Ask John Assaraf - LIVE

Everyone, this is a test. This is John Asraf. Don't know if you can see me yet and if you can hear me, but my computer is showing that we are live. And I'm here at my home right now having a ball, sitting in my living room. And so there's a little bird in the background. And I've got my buddy Drew over here. All right. Hey, guys. Helping me out as well. This is the first time I've done a Google hangout. So like I said in my initial post, this is my, I guess, breaking my virginity. And so we're trying Google Hangouts. I'm always loving to try new stuff. Technology is changing so fast. It's. It's just amazing. If you saw one of my posts on my Facebook fan page last night, I came home from work and on the sofa, my son was sitting there with his five friends from college. And the TV was on, it was blaring. And there they were, all of them on their cell phones, doing their own little thing, then showing it to each other. And I was like, wow, how times have changed. I wonder where this is going. TV on, cell phones on. And so anyway, looking forward to having a little bit of a hangout here. And it's right around the top of the hour, 10 o' clock here on Saturday morning in San Diego. It's a little overcast, as you can see in the back there, but it's going to be a great day. And so over here, I've got all of the questions that people have asked. You know, print it up. Lots and lots and lots of questions that you guys have around achieving success. And what I'm going to do is take the time just to answer the questions. Thanks. For those of you who posted the questions and the whole idea behind this is just to make this really informal and do something fun, something unique, something different, and test out some technology. What I'd love you to do is if you hear of anything that you like, tweet it out and use the hashtag achieve. So if you hear something I say that you like, tweet it out and that'll help you out and help us out as well. And we're streaming this on YouTube. Also, there's a link on my Facebook fan page to watch this either on Hangout with John Assaraf. Yep. Hangout with johnasseraf.com that you can stick on your Facebook or tweet it out and that'll help us out and get a little community going over here. And if this works out, well, I'll keep doing these every once in a while and invite you into my home. Let me just show you the other side. Here's what I'm looking at right now. That's what I'm looking at. You can see that. That's our backyard. And so now I'll turn that back around. So I'm got a great view in front of me, I've got a great view behind me. And I wish I could see all of you. That would make it even more fun. So let me share with you just a little bit about my, you know, why I love to do what I do. When I was 19, 20 years old, I got into real estate. And I was fortunate that I had a really great mentor, somebody who would, you know, give me the answers to the questions that I had, somebody who helped me get my life on track and somebody who really cared about me and really wanted to see me succeed in my life. And his name was Alan Brown. And some of you heard me talk about him, some of you don't know anything about him, but he was a philanthropist, a real estate developer, just a wonderful human being who taught me about my brain, taught me about setting goals, achieving goals, upgrading my knowledge and my skills. And fortunately, he put me on a path that has helped me a tremendous amount of my life. And so I want to help as many people as I can around the world. Regardless of who you are, how old you are, what's happened in your past, the things that have gone well for you, the stuff that hasn't gone well, things you're proud of, the things you're ashamed of. Because I can tell you there's lots of things I'm not proud of, lots of things I'm ashamed of, lots of things that I did in my past that just part of growing up. And so today I have a chance to share, to learn, to, to give, to receive, to be in a state of gratitude as much as possible, to have a wonderful family that I can share a lot of love with and people around the world like you, that I can share some of my knowledge and wisdom and my highs and lows and ups and downs. And so that's what I love to do. And I get to do that through my books and through, you know, all the different things that I do. And so what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to start with the first question. And one of the questions is from a gal by the name of Galit. So I'm not going to mention any last names, but some of the questions may be personal. And so Galit asks, says, how long do you stick with an idea if you believe in your whole heart, you meditate upon it, you see it and you feel it in your mind, and you can just about taste it. And yet time is still passing, and even though you take action daily, it's not happening fast enough. And the answer is, it depends on whether the idea fits into your life's purpose and vision. And one of the first things that I learned many, many years ago was not just to set my goals for health, wealth, relationships, career, business, charity, experiences, fun, which I wrote down the details to every one of those when I was 19 years old. It was June and 1980. June 1980, I wrote down all of my goals, even though I had no idea how to achieve them. And my mentor that I talked about a little bit before, Alan Brown, said to me, he says, how you will achieve your goals will start to show up. So the how comes after you get clear on what it is that you want to achieve. So first and foremost, you set your goals. And then what you have to ask yourself is, why is it important for you to achieve those goals? Like, why do you want to be healthy? Why is it other than to look good and feel good, why is it important? Why is the biggest question you could be asking yourself. Because if you don't have a big enough why, a reason to do it every day because days are challenging, it's not easy to go out and achieve an amazing life. It's hard. There's a lot of ups and downs, highs and lows, and so you have to have a big enough reason why. So you can't just set a goal and then not have a why you want to achieve that. Because if you don't have a big enough why, you'll take the easy way out. If you take the easy way out, you're going to do the path of least resistance, which is how your brain is conditioned from birth to take the path of least resistance. So when Galit asks me, how long do you stick with an idea? And it depends if the idea is something that you're trading your life for that you love to do. And so that's the first part is how long would you go searching for your child if your child was missing? How long would you search for a cure for cancer if that was your mission? How long would you go and search for a missing friend if he or she was missing? Well, you search forever. How long do you stick with an idea depends on how big and how badly you want it, and how much of it is part of your core, core and being. And so that's part one of the question. The other part of the question is when I hear of people who tell me that I'm meditating and I'm visualizing and I'm working really hard, there's a huge difference. Now pay close attention between working hard and doing the right things. I see people every day wasting two, three, four, five, six, seven hours a day. They're working hard, they're busy, but they're not doing the right things. And for every result that you want, that I want, there is a way of thinking that I totally buy into. You've got to be positive. You've got to see the outcome. But there's also a behavior that you have to take consistently. And so imagine if you want to bake a chocolate cake. If you want a cake, beautiful chocolate cake, you've got to have the recipe, number one. You've got to have the desire of baking the cake and enjoying the cake. But then after that, there are ingredients that you have to have, and you need to place them in the bowl, then in the pan and in the oven in the right order. Because if you don't do it in the right order, you could be working hard in the kitchen all day long. But you won't achieve a beautiful, amazing chocolate cake if you don't have it in the right order. So if you want to achieve success, you may want to hashtag this out is to achieve success, you must do the right things in the right order at the right time. The right things in the right order at the right time. And when you do that, that is like having the combination to a safe that has a million dollars in it. And the combination says, turn to the right to number 22, turn to the left to number 37, turn to the right again to number 56, and turn to the left two times to number one. If you have the combination but you don't have the right order, you could be trying hundreds, if not thousands or millions of different options, working hard. But that's not going to get you the results that you want. So don't just work hard, work smart. So, Galit, the answer to your question is, how long do you stick to an idea if it's really important to you, until you achieve it? So there's a great story. And again, if you're enjoying what you're doing right now on a hangout with me, if you have a chance, tweet out hangout.com or put it on your Facebook so we have more people joining us. There's a story and the weather right now is reminding me of the story. There's a story of a tribe in the Amazon rainforest and the tribe is known for one thing. They have a 100% chance of making it rain every time they dance. 100%. It's the only tribe in the world that has a 100% guaranteed way of making it rain every time they dance. You know what, the 100% way they guarantee that it rains every time they dance. They dance until it rains. They dance until it rains. Alright, and so if they dance until it rains, then how long do you stick with your idea until you achieve it, if it's important enough for you. All right, so that's number one. Number two from Sebastian. What are your thoughts on branding yourself by writing a book? So when I wrote my first book, Having it all, my New York Times best selling book, Having it all, in 2003, I was retired at the time. After I took my company, I was involved in public and I took a couple years off and I wanted to share some of my knowledge with individuals just like I'm doing right now, which I love to do. And I wanted to write a book and I wanted to write a book called Having it all because I was taught, believed and achieved health, wealth, relationships, career, business, spiritual connectedness. And not that it hasn't had highs and lows and ups and downs. I've had divorces, I've lost millions of dollars. I've made money, I've opened businesses, closed businesses. I've had some great successes and some great failures. Failures. And I think of failure, by the way, and this is something that you may again want to tweet out and achieve is failure is just an opportunity to learn. Failure is just an opportunity to learn. I don't associate failure with who I am. I associate failure with an error in judgment or an error in timing. I disassociate. I'm a failure. That versus what I tried or what I did failed. You understand the distinction between that? Every highly successful person I know fails, but most of them don't consider themselves failures. What you tried, what you did, what you thought may have not worked. That's all it is. If you can have that philosophy for life, it will serve you well. And what I can guarantee you is that you are going to have highs and lows, ups and downs, things that work, things that don't. And so you just have to have that emotional fortitude to navigate through the emotions And I will, by the way, be sharing a little bit about emotions. Somebody asked a question about emotions as well. So back to Sebastian and his thoughts on branding yourself, writing a book. Well, the idea behind a book is to share your expertise, to develop a following of people who want to understand how you think, what you know, what you believe, what your strategies are, what your tactics are, what your philosophies are. And by doing that, you set yourself up to be some kind of an authority or an expert. And in our society, people love authorities and experts, especially when the people have done it. There's other types of experts as well. There's journalists who are experts at sharing what they are learning or what they are journaling about. And so you can either be a journalist where you can get research from other people and share that with the world, or you can be an expert. Either way, you're considered an expert and you're considered somebody that people can go to for advice, for information, for products, for services. So Sebastian, using a book is a great tool. And with Kindle right now, with Amazon right now, you could write a book in the next 30 days. You could actually write a book in a weekend if you know how to do it, and follow just a proper book writing plan. And it could be 50, 60, 70, 80 pages. I have many, many little books that we give out to people all over the place. We have little micro books or ebooks and PDFs and white papers that we can publish onto Amazon or to Kindle. And you can sell them for a dollar, you can give them away for free, sell them for 9DOL. You can share your message with the world. And then what you do is you develop a group of people who want to learn from you. Develop a group of people who want to follow your work. And then you can help them. And in return for helping them, they'll help you in a variety of different ways. Now, I want to make sure that you also understand that writing a book is the easy part. It's like having sex. Sex is fun and easy. Now, raising a child is a lot of work. And so people who write a book, there's I think 100,000 books that are published every year. What they don't understand is after you write a book, you have to do the marketing to sell the book. And marketing is a skill. Just like playing chess is a skill, just like swimming is a skill, just like playing the music is a skill, just like playing a sport is a skill, just like building a business is a skill, marketing is a skill and a Lot of people confuse writing a book or having a passion for something or starting a business with having the skill to grow it. And it's two totally different things. One of the things that I do with individuals and groups all over the world is I have two different business growth programs. One is called Escape Velocity, which is a 6 month to 12 month program. Another one's called the Cloning of Business Success, which I do in August and in December of this year where I have a group of around 100, 150 people that I teach them for three days how to build a business. I can't tell you how many doctors, lawyers, artists, coaches, consultants, business owners, solo professionals that have revenues of 250,000 to 5 million, have no idea how to build their business to the next level because they're missing some of the strategies and tactics. And that's where a lot of people fail, is they don't understand the strategies and tactics, what to do, how to do it and how to build teams and in order to help them achieve their goals when they have a specific idea or a specialty that they're really good at. So books are great, but don't confuse writing a book with getting the book sold and getting enough people to really follow you and developing a following with people. That's number two. Let's go to how do I skyrocket what I'm doing? This is from Morgan. So how do I skyrocket what I'm doing? I'm having some financial success with my part time business, but I can't seem to take the next step to make it more permanent. And so that's part of the question. And so whenever I hear words like I can't seem to take the next step, I want you all to understand that most of what we do is based on what's driving the actual behavior. So let me explain what I mean by that. If you think of your behavior, what you do every single day, most people think that they are consciously choosing what to do every day. And in some cases we are. But in over 95% of the time we are actually just repeating what we have habitually done and thought and felt every single day. The reason I study the brain and my company Praxis now does a lot of brain research and has brain retraining products around fear and procrastination and money and business is we now understand that our behavior, what we actually do every day, is governed by a part of the brain called the implicit memory system or the habitual part of the brain. They say that 96 to 98% of your thoughts, your feelings, and your behaviors. Thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, 98% are governed by this part of your brain that's causing you to take action automatically. Now, that may not sound like much, except for one thing. We are creatures of comfort. We are creatures of habit, and we don't like change. And so anytime that we have to do something different, we actually resent that internally. And we will sabotage our own behavior because we want to stay in our comfort zone. And so when people say, I can't, I don't want to, I start, I stop. What is happening is they are conditioned to a certain way of thinking and behaving, and that's why habits are so hard to break. The latest research on habits show us that it takes between 6 to 200 days, 6 to 200 days to change your habit, depending on what the habit is, whether it's a small habit or a deeply ingrained habit. What's really critical to understand is that if you want to alter your behavior, what you have to alter first are the beliefs and the habits that causes your behaviors. We are driven by what we believe we deserve. We are driven by what we believe we can accomplish. We are driven by what we believe is possible. And then, then. And then we are driven by the habits that we've gotten used to. In the neuroscience field, that's called automaticity. Just automatic behaviors, autopilot behaviors, good water, not vodka. So when we talk about I can't seem to get myself to do it. When there's a struggle between where you are and where you want to get to, what you have to do, in addition to gaining more knowledge and strategies and tactics and skills, is you have to upgrade your software. And if you're not willing to do that, then you're going to use your conscious brain to take action for a day or two or three, or for a week. But then what's going to happen is no differently than when people go on diets. They go on diets for a week or two or three, and then they start eating the same amount of food or more than they did before. What happens with any goal you want to achieve is willpower is like gunpowder. It only lasts for a very, very short period of time. That's why I'm so deeply involved in brain research and creating brain retraining programs and writing and teaching about it. Because if you don't change the inner game, then you can't change the outer game long term. People ask me, I'm going to get into a whole Bunch of questions people asked about the brain is how do you retrain your brain? Again, if you're enjoying this, make sure that you post this on your Facebook page. Tell people where to hangout with johnassaraf.com and if you're hearing anything that you like, retrain your brain with John Assraff and use Achieve on your tweet feed. So we can follow the tweet feed as well. So let's get a really good hangout going on today, and we do a really great one today. I'll do more of these and teach as much as I can over the next as long as I live. How's that? So when we talk about retraining your brain, I'll share a story with you. I was with Minnie Driver, who's a Hollywood actress, a while ago on the Ellen DeGeneres show, and I asked her a question. I said, when you receive a script, when you receive a document from your agent and it's got things that you've never, ever read before, it's a script for a movie, how do you take what's on a written piece of paper and how do you become the role that's on the paper? How do you become the character? And she said to me, john, nobody's ever asked me this question before. Why do you ask? I said, well, I'm really interested in how somebody transforms from who they are to adding this new role and then winning an Academy Award or an Oscar or any kind of an award for pretending to be that role. She says, well, the first thing I do, she said, is I read it. So I read it. I read it so I can get an impression in my brain, I of what that role is like. She goes, then I'll do some research on the role. I'll find out everything I can about the past, the present, and the future of that role, that character. She says, then as I do that, she says, I'll close my eyes and pretend that I am that role. And I rehearse it and practice it for six to eight hours a day. I visualize it, I feel it. I read it. I practice it out loud. I practice it by taking my fingers and running my hands across the paper. She goes, I repeat the process over and over again alone. And then I start to practice it with other people. Then after I feel comfortable with that, then I don't need the paper anymore. I can actually recite the lines. I can act the part. And through repetition, practicing it daily and getting feedback from the directors, the producers, the other actors, and actresses. She says, I start to get this feeling that I'm becoming one with the role. And so when you think about you and what you want to achieve, whatever you're achieving right now is based on your program, based on what you have done or not done in the past, what you believe or haven't believed in the past, and it's based on the emotions that you've been able to master or allow to control you. What every great leader of self does first is they figure out exactly what is the script, what's the precise vision and goal that you want, and they get clarity on that. So you want to get 100% clear on the role, the goal, the vision immediately, for health, for wealth, for relationships, for your career, for your business, for your experiences, for your fun, for the charities that you want to serve time and money, whatever you want your whole life to look like, write the script. So that is the deductive and imagination part of your brain. Deductive just means deducing, taking all the options and saying, here's the things that I want to trade my life for. Here's what I want you to do. Tweet right now. Trade your life for what you love. And then put achieve. Trade your life for what you love, okay? And then put achieve. Because every day you're trading your life, so you might as well trade it for what you love. Here I am Saturday morning. All right, I'm sitting here. All right, As I mentioned, for those of you who are new, I'm sitting here. That's what I'm looking at right now. All right? That's my backyard. I've got, you know, the other view of God over here. I'm trading my life with you right now to take some of what I've learned, and I'm trading with you. And you know what? I'm getting an emotional sense of gratitude and love, and that's why I do it. Contribution happens to be one of my top values. So contributing to the life of others is what gives me a lot of the purpose and meaning in my life. My core values, just so you know, are God, my health, my family, contribution, fun and experiences. So God, my health, my family contribution, fun and experiences. Those are how I make my decisions in my life. So I'm going to come back now. I went off on a little tangent there for you. And so what I'm going to share with you is first, you set the goal of exactly what you. What if you rehearsed it every single day? What if every day, all right, you looked at Your goals for health, wealth, relationships, career, business. If you looked at them and then you started to feel as if you were already achieving those goals. And then you practiced and rehearsed what you needed to every day. What if every day, for one hour, just one hour a day, you learned how to upgrade your knowledge and your skills around your goals, whatever you wanted to achieve. Every day, just for one hour, you upgraded your knowledge and your skills. What would happen after a year? Well, after one year, you would have practiced or upgraded your knowledge and your skills and you would have seen that goal, that role, that vision, that mission every day in your mind for a few minutes a day. At the end of one year, practicing for one hour a day, that's nine 40 hour weeks. Nine 40 hour weeks. Imagine how good you could be if you started today, okay. And did something for nine weeks, for 40 hours every week, you'd be excellent at something or very, very good at something. Well, what happens is when you start to see yourself every day with that goal achieved, if you emotionalize that every day, if you visualize it, and if you act upon it, what you're doing is you're creating these neural patterns in your brain, software in your brain that's causing you to reprogram your unconscious mind. It's causing you to prime your brain to achieve more of that goal. It's causing you to go from where you are to where you want to be and bridge that gap so that you and your goals become one. See, if you are here and you want to achieve your goals up here, there's a gap, there's dissonance in your brain and you have to have coherence in your brain. And what happens is when you start to see and emotionalize and visualize and act in ways that are consistent with your goal, you bridge that gap so that there is a match between your vision and your goal and your brain and your behavior. If you don't do that, then what you're going to find is that there's going to be a lot of starts and stops. There's going to be a lot of sabotaging your behaviors. There's going to be a lot of doubts, there's going to be a lot of fear, there's going to be a lot of anxiety and you won't achieve your goals if you don't stay the course. And here's something that I talk about when I'm on stage quite often. Imagine that we wanted to run a marathon, 26.2 miles. Most of us couldn't run a Marathon right now. Like, if we said, let's run a marathon right now, most of us couldn't run a marathon right now. However, excuse me, if we decided that we wanted to run a marathon six months from now, we set that as a goal. And every day for the next six months, we focused on running the marathon and finishing it. We ate properly, we exercised properly, we practiced. By going out and doing it maybe a mile walk today, a mile walk tomorrow, you know, two miles at the end of the week, maybe three miles at the end of the month, in six months, every one of us will be able to bridge that gap between where we are and running that marathon. And we could all run a marathon six months from now. But it has to start off with you setting that goal today. In my book, Having It All, I talk a lot about goal setting. Happens in one part of the brain, and there's a way to set goals, but there's another part of the brain that's responsible for achieving goals, and that's what we're talking about right now. You have to integrate those two parts of the brain, and you have to use your intellectual functions, your physical sense of hear, see, smell, taste, and touch. But you've got to use your implicit brain. You've got to use the cognitive timing techniques of precision, affirmations, visualizations, meditation, cognitive behavior therapy, guided visualizations. There are a variety of tools that you can use to help accelerate your brain changing and adopting the new you so that you and what you want becomes one with who you are. And that's a great thing to tweak right now. You must become one with what you want and who you are. If you want to achieve your goals, become one with what you want and who you are. So hashtag that with achieve or post that onto your Facebook and tell people to join us here@hangoutwithjohnassaraf.com on Saturday morning. Beautiful San Diego. It's actually usually sunny in San Diego, and the ocean's back there all the way at the end of the last tree line. Down there is all ocean. So that's one of the answers that I invested probably about 10 minutes on. And that's also how you reprogram your mind. I've got a whole bunch of questions on how do I make more money? How do I reduce my debt? How do I make extra money even if I have a job? The first thing to understand is money is a byproduct. Money is a tool. Money is no different than grass. Not grass that you smoke, but grass. It's a tool, it's something you can use, something you can trade one thing for another for. Most people don't understand is you don't earn the amount of money that you're worth. You earn the amount of money you believe you're capable of earning at an unconscious level. And so if you want to know what you are conditioned to earn, what you believe at a deep unconscious level, then just take a look at how much you're earning per day, per week, per month. Now, it's not what you're worth is you're worth 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 100 times more when you learn how to, to serve more people, when you learn how to trade your product, your services, your knowledge, your skills with enough people so that you can make a difference in their life. And so if you want to double your income, it's not a matter of doubling your knowledge. It's not even a matter of doubling your skill. And I'll prove it to you. How many of you right now already have the knowledge that you're not applying to help you make more money? How many of you have got the skill, but you're not applying it to make more money? And the answer is you, me and everybody else. And so it's not a matter of knowledge or skill specifically because you can hire or barter or trade for those. It's a matter of what you believe you're worth in the marketplace at an unconscious level. And that's why I work so much on beliefs and habits. And before I forget, for any of you that are that know some of the work that I do in June, June 19, 20th and 20, we are doing our annual Money Squared the Art and Science of Financial Success event. So if you want to find out more about that, it's going to be an unbelievable program. One day on retraining your brain, the other two days on specifically how to invest in real estate, the stock market, growing your business, starting a business, et cetera, just go to moneythenumber2event.com that's moneythenumber2event.com and you can find out more information there. And so when we get into how do you reprogram your mind around money? Here's the first thing that you want to do. Just like we talked about mini driver before taking a script and then becoming the script. What do you have to believe in order to make two times more money? What do you have to believe about yourself? What daily habits do you have to start applying to make twice as much money? First, it has to start with Believing that you're worth it. Second, it has to start or has to continue with believing that it's possible. Third, it's to align your beliefs around your abilities to take action every day towards that outcome. And then you have to have relentless pursuit. See, you can't do it for one day, two days, five days, and seven days. You then wonder how come it's not happening fast enough. What you have to do is you've got to set that goal. You've got to look at that goal every single day. And then you've got to take action every day to upgrade your knowledge, your skills, and to change your habits. And when you do that and you master your emotions, the highs and the lows, the ups and the downs, the pleasant and unpleasant ones, that's when you start to integrate. I'm going to keep talking about integration, what you want with who you are. If you don't integrate what you want with who you are at the unconscious and conscious level, what you want is conscious. Who you are is unconscious. You have to integrate the two. In Latin, there's a word called Persona. The word Persona means mask. So you have different masks that you put on. You have the mask that you want the world to see, you have the mask that people see, and then you have the mask that you on the inside see. The more you can integrate all of those masks to be, think, feel, know, do, then you will start to achieve the next level of your success. And it takes practice. And I don't want anybody to ever tell you that you can achieve success in a weekend. You can't. What you can do is gain some skills, some knowledge, some tidbits, just like you are today. But if you just listen to this or watch this today and don't take any action, you're just going to gain more information that you probably won't remember. And down the road, you say, yeah, I heard that somewhere before. And even the stuff that I'm talking about, you're probably saying, I've heard this before. Well, the reason my company is called Praxis is Praxis means integrating your beliefs with your behavior. That's why I chose the company named Praxis. And so when you integrate what you're learning, what you know, with who you are, you'll then start to achieve the success that you're capable of achieving. All right, so that's some other questions. Let me talk. Let me see. So we've got another. Another one over here from Sonya. So Sonya says, what affirmations did you. Or do you Say to yourself, when negative thoughts come to you. So I want to teach you all a process that I use. It's called the 5R. 5R process. And the first part of the process is called recognize. So what you want to do is you want to start to recognize when you have a negative thought or a negative emotion or you're acting in a negative way. And I mean negative in a destructive way or a way that's not going to help you achieve your goals, actually going to detract from your goals. So the first R is recognize that emotion, that thought, or that behavior. The second part is to not allow yourself to react to what you recognize. And what I mean by that is, as soon as people catch themselves thinking negatively, they usually add another negative thought to it. Or if they act in a certain way that they don't want to be acting, they give themselves a negative thought pattern or emotion around. It says, there you are doing that again. Can't believe you did that again. So you're reinforcing the behavior. So one of the things, and one of the reasons I like to teach meditation is it gives you the opportunity. Instead of being in a reactive state, you learn to respond. And that's the second R. So if you recognize a thought pattern, an emotional pattern, or a behavioral pattern that's not what you want, instead of reacting negatively to it, you respond by saying, hmm, I'm aware of my thought, emotion, or behavior. Now what I want to do is change it. So I'm going to change my thought to a positive thought. And all you need to do is take the polar opposite of that negative thought. You can also, if you have a negative emotion, understand that emotions Only last about 90 seconds to 120 seconds if you just observe them. If you think about your feeling that's unpleasant, you're going to feel more about what you think about and think more of what you feel. So you're going to create a loop in your brain that's going to perpetuate itself. But if you observe the feeling and just watch it like a wave, you can allow that wave to pass. And then if you choose a different thought, every thought sends an electrical signal into the brain, across the synaptic gaps, sends a chemical into the bloodstream that matches that thought. So if you have a negative thought or negative emotion, change the thought, choose the new emotion, like that, by responding, and you'll change the feeling immediately. And that's something you practice. If you catch yourself behaving in a certain way, don't give yourself grief over it. What I want you to do is learn how to stop the pattern by just getting up, doing something else, stopping the pattern, and changing the behavior. So you interrupt the pattern. And by doing that, you'll be able to to start mastering what you're doing. So the first R is recognize. The second is respond. The third R is to reframe. Reframe the meaning of the thought or the emotion. And you can do that by understanding that most thoughts and most emotions are automatic. And so if you've got a thought or an emotion, chances are you've had that thought or emotion in the past. So just reframe it. You can reframe it by changing the meaning of it. So if you say to yourself, there you go again, being dumb again, you can say, that was my old pattern. Now I'm going to be smart. So you can add a sentence to any thought you have and change the meaning of the thought. And in changing the meaning of the thought, what you will find is that you change the electrical charge and the emotional charge of that thought. And this is something that is going to take place. Practice like chess, like tennis, like music. And you're going to start out as a clumsy beginner, and then you're going to advance, and then you're going to become excellent at it. However, it just takes time. So recognize, respond, reframe. And the fourth R is release. Release the negative thought by just using a word like next. So if you have a negative thought, just go aware of it. Next. Next thought. Don't get caught up with your negative thoughts. If you notice a negative or unpleasant emotions, here's my question for you. Whose emotions are they? They're yours. And so your emotions. Guess who can change them? You can. So just say, I'm aware of this feeling, this emotion that I have. I'm going to release it. I'm going to release that emotion because I choose to. But if you want to hang on, to bite on it like a dog bites on a bone, then that's up to you. But you can change, okay, your emotions by making a conscious choice to let it go, ride that wave. And then what you want to do is retrain your brain. So that's the fifth R. So respond or recognize, respond, reframe, release the emotion or the thought pattern or the behavior without a negative associated to it. And then you retrain your brain by visualizing what you want, by giving yourself positive affirmations, by giving yourself a positive vision of what you want, you start to retrain your brain. And most importantly, what this does is you start to be in control. So either your brain is going to be on autopilot and it's going to keep repeating your patterns, which is what it's supposed to do, or you're going to stop it and you're going to take control of your brain and you're going to take control of the most powerful tool, organ in the world that, for the most part, nobody's given you the user's manual for. You may not know this, but at 12 o' clock today, we have our brainathon that we air as well. All around the latest neuroscience, we do a lot of different programs to help individuals. The key, though, is to understand you are not your brain, you're not your heart, you're not your lungs, you're not your liver, you're not your organs, you're none of that. There is a you, the spiritual side of you that can override your brain, but your brain is, I don't like to call it a machine, but if you were to think of it a machine, it's a machine that likes to repeat thoughts and emotions and behaviors automatically because it wants to conserve energy. That's one thing you may want to tweet. Your brain wants to conserve energy and so it will do the least amount of work. So you have to override that long enough to develop new thought patterns, emotional patterns, and brain patterns. I'm going to keep going back to the brain because that is the center of everything that you are doing. All right, I've got another question here. It says, I want to make the visions and goals in my life. This is from Divakar. I want to make the goals and visions of my life a reality, but I can't focus on them. Please help. Well, we're living in a world where we are being distracted so much by TV, radio, billboards, Internet, emails, tweets, Facebook, Google, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest. All of these interruptive technologies are taking our attention and causing them to be fragmented. And I want you to think about, how do you gain focus? What is focus? See, I'm sitting here, I've got all of this stuff around me that I could be looking at every second. I've got trees, I've got birds, I've got bells, I've got, you know, But I'm looking into this little camera right there for 47 minutes right now because. And I don't see anybody. All I'm seeing is the computer screen and this little dot right there. I'm able to take all of that noise and shut it out. And stay focused right there, because I practice. And so how do you gain focus is you practice. And the easiest ways to practice is as simple as focusing just on your breath to start. So some of the things that you can do, you close your eyes and you focus on your septum right over here, the tip of your nose. And all you need to do is focus on paying attention to the airflow going in through your nose, in through your throat, into your lungs, all right? And you focus for five times. So you want to practice right now. Let's have some fun. All right. Close your eyes. As long as you're not driving. All right? And just listen to my voice. Now inhale and focus only on the breath. Going in one and coming out. Inhale again. Focus just on the breath. And again. And again. And one last time. And so why did I do that little exercise? Well, I did that little exercise because if you just start with what you can control, and that is your mind, when you learn how to. As I was doing that, I can share with you that my chimes were ringing in the background. And my mind kept going from my breath to the chimes. And I said, no, come back to the breath. And it kept going to the chimes. No, come back to the breath. Then I heard some noise of one of my neighbors down there. Somebody is building something. So I heard some hammers. So I heard that. But I came right back to the breath. And one of the keys to achieving success, all successful people that I know are excellent at this one thing. Are you ready? Finishing what they start. So it's not that they start and stop and start and stop all the time, but they're able to stay focused long enough to finish what they start. They're able to give themselves a command, a goal, a vision, an outcome, and commit to doing whatever it takes. And that takes focus. So one of the best ways to learn how to focus is give yourself one task. Finish it. One task and finish it. That'll give you the muscle that you want. Neuralyze. Okay, I can give myself one task and finish it. Then you give yourself another task and finish it and start small. If you have a challenge focusing, just give yourself the permission to stop multitasking. Do less better to completion. One of my courses called the 5x productivity system, I teach a process that's 18 different ways and things to think about on achieving your goals and being three to five times more productive. And the first lesson I teach in that program is called do less, do it better, and do it till you finish it. And focus is what is critical for you to achieve your goals. Yet most people are add on add. Now, I have thoughts, ideas, creativity, hundreds of goals, things I want to do, places I want to go, people I want to hang out with. However, when I set my mind on a goal that I want to achieve, I am laser focused. If you think about sunshine, you know, sunshine will warm up an area and it will offer some nice heat and you'll feel nice and warm and you might even get a nice tan. If you focus that sunshine, the light, which is photons by a magnifying glass, you can actually burn a piece of paper by concentrating the light, the energy. If you take that energy and you focus it even more to single photons, single particles of light, you end up with what a laser. So the same sunlight, fragmented, is unfocused, but the same sunlight, the same energy focused, is like a laser. And so if you practiced breathing, exercise every day, meditating for maybe three to five minutes to start with, then 10 minutes, then 15 minutes, taking one project, one thing you want to achieve, and getting that done, then getting one more thing achieved and one more thing achieved, it's what I call fractional goal achievement. So you may want to tweak that to achieve your goals. Create a fractional goal achievement process. Fractional goal achievement. So fractional goal achievement is the key to success. So hashtag that, hashtag achieve is what we're using today to track all of this. And if you want to have people join us, we're going to go for about 15, 20 more minutes. And then I've got to get ready for some other stuff. And so if you want to let your friends know that we're on for the next 15, 20 minutes, just Facebook it or tweet it. Hangoutwithjohnassaraf.com Let me go back to the questions I'm trying to answer a whole bunch of questions that I read and printed earlier. So question number 17 that came in was from David, and David says, hi, John, I see you were fortunate enough to have Alan Brown as a mentor, which I imagine made a huge difference in your life. What would you say are things to look for in a potential mentor? The first and most important thing to look for in a potential mentor is somebody who shares your core values. So if you want to make money and you meet somebody who's made a lot of money, but they've done it in a way that doesn't share your core values of how you want to earn your money, there's going to be some Disconnect at the emotional and spiritual level. And I really believe that when you can connect emotionally, spiritually and physically, that's the deepest connection that you can have with somebody. And. And that really is a state of love, which I think is one of the highest vibrations, if not the highest vibration that we can be in. And so the first thing is make sure that you choose a mentor that shares your core values. So the question for you is, do you know what your core values are? And I mentioned mine earlier. So if you're new to this, I'm going to go back. It's God, my health, my family contribution, and fun and experiences. Those are my top core values. And that's how I make my decisions, and that's how I live my life. And so what I would like you to do if you're looking for a mentor, is find somebody that really is living the life that you would like to live. Somebody who can help you understand the thinking, the emotions, the strategies and tactics. What I see so many people do is they don't look at life in a holistic way. And I look at everything from a spiritual, emotional, mental, physical. And I like to work from a higher order of things to a lower order of things. And so when you are looking for a mentor, find somebody who has similar or the same values as you do. And what I have found in the past is, and we see this a lot with celebrities, and we see this a lot with athletes because they're so in the public eye and I'm not judging them in any stretch of the imagination. And we see that they might be really skilled in one area and we put them up on the pedestal, but then we see in another area of their life, they are being. I don't know, they're doing things that just aren't okay in our society. How's that? And so choose the people that have the life or the lifestyle that you want and have the moral values that are important to you. And I'm not suggesting that anybody should have my values. I'm suggesting you find people with your values. And if you find mentors with your values, then you will get along and be at a spirit, spiritual, emotional and physical level of connection. And that's really the deepest level that you want to go to. And there are plenty of people that are willing to mentor. I'm looking all the time to help people to mentor. I'm doing that today with people right now on my first ever Google Hangout. I've just broken my virginity today using Google Hangouts. I'M doing that. I'm hopefully mentoring you a little bit and giving you some ideas of the way I think, the way I plan, the way I strategize, I do, what I do so that you hopefully can learn something and use it in your life and make a difference in the life of somebody else. All right, so that is question from. I can't remember who that was. David. David. David. All right, so let's go to what is your opinion or experience in network marketing? Would you take it as a main source of income? So what's my experience with network market? I take it as a main source of income. That's from Luis. Luis Pablo. Alright, that's not his last name. He's got a last name to him only sharing people's first names. That way people respect their privacy. So I have a lot of friends in network marketing or direct selling business and a lot of them make $100,000 a month. Some make 3,000amonth, some make zero and some the difference between those who make $100,000 a month or more and the ones who make zero or $1,000 or $2,000 a month is their beliefs, their habits, and more importantly, what they do or don't do every day. And so network marketing is a great tool. Many companies use it. Direct selling is a great tool. And for me, it's a function of do you resonate with it? Does the product or the service, you know, really do what it says it's supposed to do? So can you buy in? Can you feel 100% that it's something you want to be a part of and really give your heart and soul to? Number two is do you believe in the company, all right, Their payout schedule, their integrity, their way they do business, who they are, you know, do they represent themselves well? And will you be representing, you know, a company that has integrity with honesty and love and compassion, all the things that, you know, we want our companies to have and, you know, compassionate. Conscious Capitalism is a great book, by the way. Conscious Capitalism, great book by the founders of Whole Foods. And so if you are in resonance with their products, their services, their leadership, then it's a great opportunity. But I want you to understand something. Is every single business, whether it's network marketing, whether it's being a dentist, a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, a homemaker, it makes no difference. I mean, artists, coach, consultant, you have to have resonance in order for you to be able to transfer that passion to other people. In the universe that we live in, everything is energy and things that Resonate on the same vibration, attract. Okay, we resonate. It's like people who like the same type of music go to the same concerts. People who like certain types of food go to the same restaurants. Alright? So you know you have something in common with them. And so what you want to do is make sure that who you are, who you are authentically resonates at such a high frequency that people know that you have resonance. And that way you'll attract more into your life of what you want. But if you have any doubt, any uncertainty about your business, your product, your service, or whatever the case is, people will feel the dissonance, the disparity. And so what you want to do is have congruency and coherence, neurologically and emotionally that matches with your behaviors. Because only 7% of the communication that happens between people is verbal. Only 7%. It's tonality, it's emotion, it's expression, it's spiritual. We feel whether somebody's lying to us or not. We feel if somebody has the confidence or certainty or not. We know when we're being lied to. We know when something's just not right. And we say things like, let me think about it. But when somebody has got total resonance with what they're saying, who they are, what they do, you feel it. And you want to gravitate towards that if it resonates with you. And so the key is find what you love and be what you love. And then you don't have to worry about what other people think of you because you'll attract enough people who are like you and you will resonate at a very, very high level and you'll, you'll have a life that's, that's worth living. You'll have purpose, you'll have meaning. And more importantly, you'll have significance. You'll feel significant. Okay, Connie says, where do I research for my answers? Who gives me my answers? Connie? I read three, four, five books a month. I am on researching. PubMed.org, pubMed.gov Excuse me, I research. I'm on a whole bunch of lists of the things that are important to me. I have advisory teams, I have mastermind groups I'm a part of, I pay for consultants. I am gathering information voraciously, hours every day. And I learn and assimilate that information. I apply it in my life and in my company. And then I help and I teach people. I'm, I think, a master assimilator of content and information. I can take the good stuff and keep and throw the bad stuff out of stuff that's not useful to me. And then I have found a passion to help and teach people the stuff that really works versus all of the other stuff. And I'm not about quick fixes. If there's a quick fix, I'm okay with it. But I know that it takes a little bit of time to change our brains. It takes a little bit of time to get mastery over our lives and our emotions and our behaviors and our feelings and all that stuff and the way we think. I'm in it for the long haul. And so I'm researching from a variety of different sources two, three, four hours a day. And then I'm rehearsing what I learned. So when I find something that I like, I reread it over and over and over again. I might record it if I really want to assimilate it. I'll practice it, I'll write it out, I will repeat it, I'll share it with others. I'll have notes in front of me. And so I'm constantly practicing what it is that I'm learning. I'm constantly teaching what it is that I'm learning, and I'm constantly applying what it is that I'm learning in my own life. Because I want to just get better and better and better and better and better. Not because I don't feel like I'm not enough. Is because I feel like there's so much potential for me to grow spiritually, emotionally, physically, financially, charitably, in every way possible. Spirit is always for fuller expression and expansion. However, I want to share something else is I'm always happy, never content, always happy and never content. And what I mean by that, I'm happy with the way things are, whether they're good or challenging. But I want to keep stretching and pushing my abilities to become more so I can offer and give more. And I'm not talking about financial. I'm talking about as a human being. All right? So I want to consistently do that is just keep raising the bar for myself and keep becoming more loving, more caring, more kind, more giving, more knowledgeable, more focused more. My whole life has been about achieving even more. That's been my moniker for the last 32 years. Achieve even more. And it's not out of just achieving more for the sake of achieving more. It's by stretching my limits. I want to keep exploring what my limits are. If you believe that you are limitless, then why not explore how much you can do and be. It's not about having more. It's about giving more. And I'm telling you, I'm in a unique place in my life right now where giving is really, really, really important to me. Contribution is my fourth highest value. And so contributing my time, my knowledge, my skills, our finances, anything that we can contribute, my family and myself, that's one of our highest values. We look to do it as often as possible. And for us, that means daily. All right, so that's that one. Craig asked a question, says, how do I figure out what limiting or sabotaging negative thoughts I might have in my unconscious mind? There's a way to get connected with your unconscious mind that requires a piece of paper and a pen and finding a quiet place. And what you want to do is take a sheet of paper, just a blank sheet of paper like that, and sit quietly for five or six minutes, just breathing in and out like I showed you earlier, and just paying attention to your breath. As you calm yourself down, you can have a discussion with your brain. And all you have to do is ask yourself, what are a few limiting beliefs? Or what is one limiting belief that is holding me back right now? And just listen to what comes up. And it's very, very subtle, because your brain will talk to you. Your unconscious mind will talk to you. As I mentioned earlier, you are not your brain. You're not that organ. It is an amazing, miraculous organ, and you have the ability to take control of it. You have the ability to train it, you have the ability to reprogram it, and you also have the ability to ask it questions. Ask yourself, what is one belief I have about myself or about the world that's holding me back or that is sabotaging my success? Write it down, what is another belief that I have? And if you get two or three or four beliefs that you have that are causing you to sabotage your success, then you can start to work on reprogramming that belief. And you can start by saying, I used to have this belief. Now my new belief is, and you create an affirmation. And the affirmation, I used to have this belief. And now my new belief is, and you can read that affirmation. You can read it and put your hand across it. So you send a signal through your arm to your brain that you're touching it. You can close your eyes and see yourself with the old belief, and you can see yourself with the new belief. Now you're going to be playing a mental game with yourself, because your brain wants you to stay the same. It doesn't want you out of Your comfort zone. Anything that is different is out of your comfort zone. So you're going to have to learn how to play with the thoughts that come up saying, that's not real, that's not true. I don't believe that. You just have to use what I suggested earlier. Just use the word next, next thought, and re. Say that affirmation, revisualize, re. Emotionalize what you want. And over the course of the next week, three weeks, six weeks, 10 weeks, 20 weeks, it takes 66 days, according to some of the latest scientific research, to rewire and reprogram habitual thought pattern or behavioral pattern. And that's why all of our brain Training programs are 90 days long of retraining people's brains for 30 minutes a day. Because we are impressing thousands and thousands and thousands of messages at the unconscious level, coming from a variety of different methodologies into the brain to unprogram or deprogram some of the past beliefs and habits that they've had in their lives in the past. And so if you just sit quietly, write down on a piece of paper, and then use the exercise that I just showed you, you'll be able to start the reprogramming of your brain process and developing new, empowering, constructive beliefs and habits so you can achieve your goals. All right, I'm going to take two more questions, and I'm going to end in about seven minutes. All right, so if you want to tweet something, tweet, I can achieve all my goals and dreams. I can achieve all my goals and dreams right now. And then hashtag that, Achieve. So I can achieve all my goals and dreams right now. Achieve. Achieve. All right, let me see here. We got so many questions here. So we've got Jim over here says we published three books in the process of. With our fourth. What is the best way to increase sales of our Source of Wisdom series? So, Jim, by asking that question and getting me to ask you know about your book that you wanted me to do, I'm going to do that for you because I know you're a member in our community and you're part of our Win the Game of Money brain training program. So Jim's published a Source of Wisdom series. So, Jim, the best way to increase your sales for your book, and this is for any product or service, okay. Is if you have a product or service. You can't think that that product or service is for everybody. It's not. There's a specific person, an avatar, a client profile of either male, female, African, white, Caucasian, Black, certain income group that really wants that product or service or book. You first have to identify who that person is, and you have to identify why is it that they want that book. Then you have to identify where are those people? And once you identify who they are, why they want the book, what they're wanting the book for, then you can find where they are. And when you find where they are, then you can start talking to them, whether it's by giving them a free chapter of your book, whether it's by giving them a speech, whether it's by doing a Google hangout, whether it's by getting a following on tweets, whether it's by starting a blog, whether it's by doing seminars, whether it's by doing teleseminanars. You find 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 things that you can do, and you start with the first one and do it really, really well. Then you add a second one, a third one, and fourth one, and you start to get a following. And as you get a following for that specific message, product or service, they tell their friends. And one of the things I learned many, many years ago from my friend Brian Halligan, he says, whatever you do, do it, remarkably so, people remark about it. Whatever you do do, remarkably so, people remark about it. So you can tweet that as well and put achieve. Whatever you do do, remarkably so, people remark about it. So people tell their friends. And that way you're going to start gathering a following. And if you have a following and a group of people that really like your message, then they'll be able to. To share with other people because you're offering amazing value. And so selling any product or service requires a real understanding of who you're going to help with that product or service. And then creating a message to get them engaged and then get them into the dialogue. And I always like to do a lot of free things to give people a taste of what you do and how you do it and whether they resonate with you or not. And what you'll find is some people do and some people don't, and that's okay. All right. All right. So that's how you get your. Sell more of your books. All right, let's take one last question, and this is from Nandini. Nandini, thank you for this question. Question number 15 is how do I manage emotional ups and downs or problems? And so we have, we all have emotions that are being caused by either something internally, intrinsically, or extrinsically from the outside. So we have different types of emotions. Happiness, sadness, elation, emotions of fear. And what we have to recognize. Our emotions are signals. They're signals from our internal world or our external world. The emotions tell us the vibration that we're in. Some vibrations are pleasant, some are not. You want to move obviously towards the pleasant vibrations and move away from the unpleasant vibrations as much as you can, because we don't want to feel unpleasant all the time. However, the symphony of emotions that we have is actually pretty beautiful because you have to have contrast in order to know the different emotions. And that's really called life. How would you know happiness if you didn't know sadness? How would you know elation if you didn't know the polar opposite? Everything in the universe has polar opposites to it. Whether it's electron or proton, whether it's up or down, hot or cold, everything has polarity to it. With emotions, the first thing you must understand is they are your emotions. Your emotions you are responsible for. And if you remember, the 5R process that I talked about is recognize, respond, refrain, release and retrain. If you have an emotion, okay, that is unpleasant, the best and fastest way, there's two best ways to change that emotion. Number one is change the pattern, change your physiology. Alright, so if you don't like an emotion, change what you're doing. Stand up, do a little jog, a little run, smile and look up. See, you can't feel badly smiling and looking up. Try it, try it right now. Smile and look up. You can't feel bad smiling and looking up. Most people have a negative emotion or sadness because mostly they're looking down. So you change your physiology first. That's one way to do it. The other way to do it is through what I said before. You recognize that you have this unpleasant emotion and you make a decision. The word decision means to cut off from. So you make a decision to release that emotion and choose the emotion you want to be in. How do you do that? Well, watch a funny movie, go to your computer, open up Google and go funny jokes, go and call a dear friend, go and do something different to change your pattern, to think differently. And as soon as you think differently, you can change your emotion. And so let me show you how fast your emotions can change. I want you to imagine for some of you that I'm at the chalkboard right now and I'm screeching my hands down the chalkboard. Okay? Many people, as soon as they think of their fingernails, you know, going down a chalkboard, like the things our teachers used when we were kids, they have this terrible emotional feeling. Here's another feeling. Imagine taking a razor blade and just cutting your wrist open, all right, and seeing the blood spurt out. Some people have this emotion, oh God, I don't want to feel that. Well, you can change that. Change the thought, you change the emotion, change the physiology, you change the emotion. And when you recognize that you can be in control of your emotions instead of letting your emotions be in control of you, that's when you start to have emotional mastery. When you have emotional mastery, you can ride the waves of your emotions and you can have the mastery around the ups and the downs, the highs and the lows, and you have the ability to respond and focus on what it is that you want achieve. Either your emotions are going to control you or you are going to control your emotions. Either your brain is going to control you or you are going to control your brain. Either your old beliefs are going to control your life or you are going to develop new beliefs that will propel your life forward. Either you are going to choose new habits or you will be a victim of all of your old habits. What I am here to tell you is you. You have the ability to achieve everything you want in your life. And all you have to do is be willing to make some shifts and changes. What you have to be willing to do is get some new beliefs and some new habits, upgrade your knowledge and your skills, practice them daily. And what I can promise you is you can achieve the life of your dreams, have it all, and more importantly, feel like your life has purpose, meaning and significance. And that is my goal and my dream for you. Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to serve you to be part of my first hangout. Hopefully you'll join me for some other ones. If you want to stay in touch with some of the stuff that I do, hop onto either my Facebook fan page or my John Assaraf website or the PraxisNow website. We do a lot of webinars and seminars, a lot of free stuff as well as we have some great events. Our next event is Money Squared, the Art and Science of Financial Success in June. And it's going to be an unbelievable three day event. If you want to find out more about it, go to money the number two event.com money the number two event.com I'll be teaching with 10 of my brilliant friends as well and I look forward to having you either one of our live events or at the next Google hangout. Thanks so much. Have an amazing Saturday. Ariva De Chi, my friends. God bless you and I love you all.