Full Mindset Guide: How to Rewire Your Brain After Trauma

Hey everybody, Brad Schipke here, and in this video I'm going to walk you through the first pillar of PTSD and trauma recovery and why it is the most important and foundational piece to healing. And if you don't have this in place, if you don't have this locked in and mastered, it could be the reason why you're stuck on your recovery. It's actually probably the reason why you're stuck on your recovery, or it might be the reason why you haven't even started at all. So it's vital that you get this first pillar locked in place. It is the foundation for everything that moves forward in recovery. So, what are the 3 pillars? There are 3 pillars in total. The 3rd pillar is processing trauma. So it's the actual deep, dark work that you do to heal the root cause of the trauma. The 2nd pillar is habits and routines, so the habitual actions that you take. And the 1st and most important pillar is mindset. Now, when I say mindset, a lot of different things could come to your mind, right? For me, I didn't even know what mindset was for the longest time. It took me a long time to really break it down to its first principles and fully understand what mindset was. Because it's a buzzword nowadays. Like, people say, work on your mindset, you need to master your mindset. And well, what the heck does that mean, right? So what I'm gonna do in this video is I'm gonna actually break down exactly what mindset is. You have a clear understanding of what mindset is from a first principle basis, so you know where mindset comes from, so that you'll be able to see everything, see how a mindset is built up, and then see how you can actually influence your mindset and the different things you can do there. I'm also going to walk you through 7 tips on how to master your mindset, how to bring this into your life. really, really master this and the big, big levers that you can pull to really transform your mindset from an automatic negative mindset to an automatic positive mindset. And that's really the goal here, is to switch from that— a mind that is completely negative, hopeless, doesn't believe in yourself— to one that is automatically on your side, positive, looking for the best in every situation, looking for how you can do things instead of how you can't do things and all the reasons why you can't. So that's what we're gonna be walking through this video, and you wanna make sure to stick to the end to grab those tips. But what Before I dive in, I wanna tell you a story, 'cause it really iterates how important mindset is, and it's the tale of the 2 brothers. So there were 2 twin brothers whose father was an alcoholic, abusive, drug addict, like the worst. It was very bad, not a very good father. And so they both had the same upbringing, they both had the same initial conditions coming into this life, right? One brother, one twin brother, ended up exactly like his father. He was a drug addict, alcoholic, Couldn't have a successful relationship, things like that. The other brother, on the other hand, was successful. He had a successful marriage, he had a successful career, he wasn't a drug addict, right? So he had a family. So, 2 brothers going through the exact same childhood had 2 vastly different, and you could say polar opposite, experiences or results from that initial condition. And why is that? Well, when the brothers were asked, why? Why did you end up this way? They both had the exact same answer, which was, with a father like that, what else could I become? So the lesson, the lesson that I pull from that, is that it's not our past that dictates our life. It's how we interpret the past. So the one brother who ended up exactly like his father, he interpreted his past as the reason to why he ended up that way. Right? Viewing it as a reason to turn himself into a victim and end up exactly like his father. Whereas the other brother did the same thing but in a different way. He looked at his father and he looked at his father as the reason to why he would be a success, to why he wouldn't end up like him. So that story to me is very motivational. It can— it really draws out the two nice polar or binary kind of poles and directions that we can go in in life. It's like we can look at our past and have the mindset of like, this is why I am— this is why I'm so broken, right? So we can use our past as a reason to prove why things in our life are so bad, or we can use our past as a reason to prove why our life is so good. And the only difference is our interpretation, and our interpretation is a choice. Right? So that, I love that story, but what is mindset exactly, right? So like when you say mindset, like I say mindset, like I said before, it's a buzzword, a lot of people say it, but what exactly is it? So if I break it down here, if at the top I put mindset, what is mindset, right? So we ask, what is mindset? Well, when I went through my thinking, I was like, okay, well mindset is a belief system. Right? So a whole system. So it is, it is the beliefs that you hold. And what is a belief system, right? It's just a collection of beliefs, right? So you have your mindset, which is just another way to say that is your belief system. What is a belief system? It's just a collection of singular beliefs. So it's a bunch of singular, singular beliefs that you have that work in harmony to create a specific outcome and help you live your life. And what is your collection of beliefs, or your beliefs? It is just your— what I said before— your interpretations. It's how you interpret the past, right? So it's how you interpret your experiences, right? So you have experiences in your life, and then you're the one who interprets those experiences, which then dictates your beliefs. Which then creates your belief system, which then creates your mindset. Now, what are interpretations? What's another way you could say interpretations? Thoughts, right? So if we break things down to 5 different levels here, your mindset is a belief system, which is just a collection of singular beliefs, and those beliefs are just interpretations of your experiences, and those interpretations are just thoughts. So when you really break down mindset, and you look at the different elements of what creates a mindset, or your mindset, the thing I like to think about, it's your belief system, it's your beliefs, and how do you change that? How do you influence those beliefs? At a base level, it really comes down to your thoughts. What are you thinking? How are you interpreting your life experiences? How are you interpreting your past? How are you interpreting your mornings? Or morning so far, it's morning for me. How are you interpreting your day? How are you interpreting every single event that happens into your life? Do you see it as a bad thing? Do you see it as a good thing? Do you see it as a reason for why things are so bad in your life, or do you see it as a reason for why you can be so grateful for everything that you have in your life? Like, I can look around my room right now and I'm just like, this is amazing. Human beings, we were just thrown onto this planet with absolutely nothing. We were like an animal. We were like every other animal, every other species of animal out there, right? No technology, no dwellings, like nothing. None of this. No internet, no cameras. And human beings just existed. We are so Brilliant. You are so brilliant. The brilliance that has been imbued in you since the beginning of time is so incredible that human beings can just be plopped onto a planet and we, given enough enough time, we create all of these amazing impossible things. Like the internet is like it's impossible. Like electricity, like lighting. It's like it's impossible. Like how does that even work? It doesn't make sense. Wireless technology, like, it doesn't make sense. Like, tell somebody 10,000 years ago that we're gonna have all this and they're gonna be like, you're insane, you're a witch, we're going to kill you. So like, you can use whatever experience that you have in your life. The way that you interpret it determines your beliefs, determines your mindset, and then your mindset determines your life. And this really is the foundation of recovery. So like I say, mindset is the first pillar and it's the most important pillar. And I mean that, because without a solid mindset, you won't be able to stay consistent and have and build successful habits and routines. And if you can't, you know, have a positive mindset and have successful habits and routines, you will not be able to be consistent with your processing. And you'll probably just beat yourself. You'll look at your past and you'll be like, holy crap, this is a lot. You won't be able to view it with the proper mindset in order to properly process it. And without this first pillar in place, like if you're not thinking correctly, you could go into processing, you can go into therapy or whatever modality or whatever you choose to do, You could go in to process your past and actually re-traumatize yourself and re-hurt yourself because you didn't get the first, you didn't get the foundations right, right? So these build on top of each other and the first one is literally the most important. So when we're talking about mindset, what is the goal, right? So something I like to think about and the goal that I like to think about personally is like, I want to build an automatic positive mindset. Right, so I wanna be where I can go into, like, it doesn't matter what situation I go in, it doesn't matter if I'm thrown into, you know, a jail cell or wherever it is, it's like, I wanna be able to see the positive, I wanna be able to see the good, I wanna work with reality instead of working against it. I wanna focus on how I can do things, how I can solve problems instead of all the reasons why I can't solve problems or why I'm not good enough. It's like, I wanna have that automatic positive mindset. One of my favorite examples of that is a man named Viktor Frankl, which you probably have heard of, pretty famous guy. He was in Nazi Germany, he was a Jew in Nazi Germany, went to Auschwitz, went through the whole concentration camp, had a positive mindset through it, was able to make people laugh in the concentration camp, and then came back and educated and used that experience to help People going through problems, created his own type of therapy, logotherapy, and ended up using that terrible experience to help people find joy not only in that experience but also then afterwards used it as a reason to go out and help more people. So then I think, if Viktor Frankl can do that, if Viktor Frankl can literally be in Nazi Germany as a Jew, go through concentration camps, be positive in the concentration camps, and I'm sitting here in all of my, you know, all of this luxury that I have. And that's the way that I see it, you know, like I'm not, you know, millionaire, billionaire, but I like one— another one of my favorite quotes is from Warren Buffett, and he said, um, the average person today lives better than John D. Rockefeller did, you know, back in the late 1800s, right? So the richest man in the world, right? The average person today is living better has more luxury items than the richest man in the world did 100 years ago. It's like incredible. And yet, what do we focus on? We focus on what we don't have. We focus on the lack. We focus on all of the negative bad things that are happening. We are totally immune because just our way of thinking and our interpretations of reality and life is off. Our mindset is off. Our belief system's off. Our thoughts are off. We're not seeing the good, we're focusing on the bad. And that's nothing— has nothing to do with the external experience. I mean, obviously the external influences the internal, but it's all an internal game. It's up to each and every one of us to change those thoughts, to change our belief system, to see the good, to choose to see the good, to choose to be a positive force in life. And to me, Viktor Frankl is just like, there's no excuse to not do this for yourself. It doesn't matter what situation you're in, you can find good. And that's why I love his story, and that's why I love extreme stories like that, because it just puts everything into perspective, at least for me. I see that, I'm like, there's no excuse, Brad. Why are you complaining about being tired? It's like, think about Viktor Frankl when he was in the concentration camp, getting up and making people laugh. It's like, dang. It's like, well, that's the guy I wanna be. That's the guy I wanna be like. So that's the goal that I want to achieve, or I strive for, and that's the goal that I strive all of, or I urge all of our clients to strive for. Is to build an automatic positive mindset. And a great way to think about it, because it doesn't just happen overnight, it's a process, right? You're going to have to work at this. If you've been drilling in the negative for years or decades, it's going to take time to switch that mindset over to a positive mindset. It's not just gonna happen overnight. You're not just gonna wanna have one positive thought and everything's gonna shift. You have momentum going down this negative path, and that's okay. That's where most people actually start. That's where I started. But knowing that you're starting there is actually important so that you can know what to expect along your journey, that it's not going to be perfect, it's not going to be instant, it's going to take some effort to make that switch. But there's going to be a tipping point to where your effort starts to pay off and things start to become easier. Instead of having to force the positive into your life, it's going to start coming more naturally. And a good visual to think about this is like the neuroplasticity in your brain. So if you go down the negative path again and again and again and again, you strengthen the habit, you strengthen that neural pathway in your mind of being— of going down that negative path. So when you go into a situation, your mind, since that's the strongest path, automatically starts to go down that negative path, right? So if you think of that, just negative, positive, I want you to think about these black lines here as a thread connecting the neural pathway in your mind, right? So in the beginning, when you're first starting your journey, it's likely 'Cause this is where most people start, this is where I personally started, that the negative here is going to have a lot more connections than the positive, right? So you might have been working on this, you know, this negative pathway for years, decades, or your entire life. But when you are approached with a decision, right? So if you have a decision to go down the negative or go down the positive, and you don't use your force of will to choose, You're automatically going to go down the easiest path, which is the one that you've gone down the most. And that's the only thing. Like, that's it. It's like, the path that's the easiest is the one that you've gone down the most. Habitually in your mind, consciously or not. And that's the kind of challenge here, or the problem that a lot of people face too, is that since you're not aware of the thoughts that you're having, you're not consciously making decisions on how you're interpreting things or the thoughts that you're having, so you go down what's the easiest path, right? And what's the easiest path for most people is the negative one. So you go down the negative one because it's the easiest one. You're not conscious or aware of the thoughts that are even happening. So you go down the negative one automatically and you just keep going down it again and again and again. So it becomes this negative feedback loop and the negativity in your mind and then your life becomes stronger and stronger and stronger. Your belief system gets more and more negative. Your mindset gets more and more negative. And then the actions you take are more and more negative. And it's all just a self-reinforcing cycle. Right? So what— how do you change this cycle? Well, I kind of laid it out a little bit already, but one, you need to become aware of your thoughts. You have to become aware of what you're actually thinking on a moment-by-moment basis, because there's not a single thought that isn't weighed in your mind. I want you to think about that. There's not a single thought in your mind, or there's not a single thought that you have that is not weighed in your mind. So every single thought is strengthening some pathway, and that's the way I want you to think about this. I want you to think down into the present moment right now. Every single moment, on a moment-by-moment basis, we are tipping the scales of our minds, whether it's going to be more positive or more negative, whether we're strengthening the negative or we're strengthening the positive. And the cool thing about it too is that when you strengthen the positive, you weaken the negative, right? So what happens here is that let's say you become aware of a negative thought and you consciously make the decision to swap it to a positive thought, right? So if it's like, I hate myself, I hate my life, maybe it's like, you know, I'm not, I'm not that bad of a person. There are some good things about my life, right? So it doesn't even have to be super positive, but if we can just aim for neutral to positive, that's always a good start. So if you switch it there, what you're doing in your mind, since you don't go down the negative, negative path, You reduce the intensity or the strength of the negative path and you strengthen the positive one. Now you do this— if you do this consistently and you consistently start to change your thoughts and change the way that you interpret reality and your past, you weaken the negative more and more. And then, like I said earlier, you reach a tipping point where the positive path in your mind actually becomes stronger than the negative path. So it starts to become easier to go down the positive path. Now at this point, Some people stop doing the initial work that caused them to get the positive mind in the first place. They stop being so aware of their thoughts, they stop shifting their thoughts, they maybe stop doing their affirmation routine in the morning. So, and you don't want to do that. That's a mistake where you start to get a little bit of success and then you stop doing the thing that actually got you success in the beginning and then you go back into your old ways. But once you reach this point, it's kind of a tipping point because it becomes easier to naturally go down the positive, right? But it's something That we always need to be conscious of because human beings are literally wired to view negativity. We have a negativity bias in our brain because if you just think about it from a survival standpoint, it's like, well, we need to be more aware of the threats and the dangers in our life and in our environment because they could kill us, right? You think back to when we were cavemen, where we didn't have much, and when you face a bear or you face a lion or whatever it was, Or even just a food that was poisonous. Like, I need to remember that because that could take me out, and it was all about survival. So we have this very strong survival instinct and negativity bias in our brains. So we will always have a tilt towards negativity, negativity, or a pull towards negativity where we'll want to focus on negativity. And that's why negative news works so well, because it just— we just get dialed in. And why social media works so well and why it's typically very negative, because human beings are just wired to focus on the negative. We want to know, you know, the dangers so that we can mitigate them, right? But we can become so obsessed in the negativity that it really just destroys our life. But like I was saying earlier, the goal is to be so, so persistent and determined with changing your mindset, with changing your thoughts, interpretations, and beliefs, that you switch from this negative, this automatic negative mind To this automatic positive mind, and when you start, when you get to this point, everything starts to change because everything stems from your mind. There's not an action that you you take that you don't think about beforehand or have thought about beforehand in the past. Everything starts up here, and when this is good, your actions are good. When your actions are good, your life is good. So when you really trace things back, it's like how do I change my life? It's like well I need to change my actions. Well how do you change your actions? It's like well I need to change my mindset. It's like well how do I change my mindset? Well I need to Change my beliefs. How do I change my beliefs? Well, I change my thoughts and my interpretations. On a moment-by-moment basis, every single moment, there's not a thought that is not weighed. Every thought is weighed in your mind and is strengthening a path in your mind, right? And it's not hopeless. Like, it doesn't matter if you've been thinking negative for your entire life, you can change this. I've seen people who have gone through decades and decades, over 30 years, over 40 years of PTSD, Or continuous trauma in their life, and they've made this change. And just always going back to Viktor Frankl, there's no excuse to why each and every one of us can't make that change, or can at least look at things a little bit more positively, right? So that is the goal right there. We are looking for this automatic positive mind and making that connection like a strong cable, right? And we want just to be indestructible. Alright, so now how do you actually implement this into your life? I've touched on it, like you wanna look at your thoughts, right, on a day-to-day basis, on a moment-by-moment basis, not a day-to-day, by a moment-by-moment, every single moment, getting present, becoming aware of what you're thinking and changing that, right? So that's the first thing, is your self-talk. What are you actually saying to yourself on a moment-by-moment basis? And that's the first tip I have here, is self-talk. And there's 7 more tips here, or there's 6 more tips, 7 total, that I'm walking you through on how to actually implement this into your life. Now, these 7 tips, they're going to be broken down into 2 different categories. One is going to be internal, one is going to be external, right? So the internal things that we want to be doing are going to be mainly around your thoughts, because your thoughts also create your beliefs, and your beliefs create your emotions and your actions, and everything kind of stems from there. So internal is mainly going to be around thoughts. External are going to be things that influence your thoughts. Right? So it's an internal game. However, it would be silly of me to say, you know, if you hang around negative people all day, it's not going to have any influence on your thinking. It's like, that's not how it works. It's like, our environment and our external world has a massive impact on our inner world. What we're inputting into our minds has a massive impact on our thinking, which then has a massive impact on our beliefs and our mindset and our actions and our results. In our entire life, so it's really important not just to monitor the internal but also the external. So I'm going to be walking you through those two categories right there. So the first tip here was self-talk. The second one is affirmations. So you might have different opinions on affirmations. Really, all an affirmation is something positive you say about yourself to input thoughts, positive thoughts into your mind to change your belief system. It's not like some weird woo woo. Mystical spiritual thing. It's like, I'm— it's, it's just a phrase or set of phrases that you use, that input that you, you intentionally input into your mind to change your belief system and change your mindset and change your life. That's it. And they're powerful. To make affirmations more powerful, what you can do is you can say them, you can write them down, you can close your eyes and you can visualize them and attempt to, to feel them. And then a bonus, if you want to visualize it, you can visualize past experiences where you felt that affirmation and bring that feeling forward. So you can, you can say it, you can write it, you can visualize it, and you can feel it. Those are kind of the 4 things that you can do to make an affirmation powerful. And the emotion, or the, the important thing to affirmations too, is you want them to resonate emotionally with you so that when you say the affirmation, you feel something. You feel, you feel positive, or you feel a relief, a sense of relief. Because when you say that affirmation, whether you know it or not, you're breaking down this old belief and you're building a new one. So at a foundational level, that's kind of what happens there, right? Because the thoughts that you have, whether they're automatic or intentionally had via affirmations, influence your beliefs, your belief system, and your mindset, and everything that is downstream from that. So that's the second thing there is morning affirmations. I recommend if you want to practice 10 affirmations, write down 10 affirmations every single morning. Visualize them. And because when you start your day off right, the rest of your day tends to fall into place. If you start off in a negative tilt, things, you know, tend to go off into a more negative path. But if you could get the morning right, if you can lock that in and have the first few things that you say to yourself be positive, you just start the momentum in the right direction. It doesn't mean everything is going to be perfect, but it sets you up to have the best day possible. So the rest of these are going to be external. So it's going to be in that second category of external tips that you can do and things that you can do. So again, the 2 internal things I talked about were self-talk on a moment-by-moment basis. You want to be swapping your thoughts. Second one was affirmations. So having a morning affirmation practice where you write down 10 affirmations and again, say them, write them, visualize them, and feel them to get the most out of that. And it doesn't have to take long to do that practice. You can do it 5 minutes, I don't care. Just write them down, and if all you do is say them once a day, that's something that's moving you in the right direction, and you're moving the momentum towards the goal of an automatic positive mindset, right? So what are some things that you can do to start inputting positive things into your mind from an external perspective, right? Well, one of them could be positive books. Right? So positive books, positive audiobooks, positive podcasts, positive videos like this. Things that get you thinking differently, thinking positively, instead of maybe watching a horror movie or a thriller or something at the end of the day, or a crime show at the end of the day, or some weird documentary about murderers because some— for some reason us humans like that. Pick up a good book, pick up a good audiobook, watch a positive documentary. Right? A lot of this is just about swapping something. So if you don't want to read, you can listen. If you don't want to listen, you can watch a positive documentary. There's plenty of positive, inspiring documentaries that are out there. However, I would encourage, highly encourage picking up a habit of reading. It does a lot of really great things to your mind, which I'm not going to get into. But so that's kind of the third tip here is positive books or any type of positive input that you can input into your mind. And a little added bonus tip is like, if you can integrate that into your life as much as possible, that's where you're gonna get a lot of power, especially in the beginning. It's like, if you can, you know, maybe when you're driving to work or you're driving to the gym, listen to a positive podcast. Or when you're there driving to the gym, have it— have a positive self-talk routine where you're expressing gratitudes about yourself and your life. Right, but having some, having some type of positive input, whether it's internal or external, and integrating that into your life will make this practice more powerful. Because like I, like I've said a few times, every thought is weighed. It doesn't matter if you're driving, it doesn't matter if you're at the gym, it doesn't matter if you're in the bathroom, it doesn't matter where you are or what you're doing. Every thought is weighed. And the more thoughts that we can catch and the more thoughts that we can turn, the faster you'll move from this negative mindset to a positive mindset. And the faster your actions will take, or your actions will change, and the faster your life will change, right? So if you're someone like me and you just want to dive in, you want to integrate this as much as you possibly can so that every thought that you have has the best possible chance of being positive. And the way that you do that is by being intentional and by integrating these things, by listening to the audiobook in your car, at the gym, by having a practice. Like one of our clients said, you know, every stoplight I try to say 3 good things about myself. So she built this habit within herself that every time she stops at a stop sign or a stoplight, she says 3 good things about herself. And that was a way of her integrating kind of this practice into her life into a habitual way, right? So that's the third thing there. Positive books and audiobooks, podcasts, things like that. Third thing, or fourth thing here is environment, right? So the actual physical environment that you're in, right? Take a look around wherever you are right now. What type of environment is it? Is it messy? Is it dirty? Is it clean? Does it make you feel good? Does it make you feel bad? Does it make you want to curl up on the couch and do nothing? Does it shut you out from the world? Because that's what a dirty environment does to me. Like, when I'm in— when I let things go and things get dirty, I like, I see every single task and I'm like, that's an open loop. I need to do that thing. I need to do that thing. I need to do that thing. And what I do is I just shut my mind off to those things, right? And I tend to go to more negative places. But when you're in a clean environment, pleasant environment. Everything's organized. There aren't any open loops. There isn't a pile of bills in the corner. There isn't a pile of mail that, you know, needs to be opened. There isn't dirty clothes on the laundry. Because all those things are just open loops in your mind of things that you need to do that haven't been done yet. And when you close them, it not only frees up a lot of space in your mind, but you feel better. You feel more positive. You start thinking more positively. So the environment, like the actual physical environment that you have, is very important. And this isn't just in the physical world. It's also in the digital world. So think about, yes, your house, your living space. Think about your car, yes. Also think about your computer. Think about your desktop. How's that? How clean is that? Think about your inboxes. Think about your phone and the apps on your phone. Like, I'm pretty— I'm known for being like, my friends call me like the app police, which I don't do it to everybody. I only do it to a few people in my life where I'm just like, man, how do you do it? How do you do anything? You have notifications going off 24/7 and you have all these apps. Like, what are you doing? Like, how do you get anything done? How do you focus? How do you think? 'Cause you just have these pings. And what's 1980— 1984, the book? One of the things that they do to distract people, to make people less than they are, or less intelligent, is to have little dings that go off that only they can hear to distract them. It's like we're living in like a 1984 moment where it's like we all have these devices that ding all the time so we can't think, we can't live our life. It's like, shut it off. Alright, so environment, that's one. Digital and physical. The next one is diet. So what are you inputting into your body, right? That's an external thing that you put into your body that affects the quality of your mind, and your thoughts, and your energy levels, right? Like, we all know, like, it's a very common thing. And if you're not in the United States, you know, we have Thanksgiving where we have a lot of people over and we eat a ton of food, is the habitual, or the traditional habit, or the traditional celebration. Sit down and you just eat as much as you possibly can, basically. I mean, obviously there's more to that. So everybody knows, when you have— after a big meal, you don't feel very good. You feel pretty tired, you feel pretty lethargic, you don't feel like doing anything. And if you already have a tilt of negative thinking, it's like your mental clarity is down, so you're going to be more likely to go down the negative path, or the habitual path, I should say. You're more likely to go down the habitual path, which tends, for a lot of people, especially if you've gone through trauma, to be the negative path. So if you eat that big meal, Or if you eat that junk food, something full of sugar, or alcohol, right? If you drink alcohol, it's going to cause you to tend to go down that automatic— whatever path is automatic, which tends to be negative. So when you can get your diet better, it doesn't mean you have to be perfect, but if you can just make improvements, maybe eat a little bit less, maybe swap, you know, something that's super high calorie and junky for something that's a little bit better, and you start making things gradually over time, you'll notice that you feel better, you have more energy, you start thinking better, your life gets better, and everything gets better. So we want to— like, all of these areas of our life we want to optimize because they all have an impact on each other. It's not just like— like, none of these things happen in a void. Like, you don't just eat bad and then perform at your peak level on your— like, everything is interconnected, everything affects one another. So when you eat poorly, your mindset's poor, your relationship might be poor, and then it all starts to like ripple and Connecting, not very good. Okay, so 6th thing here. So for the externals, we had positive books and podcasts, we had your physical and digital environment, we had diet, right? So what are you inputting into your body? And then the 6th one here is exercise. What do you— how are you moving your body on a day-to-day basis? Do you have an exercise routine? Do you have exercise and physical goals set in place, right? Are you moving towards those things? Because I think, again, I think it's one of those self-evident things, and everybody knows it. The problem is like, how do I get myself to do it? And that's a different video. But getting into some kind of morning exercise routine is vital, even if it's just walking for 15 minutes, doing 10 push-ups, and whatever, 20 sit-ups or something. Just doing something in the morning to get the blood flowing and the blood pumping will get you into a more positive state of mind and help you feel better. And again, compound on all these different areas of your life and make things better. So getting into an exercise routine is very, very important. And then this last one here, is something that a lot of people do not like to address, because it's probably one of the hardest ones to fix, because there's so many emotions involved, and it's people. Right? So the people that we surround ourselves with has a major, major, major impact on the way that we think, right? So everything that I'm talking about here, internally and externally, are things that affect our thinking, which then affects our beliefs, which then affects our mindset, which then affects our actions, which then affects our entire life. So all these things, like, they might seem like small things, but when you add them up all together, it makes a material and big difference in the way that you're thinking and makes this whole mindset change process easier. So if you're like, if you're not doing these things, you're basically sabotaging yourself. You're making things a lot harder than they need to be in order to change your mindset here. But people being the 7th thing, if you're surrounded by negative, abusive people who don't appreciate you, who yell at you, scream at you, who tell you all the reasons why you're a bad person or whatever it is, you're going to start thinking those things about yourself too. If you don't stand up for yourself, if you don't set boundaries, if you continue, you know, being around those people, you will become like those people. And you'll start to believe those things and think those things, which will then change your beliefs, your mindset, your actions, your entire life. And this is one of the big ones because, like I said before, so many emotions are wrapped into the— to the people that we know, right? Mm-hmm. Family members. So many people have family troubles. It's challenging, but if you can get that right, you can start working on the associations that you have and just look at it very objectively. It's like, is this person a positive influence on my life or a negative influence? And if you can just start, you know, maybe with smaller relationships, be like, okay, this person's a very negative influence on my life. I'm going to spend less time with them. I'm gonna spend more time with these positive people, or try to find more positive people, whether it's at church or like a Toastmasters group or a local club or a local organization, trying to surround yourself with more positive people will have a positive impact on your thoughts and again make this process so much easier. And we're social creatures as human beings, right? So those are the 7 tips. Again, covered self-talk, affirmations, books, environment, diet, exercise, people. And I just want to touch on 3 last things here, 3 problems that you want to make sure that you do not face And it's something that I see so many people face when they're trying to change their mindset, that these are 3 things that you really need to look out for, and you need to be truly honest and brutally honest with yourself of whether or not you actually believe these things, 3 things, because they're 3 lies that if you believe them will ruin this entire process, right? So the first one being you don't believe that recovery is possible. It's the first thing, which you gotta, you have to attack that belief. If you believe that recovery is impossible, you have to, wage war on that belief because that is simply not true and it will ruin your— it will make recovery impossible. If you believe it's impossible, it will make recovery impossible. Second one, you have to believe that you can do it. If you don't believe that you, that you are capable of actually doing this thing, actually facing your past, then you won't be capable, right? Because your belief system creates your mindset, which creates your actions, right? So what you believe about yourself, if you believe you're capable of doing this or not, If you have the abilities or not is going to determine whether or not you actually do it, right? So the first one is don't believe recovery is possible. Second one is don't believe that you can do it. Third one is don't believe that you're worthy of it, right? So that's another problem that I see from a lot of people. It's like, you need to be honest about this too. Do you actually believe that you're worthy of the success? Do you think you're worthy of the peace? Do you think you're worthy of the good relationship? Do you think you're worthy of the healing? Or do you believe you just like you deserve to be in pain? Do you believe that you're like, things won't get better and that you're not worthy of things getting better, that you're not good enough? Those are things that you need to attack. And if you want to learn how to actually attack and break those 4 problems, because— or those 3 problems, because those are essential for you to break and attack, then check out this video right here because I show you and walk you through the exact framework on how to do that emotionally, logically. It's one of the best videos I did. Click it, check it out, and I'll see you in the next one. Thank you.