Answering Your Most Commonly Asked Question on Social Media

You will never outperform your hidden self image. If the obstacle is bigger than you, the obstacle wins. If you are bigger than the obstacle, any mental, emotional, or strategical obstacle, you win. Listen, I want to share something with you that again, may disappoint you. Visualization on its own doesn't work. And one of the questions somebody asked me is, why did I decide to become a public speaker and consultant and coach? And the answer is, I actually never really decided to do that as a, you know, a business for myself. I've been an entrepreneur for the last 40 years. And when I had the opportunity to retire back in 19. I'm sorry, 2000. In the year 2000, I retired for the second time. I decided to write a book. And I wrote my first book called having It All. And it was about having health, wealth, relationships and career and business and charity and fun and experiences. And then people started to contact me to ask me if I do seminars or I teach. And at the time I said, no, I was retired. And so then people said, hey, would you consider doing an event? And I said, sure. So I did an event. And then people asked me if I would coach them and consult them. And then I just started to teach because I loved sharing my life's lessons. You know, I have failed more times than most people have ever tried. So I have a lot of experience in failure. And one of the things I learned is a lot of people think that if they fail, that means they are a failure. And so I started to share with people that just because you have failed doesn't make you a failure. And it makes what you tried or did the failing part, that's what didn't work, right? So let's not put ourselves, you know, as failures. When we try something that doesn't work, that's one of the best ways that we learn. Our brain has something called an error detection mechanism. And when we fail, our brain actually learns, this didn't work. Now, some people quit, and other people just go, oh, that didn't work. Let me try something else. Does that make sense? So I got deeply interested and committed to learning about the brain because I was fascinated with behavior. Why did we do the things we do? Why don't we do the things we know we should do? Right? Why is change so hard? And I started to understand a little bit about the neuroscience and neuropsychology. And as I started to share in writing and in videos, which I love to do, people ask me, would you come and speak at our event? And I said, well, sure. And initially, you know, when I started to speak at people's events, I did it for free. And then I started to get paid to travel around the world. And so then I did more research and traveled more and started to share around the world. And I created some programs. But the idea to become a public speaker was not intentional. It was out of my desire to. To share with people what I have discovered and learned. Does that make sense? And here's one of the things that I, that I know is we're all the same. We all want to be loved. We all want to have more so we can give more and experience more. We want more peace of mind. We want more, you know, fun and experiences, to see the world and to learn from each other. We want to try different foods. We want to explore the universe within us and outside of us, right? So I've been a traveler like you are as well. And what I mean by traveler, just on the journey called life. And by getting better at my craft, I get to speak if I want all over the world. Or we can use technology now to share, right? When we are passionate, we tend to want to do more of what we're passionate about and what we love. And when we're not passionate, it seems like work now. You know, it is a Tuesday morning at 9:05am in San Diego, and even though I am working, does this seem like it's work to me? I get to share some ideas and thoughts with each one of you. The one thing I will share with all of you since you're here, is this. That everything I learned to do. There's a video that I just did last week when I was on vacation and when I was 20 years young. One of the best lessons I learned was this. Some people take a look at their knowledge, their skills, how old they are, what ethnicity they are, where they live, and they allow their present or past circumstances to control their thinking and to control the goals that they set. Right? So past or present circumstance control how they set goals. I learned something a little bit different that I think will help each and every one of you. Do you want to hear it? It's a totally different way of doing it. Here it is. I imagine you want to hear it, right? I learned to take a sheet of paper and to write down the exact kind of life that I want to live. Where do I want to live, what did I want to do, how much did I want to earn, how much did I want to give to charities, what kind of car do I want, what kind of travel? Do I want? Who do I want to help? What's the fun that I want to have? What are the experiences that I want to have? And I wrote all of it down. And then my first mentor shared with me that once you write it down, then you use this brilliant brain of yours to, to figure out what knowledge do I need, what skills do I need, what beliefs do I need, what habits do I need, what do I need to do every single day to achieve these goals? So instead of thinking, here are my present set of circumstances, knowledge, skills, beliefs and habits, therefore here's what I can achieve and do, reverse the whole process and say, here's the lifestyle that I want, then here's who I need to become to achieve that lifestyle. He shared with me that I had to upgrade my identity to match my destiny. I had to upgrade my identity to match my destiny. Does that make sense now when you think about it, where is your identity? Like what in the world is your identity, right? Well, it's a little bit of your self image, how you see yourself, It's a little bit of your self worth, how much you believe you are worth, right? So self image, self worth, self confidence are all tied together, would you agree? So every day he helped me put a plan together to upgrade my self image, to upgrade my self worth, to upgrade my self confidence so that I would be able to achieve the goals that I had versus hope and prayer and dream. Does that make sense? And when I started to apply a process for upgrading those things, then my life started to change, I started to earn more, I started to have better control of my emotions, I started to have clearer focus and the ability to do more of what I wanted to do instead of being ridden with fear, not doing okay, the things that I knew I should be doing. Does that make sense? So everything that I learned how to do was reverse engineer, okay, from the vision and the goals that I wanted to achieve. And so you develop the vision, the goals, you come up with your reason why you must achieve them, and then you say, okay, what do I need to believe? What do I need to do about my self image? What do I need to do every day? So I develop the habits to achieve those things. And then you're off to the races. Now I'm making it sound a lot easier than it is, right? It takes a little bit of time. So let's not, you know, be delusional that this happens in a weekend, right? You can learn how to do this in, you know, several hours, but it doesn't happen, okay? In A weekend. You don't change, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 years of being how you are in a weekend. You learn structure in a weekend. Do you agree with that? Can I change my own self worth? Right. And again, self worth, self esteem, self image. Can you see how those are connected? Self worth, self esteem, self image and self confidence. Do you think that if you had greater or upgraded self image, self worth, self esteem or self confidence, do you think if those were greater than it is right now, you would actually be able to achieve your goals and dreams faster and easier than ever before? Do you think that if you upgraded those they would affect your success? Well, think about this. You will never outperform your hidden self image. Let me repeat that. You will never outperform, you will never do better than your hidden self image. Because if you have a vision or a goal, all right, that you want to achieve, but secretly inside your head and in your heart, you, you feel you're not worthy of it. You're not smart enough, not good enough, maybe you're not skilled enough, which is part of your self image. You won't take inspired action and maintain that behavior. Right? And what happens when we have a self image or self worth that is not at the level of our goals and dreams? A lot of times. And let me know if you agree with this. Cause I know it to be true. Fear sets in. There are over 55, zero types of fear. So for example, fear of failure. Do any of you feel a fear of failure that you're so afraid of failing you don't take action because you feel safer in your current environment and with your current results than failing? Right. What about fear of failure? Failing and then being embarrassed? What about being ashamed or being ridiculed or being rejected or being judged? Whenever we have a fear of failing, being embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed or judged. Right. It actually deactivates, all right, the motivational center in your brain. It activates the stress, fear, anxiety, self doubt circuits in your brain. When we are in a state of conscious or unconscious fear, do you know what the number one behavior is? Jill, you just said it. Procrastination. The second behavior is a lack of motivation, or a feeling is a lack of motivation. The third is self sabotaging behavior. So even though we may know what to do and how to do it and, and why we want to do it, if we have a fear, fear of success and failing, or fear of failure, we will want and wish and hope and pray, but we won't take action consistently. How do you change Your self image, your self worth, your self confidence, like, how do you change it? Would you agree that your self image, self worth, self confidence, self esteem, nothing more than a reinforced neural network and patterns in your subconscious mind? Why do I study the human brain? Why do I do the neuroscience, behavioral research that we do, this three pound, you know, mass called your brain. You were born without any self image, any self worth, any self confidence, or any self esteem, right? Now, patterns started to evolve based on your environment, where you lived, your parents, your teachers, your experiences, and they formulated neural connections, right? Some connections, okay, are positive, empowering, constructive, and some connections and patterns are destructive, disempowering, right? And maybe even negative. So when we understand self image, self worth, self esteem, and even self confidence, it's nothing more than reinforced patterns in the brain. Well, if it's nothing more than reinforced patterns in the brain, is it possible that based on the science of neuroplasticity, your brain's ability to make new connections and reinforce them, that you can upgrade your self image? Do you think that maybe, for example, if you practiced a little bit of visualization, just one tool, if you started to visualize every day for three minutes having more self confidence, do you think that the act of visualization, which, by the way, visualization is simulation, do you think if you simulated a greater, higher, upgraded self image, self confidence, self worth in your mind's eye first for three minutes a day, you think maybe that creates a neural connection? What do you think? Of course, that's what happens. Our brain doesn't know the difference between something real or something imagined. So the reason astronauts visualize, Navy seals visualize athletes. The Olympics are on right now. Do you see them closing their eyes and mentally rehearsing their moves, their shots? Of course you do. Why? Well, because they are stimulating, okay, the neurons in their brain that fires off in a specific sequence. And they practice, which makes it permanent. Did you hear that? They practice to make it permanent. So right now, the patterns that you have around your self image, self worth, self esteem and self confidence are softwired. They're permanent. But you can override them with a variety of what I call our inner sizes. Inner size exercise for your muscles, inner size for strengthening your core neuromuscles. Does that make sense? Does that make sense? So when you. Inner size. Daily Visualization is just one of about 12 different tools we teach our clients. Hi there. Emek, right. Is a way of creating a new neural pattern. And any neural pattern that you create and reinforce over a period of time overrides the Old patterns, Right? Overrides the old patterns. So we're learning so much about the human brain. So that's how you can overcome, you know, a. Limiting. Limiting beliefs. That's how you can overcome self image, etc. The other issue that a lot of people are talking about is where does fear of failure come from? Where does fear of failure come from? Well, it comes from the same place that fear of being embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed or judged comes from. Anytime we have any fear that's real or imagined, we activate the fear circuit or not. We. But it's an automatic circuit that gets activated. The circuit gets activated based on. Pay close attention. It's not based on reality. It's based on what's in our memory center in our brain. I'll give you an example. If I ask each one of you, what would you do if a friend of yours walked into your home with two other friends carrying a big snake that was 200 pounds or 250 pounds, 150 kilo snake that's 12ft long, okay. And they wanted you to take a picture with the snake. Would you be like, oh my God, that's great, or would you be petrified? Oh my God, let me get away from the snake. Right? Well, obviously some people go, let me, you know, take a picture with a snake for social media. And let's also see the other person who is saying, oh my God, let me run away. Well, is it the snake or is it the meaning that we have in our memory center, okay. That would cause the fear reaction or the oh my God, let me take a picture reaction. So we have some people that would move towards a snake and others that would run away from. So it's not the snake. No, it's not the primitive brain. It's the memory part of the brain. Because not a baby doesn't run away from a snake. Right. So the meaning that we learn how to give anything determines how we react and how we feel. So is it possible to change the meaning of something deliberately? Even if your parents, your teachers, and your past experiences, okay. Have a certain meaning right now? Of course. So we become conditioned and programmed to react automatically, all right? For survival, safety, and avoidance of pain. So is it possible that we can learn how to manage our mindset better? Is it possible we can learn how to manage our emotions and feelings better? Is it possible we can learn how to behave in different ways? Right. Of course it is. Right. So yes, it's possible. Now here is the thing. Just because it's possible doesn't mean you will do it. Why? Because change is not easy for us adults. Change is not easy for us adults. The only human that likes change is a wet baby. The rest of us resist change. Why? Well, let's go back to how does this thing work? This organism called your brain, you. It wants to conserve energy, not use energy. It wants to conserve energy, not use any. Change requires energy. So you have to have a reason why you must change, not a reason why you want to change or why it would be nice to change. So I'm going to share something with you that may disappoint some of you. If you are serious in achieving goals, for every goal that you set, ask yourself this question. Am I willing to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal? Because if the answer is no, that means you're interested. If the answer is yes, that means you're committed. And here's what's going to happen. Fear will show up, okay? Self doubt will show up, okay? Lack of confidence will show up. And your resolve, right? Your commitment, all right. Has to be bigger than the fear. Has to be bigger than the stories. Has to be bigger than the excuses. Has to be bigger than any obstacle. If your obstacle is bigger than you, the obstacle wins. Alright? If the obstacle is bigger than you, the obstacle wins. If you are bigger than the obstacle, any mental, emotional or strategical obstacle, you win. And since we don't like change, we have to go after goals we are committed to achieving. Does that make sense? You're better off not setting a goal that you're not committed to versus setting a goal and then not doing what it takes. Do you know why? When you set a goal and then you don't do what it takes, you just negatively impact your self image, self worth and and self trust and self confidence. So don't set goals you're not committed to. It's a much better thing. Why? Because then you'll set goals you're committed to, then you'll achieve more goals. So why disappoint you? Because here's something I didn't talk about before. Do you know what one of the greatest subconscious fears is? Anybody? Anybody want to guess? What is the one, one of the greatest subconscious fears that's almost bigger than fear of failure? One of the greatest fears is this. And this is a subconscious fear that most people don't even know about. It's called disappointment avoidance. Disappointment avoidance. It's the fear of disappointing yourself again or the fear of disappointing your family or children again. Or it's the fear of disappointing friends or people that you have shared your goals with publicly. So when we have, okay, a fear of disappointing ourselves because we know how many times we've tried this and haven't done it, our brain automatically says, listen, instead of disappointing yourself again, don't even do it. Because it's easier. Pay attention. Pay attention. Pay attention. It's easier to master disappointment in yourself versus mastering change. It's easier to master your comfort zone and settling for less than mastering change. So the fear of disappointment causes people to self sabotage. It causes people to rationalize, which means they tell themselves rational lies of why they can't or won't or shouldn't do this. So when we have a fear of disappointment running in the recesses of our subconscious mind, if we don't learn how to manage that emotion right, fear is an emotion that's triggered in our subconscious mind. It starts to control our life. Does that make sense? So did I really buy my house in the vision board in the movie the Secret? Yes, Andrea, if you can pass me that book, I'll show them. In 1995, a long time ago, I started cutting out pictures of homes from magazines. So I used to cut out pictures of the physique that I wanted of a house that I wanted to. And every day I used to visualize living in a home like this. And every day for about 10, 15 minutes, I would pretend that I was living in this home that I cut out in a magazine. And how many of you have seen the movie the secret? 500 million people saw that movie. And I shared this story. And so I would sit in my chair and I would see this picture on the wall on a vision board of a car, a home, and things that I wanted to achieve. And yes, I still do vision boards. And I would just pretend that I was living in a house like that. At the time when I put up the vision board, I didn't have the money to buy it. I didn't know where it was. I didn't even know how much it was. But I would visualize living in this house. And five years later, after moving a couple of times, I end up living in my dream home. And that was the dream home. This is a picture of the house that my real estate agent had created for us. So I ended up buying that house and living in this house for 16 years. Now, remember earlier I mentioned that visualization is simulation. Well, I simulated living in that house for so many years. I just started to create vision boards for everything else in my life. For health, for my physique. For my relationship, for finances, for charity, for contribution to the world. And so I want to make sure that you don't discount how powerful you really are. Right, so set your vision, set your goals and then upgrade your knowledge and your skills and your beliefs so that you can start to achieve more of your goals. Alright, so the answer to the person is yes. I not only created vision boards in 1995, but I've been doing them just about every single year since then. And vision boards do not work on their own. So it's not something like magical where you, you know, you cut out pictures, you know, of your dream home and all of a sudden, you know, you move into it. You have to do the work. You've got to do the work to be able to achieve that. Okay, so that was that question somebody asked me. I have just hit a financial glass ceiling. What should I do next? So whenever we hit a financial glass ceiling, the question we ask ourselves is what's driving the behaviors that causes us to earn how much we earn? Would you agree that you and I earn what we are conditioned to earn, not what we're capable of earning? So what causes us to earn what we earn? Well, obviously my behavior causes me to earn what I earn, but obviously what I'm not doing causes me to earn what I earn. Right? So it's combination of both. So what happens to a millionaire when she loses all of her money? Well, because she is used to earning a certain amount of money, she knows exactly what to do to get back to earning that money. And she knows that if she wants to earn more, she has to change her self image, she has to change her beliefs and she has to change her behaviors. Would you agree with that? Self image, which is also self confidence beliefs, believing that she can earn more and she has to change her behaviors. Right. So she has to change those three things. And so how do you do that? Right, how do you do that? Well, you have to reprogram the subconscious mind as you're upgrading the knowledge and skills of earning an extra 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 or a million dollars a year. It doesn't matter what the amount is, but the behavior has to match the income. And it doesn't matter whether it's online or offline. If you're making 20 and you want to earn 50, something needs to change, right? If you're making 50, you want to make 100. Something needs to change if you want to. If you're making 100, you want to make $500,000 or a million Something needs to change. And it's a combination of changing the subconscious patterns that drive behavior, but also your knowledge and skills which requires a conscious effort to upgrade. And if you recall what I mentioned earlier, we don't like change. We're dealing with a brain that wants to conserve energy, not use energy. So this is why I shared earlier. You have to have a vision that's big. You have to have goals that you are committed to achieving because there is work involved. Listen, I want to share something with you that again may disappoint you. Visualization on its own doesn't work. Creating vision boards doesn't don't work on their own. Doing something haphazardly once or twice or three times, or even watching a video like this for 30 or 40 minutes doesn't change much. It gives you awareness. But nothing will change in your life unless you start to develop the mindset and the skill set to develop the habits required to change your behavior and sustain it. Change your behavior and sustain it is where the game is won or lost. So stop, please stop being delusional, okay? Stop just having, hoping and praying that something's going to change without you changing. The reason you are achieving your results is because you are trained to conditioned believe and have the habits to achieve your current results, right? I don't like to bullshit people. I'll tell you the truth. All right? If you want the truth, keep coming back for more training. I'm giving you a couple free trainings. But it all starts in here, don't you think? Your brain. You own 100 billion dollar brain. Learn how to use it a little bit better. And guess what? You're going to achieve more. You will never outperform. I'm going to leave you with this, all right? By the way, share this if you don't mind. You will never outperform your hidden financial set point and your hidden self image. You will never outperform it. And if you do, you will sabotage your success. So why not deliberately and consciously evolve yourself and start to create empowering, positive, constructive mental and emotional and behavioral habits. Mental, emotional and behavioral habits that will last you a lifetime, right? If you're serious about your life and you're serious about having more and being more and giving more and enjoying more, then be serious about taking more control of your life and being in the driver's seat versus being a victim of your old patterns and behaviors. And you should be able to see, you know, once we, we hang up, you'll be able to see this, right? So, and I want you to remember something. You can achieve way more than you're achieving right now. The question is, are you committed to achieving more? Because if you are, you will achieve more. If you're not, you'll be wondering, why is this not working out? All right, so work on yourself. Alright? Have an awesome, awesome day and thank you for sharing this with people that you love and care about. Appreciate you. Hey, this is John. And if you like that video, watch the next video because it is packed with things that you can do right now to achieve success way faster than ever before.