John Assaraf - How To Destroy Mental Blocks That Are Stopping Your Progress

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What's up, everybody? You're listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast with your boys, Matt Wolf and Joe Fear. Welcome, welcome, welcome to The Hustle and FlowChoice podcast.

Flu Choice. What's your choice today?

My choice is the red pill or the blue pill.

I don't know where.

I don't know where I'm choice.

Yeah, it's a flowchart flu chart.

Flustle and Flussle and Ho chart. That's a new one. Flussle and Hoech. Dude, I love my alternate versions of our name.

We gotta make a shirt for each one of these.

Yeah, Flussle and hojart's pretty good.

Flustle.

We gotta look up and make sure that's. If that's not trademarked, we're taking it. Yeah. If you try to take it, listeners.

Hopefully it's not something dirty on like Urban Dictionary or something.

Yeah. We did not pre look up the definition before this intro.

Just kidding. In case you were curious, this is the Hustle and Flowchart podcast.

Yeah. They had no clue.

Clue.

They had no clue at all. Today's gonna be an interesting one. This is like, you say that on everyone. I know, man, but I'm.

Have we ever had anybody that you're like, this one's not interesting?

Not that I can remember. Okay, very honest. This is why we love podcasting. Am I not wrong in this statement?

No, you are correct.

Correct.

Everybody's interesting.

Damn right. In their own way.

Yes.

It's all perspective. No, but that's why we love podcasting. We get to talk to guys like John Assaraf, which is freaking awesome, man. John Asaph. We've. I don't know, we've read many of his books and book recommendations and shared.

An Uber with him once.

That's.

That's our claim to fame.

That was like, before we even knew Lyft existed in San Francisco.

Yeah.

Going to traffic and conversion. Dang. This is crazy, huh? Just like all the full circle. Totally.

And then it was Roland who reconnected us.

Mind is blown.

Yeah.

Was. I was. I think Roland was part of Digital marketer back then, right?

I don't know.

That might have been like his first TNC that he kind of oversaw.

We can look it up. It is the first year they moved from Austin, I believe.

Yeah, I think that was the first one.

Maybe that was a Roland doing all right then.

We're making the connections.

We are going to do some fact checking after this.

You know, we should do. We should talk About John as Rath.

This is just the story, man. The story is where it's at. John Asraf is just amazing, and this guy is freaking brilliant. I mean, he. I'm just going to say he went on a tear on this episode on just how the brain works and all the ways that your brain is blocked from its highest potential.

Yeah.

And in a nutshell, that's what this thing's all about.

Yeah. We talk about, you know, some. Some things that are buried in your subconscious that are holding you back. We're talking about limiting beliefs. We're talking about fear. We're talking about some tactical, kind of like exercises you can do to get over them, how to realize when they're coming on, all sorts of just amazing mindset, rewiring your brain concepts. And on this one, you're going to notice that Joe and I, you know, we. We kind of sit back and listen because John is just kind of unloading so much great info that we're kind of just sitting back and enjoying the conversation as well, because he's just. He's just unloading. He's just rapid firing. We had. We had kind of a. A narrow timeline, a narrower window to record everything we wanted. So he was just kind of cranking with all of his advice and tips.

It was great. And I think, Matt, maybe we can shine some light on this. It's like most of our guests, I feel like we have a pretty good competence around the topic. And John.

I know we both study the brain and psychology and different programming things to ways, you know, ways that we can maybe stop a bad behavior or negative behavior, turn it into something positive. But. And that's where John really. His expertise lies, but he's just so much deeper where we're just like.

Keep feeding us more strategies, more exercises and concepts in studies. Like, he has a lot of science behind all this stuff. Yeah, he just came out with a book called Inner Size and. And.

Actually in. Yeah, that's right.

Inner Size.

Oh, I have to do a quick edit of that because I was like, wait, hold on. Did I mispronounce that thing? That would be a bad thing. The Internet.

We don't need to edit that. You said it right.

Inner Size.

Trust in your gut.

Yeah, I could do that. I wasn't trusting your tv, though, because it flickered a little bit and it screwed in my eyes. Oh, okay. Inner problem or is that a limiting belief, Joe? No, that's the story. That's your story, and we'll get into that. No, it's Inner Size. It's a different word, but it's this new science to unlock your brain's hidden power. And the thing is basically a deep dive into a lot of this stuff, but it also has a lot of these mental exercises that you can do. And John actually gives a link that Matt, I believe, wrote down that you can get the book, but also a bunch of audios. Yes.

Ignite my brain dot com.

Ignitemybrain dot com.

Yes. So if you're ready to have your brain exploded and then sewn back together in the way that you've always wanted it.

Dear God.

That's what we're gonna talk to John about.

That's a bad analogy.

I don't know about that. I've already. I mean, this whole, you know, rolling connection to John in full circle.

Your mind was blown, and you haven't already been together.

Yeah. So I'm still working on it.

All right, well, let's go talk to John. But right after.

I tell you about these notes that we're gonna take for.

You, right after I tell you.

Right after I get done telling you about this. So go to hustle, flowchart.com comp c o m p and we're going to take notes on this episode for you. So all the tips and tactics and strategies and stories and all that good stuff, all that good stuff that John's telling us is going to be in the notes for you. And all you got to do is go to hustleandflowchart.com comp c o m p and we'll give you those notes. But you got to be quick because these notes are only available for about a week after the episode gets released, and then we pull them off the Internet for good, and nobody can ever see them again. That's not true.

That's not true.

But if you go to Hustle and flowchart. Com, you can get them for free right now.

Yeah, I mean, this. I'm just gonna say these notes are badass. And us being the dudes that are recording these podcasts, we forget so much from each conversation, and we're in the freaking conversation. So I can only imagine being a listener and not being able to, you know, ask the question. So it's a little bit more ingrained in our brain or whatever. Yeah. These notes, like, we were looking at our. We brought back the EGP letter, the physical newsletter where we send just a whole bunch of information every single month. But we were proofing this thing, and we were proofing a lot of the notes that go out as well, and we're like, holy crap, I forgot that. Yeah, I forgot that. That's a badass strategy. Holy crap. We talked about that.

Oh, it's amazing. I mean, I read all of the notes from these podcasts because we're in the middle of the podcast. Sometimes you kind of forget some nuances and tips and tactics and some of the tools they might mention. I forget them and we're doing the interview and like you said, like, I have to. I read the notes of every single episode. We do because they blow me away every time. I'm not writing them. So I'm not, you know, tooting my own horn or anything.

No, Steven does that. So we could say all we want about this.

So we're tooting Steven's horn.

No. These newts are the best thing I've ever seen. Ever. Yeah.

Hustleandflowchart.com comp I'm done talking. Let's go talk to Jonas.

Am I done talking yet?

You are now.

Hey, John, welcome to the show.

Hey, how you doing?

Doing good. Yeah. So, yeah, Roland reached out recently and kind of reintroduced us and we were just chatting about some previous buddies of ours we've done work with and Amisha being one of them. Henry Evans, previous guest on the show here too. Yeah.

Actually, I don't know if you remember this or not, but we actually shared a. It wasn't a cab. It was like an Uber or something in San Francisco. Back at. It was Traffic Conversion Summit. Back when they had it in San Francisco. Me, you, and Joe and Henry Evans all took an Uber together over to the hotel.

I remember that. Yep, absolutely.

And you actually recommended a book. I remember that, 16x by Richard Koch.

Price.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah, 16x. Yeah. There's price. Pritchett wrote some similar stuff as well. Richard Koch did a great job with it.

Yeah. Yeah. So that kind of set us on a whole path of going down some veins in the books in that space. So thank you for that. That was just really cool. Yeah, but you've done a lot. And as I was saying, you've done so much throughout the years and I don't even know where to start. I know your background's quite interesting.

And just recently it seems like you've taken a lot more of the. Even a lot more sciencey evidence backed trainings and have a new book on a lot of this stuff to expand your mind. Where did it really, like, think about the origin story and where you came from and how you got to this point. Can you kind of weave through, navigate through that and we can kind of just kind of pick things apart that way.

Sure. I mean, you know, as a, as a teen, I'll go all the way back to teens. I'll take you back, you know, 40 years. I just got into a lot of trouble and a lot of trouble with the law, with my parents. The principals got kicked out of school, left when I was in grade 11 and my mind was messed up and I was doing things I shouldn't be doing. Even though I knew that they were wrong, I just didn't know how to not do them. And I was introduced to a gentleman, a man and my brother in hope and despair state said, hey, there's a guy by the name of Alan Brown that is a really successful guy, really nice guy that would be willing to meet you for lunch, but there's a catch. And I said, well, what's the catch? He says you'd have to take the train, you know, 350 miles from Montreal to Toronto to meet him. And initially I said are you crazy? I'm not going to take a train to have lunch with some dude. My brother said, no, no, you don't, you don't get it. This guy is a really amazing individual. And so I said, well you know, I'll come and see you and then just arrange for a lunch on like a Friday afternoon. So I took the train and met this guy, Alan Brown and he was in his 40s at the time. I heard via the grapevine at the time he was worth about 50 million bucks, had real estate offices, real estate development, happily married, philanthropist, traveled the world, had a jet. I mean he just seemed like an all around successful guy in every area of his life. And at lunch he asked me a bunch of questions and one of them, once I gave him the answer, transformed my life. And I'll share that with people that are listening right now. And he asked me what my first and foremost, he asked me, what are your goals? And I was 19 at the time. I said well I want to, you know, eventually buy my own car because I take the bus to work and the subway to work. I'd like to get my own apartment, I live with my parents, I want to have enough money so that I can have some fun in life. And he goes okay, well those are pretty scarcity minded goals and you're looking for just the basic human needs. He said, what do you want beyond that? And I don't know, I love watching the show called Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous with Robin Leach. And so I'd Love to have the ability to either have my own jet or charter jet and have a nice car and a nice home. And I started to ramble off a whole bunch of stuff. And he gave me this goal setting document. He says, go ahead and fill this out while I talk to your brother. And so I set some goals. I didn't even set goals. I just wrote down things that I wanted. A year later, three years later, five, 10, 20 years later, and for the most part, I just put bullshit on there. Stuff I had no idea how to achieve. I said, I want to retire at 45, you know, $3 million. I wanted to travel the world, I wanted to do all this stuff. And when I came back, he read and he says, hey, you did a good job. And I said, thanks. He said, well, you know, the question I'm going to ask you is going to determine whether you'll achieve this or you won't and whether I will help you or not. And he read the stuff and he said to me, he says, listen, he says, every one of these things you can achieve, you don't know how to, that's obvious, but you can't achieve them. He says, I've achieved this stuff and then some, so I know I could teach you how to. He says, are you interested in achieving these goals or are you committed? And I said, what? Like, what's the difference? And he said to me, says, he said to me, son says, if you're interested, you'll do what's convenient and easy. You'll come up with stories and excuses and reasons why you can't or shouldn't or won't. You'll allow your present or your past circumstances, like the fact you left high school in grade 11 and you flunked English and flunked math. You're gonna let that control you? He says, but a man who is committed will do whatever it takes. You will upgrade your beliefs, you'll upgrade your knowledge and your skills, and you'll absolutely have to upgrade your habits of what you do every day. He says, when you're committed, you do whatever it takes morally, legally, ethically and professionally. They said, so are you interested? Are you committed? I said, well.

I guess I'm committed. And I don't even know what I said, really. But he said to me, great, in that case, I will be your mentor and your coach. And that day, my life changed. That one question, that one answer changed my life. He says, great. Your first, first decision I need you to make or commitment I need you to make is I need you to move from Montreal to Toronto. I said, what?

I got a job. I'm working in the shipping department at Philips Electronics. Like, you know, I've just been working there for three months. I don't have any money. I can't movie, I don't have an apartment, I don't have a car. He says, those are excuses. He says, you just said you're committed. He says, you know, those excuses are going to keep you interested. And I said, what am I supposed to do? He says, well, first you make the decision. And I says, okay, then I'll come to Toronto. And my brother then said, okay, then you can move in with me. And the next thing Alan Brown said, he says, great, then I'm going to need you to enroll in the real estate course. And it starts on May 5th. And this was 1980. Just to put into perspective, guys, and this was the course started May 5, 1980.

Oh, wow.

I don't have the money to sign up for a real estate course. He says, are you interested? Are you committed? I said, here we go again. Come on, Broken record. Every time I'm gonna say, you know. He says, yeah. Every time you say you can't or you, you come with a story, a reason or excuse, I'm gonna ask you, are you interested? Are you committed? And so I said, okay, well, I'll figure it out. I says, perfect, that's the right answer. So, long story short, I went to back to Montreal on the train. I had a little bit of money in the bank, about $150. And then I had a credit card. So I signed up for the real estate course on my credit card. And the reason I remember these dates in the story so well is I was scared shitless. I had no idea what I was committing to. But in making the decision that I was committed, it gave me this excitement. It gave me this definitely doubts and fears and uncertainty. But it also put me in the position to figure it out. And fortunately, I had help. I had him as help. And so I rolled in the real estate course. May 5th. I got my license. I passed my test on June 20th, 1980. And the reason I know these dates so well, it was the first test I had passed in years that I didn't cheat on like I did in my classes in school. And I actually felt a little proud of myself. Maybe I'm not dumb and stupid and, you know, can't do this stuff. And then I went to work for him. He gave me a job on commission only, and he gave me scripts, you Know to learn. So get on the telephones and cold call people. Hey, this John Ascar for the outbound real estate. We have somebody who's looking to buy a home in the neighborhood. Are you interested in making a move? By the way, that is the actual script, I bet. It is the first one that I learned and if they said yes, I would say awesome. Could my broker Alan Brown and I come over today at 3 o' clock or would 5 o' clock be better? And he taught me that was like an alternative close. Don't ask him when you can come over, give him two times and let him choose one. So he started to train me on what to say, when to say it, how to say it. He taught me to prepare. He taught me to memorize objections that people would come up with and the answers to them. And I'll fast forward for you. I did move in with my brother. I used his 1976 Dodge Dart, a blue Dodge Dart Tudor to start off my real estate career. And in 1980 I made $31,000 on a 5050 split.

And that means that Alan Brown made about $20,000 because he got his percentage of my gross commissions. And it also was the year that I made $6,000 more than my father did driving his cab.

Wow. So commitment pays off for sure. And yeah, it's the figure it out attitude. It sounds like the only difference it was from everything prior in life. Taking these tests like you said, first one you didn't have to cheat on, you're actually committed on this thing.

I thought that cheating was taking a shortcut. But what I didn't realize was that I was sabotaging and killing my self esteem and self worth. I was secretly, you know, rotting from the inside out, exacerbating my already at the time, low self esteem and self worth. And here was this man that, that cared, that, you know, showed me respect, that showed me some, you know, direction. But ultimately, you know, as he used to say, I had to participate in the rescue.

I got that. So how did it? Were there other elements? I'm sure there were. It seems like you kind of trained you on the spot. Just as you accomplished one thing or practiced one thing, it was on to the next thing. And it was both. Language, scripting, behavior, it sounds like. Were there any other practices? Because I know you've done a lot with vision boarding and also being tactile, using your touch to memorize things or change your beliefs. What are some of the practical or other practical things you did throughout this process to change your Thinking.

Yeah. So today my newest book, as you know, is called Inner the new science to unlock your brain's hidden power. And it's already become a best seller. And back in 1980, one of the things that Alan had me do is remember those goals that I had written out on those pieces of paper. Well, he had me rewrite them and tweak them with how I was going to achieve those goals. So he helped me go from vision and goals to what are the strategies, what are the tactics that I could do every single day? And then every day when I came into the office, myself and the other people that he was mentoring had to review our goals. We shared them with each other. We read them, we ran our fingers across them, we closed our eyes and visualized in the saw ourselves achieving them. And then we read affirmations that said, I am totally capable. I'm so happy and grateful that I am now earning. At the time, my goal was to make $100,000 a year. I'm so happy and grateful that I'm now earning $100,000 a year. I have all the knowledge, intelligence, and tools and resources I need to accomplish this goal now. And so I used to read affirmations every day and used to visualize it. And then he would have us do what, one hour of skill training every day, upgrading our knowledge and our skill. So we could do it either by listening to cassette tapes, we could do it by reading a book, or anything to do with selling and marketing and getting better at our craft. And one of the things he shared with me was one hour a day. If you do that every day, that's the equivalent of nine 40 hour weeks. Hmm, nine 40 hour weeks. So you do that one year, you're gonna get some pretty good training. But you do that over three years, five years, 10 years, you are light years ahead of other people.

And I would just imagine any space you want to get really good at, really become an expert. I doubt anyone's dedicating that kind of time, not even a fraction of that time. So you're probably better than 80% of most of the population.

Oh, easily, yeah. I mean, you think about this. If you want to get good at knitting, just knitting, let's say you didn't know how to knit and you want to get good at knitting, Imagine how good you'd get practicing for nine 40 hour weeks. If you want to get good at the Rubik's cube, if you want to get good at chess, if you want to get good at snakes and ladders. I Don't care painting, you know, even if you're a shitty painter, you could learn how. If you just go to YouTube every day and all you did was learn how to paint better or buy a course on learning how to paint. You could learn stuff from the basics to the fundamentals, all the way up to advanced skills. And if somebody was committed, like in today's day and age, 20, 19, 20, 20 day and age, you wouldn't even have to pay for most of the training because there's so much free stuff out there.

You're actually describing a really good buddy of ours and a previous guest, excuse me, named Ori Bengal, who actually does exactly that. I think he's up to, like, almost 4,000 consecutive days of painting, at least one new painting a day.

And he's. Yeah, it was. I think it was stick figures. And now it's, you know, sculptures. And it's just from repetition.

So it goes back to. So are you interested in the result that you want or are you committed? And here's something that fascinated me, right? So here's. I had a health challenge when I was 22. Cause I was actually working, working really hard. And I ended up with severe colitis, where I had bleeding ulcers in my colon. And at one point, I was taking 25 pills a day and going to the hospital every month for a checkup, which was not fun. And the doctor said, if it doesn't get better, there's a good chance you'll have to remove part of my colon. And I'm like, I'm 22 years old. This is already not fun. And so I started doing some research on the cause of ulcerative colitis. And there was a body of work that says it could be a genetic predisposition. And then I came across another body of work that was really the early onset of epigenetics, or the mind body connection. And your internal and external environment that either triggers a genetic predisposition, but your thoughts and emotions and your behaviors determine whether, you know, it actually gets activated or not. And so I started to research a lot about the mind body connection, the power of the brain and the power that you have to heal yourself. And so I started implementing affirmations specifically for my health and visualization and what's called now mindfulness and meditative practice with proper diet and nutrition and exercise to release my stress. And after two years of being sick, I healed myself in five weeks. Wow. I was going to the doctor every single month for checkups.

What did they say they would have had been.

I showed myself ulcerative colitis, severe ulcerative colitis. And that was really the beginning of me recognizing how powerful our brain really is. And it's been a study of mine now for, you know, almost 37 years, where I've been, you know, focusing on the power, power of the mind, power of the brain. And. And so when we take a look at, you know, results people are getting.

Or results they're not getting, there's only one of four things that could be holding somebody back. It's not 50 things. It's only one of four things that hold people back. And. And so we can talk about those.

Yeah, let's go.

Let's. Yeah, I was just letting you go. But let's. Let's dig into them for sure.

Sure. So let's say somebody who's, you know, listening right now has a goal. And let's say, I don't know, their goal is to become a millionaire. Simple goal, if they have a challenge. So setting a goal of becoming a millionaire or making $100,000 or a million dollars a year, setting the goal is easy. And it happens as part of your conscious brain, your deductive reasoning and imagination part of your brain. But if there is a subconscious mismatch where you feel you don't deserve to achieve that goal. Now instead of having what we call as brain coherence, now we have brain chaos, where one part of the brain has this goal, another part of the brain doesn't believe that you're worthy of it or deserve it.

So it's like a conflict going on between.

Chaos is a conflict. So self image, self worth, self esteem. If there's any mismatch or conflict, subconscious wins.

Got it? Okay, so that's the first part.

Yeah, that's one. Number two is fear. Now, a lot of people don't understand fear. Fear is a subconscious reaction to what is in the memory bank in your brain. So if there is a fear, let me give you a really easy example. Let's say.

You'Re, I don't know, 7, 8, 9, 10 years old, 11, 12, 13, doesn't matter. And you're in the classroom and the teacher asks you to stand up to give an answer because you've had your hand up. And let's say you get the answer wrong, and four of your friends start laughing at you and pointing at you and embarrassing you to the point where you feel so ashamed that you stood up.

Sure.

That emotion or the series of emotions are wired 10,000 times faster in your brain than something pleasurable. 10,000 times faster in your brain for protection in the future.

So it's a protection thing. Okay, got it, yeah.

So let's say 15, 20 years later, your boss says, hey, I'd like you to give a speech to the company that's coming in next week. That fear reactive circuit is going to light up like a Christmas tree. And you'll probably say something, you know what, I really don't feel comfortable doing that. And you may not even know why you're saying it, but it may be a neural network that's being activated from when you were a child. So let me give you a rundown of some of the most common fears. Fear of being embarrassed, fear of being ashamed, fear of being ridiculed, fear of being judged, fear of failure, fear of success and then failing, fear of disappointment. Those are your top, like eight or nine. That when there is any subconscious pattern that those things could happen, the motivational circuit of the brain actually shuts down. The thinking part of the brain, the left prefrontal cortex shuts down and your natural response is to run away, to freeze or to try and fight it. And that is the fight or flight system that activates. So fear, real or imagined, is something that holds most people back and they're not even aware of it. Fear activates the neurochemistry that we call our feelings. So, you know, feelings are what? It's the conscious awareness of the neurochemicals that my body or my brain has released. And so we shy away from these feelings, okay, of vulnerability. We shy away from these feelings of getting hurt. And it's all subconscious patterns that are running over and over and over again based on what's happened in our childhood for the most part, maybe even in our latter years as a teen and an adult as well, but mostly from childhood.

Is there a year? Like, is it. Because I've always heard with raising kids or so about the five year mark or so it seems like that's like the crucial time that you're describing right now with all these fears that kind of come up to be.

Well, you've got imprinting years. When somebody from a baby to three years old or so, they're imprinting. And then three to seven years old is.

Very, very significant developmental years where they're modeling. And so if mom or dad is afraid of a cat, child's afraid of a cat. Chances are if mom or dad is afraid of flying, child becomes afraid of flying, mom or dad is arguing about money, child has this negative association with. If child hears that money is really Hard to come by. And only.

Wealthy people are jerks. Child learns that through modeling. And then there's the socialization years that interact with that as well. And then there's the experiential years that come into that where you're making your own decisions. But our brain, when we are born, we're not born with one belief, we're not born with one fear, we're not born with any self image.

Yeah.

And we're definitely not born with the fourth reason that people don't achieve their goals and that is limiting beliefs. So I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm too young, I'm too old, I'm too Asian, too Caucasian, I'm too tall, I'm too short, I'm too fat, I'm too skinny. Whatever the limiting belief is, I don't have, you know, I don't have the skill, I don't have the knowledge, I don't have the context, don't have the resources. So limiting beliefs are the lens by which we see the world. But beliefs drive behavior almost more than anything else.

Got it. So yeah, because a lot of us, I feel like we've, well, we have, we've walked around our lives for so long, childhood, we've been kind of molded more or less from a blank slate. How do we correct, how do we start to identify some of these things like limiting beliefs or these fears that we might just kind of glaze over and just take ah, it's my personality.

Well, it's just my personality is a short answer for somebody who wants to play the game on the surface and for somebody who wants to dive deeper. Then it's all about saying, okay, like why procrastinate? Let me give you an example. Procrastination.

Got it. Yeah.

So procrastination is an effect. It's not a cause of some. I mean if you procrastinate, right, it's going to cause, you know, you not to get the results that you want to get. But procrastination is an effect. It's either an effect of lack of knowledge and skill which causes self doubt, which activates fear. It's either something that you're doing for arousal because there are some people that procrastinate because it arouses them to take action in the last minute. And then we have self esteem, self image, you know, that could be causing you to procrastinate. And in a lot of cases it's going to be a combination of self esteem, self worth, self image with a lack of confidence because you don't have the knowledge or skills. So people who are certain of the outcome, in most cases, they don't procrastinate if they want to achieve something. And so whenever we're looking at a result, I mean, if you look at any result, and this is a great visual I'll give people to look at, look at right now, take the word result and look at just the visual in your head of R. R equals results. So we all have results in our health. So let's take a look at your physical body. Your physical body is a result of what you've been doing or not doing, thinking or not thinking about feeling or not feeling in the past. So you're looking at the effect like you would be looking at an apple at the end of a tree. You know, that there must have been an apple seed that caused the tree to grow, that caused the apples to be on the end of the vine or the branch. And so whenever we're looking at an effect, whether it's your income, your net worth, your debt, your body, your relationship, your career, your business.

All effects are, is an opportunity to look at history. What did you do or not do? Think or not think, As I mentioned before prior to the result.

And so if you're not happy with the result, you have to change the cause.

Got it?

Cause starts with, well, you know, are my thoughts constructive or destructive, Positive or negative, Empowering or disempowering? Am I managing my emotions so that I have motivation and I'm moving forward? Or am I operating from a space of fear and procrastinating?

Am I doing the right things in the right order at the right time, or am I just being busy doing things? So every effect has a cause. And what I love to work on is, okay, you don't like the effect, you've got to change the cause.

Got it. Yeah. And that's where identifying these things and then kind of working through them, well, it seems like that's where you kind of change that cause and then get these more desired results.

And then there's ways to go deeper. Like when you talk about how do you identify, you know, limiting beliefs, right? So you say to yourself, okay, and there's two different types of beliefs which we don't have enough time to get into, you know, all of that. But there are, you know, what I call our surface beliefs, and there's deeper beliefs. So if I ask, you know, let's say most guys, hey, do you believe that you could become a millionaire? Most guys will say, yeah, I can become a millionaire. Right. And then the next question is, well, why aren't you a millionaire yet? And then you're going to hear all the stories and excuses. You're going to hear some underlying beliefs as well.

Right.

So there's what we call our explicit beliefs and then there's implicit beliefs. So an explicit belief is one that I declare. Yeah, I think that's possible. Yeah, we can do this. Yeah, blah, blah, blah. But then implicit belief will come up and say, but, well, maybe I don't have enough knowledge. Maybe I don't have enough skill yet. Maybe I'm too young right now, you know, maybe I don't have enough experience. Right. So these other beliefs are the ones that actually drive behavior more than our explicit beliefs.

Right?

Yeah, a little bit deeper. And by understanding more, you know, knowledge has the power to, you know, to give us freedom. And awareness is actually what is required. So awareness of going a little bit deeper so you can actually get to the root answers and the root emotions that are really driving your behavior. That's, that's what inner size is all about. And, and then there's mental and emotional techniques and inner sizes you can actually do to gain more awareness.

Right.

Can we talk about some of those real quick? I'm kind of curious about. Let's say I've got some limiting beliefs or something in my subconscious that's holding me back from getting to my financial goals.

What are some exercises maybe I can do, or mantras or I'm not sure the mechanisms, but what can I do to help myself get over that?

Sure. So let's understand language patterns in the brain. Your brain is the most sophisticated organism in the known universe. And as far as we can tell, any universe right now, and we don't have the user's manual for it, but let's say you use a language pattern with yourself. I can't because.

I can't because I'm too young. I can't because I don't have the experience. I can't because I don't have money. I can't because. Fill in the blank. As soon as you use the word I can't, that's like giving a command to your computer, shut off. Okay? Just shut off your brain. Okay? Parts of your brain are literal. It's a command, right? So your bio computer is always getting commands from you. So if you say I can't because your brain says, okay, I'll just make that automatic so you don't even have to think about it. I'll just make that Your reality, all of the delete and distort anything that might even suggest that you can. So that's number one. Let's say we're dealing with a limiting belief. You know, in my limiting belief, give me a limiting belief. All right, so give me a limiting belief that you may have or that other people have.

Let's say I can't play guitar as well as, you know, some guy on YouTube.

Great. So when. As soon as you say I can't, that's what happens, right? So your brain says, okay, that's true. And I'll make sure that when you try, I'll prove to you that you're right. So your brain always wants to make sure whatever you're telling it is right. So what if you shifted that? I'll give you just a quick little shift with limiting beliefs that we teach all of our clients. What if you said to yourself, you learned a different language pattern once you recognize I'm using I can't, or I'm too young, or I'm too old, or I'm too Asian or Caucasian, Whatever. Whatever your limiting belief is. What if we just add a little shift and we just said, in the past, I used to believe.

And now I'm learning how to. And then you put something polar opposite to that belief there.

So in the past, I used to believe that I was too young, and now I'm learning how to make my goals my reality, regardless of my age. What do you think you've just done to your brain?

You're reprogramming that thing, right?

What if you did that every day, right? What if every time you caught yourself with a disempowering emotion, you were able to change from a disempowering emotion to an empowering one? What if every time you caught yourself with a disempowering belief, you learned how to reframe it? What if every time you discovered that you were procrastinating, you'd learn how to interrupt it and do one action item towards your goal and dream? So you develop a new empowering habit.

So we are creatures of total habit. And so the question is why? And the answer is because of efficiency. Our brain wants to conserve energy. So any thought, language pattern that you use consecutively consistently, your brain says, let me just make that automatic to conserve energy of you thinking about it. Anything that you feel over and over again, whether you feel good, feel bad, feel depressed, feel sad, feel happy, feel love, feel. Whatever it is that you repeat and feel and experience, your brain makes automatic as part of Your default mode network to conserve energy. It doesn't care if it's good, bad, hurts you, doesn't, it doesn't matter. And so it makes automatic anything that is repeated. Well, what if you interrupted that pattern? There's an inner size that we teach, it's called aya a I a And whenever we catch ourselves in a disempowering emotional or mental state, or even a behavioral state, and we know that we catch ourselves, you can do the ayah inner size. So let's say you're feeling fearful, first thing you do is actually inner size. Number one that we teach in my book is called take six calm the circuits. When the fear circuit comes or becomes active, or the stress circuit, the anxiety circuit, the self doubt circuit, it's all part of the same circuitry. First thing you do is take six deep breaths in through your nose, calmly in about four or five second.

Increments coming in.

And as you breathe out, you take about 6 seconds, 7 seconds to breathe out, you slow it down. And doing that six times in 4, 5 out 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, you actually deactivate the fear, stress, anxiety, self doubt center in the brain. And you actually reactivate the motivational center in your brain. You actually reactivate the thinking part of your brain called your left prefrontal cortex. And when you do that and get calm first you're out of a reactive mode that's automatic. And you're now in an aware mode of mindfulness where you could be at choice and respond instead of react. We react automatically, we respond consciously. Reaction is subconscious. Response is conscious until you can be really good and you can respond automatically because you learn how to do this. So the first intersect is take six, calm the circus. The second one is called I aya a I a And then in a state of awareness, you ask yourself, what are my thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations and behaviors right now? Just in pure awareness. No blame, no shame, no judgment, no guilt, just self awareness. And then you ask yourself, is that an empowered state or disempowered state? And if it's a disempowering state, whether it's thought, emotion or behavior, you say, great, what's my intention right now? My intention is to take action towards the goal that I want to achieve. And then the a that finishes off aya is great. What's one simple small, non threatening action I could take right this moment?

Now why does this work? Well, it works because when we reduce it to the ridiculous in the brain, even if it's something that we're afraid of failing or being disappointed, being ashamed or embarrassed or judged. If we just focus on one simple action step instead of the whole series, we actually just interrupted that neural network or neural pattern and we created a new neural pattern that now we can build on and reinforce. So we create a new empowered pattern in the brain.

So you're basically like creating this. Yeah. You're creating a pattern to then tell your brain, hey, hey, you know, it's not automatic anymore. You know, you brought this kind of like pause for a moment. Let's, let's rework this thing. And then the brain notices that through repetition.

Yeah. If we're going to make something automatic, make it this, not that.

Right.

Yeah. Awesome. Yeah. So now we're doing something deliberately. Now we're in control again. Now we're taking whatever those 20, 30, 40 years, 50 years of programming, maybe in some cases, now we're saying, stop, I'm going to retrain my brain, I'm going to upgrade the software. I'm sure if you live in a city that they upgrade the highways. Well, we have neural highways in our brain that have been reinforced for 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years. Well, some of those highways are great. They're going to take us to the destination we want. But some of them are just horrific. Basically the highway systems or neural networks of our parents, our teachers, our siblings.

Right?

Yeah. And they are. And I think when you say that most of these are from your family or from our families and that, yeah, some of those are maybe the most touchy highways to avoid. It's one that you just, maybe it's one that personality is built around. You don't want to change that. Have you seen cases like that?

I'm just curious about if it is something that we are avoiding as ourself. I'm sure it's something that's probably held us back most of our lives.

Yeah. I mean, this is. Yeah, this is proven over and over and over again in the world of psychology and psychiatry and neuroscience. I mean, think about, you know, why is it that 87% of lottery winners who win millions of dollars lose all the money within three to five years? And 95% of those people say it's the worst experience of their life.

It's got to be their mindset. Yeah.

Programming well, it's their self esteem and self worth and mindset. So our brain.

Will sabotage any result that we have in our life that we don't feel we deserve.

So you take them, you put them into a nice house, nice car, nice environment, nice clothes and they don't feel comfortable there, so they sabotage all the external order to be able to match up with their hidden self esteem and self worth and their beliefs. So what I've learned how to do, and I started doing this when I was 20 years old, 19 years old, is how do you develop the right neural patterns, the empowering, positive life enforcing, inspiring neural networks and patterns. And how do you do that? Deliberately? And that's why I wrote the book Inner Size, because science is now able to, you know, teach us how to do it. And we have evidence based methods. So, you know, when, when I was in the movie the Secret, we talked about vision boards and we talked about the law of attraction and that just means getting in resonance consciously, subconsciously with what it is that you want, whether it's stuff you want or, you know, physical stuff you want or love or whatever the case is. But there's also the behavioral part, right, of you've got to take action. But it's not just any action. You know, I can give somebody a Rubik's Cube, a 3x3 Rubik's Cube or 4x4 and 99% of the population will never solve it, right? Not because, you know, they wouldn't try. It's because they don't understand that solving Rubik's Cube is all about pattern recognition. And there's a sequence of what you need to do first, second, third, fourth, fifth. And if you don't know that sequence, you'll just say, ah, this is too hard, I want to do it. Well, if you haven't learned the sequence, that's like saying, I didn't learn the Alphabet. I didn't learn multiplication and division tables or addition tables and I can't do math right. Well, it's a skill. So if you don't want to learn the skill, okay, suffer be a victim.

In the world that we live in today. Listen, like, think about this, okay?

What don't we know how to do yet? Like, we know how to cure certain cancers. We know how to, we know how to put a rocket ship, you know, on Mars and have a robot travel around. We know how to take a, you know, a Hubble telescope and send it billions of light years into space and still get images from it. We know how to lose weight and keep it off. We know how to build companies. We know how to make money. For the average person who is listening, even the above average person, all the how to is already here. It's the easiest part of the equation.

It's the doing of it, huh? Ah, there we go.

So now it's able to do what is needed. And that's where your mindset and your emotions come in. And until you really learn how to manage and then master your mindset and emotions, you're not going to be reaching your potential.

Right. It just seems like the paralyzing factor of it, that's probably the 80, 20, if you're thinking of that. Most people are stocked.

It's more like the 98 2.

Oh, man.

Yeah. And it circles all the way back around to the. Are you committed? Are you interested? Because if you were committed, the knowledge is there. So take the actions based on the knowledge that's available.

That's right. And that's the key. And that's why I said, you know, with one question, one answer, my life changed.

And because as soon as you say I'm committed, that means I'll do whatever it takes to find the answer. I'll do whatever it takes to upgrade my knowledge. I'll do whatever it takes to let go of my limiting belief. I'll do whatever it takes to manage my emotions better. I'll do whatever it takes to create, you know, the right plans. I'll do whatever it takes and take action. I'll do whatever it takes. And watch, listen, go ask. That's whatever it takes means.

Right. And guess what? Most people are afraid of doing whatever it takes. And the reason is because of fear.

Yeah. And I love the. Just take a little step. It's not a massive action. It's just something, a little micro experiment or, you know, like just. Just put the toe out there into the water. You don't have to, or I guess you could jump all in, but either way, you're going to learn from it. Something is going to happen from that point. A result will happen. And it seems like it's a feedback loop at that point so you can keep growing and become better.

That's exactly right.

Nice.

Yeah, that's exactly right. So for anybody who's committed, there's plenty of answers.

Sure.

And that's where, you know, I've worked with hundreds of thousands of clients around the world and, you know, we've had just unbelievable results. People losing 40, 50, 60, 70, 80 pounds where they've tried every diet in the world, they've kept it off people, you know, going from making 25 to 50,000 to 100,000 to 200,000 to a million dollars in a year, to people building companies, to people, you know, saving their relationships. The how to is the easiest part of the equation. It's getting people to do what is needed. And that takes just a little bit more finesse.

Yeah. Now when it comes to business and entrepreneurs, who is, you know, that's kind of the majority of our listeners. What are some of the most common limiting beliefs that people don't even realize they have that you're constantly working with people on?

I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not worthy. That's the self. This is self esteem issue. I don't have the money, I don't have the time, I don't have the knowledge, I don't have the skill. And it's just these beliefs that they have. It's like, why do you don't have the time?

Do you ever find like limiting beliefs that a lot of people have, but most of them don't even realize they have them? Like, I feel like a lot of the limiting beliefs, like, oh, I don't have the money, or that maybe people kind of realize that's a limiting belief. Are there limiting beliefs that you spot in people that they're not even aware? Is there anything common like that I might just be completely.

Time and money are the biggest ones.

There we go. Yeah.

One of the ways I collapse the money issue with people and play along with me. Everybody who's listening right now, let's say somebody slashed your tires today.

And let's say you didn't have a lot of money in the bank and your credit cards were maxed out.

Would you figure out how to get new tires?

Oh, yeah.

Yeah. Why? Because you have to. You need your car. And so when you have to, you will. And instead of, you know, saying, you know, I will, why don't you just change certain things to I must.

I like that. So it's more of a command to your brain, your subconscious to figure this thing out.

I must figure this out.

Got it. Okay. The do or die situation, I can't get to work.

It's. I must.

Yeah, I must.

So change your. I want to. I could, I should to I must. And in order to do that, you have to have a big reason why you must. And this is again, you know, we go into the science of motivation. Like the science of motivation is really the science of what's my motive for action?

And that's. Yeah, I guess that's the biggest part is what's the, what's the motive? I mean, would you say that most people don't even want or know what they want as a result and with their life?

Yeah, most people have not taken the time to be reflective, to ask themselves, what do I want to trade my life for? What would going after my passion feel like? I learned many, many years ago. Don't ask yourself if you're worthy of that goal that you want. Ask yourself if that goal is worth of your life.

Oh, I like that.

So are you choosing a goal that's big enough to be worthy of your life? And here's another. You know, everything's about, you know, frames, right? The reason we put paintings and frames, the reason we have window frames is to be able to, you know, see things in a certain light or a certain perspective. So let me give both you guys, you know, an example.

Do you tell me the name of the individuals or tell me one person you love more than, like, anybody in the world.

I would say my wife. Heather.

Yeah, I was gonna say my wife. Got it.

Both of you say your wife. Good. So if they listen, ladies, these guys.

Let me share a frame with you. And let's say I said to you, okay, guys, if you don't figure out how to earn a million dollars in the next six months, neither one of you will see your wives again.

That'll be motivating.

Well, number one, fear may come in. So fear can actually be fuel for behavior when it's used properly. Now, would you eliminate your, like. Well, I'm a little embarrassed to ask friends for help.

Oh, no way. Every option's on the table at that point, right?

At that point. Every option's on the table now. What the hell just happened? We changed the frame. All we did is change the frame. So what if I said to you, why not create that kind of motive for action for yourself?

Yeah, with everything. Or with anything that matters. Maybe you don't want to stretch yourself out.

Anything that matters. I'm just using this, obviously, as a tangible visual that if you weren't going to see your children or your wife or your mother or your father, would you just say, fuck this fear?

Yeah, you know what?

This limiting belief. I don't care if I don't know how. I'll find out how. Well, why not just have that attitude anyway? I'll find out how no matter what, I'll overcome whatever mental or emotional obstacle is in my way to. Because I have to. I must. That's a mindset.

You're re scripting your brain. You're just, like, reshaping everything there. Yeah, yeah.

And one of some of the things we do is we help people rescript. Reshape, you know, their neural networks, their patterns. You know, Wayne Dyer had a wonderful saying. When you change the way you look at something, the thing that you look at changes.

Mm. Oh, it's so true. It just, it's, it's that mindset and you're. I know, I'll look back outside of we see it, there's a beautiful view and all these trees and birds and all that stuff and it's absolutely gorgeous when I'm in the right mindset. But there might be those tinges. The anger comes out about something or stress, anxiety and it's just like everything's like a blur, nothing's in focus. Or it's like, ah, screw these birds, they're too loud. Stop the chirping, you know. But it's a total shift in perspective like you just said. Or Wayne Dyer as well.

Absolutely super cool. And what I'm sharing with the two of you, this is just.

Learning. Becoming much more aware that you have the most you own right now, your biggest assets. Not your house, not your car, not your jewelry. It's your brain. It is a multi trillion dollar computer, if not more. Now what if you just don't have the operating instructions down pat yet? When would now be a good time to learn how to use it better?

Heck yeah. Get inner size. Get it. Seriously, like it's.

That's what inner size is all about. And by the way, for anybody who goes to. May I give a website to share with you?

Of course. Please do. Yes.

Ignitemybrain.com I ignitemybrain.com or the jonassaraf.com website. We're giving anybody who buys the book.

Eight brain training audios and videos where I actually will guide them through the eight inner sizes that are in the book. Out of about 20 some odd. And it's super, super powerful. So all that information is available on ignitemybrain.com so people will buy it on Amazon, for example, and then they'll go to ignitemybrain.com, just put in the receipt and I'll give them access to these brain training audience so they can get started right away. And it'll transform your life, it'll reduce your stress, it'll get you more focused.

Just look at the. I think 92% of the responses or stars on Amazon are five stars. There are some people that don't like the fact that we're taking people to a website and having them fill out your first name and email. So I can give you these $197 audios, but the rest of you are like it's life changing.

Yeah. It's in any kind of. Because I've done a lot of brain. Just different brainwave type things and exercises and I know your products. We've actually Matt and I, this was so long ago now. I know we've gone some of your money related products.

Awesome.

Yeah, long time. So many times. And I just remember the exercises being some of the best parts of it. And that's always resonated. I know with me personally. It's a great way to stay on a schedule every morning or whenever you meditate. Take some quiet time.

Love it.

Sounds awesome man. Thank you. So we'll link that up in the show notes. Make sure that's all linked up.

Thank you.

Any other than inner size and you've written other books. We'll link those as well. What are some of the resources or books that you find yourself going to pretty consistently or in recommending others or.

Maybe a book that had a really big impact on your life early on or something like that. Oh yeah.

This is not a well known book and it's worth its weight in gold. It's called U squared. So U with squared the two above the U by my friend Price Pritchett and it's all about how do you make a quantum leap. And it's only about 25 pages long. It's like seven or eight bucks.

Okay.

And it'll blow your mind. I've read it over a hundred times. I've given over 5,000 copies of it out and it's just outstanding. It just, it just will help have you think about. Forget about these linear.

Moves. We're capable of making quantum leaps. In order to make a quantum leap, you have to think in terms of a quantum leap. And there's. Anyway, it's a great, great, great little book. I read it at least once a year.

Love it. Yeah, I think you actually mentioned that one to us when we were in the. In the cab going to San Francisco a few years back and I picked it up back then.

Well, we both bought both of those books immediately when you recommended them. And I remember reading the 16x multiple times and for some reason maybe the U squared didn't resonate at that point. But I'll pick it up again because I know I have it.

Yeah, you may want to read it again. That's one of my all time favorites.

Awesome man. Very cool.

With a URL ignitemybrain.com that's where they can go and grab the book. Is there anywhere else you like to Interact with people, social media, anything like that.

Yeah. I'm on Instagram. So I'm on Instagram every day. Every Tuesday morning on my Facebook fan page, I do a free 30 minute training.

On Assraf and it's my fan pages. I think Facebook gives you a fan page as well as a personal page. The personal page I'm hardly ever on, but on the fan page I'm on there all the time. Then every Tuesday morning I do a training there. So Instagram, Facebook fan page. I'm on Twitter onasraf. Cool. I do a little bit of everything.

Good. Yeah, no, your video's on Facebook.

I'm on my YouTube as well. I've got a ton of videos on YouTube.

That's where I've seen a lot of your stuff. And definitely the Facebook trainings, I've seen a few of those and great, great, great value. So we'll link again. We'll link it. All right, for sure. Awesome. John. Well, thank you very much for your time. We appreciate it. All chat very soon.

All right, thank you guys.

Bye bye.

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