43: Breaking Generational Trauma - The Real Reset with John Vagueiro

Welcome to my podcast called you Must.

Be out of youf Mind.

My name is Dr. Don Wood. Everyone has experienced some trauma at times during their life. These traumatic events and experiences create a significant impact on how your mind works on a day to day basis. At the same time creates long term effects on your emotional and physical health. It will interfere with your ability to stay present and in the moment. After years of research, I used my knowledge of neuroscience to create what I call a memory reset. This memory reset reduces and eliminates the impact of the trauma and allows you to experience peace and clarity. My podcast will share many stories of people experiencing similar symptoms to you and how their lives have been positively impacted by our TIP program. I can't wait to share with you how the impossible is possible and why you must be out of your mind. And there it is.

Welcome to another episode of you Must be out of your mind. And as you know, I always bring on great guests that have so much to offer. And today John is here with us. And John is a very successful entrepreneur, business person. I'm going to have him explain more about the field that he's in because he'll do a better job than I will. So, John, welcome to you Must be out of your mind.

I think I am out of my mind. So I think I'm a great guest for this show.

There you go. Perfect.

But Doc, I appreciate you having me and for people out there who don't know, I call him Doc because he's the Doc. But no, thank you for having me. I'm importantly a. I'm Jacqueline's husband, Johnny, Vienna and Vincenzo's father. And you know, I'm a serial entrepreneur. I love business, I love entrepreneurship. I love the challenges and the struggles of growing and scaling businesses. You know, my first one was Adapting Social, which is my agency. We are a marketing firm that focuses on helping businesses scale their revenue and focus on enhancing and building a brand credibility in their marketplace. So right now we do that in 20 countries over the past 16 years. And my journey started when I was 17 and that was the first business that I built and still have it today. It's like my baby. But since then, you know, I own five other companies and you know, for me that's like what my passion is essentially like. I'm obsessed with business. I love entrepreneurs. I love helping people. That's how I kind of like, that's my vice. I love like, you know, getting after it. You know, I love chasing the deal. And you know, I, I don't like using the words Suffer. But for a majority of my life, I have anxiety and anxiety disorder. I have a genetic predisposition based on my family. My mom's anxious. My grandma used to have anxiety, and even to go as far as, as, you know, my family's lineage. My uncle, my cousin Angelica started to do some research, and they found that on my mom's side that there was a few different. In the 18, late 1800s, that we had a few women in our family who were in, like, mental institutions. Right. So, you know, anyway, long story short, I've been battling that for a majority of my life. And it's come and go in different waves, I would say, but it's always typically been present. So, you know, me being a patient of yours and jumping on and leveraging and using TIP has been pretty instrumental in this later phase of my life because obviously it's happened as young as 8 or 9 years old, as early as I can remember. Now I'm going to be 33 next week. So, you know, obviously I had a different wave of it come back, and this has helped me significantly. So I'm excited to dive deeper into that. But, you know, that's who I am.

Awesome. I said I could not have done as good a job as you did. That was amazing when you were explaining all the different things that you've done and how long. So not only have you been successful, but also dealing with this issue of anxiety. And so imagine what happens when you get that out of the way, the gear that you open up.

Exactly.

And that's really what the performance program's all about. Anxiety is just interfering with you getting to your highest level of success. Yeah, but most people would look at you, John, and they would say, well, you got it all right.

Right.

You've got everything. Success. Right. You've got all the trappings of what people would want, yet you still have another gear. And that's why I'm excited to have you share this. Because most people would think that there's gotta be something wrong with them or the reason why they're struggling is because of that. But you've proven that you can still do it, even with the anxiety. And then imagine what happens when we reset it.

Right, Exactly. Yeah, yeah. And listen, one of. One of my. One of my clients, he was a Marine, really intense dude. Like, he's very disciplined, I'll call it. And I remember him and I were going out to dinner in New York one day, and he was sitting there and he started to talk about how, like, in. In certain cultures around the world and specifically like in even urban areas in the US Right. He said how like allergies or anxiety, they almost don't exist because they're, they can't. Right. When you're in a position where you can't, you know, afford to sit home and be anxious, you have to get out of the house and go work or you won't have anywhere to be. The bottom line is you, you keep moving forward, right? And I think, you know, one of the things that I identified is that the world we live in is so different post Covid. A lot of people work from home now, so they're constantly in their comfort box, right? And to venture out of it or to do different things now, it's just inconvenience, right? And so whereas like in other cultures and parts of the world, like you got to get up and you got to go to work, there's no, I don't feel good today or you know, I don't, I'm too anxious, I can't leave the house. You, you don't have a choice. You have to go. And, and I'll get into it later, obviously, or whenever, you know, we go to it. But I think in a way that's what, you know, this has in a way helped me with right now. If you're feeling anxious or, you know, or panic, you know, whatever it is that you're, you know, the bottom, the bottom line is that we tend to stay where we're comfortable, right? Our subconscious mind wants us to be safe, wants us to be comfortable and you know, doesn't want any sort of danger or uncomfort, right? So bottom line being is when you're stuck in that comfort zone and you're actually fueling the anxiety, right? So you're actually making it, you're giving it the case against why you shouldn't go venture out and do that thing that's making you worried, right? And a lot of times we don't know that we feel like we're doing the right thing because we feel wrong. We don't feel like right about going to do X because we feel anxious about it or panicked or it's life threatening and you're really fueling that fire. And that's what Tip really helped me particularly with. I started in a weird way, right, to develop like that goraphobia where I was like, hey, I work from home, I have all this stuff, whatever. I don't need to leave the house because in my, in my own, what I'll call sanctuary, I'm super comfortable Right. I can work from here, my family's here, whatever. I was not even really going into the office as much. I was like, I'm going to work from home. And I'm not that person. I'm, I'm a very social animal. I need to be out of the house, I need to be shaking hands, signing checks, breaking necks. You get it? So it's like at the end of the day, me being at home is not who I am. I have twins, two five month old beautiful babies that are twins. And I have a 21 month old. So on Fridays I typically am home now to just be home with them and stuff like that. But even on Fridays when I'm home like this, I feel like, damn, like I, I don't, it doesn't feel right to me. So it got me back out of that, out of that comfort zone and, and helped me realign with what I needed to get back out there.

Yeah. And what you were saying is, which is really true is the number one fear for the human mind is uncertainty.

Right.

So as a successful person, you figured out a way to beat the uncertainty is to make everything certain and stay home.

Right.

So then it's like walking with a sprained ankle, you know, for 20 years. Right. You just justify that. That's who I am. I've got a sprained ankle and I'll figure out how to change my route so I don't have to walk as far, I don't have to walk on uneven ground. All kinds of things that you'll create.

Right, right.

To try to help with that. So yeah, the other thing that you mentioned too, which is really a lot of stuff that we're doing now, we're doing the studies on, is the genetic factor. When you were saying your family history of it.

Yeah, yeah.

That's actually a code that gets passed down from generations to generations.

Right.

But the good news is we can break it.

Right.

So it's just a code that got built on how do we deal with this? And then it gets written into the DNA. And then as long as there's nothing that interferes that creates that connection. Like for me, I'm sure, you know, I was adopted. I had, there was apparently a lot of trauma in my natural family, but I never experienced it, so I never had that issue.

Right.

So I talk about the nurture is more powerful than the nature. Something interfered with your nurture that created the nature or the code in your family DNA to activate and say, what do we do about this? And then you've already Got it built in. But the good news is that when we can get to whatever started that for you or activated that for you, the genes will then start to recode and then you don't have the problem.

Right.

So and we're showing that now in the DNA, we're doing pre and post DNA, we're going to post this study up probably by the end of the year. And we're showing how much the gene expression changes. So inflammation upregulates the immune system downregulates, neurotransmitters, neuroplasticity all down regulate when there's trauma running. But when we get the trauma out, the inflammation comes down, immune comes up, neurotransmitters and neuroplasticity come up, goes back into homeostasis. That's where you're designed to live. But as long as the trauma is running, and this is what I love about this is because people will look at you, John, and say, well, even with all that success he was still dealing with this. Like wouldn't that, you know, mitigate it? No, it doesn't.

Right.

Until you get in and reset the system.

Right, right.

You could get the most expensive computer in the world, but if it's running glitches and error messages, it's going to run glitches and error messages.

Yeah. And I do want to say to that point real quick, first things first, I think for anybody out there who's suffering, I personally can't attest on the depression side. I've never felt like I sat in a depression or I think my over optimistic mindset that I've created since I was a kid has helped me pass that part, thank God. But from an anxiety standpoint and panic disorder standpoint that I know all too well, I know that it seems super scary doing these things that you want to do and again, what you helped me and I think the TIP program which anybody who is listening, listening to this, it's a, it's a guaranteed no brainer for anybody to join this program. I'm not saying that as an endorsement because I have a strong love for, for the doc here, but I love, I love what you've put together though. And I, and I believe what you put together because it's worked for me like growing up in school and stuff like that. I was in all IEP classified classes, you know, John has learning disabilities, blah, blah. But what I realized later in my life, I didn't go to college, I wasn't a great student. But you know, I'm a hands on learner. Right. So if I can understand the mechanics of how certain things work, like, I'm gonna be more proficient in it as opposed to, you know, me just watching a presentation or a PowerPoint, which is why I loved our session and I knew I need to invest in a higher package with you because I needed to talk to you. Right. If I went on and did that whole watch the thing, which I'm sure is great for most people, my brain don't work that way. So my point is, is that when I learned what the program offers and what it did really well for me is understanding how and my subconscious and my conscious mind are all speaking to one another. Right. I think the biggest thing that you absolutely just, like, helped me with tremendously, one of the biggest things was where you shared how our subconscious mind is not logical. Right, right. That's a powerful, profound statement. You know, and when, when you understand that most of us in panic or anxious moments, we're, we're, we're, we're glued to logic. There, There was times where it's like I had to run to the grocery store and I was completely anxiety and panic ridden that, like, I had to go, leave to go to the store, and what if I had a panic attack there or an anxiety attack there and then I had to drive back home and what if I passed out on the way home or I got too anxious and, you know, I just blacked out or something. But, you know, one of the biggest things for me is like, I would always go to the logical mindset, like, John, you're fine, you're in the car, you're going home right now, and blah, blah, blah, no matter that my heart was beating or I felt like I was getting dizzy or whatever. And what really helped me with that, outside of what you shared, was that logic is the one sure way to not get the results you want. Right.

And the one part I want to share about that is it made sense to me because in the past, before I met you, I tried to personify my subconscious mind and how it acted with my anxiety in the past. And I would be like, oh, all right, you know, you're fine. I know you're trying to protect me. I'm good, you know, we're good. Relax. But the bottom line is, is that it speaks a different language, you know, and, and thank God it does. Thank God it does. Because when you, when you shared with me and explained that, you know, the same part of my brain that's trying to protect me from the situation that's not a real threat, but it doesn't know that, right? I have to retrain. That is the same part of the brain that makes sure I'm breathing every night, my heart's beating every night, I'm blinking my eyes, don't get dry out of my friggin head, you know, like all these different components. And also imagine the bazillion functions to fight disease and bacteria and all these things that's happening in my body that I, that you and I don't think about every day, right? It's, it has such a, it has such a heavy job, right? It's such a heavy job for our subconscious mind and that little tiny 5% of our conscious, you know, that's, that's what's, that's what's moving us forward in. But it's not controlling 95% of our functions, right? So it just really hit me deep when you said it. And I'm saying all this to say to people who are feeling like, wow, there's not a, there's not a hope for me. I've been going through this for five years, 10 years. Personally me, it's been over 20 years, right? So it's like a decade, two decades plus. And at the end of the day, you know, you said it so perfectly. Your body is here to protect you, right? It's in fact, it can't hurt you, right?

It can't sabotage you.

It can't self sabotage yourself and you, and you almost. I always felt that why the hell am I feeling this way, right? But I think, you know, again, you taught me so much, I can ramble for an hour about this. But I think the bottom line that I'm trying to allude to is that like, you know, being anxious and being in a panic state is a very, very scary thing. Most people equate it to almost dying or feeling like you're gonna die and you know, you feel like you can't breathe anymore or your chest is gonna beat out, you know, your heart's gonna be at your chest and stuff. The only thing again I want to say is that, you know, at the end of the day, you said it, you say it best, right? But you're not crazy, right?

There's nothing wrong with you.

Right? But there's nothing wrong with you. And you know, great people like the Doc to help us better optimize how we feel. And you know, I'm grateful for that.

Awesome. How long ago did you go through the program?

Now I think it was right before I had the Twin. So I think it was either April or right before April.

That's what I thought. That's what I was thinking.

Maybe March.

So what do you remember feeling right afterwards? What was it? What would you describe it as afterwards, going through the program?

I just think clarity, right? I think for me, it's. It's clarity, you know, And I want to be very clear here, guys. For somebody who has, you know, been holistic my entire life, I've never taken any drugs or medications for this. I've always wanted to be dialed in myself and figured out myself. Even though it felt like I was never gonna get there. Right. In certain instances, I felt clarity. Right. Because at the end of the day, like, in my mind, it's almost like my. My mind is so sharp. And so if I was like, oh, I'm gonna do this before we jumped on, you know, my mind, I'm like, is this really gonna work? Like, what the hell? Like, what, What, What. What can this guy tell me that I already know? They know it's all on me to do the work, right? People can sign up, they can go through the top package with you hand in hand, or they can do the one. But if they're not willing to put the work in, then nothing's going to change, right? So that's where my mind was at first. But the clarity aspect of it was, hey, now I know the mechanics here, right? I know that my body, my subconscious has thrown me these automatic negative thoughts or get me to this heightened state of anxiety to try to protect me, right? And so I would say clarity for sure. And, you know, I would for sure say peaceful, right? I felt at peace, so I felt clear and I felt peaceful because of knowing and understanding the mechanics of everything. And, you know, and then also the path to when you're feeling anxious or if you have those moments, you know, to go to that, you know, your symbol and, you know, and that safe space that you create with that meditative space you put yourself in.

Yeah. So did you notice, like, for example, what situation would have created that anxiety before all of a sudden realized that you're not feeling that anxiety now that you're in the same place?

Yeah, yeah.

Can you describe what that felt like when all of a sudden you noticed, this isn't activating my nervous system right now?

It was almost immediate. You know, the next day I went right into the office. It's almost feels like a hangover. You're like, why was I so anxious about that? Like, what was I thinking? Like, why was that such A big deal. And I would say that's kind of how I felt when I first went into the office. I'm like, you know what. What made me so worried about being here, right? Like, what was the issue? Right? Because I'm fine. You. And I hung up, and then I went outside, and my backyard's pretty. Pretty tranquil. You know, I have. I have a couple acres of land, and it's all greenery and, like, a park, like, greenery. And, you know, I have my. I have the waterfalls going. I sat there and I was, like, sitting here. Because here's the thing. Most people who are, like, entrepreneur, athlete, high performer, you tend to not stop and, you know, and enjoy the fruits of your labor as ever, right? Because you're, like, ready for the next thing. That's me. I'm like, you know, me. My wife bought our dream home. We have our beautiful dream kids. You know, I'm married to the woman of my dreams. And I'm sitting there, I'm like, all this time running around, feeling this way I'm feeling and stuff. And if I went back to the earliest version, right? Or the most vulnerable version of myself and said, dude, look at the life that you've built. Look at the family that you have, you know, look at the impact you're making, I would be like, oh, my gosh. Like, dude, I hit the lottery twice. Right after that session, I went outside, I was listening to all the sounds of nature and the things, and I said to myself, I was like, you know, that's it. I'm done. I'm done being any sort of victim to this situation. Not that I would have that mentality, but I was not going to allow myself do it anymore because now I know the mechanics. Now I know why, what's happening. Now I know how to navigate through it, right? And so I left there feeling that calm and tranquil, and I went to the office the next day, and it just started going back to, like, I went to the grocery store and went to do this stuff and that stuff. And then, you know, I was right back into being a citizen again.

And then those things before would have created that anxiety, right? That you would have been feeling it and experiencing it, and then it's gone.

Right?

Right. And that's basically how you're always supposed to live. If there's a threat that shows up, you're fully capable of handling the threat, but your mind was operating on all of this old data and continued to run the old data, activating your nervous system, and yet you didn't have to take medication. You figured out ways to cope with it. You figured out ways to manage it, but you never needed to. And the key really is, like you said, you said it really well, is understanding the mechanics. Because when you understand the mechanics, you go, well, of course that would happen. It would have to have happened. There's nothing wrong with me. So that takes a lot of that stigma away from it.

It does. Another example, which I'm sure most people will be able to relate to, is there was one time where I. I was at a barber shop and I had, you know, essentially an episode, I'll call it, and. And I want to take the hell out of that chair, right? But I was in a full barbershop. Everyone's sitting there talking, whatever. The guy's halfway done with my hair, right? So I still have another 20 minutes to go here. And I'm like, I can't just get up and run, but. But consciously, I'm sitting here, I'm saying, no, I'm fine. We're okay. We're not leaving. And it's weird because you're fighting your subconscious in a way to leave or stay, but then again, you get over it, right? And so eventually, like, now, like, I go there totally fine. No issues, in and out. And it's. And it's a. It's a great feeling to be able to, like, conquer little micro things like that. And I think that's the problem with most people is, like, this little micro thing in our life, right. Feels so massive. And then once you. Once you conquer it, it was like, oh, that freaking little thing that was like an ant. And the big scheme of things.

Yeah, it's really powerful because it changes so much. And sometimes a lot of the times. That's why I always tell people to journal, because otherwise you forget that you used to do it one way. Now it feels normal to do it this way. Has your wife pointed out anything or people, you know, see something different, even if they didn't know you went through the program?

Yeah. Well, I would say mainly my wife. We're just engaged, and I had one of my biggest episodes ever. Our thing was we wanted to get engaged and then move in with each other. Right. So we took two years before we got married, and so we lived together for two years. And we were dating at that point for, you know, for a year or so. So two years into us being together and now engaged. She had zero idea I had any anxiety. Zero. I never talked to her about it. Right. I always dealt with it myself. Because I didn't talk about it publicly to pretty much anybody, right? And fast forward, we're sitting here and I had a long day at work. I'm heading, you know, it's her father's birthday, I'm heading over to the restaurant where her and her family are all at and I'm just like exhausted. I'm feeling super anxious. You know, I had a tough day. And I get there and everyone knows that I'm ever know I'm a talker, right? So, so I get there, I'm not really talking, I'm not really eating. And no joke, her grandma, her cousin, her brother was like, john, what's wrong with you barely talking, right? And it makes, it amplifies it. When you're an anxious person and somebody's calling you out, it's like, holy, people can notice now, right? Like I'm not hiding. Long story short, I want to have the biggest at the time episode, you know, that I ever had. Because after the restaurant, went back to her parents house, you know, and it was late already, I was exhausted. You know, fast forward, you know, I told her I got to go. You know, she's like, why? I'm going to just leave. And it was the first time I told her about like, you know, my anxiety and stuff. And so fast forward, you know, she, she, she's seen it over the years. Primarily this most recent, you know, time that I you about from 2022 to, you know, this year when I, when I went back into like this, like, you know, anxious state, I would be like, oh, her family's having a party or my family's having a party. I'd be like, ah, you know, I'm not feeling well, I don't want to go. But really I was anxious and I just wanted to go there and be anxious. When we, when are we leaving? Right? When are we leaving? I want to go home. And then you know, obviously, you know, I was working on it, I was getting better and then I would, you know, kind of regress progress. Regress progress. But after, you know, the program, it was like, you know, where are we going? Let's go, whatever, you know, and it's totally fine. So those types of things, like she'd pull me aside, like, hey, I really appreciate you like being here. Right. And like wanting to stay, you know. So like I would say that would be a good example.

Yeah. And that's what's interesting too. Like I said, a lot of people don't realize it. I had one lady, she came in and again super high functioning person. Nobody knows what she's dealing with. But she had. Her and her husband were in a private Jeff jet. Flying in a private jet, and the plane flipped upside down, everything went upside down. And now the pilots were good enough to figure out how to fix it. But you can imagine after going through.

That and in private jets, you're normally not sitting in a seat belt like you have to with everything. So I can't. I can only imagine, you know.

Yeah, yep. So it was a really traumatic event. And she said she's petrified now. She doesn't want to fly. And so when she does fly, like her husband's like, I don't even like flying with you because it's just a mess. Like, the husband handled it better, but she was really struggling with it. And so anyway, that was one of the things that she wanted to deal with and we did. And then I saw her probably three months later, right? And I said to her, I said, how's the flying going now? Right? And this is literally what she said. She goes.

Wow, you know what? I've been on a few flights, right? I didn't even think about it again.

I didn't put two and two together, no.

She goes, yeah, no, I've been flying. Okay. But nobody had ever asked. All of a sudden it just shifted, right? And so she didn't have that same fear where before her mind, when she got on a plane, would have gone back to the plane flipping, right? And then that's what have wanted. That's would have had her mind saying, don't get on a plane. Trying to protect you, not sabotage you, but say, we know what happens on these planes, we're going to get it, we're in danger. Right? It's not true. It's a different plane, It's a different flight, it's a different time.

Right.

That old data would keep activating our nervous system and should be seeing that event over and over and over.

Right.

And that's what creates it. And that's why your mind would get anxious in HD and hd. Yeah. And so we have a lot of people who go through those kinds of things with fear of flying, who get over them. I had another gentleman, again, successful CEO, he had hired his chief of staff, but she couldn't fly. And so he called me up and he goes, like, this may not work out because I need her to fly. He says, can you take her through the program? And I did it on Zoom the same way we did you and I did, and no problem. Flew everywhere.

Then wow.

And did an amazing job for me. Guzine, I know she's going to be amazing for me, but she never really mentioned it until after he hired her again. She's hoping that maybe flying's not going to be a big part of her job until she realized, yeah, no, flying's a big part of my job.

He's like, I'm sorry, you're a flight attendant now.

But we're, you know, we're.

Designed to reboot our system and like you were talking about, I love the fact that you really nailed this. You understood this completely. All the jargon that you're using is all the stuff that we talked about. Conscious, subconscious, logical. That logical part of your. Your brain is brilliant, but it cannot override a survival threat. Survival will always run. And the survival brain is keeping you alive. So it can't use logic, because if it try. Think about this. If it tried to use logic and say, is that really a lion or does it just sort of look like a lion? You're dead, right? So you're not going to try to.

Look at it even a better example of that. Which, again, which is where I love my subconscious and it's redefined my relationship with my subconscious because at the end of the day, it's not willing to negotiate, right? And. And so. And. But thank God it's not, because, again, like, for people who have a bad day, they got divorced or a bad, you know, their kids don't want to talk to them, or they lost their business, they lost a lot of money, they went bankrupt. You don't think consciously, we would say, all right, body tonight, stop breathing when I'm sleeping. So I have to know what's going on anymore. And we're done. We're shutting the shop down. Right? It won't listen to you. They can't listen to you because it can't hurt you, right?

It can't.

So I think at the end of the day, you know, your subconscious is like, it's never going to negotiate with you because survival is the number one function, like you taught me. So the bottom line is it's there to help you. And in a way, it's super reassuring, Right? It's okay. You're here to help me. I'm feeling anxious right now. I want to be home because that's comfortable. But I know if I keep going out and doing this, it's not going to happen anymore, right? And if I understand the mechanics, I'll be totally fine.

That was a great example, too. So you and I could Sit here right now. And I could say, you know, John, just consciously think about, don't breathe. Just stop breathing and you're not going to. You're not going to breathe again. So you could say, okay, I'm going to do that. Then you shut down breathing, and then your subconscious is sitting there going, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Eventually you're going to breathe. You can't do that, Right. Because your subconscious will say, that's enough. We're coming back online.

Yeah, we're going.

Because we're going to die if we don't start breathing. So it'll turn on the system again. So you can't do that. You can't do anything about that.

Exactly.

But like you said, it's good that it does that. Otherwise we could do all kinds of problems if you could logically think about something that doesn't make sense.

One thing I will say, though, and you and I never actually spoke about this yet, but I thought about this in some of my reflections, and one of the things that I was thinking about was like, all right, well, when you think about it, right, obviously, 95% of our mechanics are completely done by a subconscious. Right? But in a motivating way, right. Our conscious, Even though it's 5% through whatever the hell we. Whatever the action really is. Right. That 5%, give or take, is actually a lot bigger, Right. In a. In a way. Because the people who do commit suicide, their subconscious didn't do it. Their conscious did it. Right. So that's a negative example. But a positive example is that you're conscious when you're feeling anxious and you feel like you can't keep going, or you feel like you're stuck, you got to get back home, you got to go back in your car, you're embarrassed, or you're terrified to public speak, or you're terrified to do something out of your comfort zone. The beautiful thing about that, that little 5%, is that it is the difference between you getting out of your comfort zone and actually living the life you want to live and you not. Right? Because at the end of the day, it's not that you don't want, like, your subconscious mind doesn't not want you to go live a great life. It wants you to survive.

Yeah.

But when you put yourself into this new frame, like, it's like, again, like, my wife. My wife doesn't have an anxious boner body just like you, right? Zero anxiety. Wasn't born in a very nurturing, like, good, steady, great family. Right. For her brain, like her subconscious, like, she doesn't go to that place. Right. She doesn't have to go to that place because her body, her subconscious, isn't worried about it. It's not. It's not triggered. Right. And so, you know, it's like, at the end of the day, I know if I put the work in right, and I truly do. Right. So that means that in the beginning, like we talk about, obviously, you know, in your program, how let's eliminate this. Right. Like, the bottom line is, is the. There's only one way to eliminate it. Right. And you got to go through the valley. Right. The valley is unavoidable. I want that to be clear. Like, when I got on here and I left and I felt great because I understood the mechanics and stuff, you know, have I felt little bits of anxious here and there? Yeah. But it doesn't bother me or affect me the same way. And it's not holding me back. Right. I'm not allowing it to. Right. I go, I go. I look at my symbol and I've actually put a twist on my thing. I'll tell you about. For me, when you put that work in and you go through the valley, it's so difficult, Right. But. But when you get to that other side, you're like, what the f was I so worried about? But it's like, you have to push through the things that you don't want to do, because, like, the best version of yourself is on the other side of all of the avoidance you have and the things you're avoiding. You don't want to go do this because it makes you anxious, you're feeling depressed, you're not going out of your house, or you're not, like, doing the things you want to be doing, whatever the case is, but that better version of yourself is on the other side. And again, it's of my opinion. So you're an actual doctor. I am not an actual doctor. Right. But.

It'S my opinion through my own experience with you. And after post, before pre, is that.

That little 5% that conscious that we're talking about, that's the tool that's going to help you get past all this. That's the part of you that has to move past the subconscious telling you not to do it. Right. So your subconscious is like, shouldn't be here, heart's pounding out of your chest. You know, you're getting sweaty and you have to keep going. Right? You have to keep going. You can't try logic. You can't say, hey, I'm fine. I'm not having a heart attack. I'm totally fine. Everything's okay. Because that doesn't work, right? It doesn't work. What I started to do when you. When you're talking, you know me through that, right? What I've started to do in places where I'm like, all right, you know, I'm gonna be. I'm gonna be going out somewhere, and I know I'm gonna be far from home and away for a couple of days, whatever. Essentially, I've created my own safe space in my mind I call my little Zen den, right? And so I'll go to that place, and I'll be in that meditative state in that place. But in that place, who I have with me every time I'm there is my parents and my family. And so when I go there, they're there with my kids are there. And of course, because this is my little perfect Zen den, right? It's like I have. Everybody's happy, right? Everybody's smiling, right? Everything's 100% all good, you know, I'm safe, I'm protected. And it always shifts my energy and always shifts that anxiety out of it, right? And for the symbol, it's funny, my symbol has completely shifted from the one that you and I made, but it's. It's changed. And, you know, it's like at the end of the day, going into that headspace and just sitting there for a little bit, you know, when I know I'm feeling anxious or I'm feeling anxious, it makes all the difference in the world to me because it makes you realize I'm okay and, you know, and you're good. And my one coach in football back in the day, he always said to us, we'd be running around doing laps and stuff in practice, and he'd always go, hey, Vergaro. I'd be like, yeah. He'd be like, how you feeling? And I'd be like, tired. He goes, well, if you can still talk, you're not tired enough. Keep running, right? And it's almost like for me, right in this space, if I can sit there and be peaceful and think about these things and think about my family being happy, my kids, my mom, my dad, my wife, you know, my siblings and stuff, you know, then I'm okay, right? Because if I wasn't able to do that, then maybe something's wrong. I don't know. But either way, that definitely helps me.

Well, that's the whole idea, is to get to a safe place. So that's what your Symbol and statement and anchor. All of that is designed to bring you back. If you remember, we set that symbol based on that time where you experience that. So now we've connected them. What's so brilliant is as you continue listening to the audios, the audios are designed to say, what would you like to change? And so you decided that, okay, I can improve on this by adding this.

Right.

And that's absolutely fine. There's nothing wrong with that. Your mind adapted saying, how we can make it better is we're going to do this.

Right.

And it did it.

I love it.

That's what's so great about the audios is all focus on what would you like to change.

Right.

And so once we clear the trauma and the events that created that over exaggeration of anxiety, we still have current stress that could create a little bit of anxiety, but that's not going to be magnified the way it was. And now you have the tools to shut down the current anxiety. Where before you had current plus the 150 pound backpack of anxiety that you were carrying around, now it feels like £200 as opposed to I got £10 of stress now. I'll handle that.

Yeah, I got this.

It's easy to handle because that's the current stuff. And you know, that makes perfect sense. Life keeps coming at us, but we don't have to have the old stuff basically exaggerating it and amplifying it.

Totally.

And that's what you're experiencing.

Yeah.

Which is really cool.

Yeah. And thank you for that, seriously.

Oh, I'm. No, I'm glad. And I knew even when we were going through it, you know, you have a great mind for it because you think about it, this is like business. What I was telling you, here's the roadmap to the success for your business. But the business was your mind. And as soon as you got the roadmap, you went, man, that's it.

Okay, yeah, let's go.

That's the book. And then you talk about how you weren't good in school. Well, that was coming from that neuroplasticity. There's a gene, the BDNF gene, that actually regulates neuroplasticity. So in essence, what your mind felt like is we're being chased by a lion. Right. And now somebody says, john, read this book while you're running. Your mind goes, no, that's not priority. Survival's priority. So you couldn't focus on it. My wife had the same issue. She's brilliant, she's so smart. But never felt smart because she had all this trauma as a child. So then she said I could read a page in a book and not remember what I read. And now she's my best researcher. And I think I told you about the study that we did. We got a 46% change in brain plasticity after people went through the program that shows how fast our system can adapt. But it's not going to make changes when it's in threat.

Right.

And that's what the old trauma is doing, is keeping it in a sympathetic nervous system response. And the mind doesn't want to do maintenance because it says we don't need to do maintenance when we're in a threat mode.

Correct. Right.

So that's all you were dealing with. It had nothing to do with your intelligence. So if you could do all of that with that activation of your system going on all the time, imagine what happens. I still want to hear, you know, a year from now what you've accomplished, because I'm guaranteeing you you're going to jump through even more hoops.

Oh, man. Yeah, I plan to. And, you know, again, just like business, like you said, for me, it's like, what's the next marker? What's the next marker? What's the next marker? And so, yeah, I'm not stopping anytime soon. And, you know, in a way, this is a gift that gives me the ability to make sure that my kids are in a good spot. Right. And they come up the right way so that they're not in this headspace and stuff that I was.

So one of these people say to me, what's the best advice you can give to a parent? And I said, make your home safe is they resonate off of your energy. If you're being with the best of intentions, you're good parents, you're doing everything right.

Right.

They are looking at you to say, am I safe? Dad seems to be having trouble here. Oh, what's wrong? Right. And then like. And my wife, again, was a great example. If I came home, she was so perceptive at picking up if I was stressed about something, because as a child, she had learned to watch very carefully and listen very carefully to make sure her father wasn't getting stressed. Because that's when you get hurt.

Yes.

So she was so sensitive to it, and that was how her mind developed. As a child, you don't want your child learning that way through stress. You want to teach them that, but you don't want them learning. It's interesting. One of these I talk about is when they have these school shootings, which are so terrible. So terrible.

Yeah.

After the shooting, the parents then have to reunite with their children. So these children are obviously going to have some post traumatic stress from the shooting itself. But you know where most of the post traumatic stress comes from when they see their parents for the first time. Because now the parents falling apart. Natural way to feel. But the child is going, am I safe? Am I safe? Sees their parents and goes, nope, my parents are falling apart. They can't protect me either. So that's where a lot of the stress comes from. So what they're trying to teach parents now is you have to be smiling and embracing, saying, come here, I've got you, you're safe. Right. And then the child just jumps in their arms. Okay, good. Mom and dad have got me. So that's really powerful in your home too, right?

100% is. And growing up with a mixture of that was even a mixture of that still brings you to where I am.

And that was, that was the home I grew up in. My dad, I never saw him rattled. You couldn't rattle him. I mean, we used to jump out from behind a wall to see if we could scare him.

Right.

And John, there's no kidding, he just turned around and look at us just laugh. I was like, oh, no. I don't know if he just cut a cord on his nervous system, but he was always cool and calm and just never really got bothered. And one time we were out in our boat and on the lake and this storm came out of nowhere and the waves were like 10ft, 12ft, you know, and never really saw it like this. My dad was in the navy, so just taking the boat and he's actually teaching us what to do. And he's going, here's how you do it. This is where you take the boat.

Right?

And he's calm and he's saying he do this. And I'm, I'm. As a kid, I'm like, are we going to be okay? He's going, yeah, we're going to be okay because we know what to do. I know what to do in this storm. Don't worry.

Right, right.

And I'm like. And you know, I'm seeing the boat go over and like the water is literally right there, right? And then it comes up and then we go back over the other way around. The water's on the other. And I'm like, this boat's got a tip. He goes, no, it's not going to tip. Don't worry.

Right we're fine. That's. That's so reassuring.

It was incredible. I was still scared as a kid, because you don't know.

Right.

But I'm. I'm sure that the way my dad handled that really helped me. Like, I remember that vividly, not as a negative, but as a positive.

Right, right. I love that.

So that's not a trauma. That, to me was, wow, if I just do what my dad does and what he's taught me and he showed me, I'll always be okay. So that was building my resilience. So no matter how bad the storm is, you can navigate through it.

Right.

All you have to do is stay calm, don't panic.

That's beautiful.

Yep.

It really is. I'm a newer parent, you know, I have three beautiful kids that are. That are all under two years old. And so when you have that responsibility and you want to be a good parent and you want your kids to learn these things, I think that's the most important thing is creating that safe space for your kids. Know, to me, success, like, again, business is my life. You know, I've been doing it to more years of my life than I. Than I. Than I've been alive. And not doing it. My peak of my mountain has more to do with my kids wanting to. Wanting to be home with me when they're out of the house and say, I want to come hang out with you, mom, you know, you know, I'm bringing my. My kids over or I want to be around you dad, like, or come to me for advice and be that father figure to them. You know, that to me is success. Right. So I think what you're sharing is just so important.

And it was, like I said, I have so many great stories about my dad, I think, did I share the one about the. The Letters was about 6 years old, and I saw my dad sitting at his desk, and he was writing out bills. And so I sat down with him and I said, what are you doing? And so he thinks, okay, this is a good teaching moment.

Right.

And so he shows me how he writes out a check. And then he asked me to help him out, put the check in the bill in the envelope, gives me a sponge to seal the envelope, and here's a stamp with a stamp on it. And then he says to me, now run this down to the mailbox on the corner and mail it for me. So I remember this day really clearly. So I ran full speed down, mail it, come running back for my next assignment. In my mind, I'm working For dad, right? So I'm all excited, but he's not at the desk. But I see all the other bills and envelopes. So I just start naturally taking bills and putting them in envelopes, just randomly sealing them up, stamping them. And I ran them all down to the mailbox. I mean, they're totally not right, right. And I remember trying to stuff them all in the mailbox at the same time and I couldn't get them all through, but I was pushing them through. And then I come running back and I'm. I'm waiting for my dad, and he comes in, he goes, where are the. All the other bills and envelopes? And I said, I mailed them and you. And you know what he did? He did that, he laughed. And he goes, I don't think I explained this very well. He didn't get mad at me, didn't yell at me, because a six year old heard that you stuff paper into envelopes and stamp it and mail it, right? So he was. Right, he didn't explain it very well, right? So he didn't blame me, right? And even though that I can imagine the hassle that created for him. But, but at the same time, right, I. I didn't feel like I did anything wrong, right? And he explained it to me. And then even another time when I was 12 and I wanted to play hockey in the driveway, and his car was sort of in the middle of the driveway, and I thought, all right, he won't mind if I just move the car back, right? I've seen him drive. The car shouldn't be too hard, right? And so I leave the door. I don't know why I did this, but I remember I left the driver's side door open. I thought, I'll just put it, I'll turn it on and I'll back it up. It was a standard, So I don't know, you have to push the clutch and he's got it in gear, right? So I turn the key, the car jumps back, the door hits the fireplace, the brick of the chimney on the house next to us, right? And the car stops, right? But it bent the door.

Oh.

And I'm like, oh, boy. So I think, what am I gonna do? So I, I go to my dad, right? And I know that I've made a mistake. And I know this isn't good, right? My dad comes out, he looks at it and he says, okay, we're gonna have to do something. He didn't yell at me, didn't call me stupid, didn't say Anything? He said, all right, the punishment is going to be you and I are going to go to the store, we're going to pick up everything, and you're going to sit with me while I fix it. That was my punishment. But no point did he yell and scream at me, make me feel stupid.

Right.

It was like, you made a mistake. You're going to pay the consequences.

Right.

And here's what the consequences were.

Right.

And so I wasn't afraid to go to him when something went wrong.

Yeah, that's. And that's so important. That's so important.

Yep. And so I had a similar incident with my son when he was 15. He decided to take the car out. A couple of his buddies were over, and they thought, oh, we'll take the car out. He spins out, the car, hits the curb. Right. There was a couple of older kids that were with him. And so the one guy got the car towed back to the house. And so my wife and I were out, you know, for dinner that night. We come home, and my son comes right out as we're walking towards the house, and he says, dad, I made a really bad mistake. And so he told me what happened. And I don't know if that was the way I responded was. Because the way my dad responded, but the first thing I said is, is anybody hurt?

Right.

And he. He goes, no, I just hit the curb. I said, are you okay? He goes, yeah, I'm okay. And I said, all right, we're gonna have to figure out how to fix this, but you're gonna be responsible for helping to fix this. He still talks about that he was scared, thinking he's in a lot of trouble, but what was the best way to handle that? How beneficial would it have been to scream and yell at him? He punished himself worse than anything. He had to wait, like, two hours for me to get home. That was the worst punishment he had.

Right.

And so, you know, he learned to lesson, but without fear.

That's beautiful. I love that.

I don't think I would have done that. I don't know if I would have without the experience of my dad. So if you can remember those things when your kids make mistakes, is that their kids are supposed to make mistakes, you know?

And I heard something that really resonated with me when it's like, with kids, especially, like, this is their first time doing life. I think Neil DeGrasse Tyson said something like, everything is an experiment, right?

Yeah.

Up until they're teenagers. Right. Like, there's still things, you know, we're all learning things, even as adults, we're, you know, we try new things, whatever. But as a kid, especially as an infant to a toddler to a kid, it's like, this is the first time they're. They're experimenting. Like, my son right Now, Johnny, he's 21 months. He's gonna be 22 months soon, literally is now in that phase where he's testing us, right? So.

Oh, yeah.

So he'll sit there and, you know, he's getting really good with his fork now. We got him, you know, we got a meeting stuff and stuff. But he'll look at us and he'll grab the fork and he'll go like this and go, drop it right on the floor. And we're like. And we're like, johnny, don't do that. And we put it back up. And he'll look at us and he'll go again, right? And so he's testing us. And again, it's all experimental, right? This is new for him, you know, and. But, you know, a beautiful thing, though, right now is, you know, when he is, like, in trouble or if he falls or if he's scared or whatever the hell it is, you know, he'll run right to me, right? Yeah. And, you know, but that, to me, that. That's success, right? When that. When those things happen, you know, I'm like, oh, my God, I'm like melted like freaking butter on a skillet. I'm like, you know, come on. So. But, yeah, I think it's important. I think people listening here, too, on this podcast right now, you know, whether you're a pattern or not. I think this is really important, what we're talking about here, right? Because a lot of times we talk about generational curses, right? That families pass on to each other. Anger, alcoholism, you know, list goes on, right? Anxiety. You know, Tony Robbins said this. You have to be the person in your family to break that generational curse, right? And this right here, we're talking about stopping your anxiety, stopping, you know, your depression, stopping the, you know, anger and whatever, you know, it is in your household and so on and so forth. That doesn't just impact you, that impacts your kids and how they view the world or even the people who you don't realize that are around you, that look up to you, because everybody has. Somebody's looking at you, right? And it's like what you do with that attention, you know, super important. You know, it's molding somebody in a positive way or negative way, but. But nonetheless, it's definitely Somebody's definitely watching. And.

And again, your kids are the most important things. They're watching you like a hawk. They're learning even the littlest things that you do. How did you respond to me dropping the fork?

Right, right.

How did you respond to me spilling the milk?

Right, right.

And all of those kinds of things. So even an accident, they look at how. Am I safe or am I not? Right. Dropping the fork. Am I safe or am I not? Well, I don't want to keep you a lot longer. We've been here for. For quite a bit. I really appreciate all your time and everything you shared because this is really helpful to a lot of people. Right. You have tremendous success in what you do. Will you share with us? Like, if people are interested in learning more about what you do? You've already helped us with things, talking to us about, you know, what we need to do in reviews, and we've listened, and I think we've done over doubled what you've told us to do in terms of those kinds of things. You. You definitely have a wisdom in that area. But share with people if they want to learn about what you do and how you can benefit them.

Yeah. So you can find us on adapting social and all social channels. Adapting social.com. if, you know, if somebody's looking to grow their revenue, build their business, you know, get in front of more customers and look like an authority in your space, you know, that's what we do. So happy to help. And obviously, if you come in and we see that you came in from this podcast, you know, we'll definitely take care of you, you know, give you an incentive for doing so. And bottom line is, again, the way. The way that Doc here is helping people mentally, we help people fiscally. Right. For one of our clients that I'm proud of right now, we. This is one of our success stories. Every Friday, we have a success story Friday, you know, in our organization. And, you know, today we had somebody who was on the brink of going out of business. And typically every year we help, you know, essentially pro bono help at least five businesses that are struggling. And one of the businesses that we started pro bono in the beginning of 2024, you know, and they were about to shut their doors on their way this year to net $2.5 million.

Nice.

And that's. And that's. So it's bottom line, right? It's not top line. It's bottom line. So to go from that to being able to have that kind of piggy bank at the end of the Year, you know, starting off that way, that's massive success. Like, that's an example when we come in, we're not your typical agency where it's like, let's make some cute social posts and do a couple of things. It's very business economical and strategic. How can we grow to X revenue? What do we need to get there? How can we get there? What ladder do we need? And then we develop that plan. Right. And. And the. One of the things I will say is that with adapting, I built the business and I got to give my team all the credit. I. I have. Business acumen is ingrained in me because I know as a business owner, we all have payroll to worry about and this and that and, you know, clients and making rent and satisfying, you know, the clients and the team at the same time. It's. It's a juggling act with many hats. Business is like life, right? So it has peaks and flows. It has ups and downs. It has things that happen to the business owner that changes business. We adapt with our clients with business acumen at the center of it, you know, and so if anybody fits that mold, you know, we're happy to jump on a call and go to adaptingsocial.com and tell them that you came from this podcast.

Absolutely. And we'll put it up in the notes as well. So I can't recommend John enough because I know if he believes that he can help you, he'll help you. If he doesn't believe he can help you, just tell you he can't help.

Yeah.

No, that's really what you want. Yeah.

Yeah.

Right. And people who are successful will do that. Right. And people who have the integrity will do that. And so I truly believe that you have that integrity, and that's what's made you successful.

So, yeah. Thank you.

So, again, thank you so much for all your time this afternoon. I know you're really busy. You got a lot of stuff. You got a lot of babies to look after.

Well, Doc, I appreciate you having me, and I hope everybody out there listening takes it in their hands to get back the peace and the clarity that they need in their lives.

Beautiful. Well, thanks, everybody, for listening to another episode of you must be out of your mind. And there it is.