{"id":6091,"date":"2026-03-09T18:20:55","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T01:20:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/odaatchat.com\/?p=6091"},"modified":"2026-03-12T12:03:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-12T19:03:20","slug":"hidden-beliefs-that-control-your-behavior","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/odaatchat.com\/index.php\/2026\/03\/09\/hidden-beliefs-that-control-your-behavior\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hidden Beliefs That Control Your Behavior With Nir Eyal"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Embed Player\" src=\"https:\/\/play.libsyn.com\/embed\/episode\/id\/40397875\/height\/128\/theme\/modern\/size\/standard\/thumbnail\/yes\/custom-color\/87A93A\/time-start\/00:00:00\/playlist-height\/200\/direction\/backward\/download\/yes\/font-color\/FFFFFF\" height=\"128\" width=\"100%\" scrolling=\"no\" allowfullscreen=\"\" webkitallowfullscreen=\"true\" mozallowfullscreen=\"true\" oallowfullscreen=\"true\" msallowfullscreen=\"true\" style=\"border: none;\"><\/iframe>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">One of the most frustrating experiences in life is knowing exactly what to do, but still not doing it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">If you\u2019ve ever tried to quit drinking, build a new habit, improve your health, or pursue a goal and found yourself slipping back into old patterns, you\u2019re not alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">In this episode, I talk with behavioral design expert and bestselling author Nir Eyal about why this happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The answer isn\u2019t a lack of knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It\u2019s BELIEF.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Motivation Triangle<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Nir explains that motivation isn\u2019t just about wanting something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It\u2019s actually built on three elements:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"\">Behavior<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Benefit<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Belief<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">If we don\u2019t believe the effort will work\u2014or if we don\u2019t believe we\u2019re capable of change\u2014our motivation collapses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">We might know exactly what to do, but something inside stops us from taking action.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">This is why so many people struggle with the knowledge-action gap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">The Power of Beliefs<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">One of the most powerful ideas Nir shares is this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Beliefs are tools, not truths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Most of us assume our beliefs are facts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But many beliefs are simply interpretations we\u2019ve repeated so often they feel true.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And those beliefs shape everything:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"\">What we notice<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">How we interpret events<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">What actions we take<br><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">This is why two people can experience the same situation and come away with completely different conclusions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Pain vs. Suffering<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Another important distinction we discuss is the difference between pain and suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Pain is a signal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Suffering is the interpretation of that signal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">When we believe discomfort is unbearable, we escape it\u2014often through unhealthy behaviors.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But when we learn to reinterpret discomfort, we gain the ability to stay present instead of reacting impulsively.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Persistence Is the Real Secret<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">One fascinating study Nir shares involved rats swimming in water.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Normally they gave up after about 15 minutes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But when the researchers briefly rescued them and then returned them to the water, the rats kept swimming for 60 hours.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The only thing that changed was their belief that rescue might be possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That belief unlocked persistence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And persistence is what ultimately determines success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Action Steps<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">If you want to apply these ideas in your life, start with these steps:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"\">Identify a belief that might be limiting you.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Ask yourself if it\u2019s absolutely true.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Consider alternative explanations.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Notice how that belief affects your behavior.<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\">Experiment with a more empowering belief.<br><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">When we change our beliefs, we often change our actions\u2014and our lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Books Mentioned<\/h3>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li class=\"\"><em>Beyond Belief<\/em> \u2014 Nir Eyal<br><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li class=\"\"><em>Indistractable<\/em> \u2014 Nir Eyal<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Guest Website:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>\ud83d\udc4a\ud83c\udffcNeed help applying this information to your own life?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Here are 3 ways to get started:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>\ud83c\udf81Free Guide: 30 Tips for Your First 30 Days &#8211; With a printable PDF checklist<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Grab your copy here: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.soberlifeschool.com\">https:\/\/www.soberlifeschool.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>\u260e\ufe0fPrivate Coaching: Make Sobriety Stick<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.makesobrietystick.com\">https:\/\/www.makesobrietystick.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Subscribe So You Don\u2019t Miss New Episodes!<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong><em>Listen to the episode on<\/em><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast\/id1212504521\"><strong><em>Apple Podcasts<\/em><\/strong><\/a><strong><em>, <\/em><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/4I23r7DBTpT8XwUUwHRNpB\"><strong><em>Spotify<\/em><\/strong><\/a><strong><em>, or Amazon Music, or you can stream it from my website <\/em><\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.odaatchat.com\"><strong><em>HERE<\/em><\/strong><\/a><strong><em>. <\/em><\/strong><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@theonedayatatimepodcast?sub_confirmation=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">You can also watch the interview on YouTube.<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"295\" height=\"121\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-4.png?fit=295%2C121&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6092\" style=\"width:203px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast\/id1212504521\"><strong><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"217\" height=\"76\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-5.png?fit=217%2C76&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6093\" style=\"width:197px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1374\" height=\"334\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-7.png?fit=640%2C156&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6095\" style=\"width:200px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-7.png?w=1374&amp;ssl=1 1374w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-7.png?resize=300%2C73&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-7.png?resize=1024%2C249&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-7.png?resize=768%2C187&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-7.png?w=1280&amp;ssl=1 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 640px) 100vw, 640px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/a8eb438c-5af1-493b-99c1-f218e5553aff\/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"179\" height=\"60\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/odaatchat.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/image-6.png?fit=179%2C60&amp;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-6094\" style=\"width:200px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@theonedayatatimepodcast\"><strong><\/strong><\/a><strong>&nbsp;<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\"><strong>Apple: <\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast\/id1212504521\"><strong>https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast\/id1212504521<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Spotify: <a href=\"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/4I23r7DBTpT8XwUUwHRNpB\">https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/4I23r7DBTpT8XwUUwHRNpB<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Amazon Music: <a href=\"https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/a8eb438c-5af1-493b-99c1-f218e5553aff\/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast\">https:\/\/music.amazon.com\/podcasts\/a8eb438c-5af1-493b-99c1-f218e5553aff\/the-one-day-at-a-time-recovery-podcast<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Nir Eyal<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">[00:00:00] Okay. Funny story. I was reading the book Beyond Belief and I&#8217;m super excited. I&#8217;ve got a ton of notes and I was all about it. And then, uh, in chapter four, you&#8217;re talking about a gal who had like this $300 million exit. She had started a nonprofit. This gal Ann, and I don&#8217;t know what possessed me, I don&#8217;t typically do this, but I looked up her name and the first picture that comes up is a picture of her and Brett Eaton.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And I had just interviewed Brett. Ah, for his book that came out. Oh, there we go. I was like, wow. Small world. And I was like, small world. Yeah. Yeah. And I&#8217;m, that&#8217;s awesome. I&#8217;m a huge fan of, uh, my first Million and he, uh, they had done an episode featuring her. Yeah. So I knew her story and I was like, oh, that&#8217;s right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So that was super fun. But I am so excited to talk to you about your book Beyond Belief. Thank you. And I was telling you, I&#8217;m holding, if you&#8217;re, [00:01:00] uh, listening on the podcast, I&#8217;m holding up Indestructible, which I use to this day because I feel like, um, indestructible really answered for me the question, how do I do the things I know to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Other people call it how to stop procrastinating. Yeah. But, um, and I, and I love, I, I don&#8217;t know if everybody can see this &#8217;cause there are a lot of folks are listening, but you know, you that what you have just shown me is catnip for authors because you have all these dog ears and little bookmarks and flags in the book that is like the best compliment you could ever give an author.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah. And listen, this is, this is from a while ago. When did this one, when did Distract come up? 2019. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So you&#8217;re on track to do a book every five or six years. Five or six years. That&#8217;s kind of my cadence. I do a lot of research and uh, have a lot of drafts that don&#8217;t make it and, uh, oh my goodness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It&#8217;s really important to me that not only do the techniques work, but they&#8217;re packed, backed [00:02:00] by peer reviewed studies. So there&#8217;s about 30 pages of citations to peer reviewed studies so people can actually see, hey, this isn&#8217;t just stuff I made up. This is, you know, good research back advice. And listen, thank you for doing the research, because those research articles are, sometimes the abstracts are hard to sift through and, and to glean, like what is the practical application of, you know, all the, um, scientific research, which I love, but I, I need a translator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So I feel like, you know, thank you for being the translator and I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m sort of a bottom line kind of girl. Just tell me what to do. Yes, exactly. And, and, and thankfully the, the scientists are super smart and they do great research, but uh, they&#8217;re really bad at translating it. So yes, that&#8217;s my job. If if they weren&#8217;t bad at it, if they were good at it, I wouldn&#8217;t have a job.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So. That&#8217;s right. So we&#8217;re like a team&#8217;s, we&#8217;re like a team. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And you know what the, the crazy thing is, is that a lot of the studies. Are not so good. [00:03:00] You know, we, we kinda hear trust the science, trust the science. A lot of times the science sucks. The science is really poorly done. And so you always have to do not only to like to look at the abstracts, look at the conclusions, you also have to see how the studies were actually conducted and can they replicate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And this is a big reason why I got so fascinated by beliefs because there are so many. Falsehoods about the placebo effect and what it can and can&#8217;t do and the power of beliefs and magical healing and thinking. And, you know, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s just so much misinformation out there about even the stuff that is backed by good research, uh, sorry, is backed by research isn&#8217;t necessarily backed by good research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And so I really wanted to kind of separate the wheat from the chaffs that people can use this for, to, to improve their lives. That sort of reminds me of my sarcastic, um, half of all doctors are below average. Very true. That&#8217;s right. So it&#8217;s good. So it&#8217;s good that people like you are really able to sort of sort through it [00:04:00] all and and glean what&#8217;s really effective, I suppose.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Mm-hmm. And absolutely. And help people like me apply the stuff. &#8217;cause I may action kind of. Oriented person, right? Like mood follows action. And listen, we&#8217;re talking to an audience, just so you know, that are people who are interested in recovery, like they wanna stop drinking, they wanna stop doing drugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And then the other part of the group that listens are people who are in recovery, who are really trying to create. Be deliberate about their lives, what they&#8217;re, what are you gonna do from here, right? Mm-hmm. Who are you now? What do you wanna, how do you wanna spend your time? Who do you wanna be? What impact do you have in the world?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Mm-hmm. And so what I thought was just really interesting was in distractible was kind of how to stop procrastinating and, and that&#8217;s, uh, you know, just a very, not doing it justice, but yeah. Yeah. And, and change. There&#8217;s a lot of habit change, a lot of [00:05:00] identity. Shifting in that book and beyond Belief was like deeper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And I, I, to me, it felt so much deeper. So a few years ago I did a certification in hypnosis and was really fascinated with this idea that beliefs are just ideas that are repeated, that are accepted as truth. Because what I see in the work I do is people have these patterns, right? They have a feeling they.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Uh, make a decision. They take an action, they experience law of cause and effect, and then they experience an outcome. And sometimes when people have these repeating patterns, that to me is an indication that there is an error in the presupposition. There is an error in the belief somewhere. And so I&#8217;ve kind of been on that track for a while and then I started reading this and I was like, oh my God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And, and what I love the way your book is laid out. [00:06:00] Is that, &#8217;cause I&#8217;m always like, I&#8217;m just gonna go back to the, to the back of the book and just get the answers, Uhhuh. And then I started reading Cheat. Oh, it&#8217;s not like that. Cheat. Yeah. Yeah. I was looking out for the, just tell me what to do, what is the solution?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But then I started reading it and what I realized is you take a concept, there&#8217;s kind of like a case study and there is, uh. Um, like the reframing of beliefs, like what is the belief and here&#8217;s the reframe. So there, at the end of every chapter, there&#8217;s like exercises. So you&#8217;re sort of building brick by brick, this concept of why beliefs are so important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And maybe that&#8217;s kind. Sorry, I&#8217;ll let you talk. Um, no, no, it&#8217;s, I love, this is fantastic. I mean, I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m enjoying it. I dunno if anybody else is enjoying it, but I&#8217;m been blessed, Liz, I just do this for me really. And hopefully other people get a benefit outta this, but. I if we&#8217;re just gonna take a step back and think about, you know, where this all started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Like, did you [00:07:00] start with like, who is this for? Like, who should listen to this episode? Why? Mm-hmm. Like, what, what can, what are they gonna get out of it? So I write books not because of what I know, but because of what I want to know. And so in an area of my life, I am stuck in for whatever reason. Uh, I read other people&#8217;s books about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I talk to my wife about it, I talk to my friends about it, and if I still can&#8217;t find, solve the problem. I, I gotta write a book about it because, and, and this is exactly what happened with in Distractible, right? All the books out there said, well, you know, stop using technology, stop checking email. And they were written by professors with tenure telling us not to use email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Well. Thanks, stupid. Like that&#8217;s not helpful advice. Like I, I have to use social media, I have to use email, I have to use these technologies, or I, I, I don&#8217;t have livelihood. I, I&#8217;m gonna lose my job. So I really wanted, uh, practical solutions that are also backed by good research. And, um, what, what I learned was with beliefs is that I think beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Are the most important thing to understand before you [00:08:00] read any other self-help books, because if you don&#8217;t understand this operating system that is running in your mind, that is upstream of your behaviors that that your behaviors depend upon you, you won&#8217;t effectively be able to change behavior. I think there&#8217;s a common misconception that motivation is just about doing the right thing so that you can get the reward right, do the behavior so that you can get the benefit If that were the case.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">We&#8217;d all have six pack abs and be multimillionaires because we all know what to do. Yeah. Quit drinking. Okay. Just stop. Do you wanna keep Yeah, just stop. Do you wanna stop drinking? Yes. Okay. Do you know how to stop drinking? Yeah, I stopped drinking. Okay. Well then do it. Okay. Right. That that helps. Nobody, nobody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">There&#8217;s something missing here. Yeah. Or even worse is you have to believe in yourself. Just believe, right. Like it&#8217;s an on off switch. Mm-hmm. That if you could magically find, you could turn it on. Well, there&#8217;s a methodology here. There&#8217;s a lot more to it because if you don&#8217;t have an underlying belief in the benefit, meaning you trust, [00:09:00] you will get the outcome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So for example, let&#8217;s say you work for a boss who doesn&#8217;t have your best interest at heart. Maybe you don&#8217;t believe that they&#8217;re gonna give you that promotion, they&#8217;re gonna give you that raise. You&#8217;re gonna lack motivation. You&#8217;re not gonna work very hard much more often. What if you don&#8217;t believe in the behavior, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">What if you don&#8217;t believe in yourself to stop drinking, to do the thing you need to know, you know you need to do even if you know exactly what to do. And frankly, today, look, if you don&#8217;t know what to do. Google it. Ask Chat, GPT. You can find the answer to pretty much everything. There&#8217;s no longer a constraint on knowledge.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">We can find the information. It&#8217;s, you don&#8217;t have to go to the library. You don&#8217;t have to ask an expert, just Google it and you&#8217;ll find out how to do something. But it&#8217;s not good enough to know how to do something. The behavior, it&#8217;s not good enough to even want the benefit. You have to have those underlying beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That&#8217;s what keeps it together. So belief is not a straight line, it&#8217;s a triangle. You need the behavior, you need the benefit, and you need. The belief. And so how do you cultivate those beliefs? You start with one, understanding what beliefs are the two, the the different kinds of [00:10:00] beliefs, and then the three powers of belief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And once you understand that structure, that framework, now a whole nother world opens up. You know, and I gotta say that as I was going through this material, um, I, I was thinking about the person who has tried to quit drinking over and over and over, and they go through these periods of willingness. They take action, something happens, they relapse, and they&#8217;re back where they started.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And it is a very demoralizing experience. Yeah. And it&#8217;s not just. People who wanna quit drinking. You know, I&#8217;ve been sober for, you know, over 31 years and I have other areas of my life that, that I&#8217;ve tried to, you know, I&#8217;ve always had a, I&#8217;ve had a side hustle since I was 12, you know, and I&#8217;ve had these illusions of grandeur.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">But if you experience sort of failure after failure, it&#8217;s very demoralizing. And I think a lot of [00:11:00] people. Whether it&#8217;s, I feel like there&#8217;s like the big three, there&#8217;s romance, finance, and fitness, right? Mm-hmm. Fitness being like in the, in the health genre. And if you have a pattern and you keep trying different things, but you keep quote unquote failing, it&#8217;s very easy to just like be, wanna be resigned and just be like, well, I&#8217;ll just be happy with where I am.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And maybe you can talk a little bit about the motivation triangle that you were talking about a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. So that&#8217;s the behavior benefit and belief, how you have to have all three at the same time, uh, in order to sustain motivation. And it, it turns out that sustaining motivation is really the hallmark of success.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That if you think about why do people fail at a goal, uh, it&#8217;s not because they don&#8217;t know what to do. It&#8217;s not because they lack willpower, it&#8217;s not because of their resources. The number one reason people fail sounds pretty elementary. When you say that loud, it&#8217;s &#8217;cause we quit. It&#8217;s &#8217;cause we quit. That&#8217;s why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So there&#8217;s a really wonderful study that demonstrates this, that, [00:12:00] uh, was conducted back in the 1950s by a researcher by the name of Kurt Richter. And Richter took these rats, he put them in a cylinder, halfway full, filled with water, and he wanted to time how long the rats could swim for. So in case you&#8217;re curious, a wild rat, if you put it in a cylinder, it&#8217;s gonna swim for about 15 minutes before it gives up and dies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Okay? So Richter observed this, then he did the next part of the experiment. He took a new group of rats. He dropped them in the glass cylinder and he watched them swim until about 15 minutes. And just at the 15 minute mark when he knew they were about to give up, he pl he pulled them out of the, uh, the cylinder, dried them off, let the rat, uh, catch its breath and plunk back into the cylinder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It went to keep swimming. Now, you know, there&#8217;s a trick here. There&#8217;s always a, a, a trick in these psychology studies. How much longer did the rat swim for? Right now that the rat had been conditioned to expect that salvation may be possible, how much longer did the rat swim for? So some people say twice as long, three times as long, four [00:13:00] times as long.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Imagine that. Imagine if I could tell you that there is a secret. To quadrupling how long you persist. If you&#8217;re trying to see, you know, how much longer could you resist temptation to drink or, uh, uh, persist running a marathon or keep studying on that hard for that hard exam, whatever the case might be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">If there was some kind of, of, of wonder intervention that could increase your persistence for X, that would be crazy. That would be unbelievable. Well, the rats didn&#8217;t swim four times longer. They swam for 60 hours. Not 60 minutes. 60 hours. They went from 15 minutes, 240 times longer, 60 hours of swimming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">How? How is that possible? Their bodies didn&#8217;t change the experiment, their condition, the environment didn&#8217;t change. We think, we can&#8217;t ask what their beliefs were. We can&#8217;t ask the rats what they thought, but we believe that there was something going on in their brains that suddenly assessed the situation differently, that now that there was salvation might be [00:14:00] possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">They could be saved somehow. And so they kept trying. And that turns out to be the definitive trait of who succeeds is, is not having the perfect answer. It&#8217;s not, oh, the one miracle cure. It&#8217;s not the silver bullet that doesn&#8217;t, doesn&#8217;t exist. It&#8217;s persistence. It&#8217;s trying. And even when you fail trying again and again and again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And so what&#8217;s so remarkable about this study and why I think it&#8217;s so important for everyone to understand. Is that nothing changed in the rats other than something unlocked in their brains. It wasn&#8217;t their physical bodies that suddenly became stronger. It was that something unlocked that a new belief took hold and allowed them to persist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And so that&#8217;s the remarkable power of belief, is that it allows us to do things we previously thought were impossible. Now, how does it do that through these three powers of belief? The powers of belief are beliefs change what you see, we call this attention, beliefs change what you feel. We call this anticipation and beliefs change what you do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">We call this [00:15:00] agency and just as you said, you know what, you in a downward spiral. When you have these beliefs that are reinforced, that tell you you&#8217;ve tried, you failed, you&#8217;ve tried, you failed, versus you&#8217;ve tried and. Succeeded and tried and succeeded. It&#8217;s a vicious cycle versus a virtuous cycle. You sap your agency, you sap your motivation to try again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And so this is why it&#8217;s so critical for everyone to understand their limiting beliefs because those are two kinds of beliefs. We have limiting beliefs, beliefs that sap your motivation, that make you less likely to persist, that increase your suffering. And then we have what we call liberating beliefs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Beliefs that supply motivation that makes you more likely to persist that. Decreases suffering. And so the remarkable thing is that we can choose beliefs. You can&#8217;t choose facts. Facts are objective truths, right? That&#8217;s facts are true whether you believe them or not. You don&#8217;t choose faith. Faith is something that does not require evidence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That&#8217;s faith. Beliefs are in the middle. Beliefs are [00:16:00] tools, not truths. These are things that we believe in them because they serve us, because they decrease suffering because they make our lives better. We can choose &#8217;em, but the vast majority of people never think that way. They don&#8217;t ask themselves what their limiting beliefs are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">We can&#8217;t see them. They&#8217;re hidden. So unless we take them out and look at them and say, wait a minute, why do I believe this? Why do I believe that suffering that that pain, sorry, not suffering. Why do I believe that pain is bad? How many people have, when they have a craving, right, for a substance or a drink or a scroll or whatever, is doing them harm that they wish they could resist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">One of the biggest problems we face is that we think pain is bad. Pain should be escaped from Yeah, just a belief. Just a belief. Yeah, that&#8217;s really it. That&#8217;s really at like the core of like cravings. And when I hear people that when they give up, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s like an intensity. Like they, the discomfort, like the intensity of the discomfort is so great that they quit [00:17:00] basically.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah. But here&#8217;s the crazy thing. Where is the pain? Where&#8217;s the pain? I asked somebody recently that, who, who decided to quit. I, we were talking about like, where is the intensity of the craving? And I thought she was gonna say it was like in her body. Like, no, she&#8217;s, she&#8217;s like, it&#8217;s in my mind. It&#8217;s in your mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Well, she&#8217;s right. Yeah. All pain is real. All pain is real. Yeah. But pain doesn&#8217;t happen in your shoulder or in your back or in your stomach. Pain happens in the brain. Where else could it happen? It&#8217;s, it&#8217;s a signal. It&#8217;s just data that your brain is processing and interpreting and judging as good or bad, but it&#8217;s just a sensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Right? Right. We have, we have case studies from, um, soldiers in World War I. Who talk about intense pain. These studies where, this is actually where the placebo effect was first discovered on the battlefields of World War I. Wow. Where soldiers oftentimes would drag their injured buddies to the medic and they would say, medic, medic, you gotta help [00:18:00] my buddy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">My buddy&#8217;s been shot. You gotta help my buddy. And the medic would turn to the soldier and say, so, uh, soldier, your arm is missing. And the soldier didn&#8217;t realize that half his arm was blown off. Yeah, so there is not necessarily a connection to pain and suffering. Those are two separate things. Yeah. Pain is the data, is the signal from your nerves into your brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Suffering is the interpretation of those signals, and so what I show throughout the book is that human beings have this tremendous power to separate pain from suffering or to create suffering where there is no pain. We can do both because there&#8217;s a difference between sickness and illness. Sickness is in the body, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Sickness is damage in the body. Mm-hmm. Illness is always in the mind. I. And so those can actually be separated. It&#8217;s not easy. Take some work, but there&#8217;s a methodology to it, right? That actually thousands and thousands of people have utilized it. In fact, one of the things [00:19:00] that totally blew my mind that I would not believe if I did not see the video is, uh, hypno sedation, which, you know, you, you mentioned, you, you unders, you know, hypno sedation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah, yeah, yeah. Unbelievable. It is totally wild. It&#8217;s crazy. It&#8217;s so unbelievable. And tens of thousands of people do it all the time. All the time. Switzerland and Italy and France. Not, it&#8217;s not done in America, but it&#8217;s done throughout Europe. And it&#8217;s done on the D Yeah, a little bit on the deal, but it does happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Here&#8217;s and here&#8217;s what it is, and this is the guy, Daniel Gissler, who, who I interviewed for the book and I seen the video. Wow. The guy had metal screws pulled out of his bone. Scalpel slicing through his flesh for 55 minutes. He went under this operation. No local anesthesia, no general anesthesia. He was able to manage the pain, to manage the suffering, I should say, only through the power of his mind, because he had trained himself in this technique called hypno sedation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Now, I am not [00:20:00] advocating for this, okay? I&#8217;m not saying that that&#8217;s not what the book is about, right? It&#8217;s not about an advertisement to go do this technique, use this, the the anesthesia case study. Yeah. The reason I show this. Because if we know that the human mind can do that, can tune out pain so that people can go under the knife without feel, and it&#8217;s not just a, a subjective symptom, uh, uh, uh, expression.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It&#8217;s not just that he like, you know, uh, bit the bullet and didn&#8217;t say he was in, in, uh, suffering from the pain. No. We can see his heart rate is completely stable, his blood pressure is totally normal. His vitals didn&#8217;t show any indication that he was having a, a surgery. That&#8217;s wild. And he, because of the, solely, because of the power of the mind.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So if he can do that, we can also learn to manage our cravings to, uh, to manage this discomfort, to see suffering differently so that it doesn&#8217;t, uh, lead us to things that we later regret. Yeah, and I think this is so exciting too, because. It also, it&#8217;s like, well, how can we use this as a [00:21:00] tool? And as you say in the book, you know, beliefs are actually tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And so I&#8217;m thinking, you know, there&#8217;s people that get sober and then they&#8217;re like, okay, now what? It&#8217;s like now all our dreams are possible. Now you&#8217;re free from this thing and you can create the life you&#8217;ve always wanted and. What I see happening a lot, and I think this happens to everybody, not just people in recovery, is that you begin to stretch beyond what you&#8217;re, you think your identity is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Mm. And you kind of, you know, you invoke like imposter syndrome. Like you&#8217;re tr you&#8217;re daring greatly. You&#8217;re trying to go to the next level of whatever it is. I work with a lot of salespeople, so every sales person, there&#8217;s always like a next level, right? Mm-hmm. And so. But it&#8217;s like, but then we have all this self-sabotage and the self-doubt, imposter syndrome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">People get stuck. And what&#8217;s really exciting about the work that you&#8217;ve laid out in this book? And there&#8217;s some exercises. I downloaded all the, uh, bonus content, which was Oh, [00:22:00] excellent. Amazing, actually. Good. I&#8217;m glad you like it. Yeah. And working with the, uh, five minute exercise that maybe we could touch on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah, we&#8217;ll touch on that a little bit later. So people have to stay to the end. Yeah. Which they can get for free. Totally free. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Uh, it&#8217;s so good. Um, but the idea that we can. Um, really master our emotions so that we don&#8217;t become paralyzed and stuck and fall to the resignation phase that we can actually break, like breakthrough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Everyone&#8217;s talking about these breakthroughs. We don&#8217;t wanna breakthrough to the next level. So this really feels very pro, like, very practical in that regard. Mm. Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. What, what do you advise folks when you, when you work with them, how do you, how do you help them? Well, the way I help people is to typically start with like, what are you doing now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">What are the actions you&#8217;re currently taking? And it just sort of depends on what their goals are. If somebody wants to quit drinking, then it&#8217;s sort of like, what are you doing now? And then we sort of. [00:23:00] Slowly add in behavior change. I think of, um, adding in things like self-care practices. Mm-hmm. And a lot of this is really emotion management tools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It&#8217;s a lot of stress alleviation. And once they start, um, creating some habits, there&#8217;s connection, there&#8217;s, there&#8217;s all kinds of things that they can do. I try to do it slowly not to overwhelm the system. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Um, doing things like service, but then once they&#8217;re sort of in a habit, I do like to go deeper and sort of mm-hmm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Uncover what are the limiting beliefs, you know, and sometimes, you know, we can do things like IFS or hypnotherapy to. Sort of reframe. And I see that that&#8217;s what you were doing a lot in mm-hmm. In the book is like at the end of every chapter there&#8217;s like these reframes. Um, can we kind of go over, you mentioned attention, anticipation and agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That&#8217;s the C feel and do. Um, I love the [00:24:00] example that you have in the book with the, uh, the optical illusion. Can you kind of describe that a little bit? Sure, yeah. You know, instead of doing the optical illusion, which people can&#8217;t see if they&#8217;re listening to a podcast. Oh, good point. Yeah. I&#8217;ll, I&#8217;ll give you a, I&#8217;ll give you a riddle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Okay. That will demonstrate the same uh, point. Okay. It&#8217;s not in the book, is it? It&#8217;s not in the book. It&#8217;s not in the book. Okay. But you may have heard this. If you&#8217;ve heard the riddle before then don&#8217;t answer it. We&#8217;ll give people a minute to try and think of the answer for themselves. Okay. Do you like riddles?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I do. Okay. Okay. You, you, if you haven&#8217;t heard this one, you&#8217;ll like it. Okay. Uh, so there&#8217;s a, a dad and his son who are driving on a, on a deserted country road, and it&#8217;s the middle of the night. No lights, completely pitch ba black, and all of a sudden a deer jumps in front of the car. The car smashes into the deer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The father is instantly killed. The, the son is in critical condition and rushed to the nearest hospital. Have you heard this one before? I, it sounds familiar, but I don&#8217;t remember it. Okay. [00:25:00] The sun is rushed to the nearest hospital. Put on a gurney, goes into the operating room. The surgeon scrubs up, barges into the room, into the operating room as quickly as possible, looks at the boy and says, I cannot operate on this boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">He&#8217;s my son. How could that be? Don&#8217;t say it if you know it. Do you know it? I don&#8217;t remember. I think I knew the answer at one point. I can&#8217;t remember. Think about it. What? What do you think? Okay, so start fresh. Hopefully you forgot, but start fresh. Do you want me to say it one more time? I can say it again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I have totally forgotten, but, so the dad is killed instantly. I&#8217;ll, I&#8217;ll say it again. So the, the father, so there&#8217;s a father and son who are driving on a road. They, uh, smash into a deer. The father is killed instantly. The son is rushed to the local hospital. The surgeon barges into the operating room, takes one look at the boy and says, I cannot operate on this boy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">He&#8217;s my son. How can that be?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">[00:26:00] I have no idea. I don&#8217;t remember this one idea. It was not embarrassing. No idea. Can&#8217;t think of the answer. It&#8217;s, by the way, by the way, so you feel better, don&#8217;t feel bad. Don&#8217;t feel bad. 83% of people don&#8217;t know the answer. Okay. 83% of people can&#8217;t, can&#8217;t figure out the answer. So I know there&#8217;s somebody listening to this screaming the answer, but I dunno.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Well, you&#8217;re, you&#8217;re gonna scream the answer at yourself in a minute when I tell you what it is. Okay. Give up. I do. The surgeon was the boy&#8217;s mom. Oh. I should know this. I&#8217;m a woman. Of course you should. Oh my. Oh my goodness. But here&#8217;s the thing. What happened just now? You had a perceptual filter. You have a belief based on prior experiences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">80% of men, statistical fact, 80% of of, of surgeons, sorry, 80% of surgeons are men. Yeah. But 20% are women. It is. Not magic. It&#8217;s not like the, the, the, the one. It&#8217;s funny. One time I told this, I told this [00:27:00] riddle to somebody and they looked at me dead in the eye and said, I know the answer. I totally know the answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The mother was the dear. So it wasn&#8217;t, it wasn&#8217;t that very simple. Do you know what I almost said? I almost said it&#8217;s the son&#8217;s. It&#8217;s the son&#8217;s other dad, because there&#8217;s two dads, a gay marriage. Also could be true. That could, you should have said that that is also an answer. It&#8217;s not the answer. The most probable, statistically, the most probable answer is, yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You know, 20% of surgeons are women. Yeah, but here&#8217;s the amazing part. Oh, that&#8217;s embarrassing. You didn&#8217;t even consider that as a possibility, right? Your brain couldn&#8217;t even see that reality. Yeah, which is reality. 20% of surgeons are women because your brain doesn&#8217;t see reality. Your brain sees probabilities that it predicts of reality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">The way it&#8217;s called, it&#8217;s called predictive processing. The brain is constantly looking at what is happening, right. And based on it, [00:28:00] what, what it predicts will happen. That is actually what it perceives. What it expects. Mm-hmm. So in your prior experience, 80% of surgeons are, are men, and so that&#8217;s what you expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That&#8217;s all you could see. You were looking at every different potential answer except the one that. Now in hindsight is obvious and you&#8217;ll never not get that, that solution ever again. Well, let&#8217;s hope. &#8217;cause I know I heard that before and I already forgot it. By the way, it doesn&#8217;t matter if you&#8217;re a man or a woman, it doesn&#8217;t matter if your mom is a surgeon, even they get it wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Wow. It&#8217;s crazy. Yeah. I have a client who&#8217;s actually a surgeon. That&#8217;s a woman. Yeah. Okay. So it doesn&#8217;t mean you&#8217;re sexist. It doesn&#8217;t mean it&#8217;s not, it&#8217;s, there&#8217;s no judgment here. Okay. Okay. 80% of people don&#8217;t get it. And probably the tho those who, uh, did get it heard it before. Oh, okay. Because, but why do I tell this riddle if, if the brain doesn&#8217;t let us perceive something that, you know, once we&#8217;re told the answer is so obvious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah. That&#8217;s what it does to everything. That&#8217;s what it does when we see somebody who annoys us and we can&#8217;t [00:29:00] understand why they behave that way, or somebody who hurt us in the past, maybe caused us trauma was mean to us. And we don&#8217;t understand that that person who hurt us was working with the best tools they had.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">We can&#8217;t see it. We don&#8217;t offer it. We can&#8217;t even imagine anything but the story. We are comfortable with that. We expect that we have drilled into ourselves for our whole lives. Yeah. That&#8217;s why I tell this riddle, that&#8217;s why there&#8217;s that optical illusion in the book to show people how you cannot trust what your brain tells you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Right. Seeing is not believing. Right. That in fact, believing is seeing. Yeah, I&#8217;ve heard that and I was like, I, I get it, but I&#8217;m always. Sort of aware of like the skeptic who&#8217;s gonna be like, oh, that&#8217;s really woo woo, but it&#8217;s not. And I really appreciate it&#8217;s, it felt like I actually saw your presentation with Aliya do earlier in the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Oh, so good. And I walked away from [00:30:00] that presentation thinking that you made such a good. Practical, logical case on, you know, that you know, feelings aren&#8217;t facts. Beliefs aren&#8217;t facts, and that we actually have the ability to start changing some of that so that we can have different experiences. Yeah. Now let me share with you, I think the, the piece of, of feedback that I got from that session, and this is probably the most common piece of, of pushback that I get, that many times I hear that people say, well, you know, you&#8217;re saying beliefs are tools, not truths.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Aren&#8217;t you just telling me to gaslight myself? Like that person who hurt me. Yeah. That like, that person who hurt me, really hurt me, or that thing that happened to me really happened to me and Oh, okay. That I, I&#8217;m not arguing with that. Right. Like, whatever you think happened, you know, I&#8217;m, I&#8217;m not, I&#8217;m not, I don&#8217;t know you, I don&#8217;t know what, what happened to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Right. I will tell you this, however, that you&#8217;re already lying to yourself. We are already gaslighting [00:31:00] ourself. You just don&#8217;t realize it. Yeah. Yes. You&#8217;re gaslighting yourself with your BA past beliefs. Yeah, that don&#8217;t let you see a present reality. I&#8217;ll tell you one thing, your memory is definitely not what you think it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">We know that memory is incredibly, uh, open to revision, that every time you think of a memory that you are definitely, definitely sure happened. The way you remembered it, you are actually revising that me memory every single time. Elizabeth Loftus did this amazing studies where she implanted memories in people and 30% of them had these memories where they were.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Absolutely sure that they were on a, uh, hot air balloon ride, and they remember the wind blowing past them. They remember exactly what they wore. They had these vivid memories that did not happen. And so even when we have these past traumas, these past events that we are convinced, oh, oh, here&#8217;s another great example.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You probably remember this from the book. My friend Chris, my friend Chris told me as I, you know, we, we had coffee together a bunch. Uh, and, and I told him about the book I was writing and, and my [00:32:00] research and, um. He tells me, you know, actually what that reminds me of is the fact that I can&#8217;t cry. He says, you know, I went when I was a kid, I went to a funeral.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And that funeral was of a cousin, and I think I was like six years old. And uh, ever since that funeral, I decided I would never cry again because it was so painful, it was so traumatic. I decided I was never gonna cry again. And I went through relationship after relationship, girlfriend after girlfriend, who would break up with me because I wasn&#8217;t emotionally available, that when we were having tough times, I was stoic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I couldn&#8217;t cry. And then he told me, I told this to my sister a few weeks ago. And I told her about how this was a real problem in my relationships, that I couldn&#8217;t seem to hold down a relationship because I couldn&#8217;t cry because of this funeral I&#8217;d went to. And his sister turn turns to him and says, Chris, and this is his older sister.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">His older sister I think was maybe 10 years older, much older sister. And she says, Chris, I remember that funeral. You weren&#8217;t there. Mom and dad thought you couldn&#8217;t handle it, and they left you at [00:33:00] home with the babysitter. And he realizes this and he tells me the story and he&#8217;s like, I was, I had built an identity based on what I thought had happened to me, that I had reinforced time and time again.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Every time I couldn&#8217;t cry, I was seeing this memory in my head until it became to me a fact, but it wasn&#8217;t a fact. It was a belief. And when he realized, wait a minute, this belief is a tool not a truth. And even if you are absolutely sure that something happened to you and it&#8217;s very terrible. Absolutely trauma happens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Terrible things happen all the time to people. Yeah. You don&#8217;t have this, the luxury of fixing what happened to you in the past. That&#8217;s done. But we always have the luxury of changing how we perceive our suffering and asking ourselves, is it helping us or is it hurting us? Right. I love the, uh, story that you told in the book about how you changed your relationship with your mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And I think it, it was so powerful because one of the, um, you know, one of the three big problems people [00:34:00] have, uh, repeating patterns is. Is in relationships and family relationships, especially like if you&#8217;re overcoming addiction, you know, trying to heal those relationships can be really painful. You know, people do really have like a lot of trauma and, you know, that&#8217;s oftentimes, but, um, can you tell this story about your, your mom and the flowers?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And what, what&#8217;s interesting, particularly when it comes to, um, when people are struggling with compulsive behaviors is. Many of these, uh, impulses, they&#8217;re not a character flaw. They&#8217;re not a moral, certainly not a moral failing, right? They&#8217;re an impulse control issue. A, it&#8217;s that we have these, these uncomfortable sensations and we are looking for relief.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And the brain will go back to relief. Whether that&#8217;s too much news, too much booze, too much football, too much Facebook, we&#8217;re gonna find relief somewhere if it&#8217;s made us feel better before any analgesic, any analgesic, anything that [00:35:00] cures pain is potentially addictive. Yeah. If it provides relief, it&#8217;s amazing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Mine is too much information. What&#8217;s that? Mine&#8217;s too much information. I&#8217;m a self-help junkie. Okay. Yeah. Anything can, can be, can be, uh, yeah. A a, uh, something that we get addicted to. Yeah. Um, that, that, and, and what&#8217;s amazing is that we oftentimes find that people who are struggling with impulse control, when they figure out how to deal with the pain of one area of their life, all of a sudden the compulsions get better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">They&#8217;re not looking to escape. They don&#8217;t have those feelings. They don&#8217;t know how to deal with, they don&#8217;t know how to deal with that, that, that, that guilt, the shame, the un discomfort. Yeah, I gotta get outta here. I gotta feel something different. And so they don&#8217;t turn to those, uh, analgesics to cure their pain the way they did before in a harmful way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Mm-hmm. So I think that&#8217;s why one of the best. Ways to, to deal with impulses that, that don&#8217;t serve us is to deal with the underlying issues. And so many times, most of the time, I would dare say it&#8217;s about relationships. It&#8217;s about, yeah, [00:36:00] one thing or another that something somebody did to us, or we are afraid we did to somebody else that haunts us, that that hurts us and we look for escape with whatever substance or be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So I&#8217;ll give you this anecdote. Uh, now it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s, uh, it, it&#8217;s, it&#8217;s the level I&#8217;m willing to go into in terms of like, it seems like a very PG example, but let&#8217;s just leave it there because I wanted to make something that everybody could relate to what happened. It&#8217;s actually, to be fair, and I&#8217;m a mom, it is a really important example though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Because I, I mean, we, we love our parents so much. Yeah. And I had some issues with my mom and after reading this story and, and how you interpret, by the way, you do talk about the work. I don&#8217;t, hopefully I&#8217;m not ruining your story, but, um. That the way that you described how to use it, and I&#8217;m sure he&#8217;ll talk about it, I was like, oh, I finally get it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Like, it was like, okay. Okay. I had, yeah. So anyway, go ahead. Sorry to interrupt. Great. Yeah, so I&#8217;ll, I&#8217;ll, I&#8217;ll share what happened. So here&#8217;s what happened. So my mom had her 74th birthday and I wanted to do something nice for her. [00:37:00] And so what did I do? I, I wanted to buy her some flowers. Now she was in central Florida where I grew up and I was in Singapore, and, uh, I decided to look, I&#8217;m gonna do, I&#8217;m doing something nice for her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I&#8217;m gonna make sure I call the florist. I&#8217;m gonna make sure I research, you know, the best Google reviews. I&#8217;m gonna make sure that I found the right one. I, I stayed up till one in the morning ensuring that this florist was going to deliver those flowers exactly as I had ordered them. I go to sleep 1:00 AM I pat myself on the back, said near, you&#8217;re a good son.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Good job. I wake up the next day and I call my mom and I say, mom, happy birthday. Did you get the flowers? And she said, yes, I did. Thank you very much for sending them. But just so you know, the flowers arrived half dead and I wouldn&#8217;t order from that florist again. To which I said something like, well, that&#8217;s the last time I buy you flowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And that went over just about as well as you&#8217;d expect, not so good. So after the call, my wife turned to me and she said, would you like to do a turnaround on this? To which I said no, [00:38:00] I would not like to be around to this. I don&#8217;t want your hocus pocus, touchy feely mumbo jumbo. I want to vent. No, because yeah, venting is what you&#8217;re supposed to do when someone pisses you off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You can&#8217;t keep those feelings inside. You have to let them out. Let off steam. Tell people how you really. Yeah. Turns out that is terrible advice. I know. And when you vent, you do nothing but reinforce this image, this effigy of other people. So the more you talk badly about somebody, you are reinforcing how you see them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Because we don&#8217;t see reality as it is. We don&#8217;t see people as they are. We see our beliefs about people, and this is why a lot of times, you know, it&#8217;s amazing. I have, I have many good friends. I&#8217;m not gonna mention them by name of course, but I have many good friends who are such sweethearts. Nicest people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Amazing. And then you watch them around their, their spouse and kids. They&#8217;re terrible. They&#8217;re so mean to the people who are most important to them, but to a stranger, oh, how you doing? You&#8217;re having a good day. Yep. To their kids and to their spouse. They treat them like [00:39:00] garbage. Yeah. Because they don&#8217;t see these people as they really are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">They see them as they believe they are, or, yeah. Much more common. They see them as they are, oh, this is all the way back from the Talmud, that we don&#8217;t see things as they are. We see ourselves. We see them as we are. Right. So that&#8217;s a whole nother line of thinking. But anyway, back to the story of my mom. So, um, I, I didn&#8217;t vent and instead I did, uh, I did the work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">This comes from the work of Byron Katie, who I greatly admire. So I can&#8217;t take credit for, for this technique. I&#8217;ve altered it a bit, but she&#8217;s basically channeled a technique that&#8217;s 2,500 years old. It&#8217;s all the way back to Aristotle, this technique of doing what&#8217;s called a turnaround, as she calls it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Mm-hmm. Now, a turnaround starts with asking yourself four very simple questions. The first question is to look at your belief. To write it down and ask yourself, is it true? So my belief was my mother is too judgmental and hard to please. Okay, back me up here. Okay, is that true? Clearly, my mother was [00:40:00] too judgmental and hard to please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That is a stupid question, right? Like, let&#8217;s skip that. Question number two. Let&#8217;s go on to number two. Question number two is, is it absolutely true? Sounds like the first question. Is it true? Second question, is it absolutely true? Keyword being absolutely, absolutely meaning all the time with that exception, not any circumstance where it could be anything, but what I believe that my mother is too judgemental and hard to please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Well, absolutely means there&#8217;s no potential. Other explanation cannot be not even a 1% chance, okay? I had to admit maybe it&#8217;s not absolutely true that maybe she was. Telling me a statement of fact, right? She, she, she was just saying the flowers didn&#8217;t look so good, right? Does that mean she was being judgemental and hard to please?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Maybe not. I don&#8217;t know. Maybe not. Maybe. Okay, so I, I, I, I, I let in a tiny crack of daylight to say maybe there&#8217;s an alternative explanation. I don&#8217;t have to believe that. Just affirming it may not a hundred percent be true in all circumstances, that she was too [00:41:00] judgmental and hard to please. Now, the third question, who am I when I hold onto that belief?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">When I believe that my mother is too judgmental and hard to please, how do I feel? Who do I become? Well, I&#8217;m short tempered. I am, I say things I regret. I&#8217;m impatient, and I, I&#8217;m not myself. I don&#8217;t feel proud of what I said to her. Hmm. Now, the fourth question, who would I be without that belief? Well, if I had some kind of magic wand and poof, I could let that belief disappear, I&#8217;d be at peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I would be so angry at her. I would be more myself. So that&#8217;s the four questions. What do we determine the four questions in about 30 seconds? I determined that this belief may not be true. I determined that it wasn&#8217;t serving me, it wasn&#8217;t making me feel good, and three, that I&#8217;d be much better off with without it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Okay, now that sets the stage for the turnaround. Now the turnaround, the [00:42:00] point of the turnaround is not to change your mind. It&#8217;s not to change your belief. You don&#8217;t have to change your belief about anything. All you&#8217;re doing is collecting a portfolio of perspectives, other viewpoints, which may offer you insight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That&#8217;s it. You don&#8217;t have to change your mind. You&#8217;re just collecting options like baseball cards. You&#8217;re just collecting options. So the first belief was my mother&#8217;s too judgmental and hard to please. Okay? That&#8217;s the first belief. Let&#8217;s see if we can do a turnaround and collect other beliefs. What&#8217;s the opposite?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Of that belief, my mother is too judgmental and hard to please. And this is, this is very difficult for folks because they don&#8217;t like the, the brain has what we call an a psychological immune system. It&#8217;s called an immunity to change. So just as if you had an infection in your finger, right? Let&#8217;s say you had a splinter, the body&#8217;s gonna fight to get that splinter out by creating an infection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Your mind has the same mechanism. Your mind wants to reject any belief that you don&#8217;t currently have. It really hates it. Okay, so you&#8217;re gonna feel uncomfortable here. That&#8217;s okay. There&#8217;s nothing wrong with feeling un discomfort. It&#8217;s [00:43:00] okay. So what&#8217;s the opposite of my mother is too judgmental and hard to please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">My mother is not too judgmental and hard to please. Could that be true? Now that&#8217;s my job. Could could that be true? Is there any possible explanation of how she wasn&#8217;t actually being judgmental and hard to please? Was there another reason? Maybe she just didn&#8217;t want me to get scammed. Maybe she was trying to be helpful and not hurtful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Is it true? Is it not? I don&#8217;t know. I don&#8217;t care. Beliefs are tools, not truths. Mm. The third, third belief, this is called a turnaround to the self. My mother&#8217;s too hard. Too judgmental and hard to please. Let&#8217;s turn that around. I am too judgmental and hard to please. How could that be true? Ouch. No. Yeah. Ouch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Exactly. I I didn&#8217;t say this is easy. Yeah, yeah. But how could, again, I don&#8217;t have to believe it, right. But how could it be true that I, not my mom, but I was being too judgmental and hard to please? Well, when my mom [00:44:00] didn&#8217;t say thank you in exactly the way that I had scripted in my brain that she was supposed to say thank you in exactly the words that I wanted and effusively praising me for being such a good son, I lost it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah. So who was being judgmental? I was judging her reaction. I wanted her to, to thank me in a way that I had prescripted and it didn&#8217;t come. Yeah. And so now I was mad. Yeah. So I was being judgmental. Okay, here&#8217;s another turnaround. I am too judgmental and hard to please towards myself. Ooh. Yeah, exactly right.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Wow. How could that be a, yeah, double. Ouch. How could that possibly be true? Well, the more I thought about it. I realized that this was an example of something that I had put a lot of work into and it didn&#8217;t work out. And so when those flowers didn&#8217;t arrive the way I had planned them to, what did that say about me?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Now I felt incompetent. Now I [00:45:00] felt, uh, inferior. Now I felt like I had screwed up. Like that was my fault somehow. Yeah, and this is called a misattribution of emotion. We do this all the time. When we feel crummy, we look for the first person we can find. Whether it&#8217;s our family, whether it&#8217;s our political opposition, whether it&#8217;s whoever, a stranger, someone cuts us off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Oh. And we hate that person because we feel crappy about ourselves. Right? Yeah. It&#8217;s the oldest trick in the book. This is why bullies are bullies. Yeah, and that&#8217;s what I was doing that because I was mad that I had messed up. Somehow she deserved blame that she was judging me. Now, four beliefs now. Okay.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Four different beliefs. I&#8217;ve collected a portfolio. Which one is true? All of them. None of them who cares? It doesn&#8217;t matter. Beliefs are tools, not truth. We get so fixated on Yeah, but that&#8217;s not true. Mm mm-hmm It doesn&#8217;t matter which one serves [00:46:00] me. I&#8217;ll tell you what. The first one only had one way out because that first belief, my mother is too judgmental and hard to please, demanded that she change so I could be happy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That&#8217;s what we all do, right? We all do that. That ain&#8217;t gonna happen. It ain&#8217;t gonna happen because she&#8217;s got her own perceptual lens. She&#8217;s got her own simulation that she&#8217;s running in her brain on why she&#8217;s right, and that&#8217;s the only tool she&#8217;s got. She can&#8217;t get into my head and see my perspective. It ain&#8217;t gonna happen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">So by me insisting my mother&#8217;s too judgmental and hard to please, the only way I&#8217;m gonna be happy is if she changes. I&#8217;m stuck. Yeah, I&#8217;m miserable, I&#8217;m impatient. I&#8217;m not myself. I&#8217;m suffering. Yeah. Whereas the other three perspectives give me peace. Give me peace of mind. Yeah. I can do something about those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I can realize that I don&#8217;t have to blame her anymore. Now, it doesn&#8217;t mean I have to, you know, vacation with her. It doesn&#8217;t mean I have to be best friends with her. It doesn&#8217;t mean I have to even forgive her. None of that. I&#8217;m not talking about any of that. Right. All it means is [00:47:00] I can get peace of mind to be who I want to be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">To live the kind of life I want and I don&#8217;t have to suffer anymore. That&#8217;s what this whole process is about. Yeah. And that&#8217;s really operating from first principles, you know, like what is it that I really want? And, and I feel like ultimately at the end of the day, we all wanna have peace at, you know, all the things that we do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And that sort of speaks to the human nature of wanting to avoid things that are uncomfortable. But it&#8217;s so interesting the way you&#8217;re able to. You&#8217;re like, you&#8217;re like this denial ninja. You know? It&#8217;s like the way that you&#8217;re able to like break down these walls that we have that we&#8217;re fighting against in such a, um, practical, logical way that like, you don&#8217;t get to defensive about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Mm mm Right. I think that, I think that&#8217;s really what&#8217;s so powerful about how you&#8217;re laying all of this out is that you kind of. [00:48:00] Break down the denials, break through our own mental constructs, and we can go back to operating from first principles. &#8217;cause Yeah. You know, um, this whole idea of wanting other people to change so that we can feel better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">I feel like that&#8217;s sort of at the core of like, the discourse that we have. I mean, listen, it&#8217;s so true. I don&#8217;t even wanna say the p word, the political word, but it&#8217;s like, yeah. That&#8217;s sort of at the, the crux of this whole thing is all these mental constructs that we have and we just can&#8217;t even see the forest for the trees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">It&#8217;s so true and we, we think that anything that causes us pain. Is their fault is something else is doing it to, even if it&#8217;s a attribution of emotion. That&#8217;s right. That&#8217;s right. And that&#8217;s why I think it&#8217;s so important to separate pain from suffering. Yeah. And sometimes that pain can come within our own bodies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Right? Yeah. And that&#8217;s what we blame. That&#8217;s why, that&#8217;s why a lot of people, you know, in, in, in mental health, we don&#8217;t call people addicts anymore. Uh, we used to, we don&#8217;t call [00:49:00] people addicts anymore because that, that denotes an identity. Right. Right. An identity is something you are not something Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That you are struggling with. And that&#8217;s really harmful to think of yourself as, oh, I am an addict and this is who I am. It&#8217;s coming from my genes and this is inevitable. There&#8217;s nothing I can do about it. &#8217;cause guess what? When you give up your agency, you don&#8217;t do anything about it. You&#8217;re there&#8217;s, it&#8217;s impossible because you Why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Because you don&#8217;t believe you can. So you don&#8217;t even try. &#8217;cause you don&#8217;t believe you can. Yeah. That&#8217;s actually a nice segue. I know we have about 10 minutes. I didn&#8217;t ask you if you had a hard stop, but. Yeah, at the top of the hours, that would be perfect. Okay. Okay. Um, this is a good segue to agency the power to do what you believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And I&#8217;m looking at your, um, book, how to Take Control of your Life, even when it&#8217;s Impossible. Um, believe You have Control even when you don&#8217;t. Talk to me a little bit about what&#8217;s important, h how do we get to the place of having agency? So, uh, a agency is the ability to do. What you say you&#8217;re [00:50:00] going to do, do, do as you believe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And so our limiting beliefs sap that motivation. They sap our ability to do what we say we&#8217;re gonna do versus our liberating beliefs. Give us more agency. And I think one of the misconceptions we have is that chaos. Causes pain and pain causes suffering. And, and a lot of times that chaos, uh, comes from, from trying to handle too much or, or do too much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And, uh, a lot of times that, that, that causes nothing more, but more suffering. And so the solution, some people would say, well, do less say no to things, right? Like, uh, essentialism. Yeah. Essentialism. Exactly, and I&#8217;m not, I, I don&#8217;t know if I buy it. I don&#8217;t buy it. I&#8217;ll tell you why I don&#8217;t buy it. It goes all the way back to Schopenhauer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Schopenhauer said the philosopher, he said, life is that which fights entropy. Life is that which fights entropy? Yes. That the very definition of what does it mean to live, to be a living organism is that you are fighting the [00:51:00] inevitable heat death of the universe. That everything will eventually disintegrate to dust, everything will become chaos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Everything, uh, is, it will become entropy. So the, a living organism tries to arrange things to fight chaos. That is what you are doing by being alive. So if you look at a coral reef and all the intricacies or a honeycomb with those perfect hexagons, or you know, the, the how organisms arrange themselves in order, that should not exist in the universe.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And yet we do. And so the fact that you are struggling, the fact that something is hard, the fact that you keep waiting for some imaginary perfect day to come, which never will, there will always be chaos because that is what it means to be alive. Mm. This signifies the miracle of your existence. Thank God or whatever force you believe in, the, the, the, the miracle of evolution, let&#8217;s call it, that&#8217;s what you believe in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Or if you have some kind of spiritual practice, how amazing it is it that you even get to fight entropy [00:52:00] in the first place. That you even have the luxury of chaos because the alternative is lights out. Right. Is never being born in the first place. Yeah. So I think to me that that&#8217;s just one of those.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Simple secular prayers that I keep repeating to myself that life is that which fights entropy, that the fact that I&#8217;m struggling means I&#8217;m alive. Yeah. I&#8217;ll stop struggling when I&#8217;m dead. Right. Struggle. Struggle should be celebrated. And so most of my day, like we do, like all these turnarounds that I do, and I, I do these turnarounds like 10 times a day with different things whenever I&#8217;m trying to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">When, whenever I&#8217;m trying to will things to change that I can&#8217;t now, it&#8217;s very important to know that things you can change, that, that&#8217;s what agency is all about. But it&#8217;s also about understanding that you don&#8217;t have to suffer from the things that you can&#8217;t change. You can&#8217;t change, you know, my mom&#8217;s reaction, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You can&#8217;t change the past, past already happened. Yeah. Um, so those type of things is where we wanna assert what we can change and what we can change. Now there&#8217;s a concept that&#8217;s very important to understand called the locus of control. [00:53:00] Locus of control. There&#8217;s two kinds of locus of control. There is an external locus of control, and then there&#8217;s an internal locus of control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">External locus of control has to do with people who believe that things happen to them. It&#8217;s where I was born. It&#8217;s the economy, it&#8217;s the political situation, it&#8217;s what, whatever that&#8217;s tends to be what? What controls my life are things outside of me. People with an internal locus of control tend to believe that they can exert.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Uh, meaningful action on their environment. So one is the environment controls me. One is me. I control the environment. Now, there isn&#8217;t one right way to be. However, we do know that even if you are at the bottom of the barrel, even if socioeconomically you are disadvantaged, even if you are struggling, even if the cards are stacked against you, it turns out statistically you will do better in life, live longer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Healthier, make more money, have more friends, contribute more to your community when you have an internal locus of control. Mm-hmm. So again, beliefs are [00:54:00] tools, not truths, believing you have agency, believing you have control, believing you can change your environment, makes you better off in every conceivable way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">However, when it comes to how you view other people. Not so good to have an internal locus of control that you wanna have an internal locus of control, of your own behavior, but that assume others will act based on what happens to them. Mm-hmm. That when that person cuts you off in traffic, maybe they&#8217;re rushing to their hospital because their parent is, is in critical condition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Maybe, uh, you know that that person who annoys you for, for whatever reason, you want to give them what&#8217;s called the benefit of the doubt. The benefit of the doubt. In fact, this is how I measure love. That I think it&#8217;s an important, like, uh, well, again, one of these reminders that I tell myself throughout the day, love is measured by the benefit of the doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Mm. That you can tell who you love most based on who you give the most benefit of the doubt that, that&#8217;s how we measure love. What does that mean? You know, when my daughter was born, [00:55:00] I remember, um, the day I held her, my life changed because I, I held this, this little bundle of pudge and everything changed in my brain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah. And I gave her all the benefit of the doubt. Now. Do. I love her because she made me feel good. She cried and she pooped and she peed and she needed to be fed all the time, and like she didn&#8217;t. She wasn&#8217;t like, it wasn&#8217;t hedonic. It wasn&#8217;t like, oh my God, this feels amazing. It&#8217;s that I loved her so much because I gave her ultimate benefit of the doubt that when she cried, I didn&#8217;t say, how come you&#8217;re crying?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">That&#8217;s so annoying. No, that&#8217;s the only tool she had. All she can do when she needs something is to cry. That&#8217;s the only tool now. Yeah. What happens when we grow up? We&#8217;re all just babies, right? We&#8217;ve all just grown up babies. That&#8217;s the truth. And yet, when we grow up, now, if you do something I don&#8217;t like, you&#8217;re trying to annoy me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Why? Because we&#8217;ve lost expectations. Doubt. Yeah. We&#8217;ve lost that benefit of the doubt. And so we wanna assume for others, assume [00:56:00] external locus of control. Assume you know, just like that baby can&#8217;t do anything but cry. It&#8217;s the only tool she has. Same with everybody. Everybody&#8217;s just operating on the best tools they have, and so we should give them the benefit of doubt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Doesn&#8217;t mean we have to be around them. Doesn&#8217;t mean we have to forgive them, doesn&#8217;t mean we have to be chummy, chummy with them. Yeah. It just means that we, we can gain greater peace when we give them the bene benefit of the doubt. Yeah. I noticed you actually have an exercise in the book that&#8217;s like, what are three alternate um, explanations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">And I think that is such an important practice when dealing with challenging people is to constantly remind yourself what are three alternate explanations of why they&#8217;re being this way. And like you said, if you give them the benefit of the doubt, you tend to be more gracious and generous, and it does change how we feel about them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Right, right. And again, I, I wanna emphasize, I&#8217;m not saying. That you need to accept everything about people, right? If someone is harming [00:57:00] you, you need to get outta that situation. I&#8217;m not, that&#8217;s not what I&#8217;m advocating for, right? I&#8217;m helping people do what, what I&#8217;ve learned to do, which is gain greater peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Whether you wanna be around them or not is a separate decision, and that&#8217;s a different discussion. It&#8217;s about how do you feel when you&#8217;re around them, or how do you feel when you think about them? Are you suffering or are you at peace? Yeah. I love that we only have a couple more minutes. Was there anything I didn&#8217;t ask you that I, that I should have or any parting comments?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Obviously, I&#8217;m gonna leave links to the book and all the things in the show notes, but was there anything I missed? Is there anything that you want to Oh, this was fun. I, I, I enjoy the conversation and, uh, I just want people to remember that they&#8217;re capable of way more than they think. Remember those rats who swam for 60 hours instead of just 15 minutes?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Yeah. You&#8217;re just scratching the surface. You can do so much more than you think you&#8217;re capable of if you have that belief. Yeah. So powerful. Um, thank you so much for your time [00:58:00] today. It was such an honor. I, I, I&#8217;m really my pleasure. Uh, I really appreciate your work. Thank you for doing all the interpreting that, uh, that we need to really start.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">You know, taking action on the things that we, that we actually know to do that will change our lives. And we&#8217;ll have six pack abs and be billionaires or just be a piece that&#8217;s cool too. Or, or that it&#8217;s better. I know a lot of billionaires. I know some not a lot. I know some billionaires. Yeah. And I know a lot of people with six pack abs, some of them aren&#8217;t so at peace I&#8217;d rather take the peace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"\">Me too. Me too. Well, thank you so much for this and uh, congratulations on such an amazing, another amazing book. Thank you so much. Such a pleasure. Thank you.<br><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the most frustrating experiences in life is knowing exactly what to do, but still not doing it. 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