Ep. 20- Purpose, Potential, Goal Setting and Massive Action

This is the You Winning Life Podcast, your number one source for mastering a positive existence. Each episode, we'll be interviewing exceptional people, giving you empowering insights and guiding you to extraordinary outcomes.

Learn from specialists in the worlds of integrative and natural wellness, spirituality, psychology, and entrepreneurship so you too can be winning life. Now here's your host, licensed marriage and family therapist, certified neuro-emotional technique practitioner, and certified entrepreneur coach Jason Wasser.

Telling people who you are, what you do, and why you do it.

Sounds good. So first of all, thank you for having me. It's really an honor to be here. I'm really excited to be spending some time with y'all. So I'm Jason Wasser. I'm a licensed marriage and family therapist in South Florida. I have a wellness practice that's called The Family Room Wellness Associates, and I have a team of therapists. I have a chiropractor, a functional medicine practitioner. We do both traditional talk therapy, as well as integrative wealth— excuse me, integrative health and wellness. One of those modalities is called neuro-emotional technique, which is a mind-body stress reduction protocol. We use Chinese medicine meridian points and muscle testing to remove stress patterns or physiological imbalances in the nervous system. And then on the side, I have a personal and business coaching practice as well. That's what I do.

Busy, don't you?

I'm busy. I didn't leave my office twice this week until after 10:30.

Well, let's hit that follow-up question. Why? Why do you do these things?

What drives you?

I am super passionate about this stuff. I realized as I was going through trying to figure out what my next stages of life were, and that came through an incredible entrepreneur and business program that I've been involved with for the past 2 years, where now I'm a certified coach through them. And it came back down to really the theme of what we want I wanted to talk about today, which is about purpose. And I'm realizing that a lot of my purpose is connected to minimizing stressors and maximizing potential. And I really am, you know, really excited about doing that with the people that are in my life, whether they're clients from my therapy side or my coaching side.

Awesome.

So we were about to get into a big, deep discussion on neuro-emotional technique. Before we started, and, you know, we cut you off a little bit. Why don't you, uh, why don't you get into that first? Because it seems really interesting.

Yeah, NET is incredible. It's one of the— probably the biggest things that's changed my life. Um, and I stumbled upon it years ago, and, uh, actually through a colleague of mine who I grew up with her children, um, and ended up going to her first session. And the way NET works is that you're dealing with a simple muscle test. And a muscle test really allows you to bypass your intellectual side of your brain and go into the fight or flight. So we can be talking about a specific issue and saying, "Yeah, I'm okay with it. That doesn't bother me," and then have a muscle test done on that, and that will show you whether that's really congruent or whether there's a physiological fight or flight going on or not. Once we know that—

So by muscle test, you're putting electrodes places?

Actually, we're using an arm muscle test, so we would have a person hold their arm out, and we would apply pressure to the top of their wrist as they're lightly resisting to that pressure. And if they're in alignment or congruent with that statement or that belief or that feeling that they're thinking about in relationship to that issue, the muscle test will hold strong. If there is a physiological trigger that's happening, no matter how strong they are, the muscle test is going to break and go weak. We can then use that with Chinese medicine pulse points to determine where their stress pattern is being held because each of the Chinese medicine pathways are corresponding to different body organs, and then each of those different body organs correspond to a specific set of emotions. So, we have this flowchart to kind of determine and break it down into what's really going on for the person, and then to flesh out that original story that's connected to it and allow their nervous system to reset.

Really?

Yeah.

That's interesting. Yeah, and the most crazy wild part is that they're doing cancer— they've been doing cancer research with this at Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia. Dr. Daniel Monte, who's the chair of the Integrative Medicine Department and is a psychiatrist, has been leading that and partnering with Dr. Andrew Newberg, who's one of the top neural imaging specialists. He's a neurologist who's written tons of books, and one of his areas of specialty is the subject— the relationship of spirituality and your brain. And what happens during that. So these have been the lead investigators from Jefferson Medical, and they've published two articles in the Journal of Cancer Survivorship on this.

I believe I just heard like a whole new thing here. I had not— I was not aware of that.

That's sweet. It's a matrix of emotional healing is the way I describe it, you know, like you're going down that rabbit hole. Beautiful. Yeah, so cool.

Um, so it sounds like that's a— it's integrating a lot of, a lot of different practices. Um, is that something that you've, uh, synthesizing is the word I want to use. Is that, is that something that you set out to look for, something fall in your lap? Did you have a realization? How did you stumble across this? And did you kind of set out to design something?

Yeah, so I, you know, what's that old phrase that when the student is ready, the master will appear? So I was at a really challenging point in my life, and I just happened to get connected by a few people to this practitioner, and And I stumbled into it and I walked out of my first session saying like, "Holy crap, this is what I've been looking for to do with my clients." And a month later I took my first training with it. And then now it's been a couple years later and I have gone through each level of their certification. And I'm one of a handful of mental health practitioners in the world that carries their highest level, Level 3 of certification. So yeah, I was looking for it. I was looking to find a way to integrate mind-body healing into the traditional talk therapy.— you hit a wall with clients. And as I'm sure you know, when you're talking to people and they're trying to work out something, sometimes they're just so stuck that they can't get out of their own way. So, this is really kind of an anti-self-sabotage modality on a lot of levels, both physical pain and emotional suffering.

Wow. So, I have this question because, I mean, if you're a trained family therapist, you've got science on the mind. So, you're a structure guy. So, how did this Well, actually, you said it's all scientifically based right now. So when I first heard about muscle testing and stuff, it wasn't scientifically based. So how did— how was that transition from your logical science mind into what is— has at least been a purely kind of a spiritual, non-religious, but spiritual thing?

That's— that transition is Well, I think that's the truest integration of healing at the deepest level, right? Is that you're taking stuff that hard science can prove and accessing mind, body, and spirit, and synthesizing those two together. So even though there's been a lot of bastardizing of those healing modalities, when you hold certain things up to a scientific protocol, which is what NET, Dr. Scott Walker, who's the creator of it, and his wife, Dr. Deborah Walker, who's been facilitating, and they've been really involved in wanting to create a scientifically researched and scientifically sound clinical protocol because they've been doing this for about 35 years. So, they wanted to stand up to scrutiny. We wanted to really be recognized as here's steps that you can do to remove neurological and physiological triggers from your body. And, that's why they ended up doing the clinical research in conjunction with Jefferson Medical School.

Cool. So how's that being, generally speaking, in the medical community, how's that, how's that being received?

It takes time. It takes time. So when you present the research, that's the entryway because they want to see the data, right? So when they show that the study was centered around cancer patients who are having PTSD symptoms, so it wasn't be, wasn't someone who just was diagnosed with cancer and they're like, all right, I'll be fine. These are people who had a display of significant symptomology of post-traumatic stress disorder-like symptoms that were accepted for the study. And what they what they did is they did test markers pre and post. They used a functional MRI machine and they used interviews. And they found that pre, when they had the person replay the story of them being diagnosed at that moment and retell that story, their brain centers lit up in certain areas. And it was consistent with all the people who were retelling their traumatic story about their cancer diagnosis. They went through 4 sessions of neuro-emotional technique. With a practitioner through the university, and then went back in and did that same exact experience again. The story was replayed of their cancer diagnosis while the brain was being mapped through the fMRI, and they pretty much showed consistently that not only did the brain centers that were lighting up before were completely gone, but all the emotional experiences that they were relating to it disappeared as well. So this is groundbreaking.

And so do you run that against a control that doesn't receive the sessions, or do you just run it against the early test?

The pre and post. I mean, there's been other tests that have been done before as far as the person's relational experience to it, but this is as far as hardcore scientific data with numbers and placebo and double-blind. This is, yeah, yeah, this is a big deal.

Nice.

Yeah, really encouraging.

Yeah.

So people can check that out. That's the ONE Research Foundation if they want to see the actual science and data on that. And even if they find that they're compelled, that, you know, they're like, oh my gosh, I know about this stuff, I can't believe there's something really scientific doing that, and they want to actually support, you know, it takes a lot of money to run these studies. Um, I'm not on the board of the ONE Foundation, I'm a member of the ONE Foundation as an NET practitioner. Um, so it's one of my charities that I give to each year. So It's just a really cool thing because imagine how many issues this resolves. And cancer is a big deal, right?

A little bit, yeah.

And if your body's stressed because you're constantly reliving a trauma, you can't heal. Your body is going haywire. So that's one of the benefits to that. That allows your body to get back into a healing state as well. Sweet.

Yeah.

All right.

So what you really wanted to talk about today was purpose. I can tell you hate talking— about NAD.

You know, it all ties together because, you know, that's amazing stuff. And I'm not near the skeptic I used to be. Oh, I used to be a real skeptic about anything. The first time somebody approached me with, for instance, you know, Reiki and muscle testing, I was like, wow, I don't know what you guys are smoking, but, you know, really seriously.

Hopefully good stuff.

I hope you're making a good profit from that. But eventually I got into— I mean, I'm a Master Reiki practitioner a couple times, and I don't use it that much, but I still have it. So, you know, it opened up the mind to a lot of different things. So this is awesome. So now, before we get to purpose— sorry, Josh. Since you're doing all this on this realm, what is your take on EFT?

So EFT—

there's so many beautiful modalities out there.

Yeah.

Right? And everything has a purpose. And everything is useful in so many different ways. I know that people love and swear by EFT. And I've seen things happen that are magical. It's not something that I personally practice. It's kind of like when you find your thing, you find your thing, right? It's like you could be a Yankees fan, but you haven't been in New York since you were like 3 years old, and the Yankees are always going to be your team. So N.E.T. is my team. It's my family. I have practiced a little bit of EFT. I taught a basic introduction on it. It's a magical, magical thing, and it's really tapping into the energetic centers of the meridians. So what we're doing differently with NET is we're actually creating the— we're tying in the non-conscious and the conscious reality of what's happening, and even finding an original event in the person's life that they're carrying on to, that they don't even realize they're carrying, but yet is causing all of this. It's basically bouncing up against everything else in their life. So when we find that Jenga piece and we can yank it, we want the piece to tumble. So EFT specifically is a beautiful and powerful technique. I'm not a practitioner of it, but I know that it has worked for hundreds of thousands of people probably throughout the world. So, you know, if you can find an EFT practitioner, because there's no NET practitioner, then jump right in. You know, I'm a big believer.

Oh, I like that little prioritization you did right there.

I'll admit my bias, you know.

I, you know, I yield. I yield.

Excellent. But it's a powerful— it's a powerful modality. So I just know what I, you know, what I prefer. So yeah, absolutely.

Thank you. Of course. Back to you, Josh.

So purpose, that's what you wanted to speak about.

So let's get started on purpose. What is it? Why is it important? And where do we want to go?

That's it. Well, that's the whole thing, right? Where do you want to go? And I think that is purpose. So, you know, I have this new moving theory that pretty much most of our problems can be solved in life. If we're really damn clear on our purpose. And anxiety, the way I share with people what's the difference between anxiety and depression is that anxiety is the worry about the future and depression is worrying about what happened in the past, right? But if we're really, really clear of what we want to be getting out of our life and we're actually living up to those expectations, we're making decisions based on that, then you're going to be living in purpose. So, this idea that If you aren't clear on your purpose, then you're living off message. And the reason why you're probably living off message is because you're not making values-based decisions. And if you're really, really, really, really clear on your values and you make decisions on your values, then that's eventually going to lead you to deciding what to include in your life and what not to include in your life. And therefore, things are going to become really easy because then you know you're going to be making decisions that are purposeful versus reactionary. I think that really sums it up in that really brief nutshell.

And how do people find that purpose? What's the start of the discovery path?

So how I found it was doing this business entrepreneur program. It's called Business Finishing School. And the thing that they start off with, number one, is values-based decision-making. How do you run a business? How do you run your life if you're really unclear about what your business values are, about what your personal values are? And then they take it not just to your business business and personal, but what about your investing values? What about your diet values? What about your relationship values? Who are you dating? What are the values you need to see there? A good example is Warren Buffett just came out with his list of the companies he invested in. So I was going through it. There's Bank of America, and there's a few other companies, and then Monsanto popped up. And many people really don't want to support Monsanto with their GMO and their chemicals and stuff like that. So for me, that would be against my values to buy into that company, even though Warren Buffett, who is the wizard of Omaha, My values are going to precede the possibility of any investment in that because I want to be able to sleep at night. So that decision became very clear. I saw what he had on the list. I like some of those, and I put some thought and maybe some money into some of those other stocks. And then I saw Monsanto, I'm like, not a chance. So that's a values-based decision. It also goes back to who you want to work with, what the mission is of your business, as well as who you want to be in relationships with. So the more clear you are on that, the more your decisions are going to become, does this align with my values? I look at my list, it's either a yes or a no.

What, what I have found in life with myself and others, and I'm sure you have an answer for this, is that most people really haven't taken the time to figure out what their values are.

Amen.

So, um, how does one go about that? I mean, I started mine way back with, with Anthony Robbins and, and, um, the name of the book just flew right out of my head, but you know who Anthony Robbins is, um, and his, and his value series. But most people You ask them what they believe in, why they believe in it, they don't know. Something somebody else told them, and my daddy said it was wonderful back here, and they're carrying that on. So in your life, in your experience there, how did you go about actually, you know, the process for actually figuring out definitively, not just like, well, I feel like this, what your values were as far as that was concerned?

So it really came up through this program. So I always knew what I was passionate about, I know what I enjoy, but there wasn't certainty with what I want to be doing. And there's so many areas of interest that I have, but I know that I can only really accomplish a certain amount, at least in this lifetime, and who knows what will happen the next time. But when I got really, really clear on that over the last year and a half, not only did my business grow by 30% in that year, but I also stopped seeing clients that were driving me nuts or that I wasn't enjoying seeing. They weren't specific to the kind of clients I wanted to be seeing with the specific issues. Now I get to wake up every morning and look at my schedule and be really excited who's coming in that day. Now I'm not excited that they have issues, that they have to come to therapy, but I get to walk into work every day loving my therapy clients and loving my coaching clients because I'm also trying to get them to that same place. As much as this came from probably an entrepreneur or business mindset, it is so damn therapeutic. And now I'm going through with each of my clients, "I can't help you get to a specific goal until I know your core values. And once I know your core values, then I can help you get there because why would I lead you to a place that's already gotten you stuck because you weren't clear? And you're going to keep making the same decisions." that are keeping you stuck. So I really think that if we start at that place and you go to those values-based decision-making, you can fight that hit, that story, right, of that narrative of your dad always doing something a certain way, or your mom having that emotional scenario that you keep playing out in your adulthood, in your relationships. You can break those things by making a proactive decision to put those in place instead of fighting that old programming.

I like that. Yeah.

And how do you— how does one define one's core values? That sounds like— I mean, for instance, there might be 150 different values out there, there might be 700, there might be 50, I don't know. So that means however many values are out there, you know, it seems like a lot to just grab and pull in and see these are the ones that matter to me. Absolutely. And these are the ones that matter to me right now. They may change in 10 years as my life changes. How do you help people identify those?

Right. So one of the things that I do with them both as a therapist and as a coach and especially through the business program is step 1 is putting them on the curriculum that I coach through, through Business Finishing School, and step 1 is walking them through a list of 200 values. And then I'll have them kind of whittle away and whittle away. What are the words that really stand out to you? What are the words that really bring you excitement and make you feel motivated? And when you die, what are the words you want people to say about you? And then we start combining words that are very similar and putting those into packages. And then once we whittle that down, let's say they have like 15 or 20 words, then I'll say, okay, so of these words that you found, what's the 5 to 10 words that you feel define every other word that's left?, and we can use those other words to help you define that. So for example, one of my business values is compassion, and I really love the words empathy, sensitivity, and inclusivity. I have a family therapy practice where I see people from all backgrounds, and all genders, and all religious, everything, so that's really important for me for them to feel like they're walking into a safe space. So I couldn't use inclusivity and sensitivity as all my values, so I decided compassion was the keyword, and the definition that came out of it was by displaying care, empathy, sensitivity, and inclusivity, we support our clients and their loved ones through the journey of personal and interpersonal relationships. And that's one of my values, along with enthusiasm and growth, authenticity and self-awareness.

You teach that process?

I teach that process.

I might have to sign up for that.

Happily. And it's a lot easier and a lot quicker than you think. So, right, it could take a couple weeks to whittle it down. Over a couple hours, over a couple weeks, but once you have it and then you have it for different categories in your life, then okay, well what do I want to accomplish this year according to each of those values? Everything is reverse engineering. And if people aren't reverse engineering their life of where they want to be, then they're wasting so much time, effort, and energy.

So you say you are both a therapist and a coach. We've actually had somebody on recently, David Steele from the Relationship Coaching Institute, who has a background in both as well. Which do you prefer and why?

I think they're integrative. I think they go hand in hand, and it goes back down to, you know, my, my core mission is that we all have struggles in different aspects of our life. So if I can really, you know, minimize the person's stressors and maximize their potential, then, you know, the mission statement of my business really is we exist to guide the world towards achieving health, hope, and happiness. And how do we How do we do that? By minimizing, by transforming life stressors into maximized potential. So if it's a business thing, then I'm going to do it through that. If it's a family thing, if it's a couple thing, if it's an anxiety thing, there's stressors, there's a belief that you have about that stressor. Let me challenge those beliefs. Let me challenge those attempts you've had to try to solve the problem, and let's be solution-oriented about it. And let's, again, find that Jenga piece that's holding it all together so the puzzle can topple. So do I see myself more as a therapist or as a coach?— there's a big difference between being a therapist and a coach. A lot of coaches are doing therapy and they shouldn't be. And there's a lot of therapists that are coaching and they shouldn't be. There's way more coaches that are doing therapy and they shouldn't be than therapists the other way around. But I think this really synthesizes both worlds, the entrepreneur world with the— that's the external world of how you present yourself out into the world and how you bring yourself to the world, and the inner world, which is your relationship, the people you love. Your self-health, your self-help, your spiritual relationships, which is why the synthesis of all this is my definition of what an entrepreneur is, which will really answer your question. So through Business Finishing School, Rick Stappio is the person who created the program, so I kind of played with his definition and my definition, and this is kind of what I came up with for an entrepreneur, which is a person who defines their core values, and then holds themselves accountable to making decisions on those values, And because of that, their outcomes allow them to find and share their purpose with the world. So define your values, hold yourself accountable to those values, make decisions on that, and your purpose will become very clear, and you'll be more likely to achieve that purpose when you have that down pat. So hopefully that'll sum up the answer for you.

I wrote it down, so it's good. Josh had that thinking thing on, he was doing.

Carrying just on from here, so now you've, you've started by defining your core values and you've, you know, kind of transformed them into a purpose. How do you make sure you're staying on track toward that purpose? And where do you, where do you start to How often do you reevaluate as your life progresses, your values change?

Absolutely.

So, I think once you have those values clear and you kind of know what your mission is, then you start creating goals on that. And, again, going back to the reverse engineering, I look at it as a yearly game plan. And you come up with either specific goals that are based on what you want to accomplish in that region, whether it's health or wealth or family or whatever it may be. Yearly, and you have, okay, what do I want to accomplish in the next 12 months? And then you reverse engineer that back to quarterly.

Okay.

Right?

So if I want 20 new clients, 20 new online coaching clients in the next year, then I have to reverse engineer that to at least getting a minimum of 5 a quarter. So what are the objective, what are the steps, the action steps I need to take in order to do that? How many podcasts do I need to be on? How many times do I need to put up an Instagram video? How many Facebook feeds do I need to do in order to start attracting that? Therefore, I'm not wishy-washy with what it is. Here's my game plan. I'm sticking to it. I'm beating that drum over and over again until the results happen.

When do you go back and kind of reevaluate your values? Is that something you're constantly looking at, or is that an annual thing while you're doing your goals? Yeah.

One of the beautiful things about the program that I do with BFS and what I get my clients on is an accountability group. So every Wednesday morning at 8 o'clock, I have an accountability group with a few other people who are doing the curriculum, and we do this every week. What are our challenges? What are the opportunities that have been there for us? Where are we stuck? And we put it back against the curriculum. So you're constantly going back to the foundational principles, right? And we want to make it as simple as possible. So, you know, one of my clients was talking about like, oh my gosh, I would love to have family meetings once a year so we can plan out the year. And I'm like, if you If you were a corporation, you were only having one business meeting a year, your business would fall apart. And that person's response was, "Well, I want to start somewhere." And my challenge back to them is then, "Why not start with one a month?" Right? It's that massive action. The massive action is always going to get you the massive results. Mediocre action is only going to get you mediocre results. I mean, Grant Cardone and the 10X Rule talks about that a lot. So that's a great resource for your listeners.

Yeah.

Yeah, we haven't had Grant Cardone on a podcast yet, but I may brave that as a— he was pretty intense.

He is.

I was just at the 10X Growth Conference in Vegas last week.

Oh, were you?

Awesome. Really powerful. Me and 9,000 other wild and crazy entrepreneurs.

Wow.

Together, yeah. It was a beautiful thing. Mm-hmm.

They had quite a list of speakers. I was following along a little bit.

Yeah, yeah, and it's really, the amount of data you can pull in the span of 3 days is incredible, and I actually left early to fly from there to take a red-eye to Dallas, so I flew from Fort Lauderdale to Vegas, spent Wednesday, Thursday, Friday in Vegas, and then I took the red-eye to Dallas to the Business Finishing School program, which was really Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and I ended up there and flying back home, so it was a really entrepreneur, Packed weekend for me. How do you sleep? My espresso latte helped out a lot on the weekend.

We know a great sleep therapist in case you need one, you know.

Happy to take the connection. So yeah, so that's really, it was really cool. It was really exciting.

Wow.

There's a lot going on.

Yeah, so that was one exciting week in your world. What is, I don't wanna say typical, but average, what does your week usually look like since I'm sure it's not that?

So my average week looks like Monday to Thursday and Friday mornings, I am in my office here in Fort Lauderdale. Seeing clients from all different backgrounds, right? I have my traditional therapy clients that are coming in. I do some online therapy for Florida residents, and then I have my coaching clients. So that, plus any— my two accountability groups that I'm in, one is the business one, the other one is for coaches that I'm in for working on our coaching practice and growing our coaching practices. Then I also teach 1 to 2 times a month. I actually teach a team leadership and entrepreneurship program through the Jewish Federation of Broward County. So I have 15 high school kids that I'm working with, and we're going through values and ethics and all this through the eyes of being young leaders as they eventually go off to college and young adulthood, and how can they take all these values and take that in to bring back to their communities, you know, as they get older. So it's busy.

Great, and hopefully programs like that continues, and we found a hole here. Our Jewish Educational Alliance here in Savannah is running a leadership program for people our age because, I mean, there's that gap between teaching teens leadership and everybody who's retiring from synagogue boards and that. So now they're targeting us. You're going to get a call in a couple of years.

I'm happy to come help now. It's actually my— previously, before I was a therapist, time, I actually worked in informal Jewish education. So synagogues and camps, and I worked— I was a program director at the Center for Jewish Life at Princeton, the Hillel on campus one year. So that's a lot of my background. So it was great. That was all informal therapy. That was all informal coaching. So it kind of was a logical progression to be where I am, but I know those challenges from every background, whether it's a church or a synagogue or a school. They're all struggling with engagement right now. As we can see with the leadership of what's happening, unfortunately, Parkland, which is only 10 to 15 miles northwest of me, and how connected we are through the community with people unfortunately connected to the shooting, the teens are the ones who are setting up, who are standing up. They're the ones who are going to make the change to this idea that these millennial generation and younger are jaded and only— they're finding their voice because they're finding something that they buy into. And the older generations are really, they went to the job to support their family, and they go home, and they clock, right? And that's it. There was no bigger picture. It was like, "We got to support our family. We got to take care of our community. That's it." I think the younger generation is really tied into purpose and values. And one of the 2 to 3, one of the 3 books that I'm working on right now is targeting that for teenagers, that purpose-driven teenage value system, and what's going to get them to the next level. Through that. So I find it's really important, exactly, especially as young adults become community leaders as well, because those are the people who can fund everything, right? Right.

So you've got a therapy practice, you got a coaching practice, you had a couple of accountability groups, and you're working on 3 books?

Yeah, yeah, I'm bored.

I'm bored.

And then I occasionally travel to do some public speaking as well. So yeah. That's been good. Yeah, it's really, I'm very blessed and very busy. And the busy, you know, people complain about, oh my God, I'm so busy, I'm so busy. I actually on purpose decided not to go to two social events this week, 'cause I'm so excited with what's going on in my office, that that's why I was in my office twice this week until, 'cause I got stuff I gotta put out into the world, and I'd rather be there than hanging out at an event with people that I'm probably not gonna talk to in two years anyway.

Been there, done that.

Wow.

And if they listen to this podcast, you won't be talking to them tomorrow instead of in 2 years.

Well, you didn't name anybody, but you know, if you want to, you know.

Makes my life more simple.

Yeah.

That is, that's, you cram a lot of stuff into a day, homeboy.

I think the ADD helps and the fact that I realize that I'm only reaching 10% of my potential. I, you know, just a quick story of why this all makes sense once I tell you this is, I graduated high school with a 1.8 GPA.

With a?

1.8 GPA.

I see.

At one point I was failing. It's all Fs, right?

Little bit, yeah.

Yeah, so, you know, clearly I didn't realize what my potential was. I didn't realize what my purpose was. I didn't realize why, you know, I had good friends, you know, my family, I went through a family, my parents got divorced. There was a lot of stuff going on with that. Thankfully things have, you know, resolved over the years. But you know what I had, that was the only thing that was really going for me solidly was my youth group through my synagogue and my friends connected to that. And, you know, thank God I had music in my life. I play a bunch of different instruments and that was a therapy outlet, but it was rough. So not being the good student, knowing that I have some level of brains, but not realizing what I'm capable of until much later later is like, you know, it's in a way making up for lost time, but it's also like I am really only tapping into 5 to 10% of my potential. So when I realized that, it really lights a fire under my bum and gets me really excited for what's to come.

Thank you.

So how do you reach that other 90%?

Knowing that I'm never going to get to it all. And, you know, at the end of the day, you gotta be satisfied with what you got. And satisfaction doesn't mean get lazy, just really noticing, you know, and stop telling that self-sabotaging story at the end of the day, right? I had a great day with my clients, I was here late, I was talking to my SEO guy, I worked on a chapter of my book, and I left my office at 10:30, and I get home, and that first thing that pops into my mind when I got home was like, "You didn't do crap today." Right? Oh my gosh, no. Like, you're an idiot, right? And look at all this time you wasted and you could have accomplished more things and blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, and you have to learn how to shut that off. You have to learn how to shut that off. And so that's—

How do you shut that off?

No, how do you shut that off?

How do I shut that off? Yeah. I call it out. I call it out on the BS that it is. And I get to look at my schedule and be like, I wouldn't have a waiting list of clients wanting to see me and people wanting to work with me from all over the world if that was true. So, you know, I have to trust that at the end of the day of what people— the value that I'm hopefully providing for people around me. And if I am providing value, at the end of the day, I can go to sleep with a clear head and knowing that I'm providing value and that in exchange for that value, you know, I'm being able to pay my bills and create a lifestyle that I want for myself and want to contribute down the road to a family. I can go to sleep at night knowing that I'm doing that all ethically and honestly.

There's a big step, that whole ethically thing. That's missing in a lot of dealings these days in a lot of places. So I salute you on that.

We're trying, right? Day by day.

Doing good.

But that goes back to the values.

That is correct.

And there's people out there who are taking advantage of people who want more. You know, there's a lot of that in the entrepreneur, in that thought leader category, or those self-help gurus, or the people who are showing videos of, look at me, I have a house and two Lamborghinis in front of my house, buy my program. I won't name names, but I'm sure you can figure out who I mean.

I got one of these I hit, every time I hit YouTube, I see one of those, and I got, okay, where can I hit the skip thing? Let's skip this. Yeah, we don't want this. Like, that's too much. Oh, that's pretty awesome.

What else you got, Josh?

Because, you know, I got tangents I can go off on.

Well, go off on some tangents.

Go off on some tangents, man.

That's, you know, how did you—

well, after all of that, you know, story you just told us about the high school performance and the 1.8 GPA and so forth, What was the, the trigger for you to get you motivated to do better?

So I realized a few weeks ago, looking back upon it, that I always— that I want to be the type of therapist that I wish I had for myself when I was younger. And that was like a big aha. Moment for me. And, you know, therapy is therapy and coaching is coaching, but really at the end of the day, what we're all looking for is mentors, right? We're looking for people to believe in us. We're looking for people to see all the amazing things in us. We're looking for people to buy into us. And I've had a bunch of those throughout my life. And even though my parents, you know, obviously tried at whatever level they tried, we always need more than that. And so, but you also have to believe what they see in you. And I think until I started to sync that up and started to see my potential, that's when things started to click. And I had to go through a divorce to figure that out. I had to go through a really bad financial situation because of that to figure that out and to hustle to keep my business together and then to grow it. And then to get a really good professional reputation, and then to be invited to be speaking at different places, and to see that there's so much more out there, there's so much greater out there, and it's to A, be inspired, that's why we're all listening to the Tony Robbins, I mean Tony Robbins, and the Gary Vaynerchuk's, and the Grant Cardone's, and all the people, the Mel Robbins, and all these different people that are out there, because each of us desperately want that. And we also, in a way, kind of want to help be able to do that for others. I hope, I hope. So we're all a synthesis of all that data, right? Nothing is really— and if we can just synthesize all that and really give out the best sound bites, you know, and hopefully that'll help somebody else, then all right, then we're doing something good, you know, and drop all the crap on the side, drop all the other crap.

We just lost your audio.

I still have it here. You got it again?

I'm here.

Are you there? Okay, you got that, Josh? Josh? Yep, I'm here and here.

So, okay, okay.

Oh, well, so what's a good question? What's a good question? All right, I don't want— I don't want to steal your question, Josh.

No.

So, you know, you've been through a lot that I, I can appreciate that in every And you don't even look nearly as scarred up as I know the stuff you went through.

I exploit.

You know, there's a lot of people out here today who don't believe things can be accomplished. 'Cause if you listen at the news, that will hypnotize you into knowing that there is no help or possibility in the world to do anything and you'll just get depressed and go away. But for those who don't buy into that, What is the message that you have for people that says, you know, don't believe that crap, look at this?

Right, well, you can't not believe that crap when you're surrounding yourself by it 24/7. So my first challenge would be take every single news app that's on your phone and delete it. Step one. Step 2 is stop watching those channels. I don't care which side it is. And when I go look at the news, I go to CNN and Fox and Huffington and Breitbart. I like seeing the different perspectives, but I also made a commitment that I'm not going to do that for more than a total of 30 minutes a week.

A week? A week. Sweet. Okay.

And I also made a commitment this New Year's resolution to only watch 2 hours of TV a week unless it's documentaries and/or stuff that's helping me both on a spiritual or practical or professional level. So, right?

So you're talking, you're talking what are you feeding your mind?

What you're feeding your mind and what you're choosing to allow in. And this is proactive choices. People are willingly putting themselves in front of this. And I had a family member who after, I don't remember what event it was, it might have been the Mandalay Bay shooting, and the person was like, "Oh, call me back, I'm watching the news." And I'm like, "Well, how long have you been doing that?" They're like, "I don't know, 2, 3 hours." I'm like, "What do you, what more do you need to hear?" And this person's like, "Well, I'll know more." I'm like, "What more are you gonna know? There was a shooting, no one caught it. It was a really awful, unfortunate situation, but what other data are you gonna be able to gather that's gonna help you in Fort Lauderdale from when you're, this person, this happened in Vegas?" "Well, I'll be more prepared." Well, being more prepared means creating a better security system at your business. It means that if you're a concealed carry, in a concealed carry state, I'm a liberal, but I also believe multiple weird things that don't always line up, that if you wanna conceal carry, you should conceal carry if you're a responsible person, then go to the range and practice and become more prepared and train. But watching the news is not gonna get you more prepared. Being around people that are toxic and talking crap and only talking negativity is not gonna make your life better. So purge the crap out of that stuff.

I was gonna say, the only way to prepare yourself more for Mandalay Bay is don't be outside with a crowd. That's— Yeah.

Ever, anywhere.

You know, hard to control for that.

You can't control life. You can't control life, and people are trying to. That's the Buddhist teaching on suffering. You know, and they say, "What's the cause of suffering?" And they say suffering comes from because we hold onto a specific expectation, an outcome of how we think life should be. And when that doesn't happen, who's left holding the crap in your hand? So it's going to happen no matter what. It's how do you choose to respond? What attention do you want to give it? No, I got my clients to take care of. I have my family to love. I have my friends to love. I can't control any of anything else. I can't even control what's going on for them. But I can help navigate it and put your attention to more of a positive, preferred, favorable thing.

I, I, I like doing that.

Well, the example that I really love giving is, you know, when you go into a pizza place, you never order with the toppings that you don't want on your pie, do you?

Good one.

No, try to skip that.

Yeah, true. Yeah, right. But people are going around doing that. Well, you know, ask a client comes in, well, tell me, what, what are you here for? Well, I don't want to be doing this, and I don't want to, you know, suffer at my job, and I don't want to fight with my husband anymore. Well, tell me what you want. Yeah, I don't want this. So we're automatically filtering ourselves for that, right? Yes. So we have to reprogram ourselves to be focusing purely, purely on what is our preference. What do we prefer? If you really prefer mushrooms on your pizza, order mushrooms. Don't say to the person, I don't want olives.

Yeah, that's a big coaching moment right there. Yeah, don't tell us what you don't want, tell us what you do want.

That's it, yeah. And that's how the media wins, that's how the news wins, that's how they sell stuff, that's how they keep us stuck. That's their job. If no one's watching it, their bills aren't being paid and advertisers aren't giving them money.

For the most part, I stopped watching the news in 1989. I have, I've had a little relapse last January because I'm just, and it's like, I cannot believe the stream of stuff that's coming up and what's happened here. But I also know from where I am, there's nothing I can do about that.

Right.

You know, so I don't, sometimes I watch a little more than I want to. Every once in a while, I'll forget to look at it for 3 or 4 or 5 or 6 days and then go, oh, let me catch up. Well, that was dumb. Why did I catch up the whole thing?

What are you catching up on?

Right? It is helpful not to focus on that stuff. And, you know, I'm a Stephen Covey guy. I'm a don't worry about stuff you can't control because it'll just drive you nuts. So, Give us some advice, give us some recommendations on how to keep from burying ourselves into that trap of looking at everything and unfortunately, 'cause once we look at it, brain's gotta process it.

Mm-hmm, both consciously and unconsciously, right? Absolutely.

Give us your best stuff on how to not do that to yourself.

I think it goes back to everything we've been talking about today, which is your values, right? And if you really are creating a life by design, which is what are my objectives, what are my goals, what are my action steps, if you have time for all of this other stuff, then your goals aren't big enough. You're settling for mediocrity. And it's one of my couples that I saw the other night where there was a slight infidelity. It's an infidelity by the definition of the couple where he was texting an ex-girlfriend. But I was telling him like, if you're here and you're working on the couplehood and you're working on the relationship and you have time to be doing something else, that has nothing to do with relationship or giving time to someone else that is not in this relationship, then you're nowhere near putting the amount of effort that you should be into this marriage. So I'm finding that over and over again that people are saying what they want, but they're half-assing it left and right. And that goes back to the 10X theory, the 4 different actions. And one of those is the massive action. And if you're not taking massive action, you're only taking little steps and you're— it's like putting a pot of water on the oven and then taking it off right before it starts starts boiling and then putting it back on and taking it back off right before it starts boiling. It's gonna be hot water, but it's never gonna simmer. So if you want your life to simmer, consistency and massive action.

That's it.

Consistency and massive action.

Yeah. I know where you could get a good fight for that massive action comment. I should have said that one too. No, that's all right. No, that's excellent. That's excellent. Josh, I'm gonna shut up now. It's your turn.

Okay, well, I'm gonna go to our usual toward the end stuff. Is there anything that you wish we had asked you or is there anything that you talk about a lot that you wish other people would ask you about?

And I apologize, my dog is making strange noises.

I was wondering what that was.

That was my stomach.

That's good.

I got some other stuff to take care of. I don't have time for that. So now this is kind of my— what we've talked about really is kind of the main things on a daily basis and really sharing and wanting people to know is purpose and values and healing. And all this can be done between getting coached up, getting therapied up, finding an NDT practitioner. If you have those 3 things in your life, you're going to be golden. And you really get clear on your goals. You really get clear on your values. Stop telling that old story, whatever that unfinished business is. You know if there's something— it's like, remember Married with Children? Right, Al Bundy? What's that one story that he always told over and over again? Do you know what I'm talking about? From his high school days?

His high school football, yeah.

Exactly. And how many touchdowns did he score for Polk High? Right? That's unfinished business. So when you're around people who are constantly telling that same story of, "Oh my gosh, I remember back in the day, my first year in business, I made $200,000 in commission," and that was 20 years ago, and they've never done the same again, right? Or, "When I sold that big house to that rock star," or, "When I first was married, I took my wife on this massive trip," but yet they haven't done it in 15 years. That's unfinished business. So when you're looking for themes of where someone is stuck, where you're stuck, what's the stories, the dominant story you keep telling yourself? And that's where to start looking. That's where to start working on some things. If you're stuck in that same old story of remember when, you got to look there first. And if you clear that out, life will become a lot easier. All right.

Well, where can people find you online and where do you hang out the most?

Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️️️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life podcast.

If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so so you don't miss an episode.

You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️🎗️ Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast.

If you are ready If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode.

You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️🎗️ Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Jason Wasser LMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Jason Wasser LMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️🎗️ Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast.

If you are ready to minimize minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode.

You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️🎗️ Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️🎗️ Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️🎗️ Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook @JasonWasserLMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast. If you are ready to minimize your personal and professional struggles and maximize your potential, we would love it if you subscribed so you don't miss an episode. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Jason Wasser LMFT 🎗️. Thanks for listening to the You Winning Life Podcast.