Interview with Marrissa Peer

So if we want to take a look at what is it that we are creating, just take a look at your results. A lot of times people are busy, but they're not doing the right things. So in addition to being busy, you need to step back and say, what are the things that I should be doing that creates a predictable transformation or predictable result?

Hi, today I'm talking to a very dear and old friend of mine, John Assaraf. John is known as being a mindset and a behavior expert. He's written two New York Times bestseller books, he's built five multi million dollar companies. He's even featured in movies including the Secret and Quest for Success with Richard Branson and the Dalai Lama. I think the first question I want to ask you because I know audience, often they have goals, but they don't understand that they don't have goals because they don't know how to take a goal along the steps and to realize it. But you absolutely do. So can I start by asking you what is your best advice for our audience in reaching their goal?

Sure. So, I mean, great question, great to be with you. And in the last 40 years, I've really done a lot of self development on understanding why do I do the things that I do? Why don't I do the things that I want to or know that I should do to achieve my goals? That's taking me deep into the neuroscience and neuropsychology space, which is your domain of play. Also, what I've discovered is that there are certain parts of our brain that are responsible for setting a goal and for getting excited about our goal. But there are other parts of our brain that if we don't engage those parts of our brain, or if we don't know how to regulate the emotions that try to hold us back from achieving our goals, then in a lot of cases we have these stillborn goals where we don't achieve them even though we really want to. So from a purely neuroscience perspective, in order to achieve goals, we want to have the clarity of what the goal is. And everybody knows that we want to have the why we want to achieve those. Because when we have a reason why we must achieve those, then we stop the fight that happens between the limbic emotional part of the brain and the logical prefrontal cortex of the brain. So in a lot of cases, when people set goals, one of four things will get in their way. For example, if they set a goal, whether it's to lose weight and keep it off, get into a relationship that they want to Be happy in, make more money, build a business, write a book. But they don't have the knowledge or skill on how to do it. One of the brain circuits called the sympathetic nervous system circuit activates and that is tied directly to self doubt. It's tied to fear. What if I fail? What if I'm embarrassed? What if I'm ashamed? What if I'm ridiculed? What if I disappoint myself again? And since our brain is predicting every second of every day what this action may mean to my safety and well being, or to my comfort or discomfort, it's predicting all the time the future consequence. And if that happens to be a negative future consequence or present moment consequence, we put the brakes on behavior. We can actually see blood flow moving away from the motivational center in the brain, from the motor cortex part of the brain into the fear center part of the brain. Which causes us to stay stuck and in our comfort zone. So if we have limiting beliefs, that puts the brakes on behavior. If we have fears, and there's over 50 different types of fears that deactivate motivational centers and behavioral centers. If we have a disconnect between our self image and the goal that we want to have and our identity, these are all reasons that activate different circuits in our brain. And so we can talk a little about the networks and the circuits that our bio computer is made up of. A little bit deeper, but that is the difference. People just don't have the right user's manual and process for how to get themselves to go from goal setting to goal achieving.

So how do they overcome that? You're the expert in that. So what you said is all very valid. I get that. That we fear it going wrong so much that we actually block it going right. But, but how do you help people overcome that?

Sure. So one of the things that I did in my newest best selling book, Inner Size the New Science to Unlock youk Brain's Hidden Power is help people understand a couple of techniques to strengthen their mind. So we use exercise to strengthen our physical organs. I created this term and trademarked this word called inner size to strengthen our neuro muscles. So for example, if you have self doubt, if you are worried, if you are fearful, we know that the circuit in the brain that's activated is the circuit called the sympathetic nervous system. Which is directly tied to our fight, flight, freeze or faint reaction. Automatic reactions that have been evolving for billions of years and 2 million years to see specifically in different species of humans. And so what do we know about this circuit? Well, we know that, for example, if we just were aware of when we were in a state of self doubt, fear, anxiety, stress, uncertainty, if we just stopped and took six deep breaths, slowly, slowly, slowly in through our nose, Held it at the top for two or three seconds and then released it as if we are breathing out through a straw, in six seconds we can actually see this circuit in the brain. Deactivate the reactive circuit in the brain and we can actually see the parasympathetic, the calm to receive response circuit in the brain activate. So the first step is to understand that emotional regulation is a skill that you learn and emotions are all triggered in your subconscious mind based on the meanings that you have given to things over the course of your life, mostly in childhood, that got reinforced. So if we deactivated this circuit first, and then we activated the parasympathetic nervous system, which is our contour response system, and then in that state we did what I call as inner size number two. And inner size number two is called aya Awareness. Intention. Action is what that stands for. And in a calm relaxed state, if we were able to observe what were my thought patterns for let's say the last 15 or 20 minutes, what was I thinking, feeling and what were my behaviors. In a calm relaxed state, we don't reinforce the stress circuit or the disempowering pattern that we have. So in a state of awareness of thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations and behaviors, without judgment, blame, shame, guilt or justification. So without judging ourselves, without putting ourselves down, just observing the pattern and, and then setting an intention, what is my intention for the next 15 or 20 minutes? So my intention is to be positive. My intention is to take a little action. My intention is to be focused. My intention is to be confident. Then if we just took one little action step towards what we want, not only have we through the practice of observation, and not only through the deliberate intention, in one small action, did we interrupt the old neural pattern. But now we have just created a brand new pattern that we can now reinforce. And so those are two little beginner intersects for awareness and for us to re pattern our brain, re script our brain, rescript our story, but also reshape our self image from somebody who is frozen in fear or uncertainty or doubt, to somebody who could be aware of it and take an action step towards it. So now we are using our brain properly. And our brain is made up of three major networks and a variety of different circuits that turn on or off based on what triggers these circuits. And in many cases it's external stuff that is triggering these circuits. But in a lot of cases, we have a thought, and that thought has got an entire neural pattern association to our past that triggers these circuits automatically without even thinking about it. Awareness is what gives us the choice. And it's in that choice, if we are managing our mindset and regulating our emotions properly, then we're not victims of them. We can become victorious over them.

So you talk about 50 different types of fear, and I'm sure most of our audience has, have never heard of that. They probably know illogical fear. But could you tell me some of those 50 different types and the ones that really are the most detrimental to us as a species, as humans?

Sure. So the hierarchy of how our brain works, as you're well aware, is survival and safety first, avoidance of pain or discomfort second, energy conservation third, then gaining of pleasure. And so when we think of achieving a goal, public speaking, going across the room and meeting somebody that we're attracted to, writing a book, starting our business and leaving our job, getting divorced and starting a life new, moving from one country to another, the initial excitement of the goal releases that dopamine in our brain. If we share it with other people, we might even release some oxytocin to feel good, bonding hormone. But in the very next step, and by the way, that happens as a result of the prefrontal cortex, left prefrontal cortex specifically, which I call the Einstein brain, the imagination, deductive reasoning, leader of the orchestra, shall we say. But in the very next second, there's another part of our brain called the Frankenstein's monster that I like to give people as a description. And Frankenstein's monster is there lurking in the background going, what if, what if you do this and you fail? Now, depending on the meaning that you have for failure, a lot of times people associate failing with them. Being a failure versus failing just means something that didn't work. What if you do this and you're wrong and, and somebody embarrasses you? So we can have a fear of failure. We can have a fear of being embarrassed, we can have a fear of being ridiculed, we can have a fear of being rejected. We can have a fear of disappointing ourselves one more time, thereby reinforcing our low self image, self worth, or self esteem that we have. So we do more to avoid real or imagined pain or discomfort than we do to gain pleasure. But the mechanisms by which our brain works is that it focuses on predicting anything that's negative that could affect our survival or safety or our spiritual, emotional, mental, physical, or financial. Well, Being so we have these triggers that go on or off, on or off all day long. And most people are unconsciously incompetent. They don't even know that this is happening. So when we start to make them consciously aware of here are the mechanisms, here's what's causing you to have self doubt, here's what's causing you to have fear, here's what's causing you to procrastinate. Here's what's causing you to self sabotage. Here's what's causing you to have anxiety or even panic. But you're not a victim of it. You can be in control of it. So the techniques as you well are aware is what does hypnosis do? Which is one of the techniques I love to use in all of my programs. And you are a master of it, right? So I am, I am in a bow bow kindly to your master mastery of that. So what does hypnosis do? What does visualization do? What does affirmations for visualizations or self talk and emotional regulation do? What does mental contrasting do? Is in the right setting either through somebody who guides you or through doing it yourself. If you learn the techniques, you're bypassing that critical thinker, you are quieting the Frankenstein's monster and you're accessing the power center of the brain which is the subconscious. And, and it's in this subconscious that we can actually go in there and reprogram. Like a software programmer can go in and recalibrate their software. That's where the software is that's running the show. And so we have developed these habits of being ourself. And so we have to do, if we want to let go of the habitual thought or emotional or behavioral destructive or negative patterns is we have to go to the source of where the pattern is. Does that make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. I mean I must admit I find singing is so easy. Because of course I believe that all of our fears, our biggest fears, the fear of being rejected. And of course you're absolutely right that the mind will always do more to avoid pain than it will to seek pleasure. Because our mind's job is really not to make us happy, but to keep us alive. And I found that if you have a stress and you start to sing any song, it's why bomb disposal experts whistle. It's why Marines when they're running a marathon sing. Because if you sing when you're feeling anxious or stressed, your body goes, well, you're singing, I guess you must like it. You know, if ever you have to have a shot, or we call it a jab, and you sing as the needle goes in, or you sing as you're having some painful procedure. Singing sends really bypasses all of that fear because the body goes. If you're singing, you. You must be having a great time. You wouldn't be singing if you're unhappy. And I find it's a really great way. It's like Robbie Williams has this album called sing when you're winning. I find this with my clients a lot, that they don't have the tools or they have a belief. Yeah, but all of those tools, it's so long, and it's such hard work, and it's so complex. We've been taught, I think, a lot by the medical profession, if you have a complex problem like anxiety, it requires a very complex treatment. If you have a complex eating disorder, even to some degree, depression, because we believe that's complex. We believe, therefore, that the treatment is complex. And I've never found that to be the case. I found that the most complex things, like fear of public speaking can be overcome so easily. And so I think you're doing a great job of simplifying it. But then the next thing is, maybe it doesn't take. It's not hard work. Would you say to people, it's not hard work. Hard work to do what you do. Not hard work at all.

It's consistent work.

Yeah, consistent.

And when we consider the neural patterns that have been reinforced, become the dominant patterns, it's like a highway system. In any. In any city, you've got the small little streets, you may have the new streets, and you got the highway system. So some of our neural patterns and conditioning, they're just very strong, strong roads. And we just recreate some new roads. New roads and reinforce those and make those more dominant. Then we can change that. And I know you and I agree that in some cases, the identity that we have around a certain fear that we have, or eating disorder or weight or anything like that, if we just shift the identity, then we shift the behavior that recreates different results. And so we are creatures of habit that repeat patterns over and over and over again. And either on our own or through help, we can use techniques and tools that we know work. Now you just have to make a decision. Are you committed to achieving a new result or are you committed to keeping the old? As soon as you make a commitment to change, then change is possible. And there are techniques for making change easier, easier and faster versus fast, but you can do them relatively fast. I agree with you.

Yeah. Because I saw that when I had some friends, they used to be in the boomtown Rats, and they were like very hard living rock stars. And they became vegans. They, they just made a decision overnight. I don't want to eat animals anymore. And once you make that decision, as you say a vegan or that is your identity, they don't go, oh, there wasn't any vegetarian food, so I just had to eat the beef. Once you make it your identity, once you kind of affirm, this is me, this is who I am, and this is what I do, it actually becomes very easy to keep going because it's your identity. In the same way that athletes don't go, oh, I really can't be bothered to get up and train to go, no, I'm going to the Olympics, I'm getting a medal, I'm breaking a record, I'm playing for a team. And so you're absolutely right that the sooner you can say, this is who I am as much as what I do. When you make it who you are, who am I? You know, what am I doing? Why am I doing? Becomes much, much easier. And so many people just aren't taught that. And I do that with children. Who are you? You know, especially ones that are the bullies, who are you? Do you really need to get that need met by bullying? And then they understand? Of course not. Or the kid who's being bullied and can't stand up for themselves. When you really get into who am I? And affirm who you are, why you're doing it, it's all so much easier.

Identity creates destiny, right? But what most people do is just a lack of skill and awareness is they take a look at a result that they have or a behavior that they consistently do, and they keep recreating the result and the behavior and reinforce the identity and the belief structures that causes it all, instead of saying, okay, what is it that I would like it to be? What is the identity for that? What are the character traits of that? What are the beliefs that this person already has that embodies? Then say, well, what are the behaviors that they are consistently taking? And then how do we make those behaviors habitual? How do we make those thought patterns habitual? And when we, when we're talking about that, now we're getting to the domain of neural networks and patterns. And the old patterns are easy in the brain to fire off because we've invested so many years developing the habit, and then the habit develops us. Now the question is, if we want to change habits. Are you aware of how to do that? And most people are like, no, I don't. And there's a place in the brain called the striatum that's connected to our hippocampus. And as you can tell, I'm into the science of all this. I want to understand what is actually going on in the brain. And we know that through visualization, through whether it's hypnotherapy, guided or self, through a variety of different evidence based techniques, we can re pattern, re script, reshape the part of our brain that runs automatically based on automaticity. And if we make the new pattern automatic, then that pattern reinforces itself. So it has to start with, well, what's the identity? You know, what's the identity that you want? What are the character traits? And as I mentioned, we can do that.

But I want to talk about something that you have done a lot that's really life changing, which is vision board. So I'd love you to share your vision board story because it's so impressive.

Sure. So in the line of what we're talking about, I mean, know, setting your vision, setting your goals, what are the beliefs you need to achieve those goals? What are the things you need to do to achieve your goals? Which is all part of what I learned how to do 40 years ago as part of my goal achieving process in the early 90s. I'm not sure where I heard this, it may have been a seminar or a book that I read, but the instructor said, well, if you have a goal, whether it's for a car or a home or something charitable that you want to do, why not create a visual representation of it? And they said, why don't you cut out, you know, pictures from magazines of the thing or the representation of the thing. And so I started to cut out pictures of cars, shoes, belts, suits, sunglasses that I wanted, buildings I wanted to own and so forth. And I had cut out this one home from Dream Homes magazine. And at the time I was living in Indianapolis in the middle of America, and I was building a company called ReMax. And every day I would not just look at my goals and the beliefs that I needed and visualize that, but I would look across my desk to my vision board. So I had one board for health for the body that I wanted, another board for wealth, and another board for a home that I wanted, and et cetera. That's six different boards. And every day I would just visualize it and I would emotionalize it and I would walk Myself through this one house. And I used to say, one day, when I could live in any home that I want, I'll live in a house like that one. And I didn't even know where the house was. It was just in the magazine. I just cut it out. I said, I like that. And I visualized and emotionalized and saw myself walking through the orange grove and the tennis court and the swimming pool for two years, every day. And then I put the vision board away because I moved from Indianapolis to Vancouver, British Columbia, put all my furniture and stuff, storage from British Columbia, and moved to la, from LA to San Diego. And I got San Diego. I bought a house, renovated it, and In January of 2000, the renovation was finished. We moved in in March of 2000. And the vision board that I had put away five years earlier, they finally brought it to my home, along with all the other furniture and everything else. And one morning, my son Keenan, comes into my home office. We've been in the house for two, two days, and there's boxes everywhere. We're in my home office, and there's these boxes against the door. And he sits on the box, and he's banging the boxes with his legs. And he was about five and a half at the time. He said, daddy, what's in the boxes? And I said to him, I said, sweetheart, they're my vision boards. And at five and a half, he goes, your vision board? What's a vision board? And I said, well, when I have a goal or a dream, you know, of something that I want, I put on my vision board. And he goes, a dream, like we dream at night. I said, no, sweetheart, let me just show you. So I cut open the box, took the. All of the stuff that was around it, opened up the box, pulled out the first vision board. I looked at it, and there was a Mercedes Benz convertible that I wanted, that I had bought. There was some other stuff that I said, see, this is a goal that I have. The car, the shoes, and this. And then I pulled out the second board, and right in the middle of the board, there was this picture of this house. And for a second, I thought somebody was playing a trick on me. And I was thinking, how is this house on this board? I was standing in the house of the picture that I cut out from a Dream Homes magazine five years earlier. And I was wondering, how did my house get onto the board? And then I realized, oh, my God, I have been visualizing that house for two years. It's been in storage now for five years. And tears Started running down my face. He goes, daddy, why are you crying? And I say, sweetheart, I think I'm starting to understand how we manifest things from the non physical world to the physical world. And he said to me, what's manifest? Yeah, that was a magical moment that I still. Marissa, I still can't explain because I didn't know where the house was. I didn't know how much it was. I didn't even know that I was in the house that was on my vision board because the vision board picture was from the back of the house that I had visualized. So I never even knew that it was the house. So something is going on.

Oh, definitely. I was standing on the canals in Venice, California, in Christmas 2017, because they have a Christmas parade. And I was standing outside this house and this guy drew up in a Porsche and he had a little Pomeranian puppy and he got out. I remember thinking, wow, when you live in that house, you've really made it. And he walked in, you know, the Porsche, the dog. And it was an amazing canal side house. And so that was December 2017. And in January, in December 2019, we were actually buying a house and we'd actually gone into escrow. And I just come back to London, I was sitting and this house got. I said, oh my God, that house is nicer. We flew back to la, got out of escrow and bought the house. And it was the same house that this guy had driven up to just a year before. And I said, wow, you've made it when you live in that house. And my husband and I were like two children. We always say we never get jaded. It is the most amazing, amazing house. But it's so funny that I have a photograph of standing outside it. Exactly. Watching this parade. Exactly. And I'm sure on the video I'm saying, wow, imagine living in that house. I am. And a year later we're living in that house. And so I do believe in that. I think the problem is a lot of people manifest the wrong. I'm going to get a headache because I didn't get enough sleep. I'm going to get a sinuses because the heating's come on. I always get sick around this time of year. And we don't recognize that. Women. We say, I always get ghosted. Every person I meet, it never lasts more than three months because that's manifesting. You're expecting it to go wrong. And I think manifesting is so powerful. And I say, no, we're going to manifest it. And people say, yeah, I Can manifest car parks. And they say, well, it's great if you can manifest a car parking space. Manifest something way bigger than that, because I think you can manifest anything. I mean, people who are sick, I don't mean that people who are sick because I've had some interesting illnesses, but people who have the kind of the headache sickness, the colds all the time, the irritable stomach will always talk about, oh, I'm getting my irritable bowel, I'm getting my nervous tension. And no one explains. You're manifesting it because you focus on. My mother did that all her life and she was a great teacher because she was always ill. Yeah, I totally agree with you.

It's interesting because I've spent the last 40 years studying the neuroscience and neuropsychology As a behavioral researcher who was an entrepreneur. I've also been fascinated with quantum physics and quantum mechanics and understanding what is happening at the level of the quantum field. And specifically the correlation between. Between our thoughts, our predominant thoughts. And is it possible that I believe personally that we live in a participatory universe and there's the non physical and the physical. But is it possible that in the quantum field that we are in with the positive and negative and the endless possibilities and options, Is it possible that since everything is, is in a state of potentiality in the field of particle or wave, is it possible that our thoughts are actually collapsing the wave function and creating the particle, meaning the physical manifestation? And from all of my research and my own experience, the answer is unequivocally yes. So in, if I can be at choice and I could take this hundred billion dollar or trillion dollar brain of mine and I could become a better operator of what wave function am I collapsing? Is that not the highest level of my being and my experience as a human? So if we want to take a look at what is it that we are creating, Just take a look at your results. Yeah, you'll have a very clear picture of the thoughts, the emotions and the behaviors that you took or the behaviors that you didn't, which I consider our behaviors. And so maybe it's time we just become better operators of our own mind. And maybe we can become better at regulating our own emotions, which is the energy, energy in motion in our bodies and the energy that we are transferring to others. So that is the domain that I love to play in is, let's look at it from the quantum all the way through to the physical. And if we are in the position to utilize this electromagnetic switching station called Our brain to tune in like a radio can tune in to. 95.5 is close classical, 95.6 is rock and roll, 95.7 is punk rock. Why not tune into the station of what we want instead of the station of what we don't want?

Yeah, I actually believe in that joy. Say when you've got a brilliant mind, you've got two choices. Rationalize why you feel so bad or talk yourself out of it. And you might as well talk yourself out of it because it's the same operating system, except you're getting a better result. So can I ask you a bit about neuroplasticity?

Sure. So we used to believe in the, you know, 50s, 60s, 70s, that we were born hardwired. And that's what the term. You're just like your mother, of course, just like your father. That's where that term.

Too late to change.

Yeah, too late to change.

You'll never amount to.

Yeah, sure, we used to believe that because, you know, number one, we were studying human brains, cadavers, dead brains.

Yes, absolutely.

And so, you know, we had limited understanding of our own brains and that our brain is actually not only creating new connections. Let me digress for just one second and just, just pose some questions that I know you know the answer to is when we were born, when we now know that our brain has approximately 100 billion brain cells. When we were born, were we born with any beliefs? No. Were we born with any habits? No. Were we born with any self image of ourselves or how good we are or how successful we could be, or how poor we could be?

No.

So the question is, how did we develop beliefs? What are beliefs? What are habits? What is self image? And the answer, to simplify it, is it's nothing more than reinforced neural patterns in our brain that we got through the imprinting, modeling and experiential years for the most part, by parents or grandparents or teachers that had very limited understanding about the brain, psyche and psychology and the development of the human brain. And so we had developed or we developed these limiting beliefs. Beliefs, a limited self awareness, disempowering habits in many cases. And then we just reinforce them. Over our 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, we just reinforce these patterns which then our subconscious mind just runs automatically to conserve energy. So when we talk about neuroplasticity, what we started to discover, and Dr. Michael Merzenich was one of the forefront leaders in the world on neuroplasticity, they realized that our brain wasn't hardwired, that our brain Was soft wired, that we did have neural patterns that were reinforced and stronger, but we could deactivate those neural patterns, and we could deliberately and consciously create new patterns. And if we just reversed how we reinforce the old patterns deliberately, we can actually deactivate a pattern that may be destructive or disempowering us. And we can create a new pattern that's more empowering, more constructive, more positive that will empower us. So neuroplasticity is just the science of activating that neuroplasticity switch, which is mostly in an off state by the time we're 12, 13 years old. And what we need to do is through curiosity, through fun, through space, repetition, through challenge, we can actually turn this switch back on and create new patterns. And the same is true for neurogenesis. We thought that we were born with a certain number of brain cells, and we didn't make anymore. And now we know that Even into our 60s and 70s, our hippocampus is creating more neurons as well. So that's neuroplasticity. You're not a tree. You can change. You just need to have the process for how to.

Exactly. So what I want to hear about, particularly, is your personal journey with mindset and neuroscience. Have you always been fascinated with human behavior, or does something in particular spark your interest?

Something very painful sparked my interest?

Do tell me.

20, 23 years young.

Yes.

And I was working really hard after traveling around the world, and I ended up with severe ulcerative colitis.

Wow.

And I had ulcers in my colon, which means that my colon was inflamed, and I had zero bowel control movement for or zero bowel control for two years. I was taking 25 Salaza Pyrin pills a day to reduce the inflammation. I was doing a cortisone enema in the morning, cortisone enema at night, and I was doing a sigmoidoscopy once a month at the hospital to see in my rectum, going up my rectum into the colon to see how high the colitis the ulcers were. And after two years, the doctor, his name was Dr. Wu, said to me, well, John, you are pre cancerous, and if this doesn't get better, we're gonna have to remove a bunch of your colon. And I'm like, what, 23. 23 years old? What are you crazy? What do you mean? And so I started going, what's causing this? And so the research that I did back then, which is 37 years ago back then, pointed to one of a few things. Number one, possibly a genetic predisposition. So in my DNA, there was a predisposition for colitis. I later found out that that's actually true because I did a test a couple of years ago. So I had a genetic predisposition. And then stress could activate that. Diet, sleep, exercise could propagate that. And so I asked myself, well, what could I do to reverse the activation of colitis or ulcerative colitis? And so I heard something or read something about psychoneuroimmunology, which is simply the mind body connection. So your thoughts affect your cells and affect the neurochemicals that are released. And what you thought and what you focused on really affected the entire neurochemistry and biology. So every day, here's what I did. So I'm going to start exercising, I'm going to start eating well. I'm going to start to. I'm going to eliminate alcohol from my behavior. I'm going to take time out for myself. So I'm not working 20 hours a day trying to make money. And I created this affirmation for myself, Marissa. And it goes like this. My body and all its organs were created by the infinite intelligence in my subconscious mind. This infinite intelligence created all my muscles, bones, tissues and organs. And it has the ability to heal me and make me whole and perfect. Now, wonderful are the creative. Wonderful is the creative intelligence within my subconscious mind. It is making me whole and perfect Now. I am now perfectly healthy. I read it 25 times a day. I recorded it onto my cassette tapes and listened to it with headphones on or in my car while I drove. I visualize my colon getting better every single day. Five weeks later, colitis went away. Took the pillows, threw them out the window. Never had colitis again. 12 years ago, I was 43 pounds heavier than I am right now. 33% body fat, borderline hypertensive, alcoholic, sugar addict, fatty liver. And then some. I said, holy mackerel, look what I manifested and created. I followed the exact same process. At 48, I said, I'm going to get into the best shape of my adult life. By 50, I released all the fat, got into the best shape of my life, avoided being on normal medication, avoided all of the ramifications of my effects.

Yeah.

And got the best shape of my life.

Yeah.

I've done that to build businesses for my health, for a variety of different parts of my life. So anytime that I am experiencing an effect that isn't to my tail, I always look at how do I change the cause and all of it starts with the thought, the three pound mass, the thoughts I'm having, the emotions I'm having, the behaviors I am taking or not taking. And I recreate by starting with the vision of what I want versus what is.

So that's an amazing story at 23, to have, to have, have. I mean, I can't even imagine having colonics like that because they're so uncomfortable and horrible and painful. Actually, I shouldn't say that because I'm actually meant that some people find them absolutely fine. But 23, that was a real lesson for you in how you had to change. But I know you've had some other lessons. I know you talked about having to forgive your father, so you've helped other people a lot master their mindset. But can I ask you about this journey you had where you had to really? Because a lot of people can't do forgiveness. And they can't get over. They either can't get over guilt, they've done something bad, or they can't forgive someone else because they feel if I forgive them, it makes it okay. It doesn't make it okay. Forgiveness is not for the other person, it's for you. But I'd love to hear your story about how, why you had to forgive your father, how you came to do it, and what a difference that made to you and how old you were when you decided, I. I'm gonna have to forgive him for my sake, not his sake. Yeah.

So a couple of things. When, when I was younger, I didn't do well in school. And when I brought my report cards home, my father, if he didn't like the grades, which was all the time because there were D's and F's mostly. I failed English, failed math, and didn't do well in school. I hated it. I fell behind when we moved from Israel to Montreal, where they spoke French and English. I only spoke Hebrew. So I fell two years behind very, very quickly. So I got into a lot of trouble in school. I was in the principal's office all the time. I was in detention centers because I got into lying, stealing, cheating, doing drugs, selling drugs, and doing breaking and entries when I was 15, 16, 17 years young. And my father did not know how to communicate except with his fists and feet. So he would punch me, kick me to the point of a meeting, and that would include, you know, using his belt as well. And so when I was in my early 20s and I started my personal development journey, I thought up until then, up until 19, actually, that everybody was out to screw you, so you might as well screw everybody else. That was, it was a dog eat dog world. That was my paradigm of what I learned on the streets. And I met a mentor that shifted my paradigm into kindness and love and upgrading my knowledge and skills. And I went to an event and at this event, you know, I shared that, you know, I hate my father. You know, he beat me, doesn't love me. And the individual asked me, did you ever ask your father why he beat you? I said, no, he's an asshole. He's this. I was angry, you know, and he said, well, why don't you at least ask him why he beat you up? And so one day I got the courage by phone because I was living in Toronto, my father was in Montreal. I got the courage by phone. And I remember my heart was just thumping with fear.

How old were you then, by the way?

22, 3. Okay, in that same time, time frame, 21, 2, 3. And I said, dad, there's something I want to ask you. Why did he used to beat me so, so hard? Like why, why did he just talk to me? I made chills as I'm telling you this, right? This is a visceral for me right now. He says, I wanted you to be a good boy. He said, you know, you didn't listen to talking. And my father went to grade five, didn't really know how to communicate. His hands and his feet and his belt were his communication tools. And he said, I wanted you to, to stop doing what you were doing. I said, but didn't you love me? He says, of course I loved you. That's why I did it. He said, that's what my father did to get me in line so that I would be a good boy at the time. And the first thing that happened was it dawned on me, he didn't do it because he hated me. He did it because he didn't know how to do it differently. He did it because he loved me. And he was trying to get me to complain with being a good citizen. So that was part one. And then the other part was around forgiveness for his ignorance and forgiveness for his lack of skill, right? So once I understood why he did it, it gave me the courage to forgive him. But I also learned what you said before was I forgave him so that I can let it go, so that I could be free of my hatred for him, so I could be free of my resentment and anger for him. You know, it's like I was taking the poison pill, hoping he would die.

Sure, of course. Of course.

Right. As soon as I forgave him, you know. And I don't think he ever said, I'm sorry because he didn't think he did anything wrong.

Yeah.

Like if I asked him today, hey, dad, how come you never apologize? He says, oh, I'm sorry if you're just a bad, nonchalant thing. None of 91 now. And so we have a phenomenal relationship. But I. But I. I had to understand what caused the behavior. I didn't have to, but that's what came out of this. And then I forgave him so that I could be free and I can go on. And then what's really, really interesting, Marissa, is also because of how he was. I was the opposite type of father to my sons.

Yeah.

With so much love and disgust, discussion and caring and kindness and lifting them up at every opportunity. And that has been the biggest gift that I've had that I can share with them. So now I can be in thankfulness and gratitude for my father being like that with me because I endured. But I had to change my frame. And I had to develop the courage to speak with him, to understand. And then I had to. I didn't have to, but I chose to release the anger and resentment.

Yeah, you chose to. Yeah.

And the hatred, because the hatred was within me. He was going about his life. He had no idea. And so since I did that, I was free to be me.

And all those two things happened when you were about 23. So have you had any other key times in your life? You've had a real learning experience or something has absolutely changed you for the better.

Trying to remember the year 2009, 1011, where I had invested multiple seven figures in a business with a very good friend of mine that my wife and I lent him a bunch of money and the business took off like a rocket ship. We were co CEOs of this business. And then he ended up with severe bipolar disorder. And it was devastating because the friendship was lost. We had to close the business down. We lost millions of dollars. Investors lost millions of dollars. My reputation was tarnished because I was the front guy. He was behind the scenes guy. You know, I was blaming him, he was blaming me, investors were blaming me, investors were blaming him. I had a massive lawsuit with one of my investors for three years, which cost another million dollars. You know, some sunk money, just sunk chasing just to get out of the situations you couldn't get out of. And so for quite some time, I blamed myself for my poor judgment, for not Doing what I needed to do to have proper legal agreements in place in case certain scenarios did. It took me two years and I was drinking a lot of alcohol to suppress my own feelings. So I'd have a couple of cocktails when I got home at night, I'd have a bottle of wine with my wife. I did that every single night for two years. And instead of facing the reality, I dove into alcohol to suppress.

Yeah, sure, right.

So I just used alcohol as a way to deal with emotions and the situation that I've never been in. Just about everything I had done from the age of 19 to 2009, let's say everything was successful. Two multi billion dollar companies, then another multimillion dollar company, then this one, a massive failure, I mean, massive failure, right. So took off like a rocket ship only to explode in midair. And I was left, you know, with the carnage. And so. So I had to surrender to the situation. I had to accept, I didn't have to. But this is where I went to. I went to forgiveness of my partner, my business partner. I went to forgiveness of the person in the mirror, me, who was blaming himself. I went to forgiveness, to drinking too much to suppress instead of express, to try and keep the harmony between. It was my best friend. A lot of the emotions and the behaviors, I was embarrassed and ashamed because here I am in the personal development field and look what just happened to me. So look what just happened to me. And once I was able to reconcile that, I gave up alcohol 12 years ago. I haven't had a drink in 12 years. Since September of 2009, I have not had a drink. And I got into the best shape of my life. I started my new company that has taken off for the last 10 years and was doing great. I've got a phenomenal relationship with my wife. So everything became better after I got real, surrendered, accepted, changed the narrative, released the shame and the blame and the guilt myself, accepted responsibility for my participation, of course. And then I just focused on what I want instead of what I didn't want and used it as. It was a chapter in my book that, you know, like in my book of life, you know, that helped carve out some character traits that I'm very proud of today.

Yeah, and you talked a lot about, you know, how you had to change the narrative. I'm an idiot, I screwed up, I'm stupid and all of those things. We all have a narrative and we have to change. Change the narrative. You have to forgive yourself. You know, in the Bible it says to, err, is human, to forgive is divine. I always think to err as human, but it feels divine. But then next bit is you have to forgive yourself. Every religious tome practices forgiveness because, you know, Napoleon said a man who never made a mistake never made anything. And you only learn by making mistakes. So I love the fact that you've done that, that you realize it's all to do with your thinking. And, you know, you and I are on the same page that the mind learns by repetition. You have to like wire in these new thoughts. Just like upgrading the software on your phone or on your computer, you have to upgrade your own software and hardware. Go on.

Sometimes, you know, I have found that because I read this, I study it, I teach it, I create programs for, you know, sometimes I'm the one who needs the tools myself. I forget sometimes to, hey, hold on.

A second, you need the tools, you.

Need to use the tools yourself. And so for the last 12 years, I have been on a very consistent regiment of wonderful self talk and emotional regulation and a daily habit of starting off every day doing what I call is cognitively priming my brain. And so I have my exceptional life blueprint around, you know, my vision boards that are in there for each area of my life. And then my vision and my goals and my mission and my whys and my charitable conferences. In every area that I want to focus on, I've taken the time to get really clear on it and I review it every morning.

How long does it take you, how long does that take every morning to review?

Eight to ten minutes.

Yeah, because again, people think, oh, I haven't got the time. You know, my mornings are really tight, I just haven't got enough time. But when you actually decide it's eight to 10 minutes, then you think, well, I get up 10 minutes earlier. Because if that 10 minutes is going to dictate my day, my week, my month, my year, my life, then it is. Everyone has 10 minutes. A lot of my clients, I just don't have time. But then if you ask them this, they wait. We all waste a lot of time. So it's great that you've taken it down to 10 minutes and everyone has 10 minutes somewhere you can find 10 minutes. So would you talk about some of the techniques that you would use to establish new neural pathways? I mean, you've just given us one. You write stuff out and it only takes 10 minutes a day to really. And of course, when you're reading it again, this is who you are. It's not with, this is you. So you're going back to that whole identity. But give us some habits, some tips.

Okay, so, for example, do you remember the health affirmation that I recited?

Yes, I do.

On my iPhone. I have my affirmation written down. But then I did this also, and all its organs.

Oh, you recorded it.

And intelligence in my subconscious mind. So you may remember what I just said.

Yeah.

I listen to the different parts of my life's vision, my goals, the affirmations, the identity, the story. So I simply write it out. Then I can either read it. I could read it and listen to it.

I could.

I could read it, listen to it, close my eyes after I do that. And I can visualize it. And I could feel the emotions of whatever it is that I'm reading. I can create language patterns that are going to reprogram my subconscious mind that I could either read in first person or second or third person. I could record those, which is what I do. So I use meditation, mindfulness, visualization, affirmations, declarations, promises. I use subliminal programming. I use guided hypnotherapy. I use mental contrasting, either myself, but I've also developed my own programs for it for myself and for my clients. For winning the game of money, winning the game of fear, winning of procrastination, winning game of weight loss, winning the game of business. I've developed an entire line of brain training and priming programs to be able to reprogram my own subconscious mind. So I did it from. For me first, and then I started to offer it to my clients, and every one of them loves it. And then for my private clients, I actually create customized versions for them so that not only they don't necessarily necessarily just want to have to do it with me. They could do it at home in the morning or in the evening or on the weekends or wherever they are.

And do you activate all the senses? Do you use what it looks like, sounds like, smells like, tastes like, feels.

Like, color, smells, scents, associations from the past, an animal that you might like? Absolutely. I activate as many parts of their brain that they have associations with that are positive. I call that neural linking. So I'll give you an example. I love lemongrass. I love the lemon and lemongrass. I love dolphins. I love the color purple. And so on my vision board, I have all of these things on there. Here in my home studio, I have an atomizer that I could put lemongrass on there because that just activates something within me that makes me feel good. So anytime we can activate any of our senses Whether it's visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, then we are activating cells of recognition and as you are well aware, the neurons that fire together.

Why, of course, of course.

So if I can take, for example, an affirmation that I don't believe right now, but I associate it with a smell and animal and experience a color that I do feel good with, guess what? I have just created a memory with this affirmation. And we know that practice is what makes permanent. And so if I practice that visual that I share with almost all of my clients is this. Imagine you're a Hollywood. You're in Hollywood, right? And you're at a restaurant, and you see one of your favorite Hollywood actors or producers or accuses, and they come to you and they say, hey, listen, we've just been going over this new script, and we think that you'd be perfect for this role. And if you learn this script, we'll pay you 10 million bucks. You go, oh, I don't know how to act. They go, don't worry, we'll teach you how to act. They go, well, I've never been in front of a camera before. Don't worry, we'll teach you how to be in front of the camera. So they would take away your fears and your worries. What would be the process by which you would take six something that was written by somebody else that you've never seen? What would be the process by which you would practice that script? So let's say six months to 12 months from now, you could actually play that role without reading the script. And most people tell me, well, we'd read it a bunch of times. We practice it, we rehearse it, we research it. We might record ourselves, we might film ourselves. I said, so in the practice is where you would learn. And in the learning, you'd be more comfortable. And in the spaced repetition, you develop the neural patterns. And once the neural patterns went from conscious effort to a subconscious pattern, you wouldn't need the script anymore. And then you could just practice the script and get better at the script. Of course, that's exactly how we develop our new identity and character and the beliefs is we do it in our mind first, and then we practice it until it becomes more comfortable.

In our current. I know you've got this great thing called the Law of Goya. Get off your ass. I have the jfd. Just fricking do it. But tell me more about Goya. Get off your ass.

Sure. Well, you know, especially after the movie the Secret Everybody was a law of attraction. Law of attraction. Law of attraction. And, you know, think believe in yach.

And I said, that's bull. That's me too.

It's like very, very. I said, every one of my friends who did not inherit wealth or a company or, or, you know, a stock portfolio, every one of them has used the last six letters of the word attraction, action to achieve their success. And the last six letters are action.

Yeah.

Of course, now it's not just action because there's a lot of people who are busy working really hard doing the wrong things. So the key is to be in action and do the right things in the right order at the right time. And if we want to get into this manifestation world, the spiritual world, where everything comes from anyway, according to my own belief system, then is it possible for me to. And I teach a model called semp S E M P. Is it possible for me to align spiritually with everything that already exists in the quantum field? Is it possible for me to manage my emotions, the energy in motion in my body? Is it possible for me to be aware and manage my own mindset and my focus and my self talk? And is it possible for me to upgrade my knowledge and skills so that I physically get this as a raf into motion, doing the right thing? And is it possible that if I can align spiritual, emotionally, mentally and physically, is it possible that that is what coherence and flow and harmony is?

Yeah, you know, you're so correct because I've trained 10, 10,000 people now in my own method, RTT, Rapid Transformational Therapy. And sometimes I'm in a class and I think, wow, a couple of the students, they're just so good at it. You think, oh, they're going to be amazing. But I've noticed that the ones who do really well believe they're really good and they go out and work hard. I was talking to a girl and she said, well, yeah, I don't believe in hard work. If it's hard work, then it's not for you. I believe that you can just. But that's ridiculous. If you want to buy a new home, you have to go out and look at them. If you want to find a nice person, you're at least going to put yourself in front of them. And they don't just appear and ring your doorbell. Well, maybe they might if they're the Amazon delivery guy. But on the whole, you have to have both. You got to believe you're worth it and then you got to go out and get it. And if you go out and get it without believing you're worth it, you'll probably fail. But if you believe you're worth it and you don't go out after it, you'll also fail. You have to. It's like people are saying, I want love. What are you doing? Well, I'm staying at home. I'm just waiting for it to turn up. No, you have to go out and you know, if you're a girl and you want love, get out of the yoga and go into the weight room. First of all, believe you're worthy of somebody amazing, of any gender. Believe you're worthy and then find out where they are and go and put yourself right in front of them. Because you can't give. You have to do both. You got to. I'm worthy of love or success or joy or health or whatever it is. You have to believe you're worth it. And it's like when you were sick. And when I was sick, I believed entirely that my body could feel fix itself. I also had to juice and take all the parabens out of my life and stop sleeping with the phones in the bedroom and just do the things that. Because you're a human being, but you have to do stuff. And I think people have got very confused with the secret and the manifestation. I just sit on the couch and I meditate and it turns up, but it actually, it doesn't turn up. You know, I. I was in. I was in Africa and they. I was staying in a honeymoon suite and all the staff were going, well, this is terrible. You know, you're on your. They don't under. They couldn't understand why someone of my age didn't have a husband. And the witch doctor said, I'm going to make you irresistible to me. I'm like, go on then. So he threw some bones and did some in Cant. I don't know what he did. And then I came back to London and that. I remember that night, did not want to go out. I was so, so tired. But I had my friend staying and her husband. I'm like, look, poor guys just watch X Factor all weekend. We got to go out. So we went to this place called Chelsea Arts Club. And I already knew my husband. He walked in. He wasn't. My husband obviously walked in. And we got married 10 months later. But the witch doctor throwing the bones wouldn't have worked if I hadn't also happened to go out that night. Not wanting. He didn't want to go out either. And sometimes. But you have to. To take action you got to believe in what. Yeah, you got to believe in what you want. Believe, fight, Decide what you want. You must really, really, really do anything and everything to make yourself know that you are worthy of what you want and then go out and get it. My cat doesn't go, yeah. Lion doesn't go, yeah, I'm really hungry, But I think I just manifest. They have to go out. When you watch all of those David Attenborough shows, shows, they have to go out and stalk prey. They know what they want, but they've also got to go out and get it because no one is bringing it to them. And I really think we've missed a lot in education by not telling people. Decide what you want. Absolutely. Do everything. Use manifestation if you're worth it, but then go and get it. Go and get it. Don't sit at home waiting. What you want wants you, but you've got to go and get it.

Totally agree with you. There's also the piece around doing the right things. Right. So I'll give you an example. Last week I was on a call. I have a winning game of business program that I coach about 500 business owners in. And I asked people during our Zoom call, I want you to write in the Zoom chat, what did you do in the last 6, 72 hours to make money? And I said, how many of you worked really hard to make money in Los Angeles? Like, everybody put their hands up and oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. And then when I looked in the chat, I researched how to build a website. I was focusing on writing some copy. I was getting ready with a brochure, and I said, that's not making money. Those are behaviors. Getting ready to.

Yeah, of course.

Right. So many of you are working hard, but very few of you are actually doing the things that caused you to make money. I said, now, when did you get in front of somebody and you showed them the benefits of your product, program, or service? Like when were you face to face, belly to belly, or on Zoom? Or you had people landing on your website where you have a sales letter or whatever your methodology is where they can actually make a buying decision. That's money making behaviors. And so a lot of people confuse activity.

Yeah, of course. Productivity, yeah, absolutely.

Is an educational process. Right. So we have to understand there are things that get us ready to make money, and then there are things that actually make money. Very few people know what to do to make money. And then even when they do, very few people have a money management process. And then there's money, you know, if we're talking about money, then there's investment. And either you're gambling, speculating or investing, those are three different skills. And then there is protection and then there is debt. Using it as leverage or getting out of debt and using the right strategies. So a lot of times people are busy, but they're not doing the right things. So in addition to being busy, you need to step back and say, what are the things that I should be doing that creates a predictable transformation or a predictable result? And here's something that I believe, Marissa, I think you will as well. It's 2021, right? 2022, time frame, all of the how to how to put a robot on Mars, we know how to do that. How to put a human on the moon, we know how to do that. How to build a business, we know how to do that. How to lose weight and keep it off, we know how to do that. How to let go of depression, we know how to do that. How to have a great, great relationship, we know how to do that. How to write a book, we know most of the how to that just about anybody watching or listening to this would ever need. So how to is really not your problem. Because if you are committed to an outcome, you can buy a book, a coach, a cd, a program, something on all the how to paint by number step by step. That. That's not the problem most people have. The problem most people have is they don't believe they deserve it. Yeah, the problem most people have is they have limiting beliefs around themselves or they have fears or, you know, they have disempowering habits that they don't know how to stop. So those are all inner game stuff. That's where you and I excel is we help with the inner game that causes you to do the right things in the outer game. And if you don't get the inner game right, the outer game will never be right.

True. So I'd love to ask you, since you've been such a mine of information, what are your three top tips? You know, everyone's got their own thing, but for you, your three top tips for mastering your mind. What are the three things that John Assalamu to master his mind on a regular basis.

So number one, I have absolute clarity on my vision for my life and each area of my life. Health, wealth relations, career, business, fund experiences, charitable. Very, very clear vision for my life and each goal. Part one. So I operate from a place of clarity, number one. Number two is every day I focus on reinforcing the vision and the goals. And then every day I take action on my highest impact producing activities and highest income producing activities that are in alignment with my highest values. So my first highest value is God. Second highest value is health, which is spiritual, emotional, mental and physical. Physical. Third is my family. Fourth is contribution. Fifth is fun and experiences. So I've designed my life to operate from my higher values down to my lower. And I make as many decisions as possible to develop the habits and the behaviors to align with that. 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.