing.
• 36:25
  Yeah, because that's what you see.
• 36:30
  Yeah, I don't know if you've ever had a friend
• 36:32
  who sometimes I'll have a friend who I'll meet
• 36:34
  and they'll be so nice to me.
• 36:36
  And like super generous.
• 36:37
  And then you meet their spouse or their kids
• 36:40
  and they just become a completely different person.
• 36:43
  Right?
• 36:43
  They're just like terrible to their family.
• 36:46
  You bet people like that.
• 36:47
  100%.
• 36:48
  Yeah.
• 36:49
  How is that possible?
• 36:49
  This person is so nice.
• 36:50
  Well, because to them they don't see the family as they are.
• 36:54
  They see all this history, all this baggage,
• 36:56
  all these priors that literally shape
• 36:59
  how they interact with the people around them.
• 37:01
  So anyway, I have a question on that quickly.
• 37:03
  If you are, if you are venting,
• 37:06
  is that like further encoding a negative belief system?
• 37:10
  That's right.
• 37:10
  It's confirming what you believe to be true.
• 37:14
  And here's the crazy part.
• 37:16
  It literally shapes what you see.
• 37:19
  Like I don't know if you've ever had this experience.
• 37:21
  Like when I've been married for 25 years now,
• 37:22
  but I remember when I was dating
• 37:24
  and I'd see this gorgeous woman, right?
• 37:27
  Like I'd see this girl who's just a knockout.
• 37:29
  And then they'd start talking
• 37:31
  and they would physically become ugly.
• 37:34
  Right?
• 37:34
  Once their personality came out.
• 37:35
  That is definitely happening.
• 37:36
  Right.
• 37:37
  That's definitely happening.
• 37:38
  And I'll tell you the opposite also happens.
• 37:39
  You know, when I met my wife,
• 37:41
  my wife was always good looking.
• 37:44
  But now she's gorgeous.
• 37:45
  Like now I'm just,
• 37:46
  she's the most beautiful woman in the world to me
• 37:48
  because we built so much together.
• 37:50
  We have this amazing relationship.
• 37:52
  Now physically she probably looks different to other people
• 37:54
  because your beliefs literally shape what you're able to see
• 37:58
  just like that checkerboard illusion.
• 38:00
  Just like the fact that people who are on a diet
• 38:01
  see food as larger,
• 38:03
  that people who are afraid of heights
• 38:04
  see distances as further.
• 38:06
  Their subjective perception of reality
• 38:08
  is skewed based on our beliefs.
• 38:12
  That's why.
• 38:12
  So the same goes with our relationship.
• 38:13
  Absolutely wild.
• 38:15
  When you're going through this with your mom,
• 38:17
  you're venting.
• 38:18
  So if you aren't careful,
• 38:20
  like that's the, that's the, like you mentioned,
• 38:22
  the healthy thing that people say you should do.
• 38:24
  You vent, you get it off your chest,
• 38:27
  you know, something bad happens,
• 38:28
  you grieve for a little bit,
• 38:31
  but then hopefully you move on.
• 38:33
  But what you're doing if you aren't careful
• 38:35
  is you're actually further encoding this belief system
• 38:38
  that is painting your mom in a bad light,
• 38:41
  whatever the thing is.
• 38:44
  So what do we,
• 38:45
  what do we do in a negative situation
• 38:48
  to not further encode a negative belief system
• 38:50
  because I think that's outside of,
• 38:52
  outside of replacing those beliefs
• 38:54
  because there's, there's, there's steps at this thing, right?
• 38:56
  So we got to make sure we don't further encode negative
• 38:59
  and then we got to eventually identify negative
• 39:01
  and then replace with positive.
• 39:03
  But like that's, that's the optimal outcome,
• 39:06
  but that's obviously that takes a little bit of work.
• 39:09
  How the hell do we do that?
• 39:10
  Exactly. So we got to like,
• 39:11
  we got to like stop doing the negative,
• 39:13
  not just move towards the positive,
• 39:15
  we got to do the whole thing.
• 39:16
  That's right. That's right.
• 39:17
  So that's right.
• 39:17
  So most people start right there.
• 39:19
  She's such a this and that,
• 39:20
  like, I hate that person.
• 39:21
  Oh, well, of course.
• 39:22
  And then now they're suffering, right?
• 39:24
  So what, why?
• 39:25
  Because they have a belief.
• 39:26
  So my belief in that instant,
• 39:28
  what I wanted to vent about
• 39:29
  was my mother is too judgmental
• 39:31
  and she's impossible to please.
• 39:33
  That's what I believed in that moment, right?
• 39:35
  And I wanted to vent that.
• 39:36
  I wanted my wife to confirm it
• 39:37
  so that I could be right, right?
• 39:41
  The definition of a limiting belief.
• 39:42
  Because when I believe my mother is too judgmental
• 39:44
  and hard to please,
• 39:45
  one, I suffer.
• 39:47
  Even when she's not in the room,
• 39:49
  I'm suffering from that,
• 39:50
  even at the thought of her.
• 39:52
  And what happens to my motivation level, Scott,
• 39:54
  to work on that relationship?
• 39:56
  Yeah, I'm assuming you would think.
• 39:57
  She is too judgmental and hard to please.
• 39:58
  Yeah, I'm done.
• 39:59
  Like, why would I want to be with somebody?
• 40:01
  Why would I want to work on a relationship
• 40:02
  with someone who's judgmental and hard to please?
• 40:04
  And that's why people are miserable.
• 40:06
  What's the alternative?
• 40:07
  What do we do instead?
• 40:08
  And you can do this with your co-workers.
• 40:10
  You could do this with your annoying boss.
• 40:12
  You could do this with your kids
• 40:13
  who are driving your crazy.
• 40:15
  You can do it with yourself.
• 40:16
  If there's anything in your life,
• 40:17
  the same exact questions I'm about to share with you,
• 40:20
  this process works for anything where you are.
• 40:23
  It's not good.
• 40:23
  If you, if you, if you, if you know,
• 40:25
  you binge out when you've had a,
• 40:28
  you know, a great three months on your diet,
• 40:30
  and then you go to an all you can eat buffet,
• 40:32
  then you're like, well, you know,
• 40:33
  I'm never going to lose weight.
• 40:34
  And I can't believe I did that to myself.
• 40:36
  So it's not just about relationship with other people.
• 40:38
  It's, it's the story about everything in your life.
• 40:41
  So true, right?
• 40:42
  So I used to be clinically obese,
• 40:43
  not just overweight, but clinically obese.
• 40:45
  And for 30 years, I yo-yo dieted
• 40:48
  because I had these limiting beliefs
• 40:49
  of diets don't work for people like me.
• 40:51
  And it's hard as a, as a bigger person to exercise.
• 40:53
  And, you know, this is never going to work.
• 40:55
  It's too difficult.
• 40:56
  These are all limiting beliefs, right?
• 40:58
  They're not facts.
• 40:58
  They're not, you know, Newton's laws.
• 41:00
  They're beliefs.
• 41:01
  They're up here.
• 41:02
  So here's what you do.
• 41:03
  Here's, here's the solution
• 41:04
  that we've all been waiting for.
• 41:05
  Here's what you do.
• 41:06
  According to inquiry-based stress reduction,
• 41:07
  this technique developed by Byron Katie,
• 41:09
  you start by asking yourself four questions.
• 41:11
  You write down that belief, right?
• 41:12
  Whatever it is.
• 41:13
  I'm not ready for this.
• 41:14
  This is too hard.
• 41:17
  My mother is too judgmental hard to please.
• 41:19
  Whatever that limiting belief,
• 41:20
  wherever you're stuck in your life,
• 41:21
  you start with that belief
• 41:22
  that's preventing you from, from not suffering.
• 41:26
  So I wrote down the belief.
• 41:27
  My mother is too judgmental hard to please.
• 41:28
  Now, here's the first question.
• 41:29
  The first question is,
• 41:31
  is that belief true?
• 41:34
  Scott, that is a stupid question.
• 41:36
  Obviously, my mother was being way too judgmental hard to please.
• 41:39
  Am I right?
• 41:41
  Retourical question, just agree, all right?
• 41:42
  Just say yes.
• 41:43
  I don't know your mother's name.
• 41:45
  Obviously, it's a fact, Scott,
• 41:47
  like who your son buys you flowers
• 41:50
  from halfway around the world
• 41:51
  and you tell them how the flowers are half dead.
• 41:53
  Come on, it's a fact.
• 41:54
  She was way too judgmental.
• 41:55
  Dumb question.
• 41:55
  Let's go on to question two.
• 41:57
  Question number two, is it absolutely true?
• 42:02
  Is it absolute, absolutely means 100% of time.
• 42:05
  Right.
• 42:05
  That could be easy.
• 42:06
  There's a little bit of doubt in there now.
• 42:09
  Because what if the flowers did suck?
• 42:10
  Exactly.
• 42:12
  Yeah.
• 42:13
  Maybe they did really suck.
• 42:14
  Maybe there might be a million different explanations.
• 42:17
  If I'm honest with myself,
• 42:18
  it's not that it's a fact, it's a belief.
• 42:22
  So I had to actually say maybe it's not absolute true.
• 42:25
  Maybe there could be a little bit of doubt
• 42:28
  that it's not absolute true.
• 42:30
  Okay, third question.
• 42:32
  Who am I?
• 42:33
  How do I feel?
• 42:34
  How do I become when I hold onto that belief?
• 42:37
  When I believe my mother's two judgments on hard to please,
• 42:39
  how does that affect me?
• 42:42
  Well, I'm short tempered.
• 42:44
  Not very nice.
• 42:46
  Kind of act like this 13-year-old version of myself
• 42:48
  that I'm not really proud of.
• 42:49
  I don't only like how I behave when I hold onto that belief.
• 42:52
  Now, the fourth question,
• 42:54
  who would I be without that belief?
• 42:56
  So if I had this magic wand and poof,
• 42:58
  I touched my brain and that belief disappears forever,
• 43:02
  how would I feel?
• 43:03
  I'm not saying I have to do that,
• 43:05
  but what would happen if I could do that?
• 43:06
  Probably happier, better relationship with my mom.
• 43:10
  Yeah, yeah.
• 43:11
  I'd be more stressed, yeah.
• 43:13
  So in four questions, what do we determine?
• 43:17
  One, that that belief that we were absolutely sure was a fact.
• 43:21
  Not so much.
• 43:22
  Maybe it's just a belief.
• 43:24
  Two, that holding onto that belief doesn't serve us.
• 43:29
  And finally, that letting go of the belief makes us better.
• 43:33
  So now we've cracked the door open
• 43:35
  to creating what's called a portfolio of perspectives,
• 43:37
  to see things potentially different.
• 43:38
  Not to change our minds.
• 43:39
  We don't want to force ourselves to change our minds
• 43:42
  because again, our brain hates changing our minds.
• 43:45
  So we're just going to collect different options,
• 43:46
  like Pokemon cards or basketball cards or whatever.
• 43:49
  We're just a portfolio, like stocks, right?
• 43:52
  Just a portfolio.
• 43:53
  So what do you do to do this?
• 43:54
  You ask yourself,
• 43:57
  could the exact opposite of my belief also be true?
• 44:01
  Now this is going to sound nuts, right?
• 44:02
  That's what it did to me.
• 44:03
  So because I believe it was a fact
• 44:06
  that my mother is too judgmental and hard to please.
• 44:07
  And you're telling me the opposite could be true?
• 44:09
  What does that even mean?
• 44:10
  What, what that sound like?
• 44:12
  The opposite of my mother is too judgmental and hard to please
• 44:14
  is my mother is not too judgmental and hard to please.
• 44:18
  How could that possibly be true?
• 44:21
  Well, maybe she was just saying a statement of fact.
• 44:26
  She did thank me after all.
• 44:27
  Maybe she was trying to protect me
• 44:28
  from not getting scammed by this florist.
• 44:31
  Maybe she was trying to be helpful, not hurtful.
• 44:34
  Could be true.
• 44:35
  I mean, I'm not saying it is true,
• 44:36
  but it could conceivably be true.
• 44:39
  Now let's do a third one.
• 44:41
  Another opposite of my mother is too judgmental and hard to please.
• 44:44
  The opposite of that could also be
• 44:46
  I am too judgmental and hard to please.
• 44:50
  How could that be?
• 44:52
  Well, to be honest, I had rehearsed in my mind
• 44:56
  that if I'm going to do something nice for you,
• 44:59
  I deserve effusive praise.
• 45:02
  And when that praise didn't come, I lost it.
• 45:07
  So who was being judgmental?
• 45:09
  I was.
• 45:11
  Here's a fourth turnaround.
• 45:13
  The opposite of my mother's too judgmental and hard to please
• 45:16
  could also be I am too judgmental and hard to please towards myself.
• 45:21
  And this one turned out to be the most true.
• 45:23
  This is called a misattribution of emotion.
• 45:26
  That when I felt crummy,
• 45:28
  when I felt incompetent,
• 45:29
  that this simple task of getting my mom some flowers didn't work out,
• 45:33
  and that felt shitty inside,
• 45:36
  I wanted to find someone who caused that suffering in me.
• 45:39
  And so my mom got it.
• 45:41
  Right? We do this all the time.
• 45:43
  We feel crummy inside.
• 45:44
  It's classic bullying.
• 45:45
  We feel crummy.
• 45:45
  We're looking for someone else to pin it on.
• 45:48
  Whether or not that's the fact.
• 45:49
  So now I have four beliefs.
• 45:51
  Okay, I'll have one.
• 45:52
  My mother is too judgmental and hard to please.
• 45:53
  Now I have four.
• 45:55
  Scott, which one is true?
• 45:57
  Which one's the right one?
• 45:58
  Well, I would say that,
• 45:59
  depending on what serves you,
• 46:02
  they could all be true.
• 46:04
  They could all be true.
• 46:05
  They could all be false.
• 46:06
  Who cares?
• 46:08
  Because beliefs are tools, not truth.
• 46:11
  That one belief that I had at the beginning,
• 46:13
  that to me felt like a fact.
• 46:15
  My mother is too judgmental and hard to please.
• 46:17
  She had to change so I could stop suffering.
• 46:20
  You don't know my mom, Scott.
• 46:22
  It ain't going to happen.
• 46:24
  Right?
• 46:25
  Like people will not change so you can stop suffering.
• 46:28
  That's not how people work.
• 46:30
  They've got their own suffering.
• 46:32
  So why was I holding onto that belief?
• 46:35
  Because I felt it was true.
• 46:36
  It was the fact.
• 46:37
  It was the way it happened.
• 46:38
  I had to convince her that she needed to apologize for offending me.
• 46:42
  Who cares?
• 46:44
  Who cares?
• 46:45
  When I took one of those other beliefs,
• 46:48
  my motivation level to have a relationship with her,
• 46:51
  to continue to work on our relationship,
• 46:54
  to make peace with my mom,
• 46:55
  increased and my suffering decreased.
• 46:59
  So why the hell wouldn't I adopt one of these other beliefs?
• 47:02
  Because it's not true.
• 47:03
  It's not the way it happened.
• 47:04
  Are you gaslighting yourself?
• 47:05
  You're lying to yourself.
• 47:07
  Guess what?
• 47:07
  People were already lying to ourselves.
• 47:11
  You're already gaslighting yourself.
• 47:13
  You're just picking the limiting belief
• 47:15
  instead of the liberating belief.
• 47:17
  There is a choice here.
• 47:18
  Blinkest is a success story partner.
• 47:20
  Now, here's something I think about a lot.
• 47:21
  I interview some of the smartest people in the world on this show.
• 47:24
  So authors, founders, investors,
• 47:26
  and every single one of them reads a lot.
• 47:28
  But the problem is most of us don't have three hours a day to sit down with the book.
• 47:31
  We know we should be reading more.
• 47:32
  We want to, but we just don't.
• 47:34
  That's why I use Blinkest.
• 47:35
  It takes the best non-fiction books out there
• 47:36
  and breaks them down to the 15-minute reads or listens.
• 47:39
  We are talking over 9,000 titles,
• 47:41
  business, leadership, productivity,
• 47:43
  finance, the stuff that actually moves the needle in your life and your business.
• 47:46
  I'll pull up a title like the psychology of money
• 47:47
  or atomic habits while I'm at the gym or in between calls.
• 47:50
  That's 15 minutes.
• 47:51
  And you can walk away with the core ideas.
• 47:53
  You can even download them offline.
• 47:54
  So there's really no excuse.
• 47:55
  See, if you are the type of person who listens to this show,
• 47:58
  you already want to learn.
• 47:59
  Blinkest just removes the friction.
• 48:00
  Get your free trial and save an additional 30%
• 48:03
  by going to blinkest.com slash clary.
• 48:05
  That's blinkest.com slash clary.
• 48:07
  HubSpot is a success story partner.
• 48:09
  Now, if you're looking for a new podcast,
• 48:10
  one of my favorite shows right now is demand to code it.
• 48:13
  If you're in the B2B marketing space,
• 48:14
  you need to be listening to this.
• 48:16
  It's hosted by the team at Blent.
• 48:17
  They are a demand gen agency.
• 48:19
  They know what they're doing.
• 48:19
  They're also part of the HubSpot podcast network.
• 48:21
  What I love about it is they skip all the theory
• 48:24
  and they just tell you what's actually working today.
• 48:26
  So demand gen marketing content linked in at attribution.
• 48:30
  They talk about real strategies
• 48:31
  that they are using that you can use today that are working.
• 48:34
  So if you're an entrepreneur,
• 48:35
  if you're building a business,
• 48:36
  if you're really selling anything to anyone,
• 48:38
  go search demand decoded wherever you get your podcast.
• 48:41
  I love this.
• 48:42
  I love this so much because I fully,
• 48:46
  I fully, fully believe.
• 48:47
  I fully believe.
• 48:50
  That we can architect our own reality.
• 48:53
  That's something that I've always believed.
• 48:55
  We can architect our own reality.
• 48:56
  We can architect our own life.
• 48:58
  And I think that this,
• 49:00
  I've said it without understanding the psychological basis
• 49:03
  for why that's my truth, right?
• 49:06
  And I think that a lot of this comes down
• 49:07
  to like what we're talking about today.
• 49:08
  But I think the question that people would have would be,
• 49:12
  I understand how to objectively see
• 49:16
  a scenario in multiple different ways.
• 49:20
  But how do I figure out what my truth should be
• 49:24
  so I can align one of those four potential outcomes
• 49:26
  with something that serves to me?
• 49:28
  Yeah.
• 49:29
  So I would refine what you said a tiny bit.
• 49:32
  You can't create reality.
• 49:36
  Like the manifesting stuff,
• 49:37
  the vision boarding stuff,
• 49:39
  it really does hurt people.
• 49:41
  You don't create reality,
• 49:43
  but you do create your perception of reality.
• 49:48
  That is a fact that based on what you believe,
• 49:52
  you will literally see things differently,
• 49:54
  feel things differently,
• 49:55
  and do things differently based on what you believe.
• 49:59
  So that is absolutely true.
• 50:00
  And at the end of the day,
• 50:01
  we don't live in everyone's reality.
• 50:03
  We live in our perception of reality.
• 50:05
  Right? So you're not going to,
• 50:06
  you're not going to necessarily
• 50:07
  will outcomes differently
• 50:09
  that are not in your control.
• 50:10
  There are lots of things
• 50:10
  that the universe doesn't give a shit how you feel.
• 50:14
  But you can shape how you feel.
• 50:16
  And so to answer your question,
• 50:18
  which one of these beliefs we pick,
• 50:20
  this is what's so beautiful about beliefs.
• 50:22
  Beliefs are tools, not truths.
• 50:24
  It's like saying to a carpenter,
• 50:28
  a carpenter uses a hammer
• 50:31
  and successfully builds a house.
• 50:33
  Now does that carpenter say,
• 50:35
  hey, this hammer served me that one time when I built a house,
• 50:39
  I only can use this hammer.
• 50:41
  The hammer, it's the one and only true tool.
• 50:44
  No.
• 50:46
  Sometimes you need to saw.
• 50:47
  Sometimes you need to use tools to build a house.
• 50:50
  Yeah, of course.
• 50:50
  That's right.
• 50:51
  That's exactly right.
• 50:52
  But why do we keep sticking to these beliefs
• 50:55
  that I was aggrieved or this is too difficult
• 50:58
  that I can't do this?
• 50:59
  These limiting beliefs that we hear
• 51:01
  all the time in our brains
• 51:02
  without actually testing them and taking them out.
• 51:04
  So the answer is we try them on.
• 51:08
  We just try them on.
• 51:09
  And it's going to sound crazy.
• 51:10
  It's going to feel super weird.
• 51:12
  It's going to, again, that's your brain.
• 51:14
  That's your evolutionary hardwiring
• 51:16
  trying to get you not to change your mind
• 51:19
  because the brain hates changing its mind.
• 51:21
  So that's supposed to happen.
• 51:22
  It's called immunity to change.
• 51:23
  Just like your body,
• 51:25
  if you have a splinter,
• 51:26
  you're going to get an infection
• 51:27
  to try and get the bacteria out
• 51:30
  and neutralize whatever's causing that damage.
• 51:36
  Your brain is the same way.
• 51:37
  Like weird ideas.
• 51:38
  Seeing things differently.
• 51:40
  Nobody's open-minded.
• 51:42
  Nobody's actually giving reality a chance.
• 51:45
  We can't.
• 51:46
  It's too hard for us.
• 51:47
  So what we want to do is one at a time.
• 51:50
  We take out, let's say, these four beliefs
• 51:51
  that we did in this very quick exercise with my mom.
• 51:54
  And I just try them on.
• 51:56
  I tried one.
• 51:57
  Didn't seem to really work very well.
• 51:58
  It was causing me a lot of suffering,
• 51:59
  my original belief.
• 52:01
  So I tried another one.
• 52:02
  And then if that one works,
• 52:03
  awesome.
• 52:03
  If it doesn't work,
• 52:04
  I got another one or another one.
• 52:06
  Adding on the idea of labels and identities.
• 52:13
  So we spoke about limiting beliefs.
• 52:14
  We spoke about your brain defaulting
• 52:18
  to these subconscious belief systems
• 52:22
  that were ingrained in us from,
• 52:24
  again, society, parents, whatever history passed.
• 52:30
  How do labels and identities play into this idea?
• 52:34
  Are they just this super ingrained version of a belief
• 52:40
  that is just like sort of a crude over time?
• 52:44
  Like, what is this?
• 52:46
  And does it serve us or not?
• 52:48
  Yeah.
• 52:49
  So labels can serve us,
• 52:52
  but we have to be very, very careful.
• 52:55
  In large part, they can hurt us.
• 52:59
  And we know this, especially with
• 53:02
  this diagnosis epidemic
• 53:05
  that everybody knows about the placebo effect,
• 53:08
  right? The placebo effect is very well studied.
• 53:10
  And I talk about in the book about,
• 53:12
  and it's all belief driven.
• 53:13
  It's all based on expectations.
• 53:15
  And it's amazing what placebo can do.
• 53:17
  That placebo is, you know,
• 53:18
  even when you know you're taking a placebo,
• 53:20
  they're still effective.
• 53:21
  That you can go on Amazon right now
• 53:22
  and buy pills, call placebo.
• 53:25
  So placebo is on the jar
• 53:27
  and you will see five star reviews
• 53:29
  for fast-acting relief.
• 53:31
  And these people aren't crazy.
• 53:32
  It is, there's study after study.
• 53:34
  Now,
• 53:35
  placebo's don't fill fixed sickness.
• 53:38
  They fix illness.
• 53:39
  So sickness is in the body.
• 53:41
  Like a placebo won't cure cancer.
• 53:43
  A placebo's not going to fix a broken arm.
• 53:46
  But they will change the symptoms,
• 53:48
  the perception of those symptoms.
• 53:51
  Again, you can't change reality.
• 53:52
  You can change your perception of reality.
• 53:54
  So just like we have placebo's,
• 53:56
  we also have what's called no seabose.
• 53:59
  No seabose are the opposite of placebo's.
• 54:01
  There are these negative effects
• 54:03
  that when we believe we are going to experience,
• 54:06
  we really do experience.
• 54:07
  And it happens time and time again.
• 54:09
  There was a very famous case in Portugal
• 54:13
  where on one evening, hospitals across the country
• 54:18
  were full of teenage girls
• 54:21
  who had intense intestinal discomfort.
• 54:24
  Only teenage girls.
• 54:25
  All of them had these terrible symptoms of stomach pains.
• 54:30
  They thought was there food poisoning?
• 54:33
  Was there some kind of weird virus going around?
• 54:36
  Nope, turns out that there was a very popular TV show
• 54:40
  called Strawberries and Cream
• 54:41
  that was like a soap opera kind of thing,
• 54:44
  like a telenovela type of thing,
• 54:46
  where the main character on the show
• 54:48
  was a teenage girl who had some kind of terrible stomach illness.
• 54:52
  And so it became this illness that kind of suddenly everybody got.
• 54:56
  And it was real.
• 54:57
  They had real physical symptoms, diarrhea,
• 54:59
  and vomiting, all those symptoms.
• 55:01
  So our expectations can shape what we do.
• 55:04
  And there's another really startling case study
• 55:07
  of this guy by the name of Mr. A.
• 55:08
  He's anonymized in the research study.
• 55:11
  Mr. A has this really bad breakup with his girlfriend.
• 55:14
  And he decides he's going to commit suicide.
• 55:16
  He doesn't want to live anymore.
• 55:17
  So he goes to his medicine cabinet
• 55:19
  and he takes an entire bottle of antidepressants.
• 55:22
  Takes the antidepressants.
• 55:24
  Then all of a sudden, just as he's swallowing the last pill,
• 55:27
  he decides he changes his mind.
• 55:28
  He wants to live after all.
• 55:30
  He rushes to his neighbor's house.
• 55:31
  He knocks on the door.
• 55:32
  He says, I need you to take me to the hospital.
• 55:34
  They rush him to the emergency room.
• 55:35
  By the time he gets there, he's passing out.
• 55:37
  He's super weak.
• 55:39
  He passes out on the floor.
• 55:40
  And just before he does,
• 55:41
  he tells the nurses, I took all my pills.
• 55:43
  I took all my pills.
• 55:44
  And he gives them the pill jar.
• 55:46
  They put him on the gurney.
• 55:47
  They rush him to the operating room to try and figure out how to,
• 55:49
  you know, get this, whatever he's taken out of his body
• 55:51
  to because he's clearly overdosing.
• 55:53
  His blood pressure is dropping.
• 55:55
  His heart rate is critically low.
• 55:58
  He's fading in and out of consciousness.
• 56:01
  And they're trying to figure out what antidepressants did he take.
• 56:04
  They look on the pill jar.
• 56:05
  And it doesn't say the name of the drug.
• 56:08
  It says a phone number.
• 56:09
  They call the phone number.
• 56:11
  The person on the other end of the line tells them that in fact,
• 56:14
  Mr. A was in a clinical trial for these antidepressants.
• 56:18
  And he hadn't actually taken the antidepressants at all.
• 56:22
  That he had taken a placebo.
• 56:25
  That he was in the control group.
• 56:28
  And so they tell Mr. A this.
• 56:29
  They tell him, hey, nothing you took could have possibly
• 56:32
  caused these symptoms.
• 56:32
  You were in the control group.
• 56:34
  You didn't take the antidepressant.
• 56:35
  You're not going to die.
• 56:37
  Within 15 minutes, Scott,
• 56:39
  his heart rate is back to normal.
• 56:40
  His blood pressure is stabilized.
• 56:42
  He walks out of the hospital perfectly healthy.
• 56:45
  Maybe a little embarrassed, right?
• 56:47
  And so here's the thing.
• 56:49
  If your expectation
• 56:51
  can create these physiological symptoms like they did for Mr. A
• 56:56
  based on if you think you are poisoned,
• 57:00
  don't tell me that having a label
• 57:02
  about who you are or what you are isn't also creating your own symptoms.
• 57:09
  It happens all the time that when we think, for example,
• 57:12
  when I got my ADHD diagnosis, I've been diagnosed with ADHD.
• 57:17
  And when I first got my diagnosis,
• 57:19
  I would constantly tell myself every time I got distracted.
• 57:24
  There I go again.
• 57:24
  There's my freaking ADHD.
• 57:27
  I've got this chronic brain disease that I'm never going to get rid of.
• 57:29
  And if I can't focus, how am I going to finish my deadline?
• 57:32
  And then my editor is going to be mad at me.
• 57:33
  And why does this always happen?
• 57:35
  Why do I have this stupid thing?
• 57:36
  And guess what I wasn't focused on?
• 57:39
  The work.
• 57:40
  Because I was spinning out full of anxiety
• 57:43
  about this label that I created for myself.
• 57:45
  That this is a chronic thing that I can never get over.
• 57:48
  I became the diagnosis.
• 57:51
  And that's not helpful.
• 57:52
  It's called identity foreclosure.
• 57:55
  When we say, this is who I am.
• 57:57
  I'm not a morning person.
• 57:59
  I'm a Sagittarius.
• 58:01
  I'm an ENTJ.
• 58:02
  I'm an anagram.
• 58:03
  I'm a whatever the frick.
• 58:05
  Why do we do this to ourselves?
• 58:07
  Why do we do this?
• 58:08
  It's comforting.
• 58:09
  It was very comforting that I had a diagnosis.
• 58:12
  That's why I've been struggling all these years.
• 58:15
  But then if it becomes your identity,
• 58:18
  if it becomes your label, your label will become your limit.
• 58:23
  So the right way to look at a diagnosis or a label is like a map.
• 58:29
  A map tells you, here's the treasure.
• 58:31
  Here's where you are.
• 58:32
  Here's how to get to the treasure.
• 58:34
  Now, maybe somebody else might look at the map
• 58:36
  and they're in a different place in the map.
• 58:37
  Maybe somebody without ADHD is closer to the treasure.
• 58:41
  But that doesn't mean that I am the map.
• 58:44
  The map is the path.
• 58:45
  The map teaches me how to get better.
• 58:47
  So now my limiting belief of I have a chronic illness
• 58:52
  is instead I'm learning a new skill.
• 58:56
  I'm learning a new skill.
• 58:57
  That's what I tell myself.
• 58:58
  Why?
• 58:59
  Because telling myself a new limiting belief
• 59:02
  increases my motivation to work on this,
• 59:05
  to fix this problem for myself.
• 59:06
  And I figured out all kinds of techniques to do that over the years.
• 59:09
  And reduces my suffering.
• 59:11
  And helps me embrace the things that are great
• 59:13
  about the way my brain works.
• 59:15
  Because look, I've written three best sellers.
• 59:16
  So it's not that I'm always distracted
• 59:18
  and I have a chronic brain disease.
• 59:19
  It's that when I'm interested in something,
• 59:20
  I hyper-focus on it.
• 59:23
  Right?
• 59:23
  So this is again, which belief serve you?
• 59:27
  So having a label that becomes your limit,
• 59:29
  that's a cage of your own creation.
• 59:31
  But having a label that empowers you,
• 59:33
  that makes you limitless in terms of your limiting belief.
• 59:40
  That's empowering.
• 59:41
  That's what we want to adopt.
• 59:42
  I want to bring this full circle
• 59:44
  because when I first started this conversation,
• 59:46
  we spoke about prayer.
• 59:49
  And I know you don't do anything just to do it.
• 59:52
  Everything you do in your daily practice,
• 59:54
  your life, I know there's like a reason on a purpose.
• 59:57
  So bringing it back,
• 59:59
  not prayer again from like a traditional religious standpoint.
• 1:00:02
  But the act of,
• 1:00:05
  actually first for me,
• 1:00:06
  define what your version of prayer is.
• 1:00:09
  Is it time with yourself?
• 1:00:10
  Is it reflection?
• 1:00:13
  Is it inner work?
• 1:00:14
  Whatever it is, define that.
• 1:00:16
  But then I want you to tie it into how this actually helps
• 1:00:19
  you understand your belief systems,
• 1:00:22
  your labels, your subconscious biases.
• 1:00:24
  Because there's a through line there for sure
• 1:00:27
  and I know that's why you do it.
• 1:00:28
  Yeah, so a few things.
• 1:00:29
  So I think I misunderstood prayer
• 1:00:33
  that I thought prayer was about asking for stuff.
• 1:00:38
  And in fact, when I met with these five religious leaders,
• 1:00:40
  they all told me that that's kind of the simple person's version of prayer
• 1:00:46
  that God is not a cosmic slot machine.
• 1:00:49
  So I didn't know that.
• 1:00:50
  Like nobody tells you that.
• 1:00:53
  No, I guess not.
• 1:00:55
  You're right, right.
• 1:00:55
  Like because that's what I thought you did.
• 1:00:57
  You're supposed to, you know, please fix this thing for me.
• 1:01:00
  Please, I need money.
• 1:01:01
  Please, I need to meet my spouse.
• 1:01:02
  Please, you know, make me healthy.
• 1:01:03
  Please do this.
• 1:01:04
  Please do that.
• 1:01:05
  And there's probably a place for that.
• 1:01:07
  I know I'm not, again, if something works for you, do it.
• 1:01:10
  It didn't speak to me.
• 1:01:10
  Like they're what I, that wasn't meaningful to me.
• 1:01:14
  So I don't ask for things.
• 1:01:17
  I ask for the attribute to overcome the thing.
• 1:01:24
  One of my liberating beliefs that I've now adopted
• 1:01:28
  is it doesn't get easier.
• 1:01:30
  You get stronger.
• 1:01:32
  So I used to think that if I did things right,
• 1:01:36
  everything would fall into place.
• 1:01:39
  That everything would work out.
• 1:01:40
  If I was, if I was good,
• 1:01:42
  then it shouldn't be hard, right?
• 1:01:44
  Like if I'm the kind of person who's supposed to be good at this kind of thing,
• 1:01:48
  then it should be easy.
• 1:01:49
  And that's a limiting belief, right?
• 1:01:51
  Who says it never gets easier.
• 1:01:54
  You just get stronger.
• 1:01:55
  So what I, when I pray, what I pray for is
• 1:02:00
  wisdom, is patience, is the things that I'm working on
• 1:02:04
  that I want to remind myself that daily practice.
• 1:02:06
  So this is what I got from the Imam about Islam,
• 1:02:08
  about how Islam, you pray the same thing five times a day.
• 1:02:12
  Breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper, it times throughout the day.
• 1:02:16
  Because when you're off base, when you're impatient,
• 1:02:19
  when you're, you need that reminder
• 1:02:22
  to be humble, to be more patient.
• 1:02:26
  That's what I'm looking for.
• 1:02:28
  That's what I'm asking for.
• 1:02:29
  I'm reminding myself.
• 1:02:30
  I don't, I don't know if anybody is listening.
• 1:02:31
  I'm reminding myself of the attributes I need
• 1:02:33
  to overcome the challenges.
• 1:02:35
  Prayer is almost like a conscious fight against your subconscious limiting beliefs.
• 1:02:40
  That's right.
• 1:02:41
  It's a reminder of that.
• 1:02:42
  It's just a constant reminder.
• 1:02:43
  I'm looking for the answers for how I can strengthen myself, right?
• 1:02:47
  Like where, what do I need to focus on today that can help me be better to others?
• 1:02:53
  You mentioned, obviously, you change your belief about your mom,
• 1:02:57
  and then going through this book, it says that
• 1:02:59
  when you fix one belief or fix is the wrong word.
• 1:03:02
  When you change one belief,
• 1:03:04
  it starts to cascade into other belief systems in your life.
• 1:03:07
  So it changes your way of thinking, right?
• 1:03:10
  You spoke about it and you wrote about how it changes your relationship with your daughter
• 1:03:14
  as well after you sort of went through this process with your mom.
• 1:03:17
  So when somebody starts to go down this journey,
• 1:03:19
  they read the book, they start to incorporate some of these ideas.
• 1:03:24
  How does one belief start to unlock another belief and another belief
• 1:03:28
  and sort of put you on this flywheel, I guess,
• 1:03:32
  for lack of a better term towards a healthier, happier life?
• 1:03:36
  Yeah.
• 1:03:37
  So it started with my mom,
• 1:03:39
  because that was a very palpable relationship.
• 1:03:42
  But I'm telling you the simple story with the flowers, of course,
• 1:03:44
  of the whole history there.
• 1:03:45
  We all have these histories.
• 1:03:46
  Like with all moms, right?
• 1:03:48
  It's with all moms, right?
• 1:03:50
  Yeah, there's always history.
• 1:03:52
  But then when I realized that I was creating the suffering,
• 1:03:57
  I wasn't creating her actions, I'm not responsible for her actions,
• 1:04:00
  but I was creating the interpretation of her actions,
• 1:04:03
  of judging, judging, judging, judging.
• 1:04:06
  And what I realized eventually is that I was doing that to everybody
• 1:04:09
  and everything and to myself, just constantly judging,
• 1:04:12
  just constantly good bad, good bad, good bad.
• 1:04:14
  Whereas what I learned to do, the reason this became kind of a domino effect
• 1:04:18
  is that when you have a kid, especially a teenage daughter,
• 1:04:25
  it forces you to see yourself through their eyes.
• 1:04:28
  Like just as I was judging my mom,
• 1:04:32
  I didn't want my daughter to judge me, right?
• 1:04:36
  Like I knew that that was our instincts.
• 1:04:38
  And when we had friction between each other,
• 1:04:40
  that was always the case that we were judging each other constantly.
• 1:04:44
  Whereas I have a new limiting belief,
• 1:04:46
  as opposed to letting myself be disappointed by the actions of others,
• 1:04:51
  which I was constantly doing,
• 1:04:52
  whether I would verbalize it or not,
• 1:04:53
  like I was constantly judging other people's behavior.
• 1:04:56
  Now, my new liberating belief is a mantra that I repeat to myself all the time,
• 1:05:02
  which is love is measured by the benefit of the doubt.
• 1:05:06
  Love is measured by the benefit of the doubt.
• 1:05:08
  What does that mean?
• 1:05:09
  That in every religion, this concept of love is central,
• 1:05:15
  whether it's God's love, whether it's our love for our fellow man,
• 1:05:18
  love is a central pill.
• 1:05:19
  But what is that?
• 1:05:20
  Like what are we talking about?
• 1:05:22
  Why is love so important?
• 1:05:25
  So to me, I had to think about this.
• 1:05:27
  I thought about a long time.
• 1:05:28
  So to me, love is measured by the benefit of the doubt.
• 1:05:31
  I remember the day my daughter was born.
• 1:05:32
  Do you have kids by the way, Scott?
• 1:05:34
  No, soon.
• 1:05:34
  God willing, soon, but not yet.
• 1:05:37
  Okay.
• 1:05:37
  Well, I wish for you that you will feel this,
• 1:05:42
  because I remember the day that I held my daughter in my arms.
• 1:05:45
  And she was exactly the size from my elbow to my tips of my fingers.
• 1:05:48
  That's exactly how basic she was.
• 1:05:50
  I held her for the first time and they let me wash her to clean her up.
• 1:05:54
  And I remember just I had this intense love for her.
• 1:05:58
  That was kind of the most pure, instant love.
• 1:06:00
  Like falling in love with my wife took a little,
• 1:06:02
  you know, like we dated for a while, you know.
• 1:06:04
  But falling in love with my daughter was instantaneous.
• 1:06:07
  Like she was in the world now.
• 1:06:08
  And I instantly loved her more than anything in the world.
• 1:06:12
  And whatever she did,
• 1:06:15
  I would give her an ultimate benefit for the doubt.
• 1:06:17
  She cried, she pooped, she squirmed, she needed stuff.
• 1:06:20
  Like, I don't care.
• 1:06:22
  Like, of course she would because she's a baby.
• 1:06:24
  And I'm like, you can't blame a baby for doing those things.
• 1:06:27
  That's all they can do, right?
• 1:06:29
  So she didn't cry to annoy me.
• 1:06:31
  She cried because that was the only tool she had.
• 1:06:34
  And I loved her because I gave her every benefit for the doubt
• 1:06:37
  that what she was doing wasn't to annoy at all.
• 1:06:40
  It was the tool she had.
• 1:06:43
  And here's what happens, Scott.
• 1:06:45
  We're all babies.
• 1:06:47
  We just got bigger.
• 1:06:50
  We're all working with the tools we have.
• 1:06:52
  My daughter, now she's 17, she's just working with the tool she has.
• 1:06:56
  My mom, she's 47, 48 now.
• 1:06:59
  She's also just working with the tool she has, right?
• 1:07:02
  Just like those babies, they're crying because that's the only tool they have.
• 1:07:05
  And so everybody's just operating with the tools they have.
• 1:07:09
  And so my job is to give them the grace,
• 1:07:12
  to remind myself this liberating belief
• 1:07:15
  that reduces my suffering, that when somebody would annoy me before,
• 1:07:19
  my liberating belief now is we're all just operating with the tools we have.
• 1:07:24
  And my job is to love them with the benefit of the doubt.
• 1:07:26
  If somebody is listening to this,
• 1:07:29
  they just want to know where to start.
• 1:07:34
  They have limiting beliefs.
• 1:07:36
  Obviously, I think you have a website set up near and far.com slash belief dash change.
• 1:07:44
  And they can probably go there.
• 1:07:45
  They can find they can find the book wherever they get books, Amazon, what not.
• 1:07:49
  Beyond belief, it was out in March.
• 1:07:51
  I'm not mistaken.
• 1:07:52
  So it's available for purchase now.
• 1:07:54
  But if somebody wants to just start,
• 1:07:58
  what would be your best advice to them?
• 1:08:00
  The thing they do immediately after listening to this podcast,
• 1:08:02
  just so they can get on the right.
• 1:08:04
  And I also want to say one thing too.
• 1:08:07
  You know, even very candid with some of your own stories.
• 1:08:10
  And I'm sure there's many more.
• 1:08:11
  And I'm sure you still have beliefs that you have to like work through.
• 1:08:15
  But you study this for a living.
• 1:08:17
  And you still, to a degree, have difficulty with it.
• 1:08:22
  So why do you think I wrote the book?
• 1:08:24
  100%.
• 1:08:25
  So I mean, I don't want the, I don't want the person listening to be like,
• 1:08:28
  oh my god, well, if near, if near had these issues, like, well, you know,
• 1:08:31
  well, it might be able to figure this stuff out.
• 1:08:34
  But, but in all seriousness, like just give, give yourself some grace because these are,
• 1:08:38
  these are things that outside of going through your work.
• 1:08:41
  Like we don't learn these things to your point.
• 1:08:45
  Everybody's just a baby that just grew up.
• 1:08:47
  And we don't know what we're doing or how we're programmed or any of that.
• 1:08:51
  That's right.
• 1:08:52
  And, and, you know, I'm telling you, like the,
• 1:08:56
  I've talked just so many super successful people you would not believe.
• 1:09:00
  And people that you think have it all together,
• 1:09:03
  they're all just trying to figure it out.
• 1:09:04
  We're all, we all have these limiting beliefs.
• 1:09:06
  And even if you're super successful in one area of your life that you think you figured out,
• 1:09:09
  there's always some other limiting belief that you're working on in a different area of your life.
• 1:09:13
  So the thing I really want to leave folks with is, is, is two things.
• 1:09:16
  Number one, that we need the intellectual humility
• 1:09:21
  to realize that we do not see reality clearly.
• 1:09:24
  We don't even see our own reality clearly.
• 1:09:26
  Remember that 50 bits of information versus 11 million bits of information.
• 1:09:29
  You don't see reality.
• 1:09:30
  You see your, you see reality through your beliefs.
• 1:09:33
  And if you don't see your reality clearly,
• 1:09:36
  you definitely don't see other people's reality clearly.
• 1:09:38
  So like, we need that intellectual humility of realizing that.
• 1:09:42
  That's number one, two, you can do way more than you know,
• 1:09:48
  that your limiting beliefs are keeping you from being the kind of person
• 1:09:52
  that you're actually able to become.
• 1:09:54
  The person you know you can become, those are hidden to you, but they can be unlocked.