Life Advice with John Assaraf

And the question should be, why am I having a hard time making the decision first? And the answer is because of fear. If you're really committed, there's a way.

Can you share with us your backstory? Because I know your backstory. I read, I listen to you all the time, but some of my audience might not know about it. I want to know what make you decide to come commit to your goals rather than just be interest and, you know, sure.

So you know, the story goes back quite a while to, you know, to my teenage years when I was getting in a lot of trouble with the law, doing illegal things, feeling like I wasn't smart enough and wasn't good enough because I didn't do well in school. I left high school in grade 11. I failed English, I failed math and. And when I was going through school, not only did my parents tell me that if I didn't go to college, it would be very hard for me to make a good living and take care of a family one day, but that I would probably struggle and have a hard time because being average didn't pay you average wages, it paid you below average wages because there are so many people who are average. And so I had a lot of uncertainty and fear around not being successful in my life and being able to just cover the basics. Forget about like success, you know, which a lot of people think about, but just being able to cover the basics. So when I was younger, I stole and lied and cheated and sold drugs and did breaking and entries into companies And I was 15, 16, 17 years old, you know, 42, three years ago. And then I met this one man who was very successful and kind of, and philanthropic and my brother had arranged for me to meet him for lunch. And so I took the train from Montreal, where I was living, to Toronto and met this man for lunch. And he asked me a whole bunch of questions of why was I doing what I was doing, why didn't I study harder in school, why wasn't I using my brain to become more, and why was I settling for less than I'm capable of achieving? And my standard answers was, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. That sounded like, you know, a typical, you know, 18 year old that says I don't know. And he said, listen, do you have any goals and dreams? And I said, yeah, I'd like to get a good full time job, get out of the shipping department that I was working in. I'd like to buy a car so I don't have to take the bus everywhere or have my friends pick me up and rely on them. And I'd like to move out of my parents house. I think, you know, at, you know, 19 years old, I should probably be moving out and not live, you know, under their roof. He says, that's all great, but what else would you like to achieve? And the answer was, I don't know. I had no other goals and dreams. And so he gave me this sheet of paper or several sheets of paper, Nim, and said, answer these questions and maybe I can help you. So I looked at the document and the first question was, at what age do you want to retire?

Yeah.

And I'm like, retire? I want a job. Forget about retirement. Second goal was how much net worth do you want to have? I'm like, net worth? What is net worth? I asked them, what does net worth mean? What kind of lifestyle do you want to live? I didn't have a problem writing that down. I said, I want to live a first class lifestyle. I want to travel the world, I want to live in a nice home, I want to have a nice car, I want to have Italian clothes and things like that. So I wrote down all of this stuff and I made most of it up out of my imagination. And he read it and he said, these are some pretty good goals and a good vision for a life that you would like to have. And he said, I'm going to ask you this one question that's going to determine whether you have it or not. And the question was, are you interested in achieving these things or are you committed? And I looked at him when he asked me the question, I was a little bewildered, like a puppy dog, you know, moving its head around the difference between it shouldn't, commitment. And he said to me, if you're interested, you'll keep doing what you're doing. He said, if you're interested, you'll allow your old stories and your old reasons and your old excuses and your old beliefs and your current habits to control your behavior and your thinking. He says, but if you're committed, you will create a new identity to match this new destiny. Said if you're committed to, you will develop the beliefs of a person who can achieve these goals. If you're committed, you will let go of the stories, the reasons, the excuses, or the present circumstances that are keeping you stuck and holding you hostage. He said, if you're committed, you will do whatever it takes to upgrade your knowledge and your skills to match the level of success you want to achieve. And he said, before you answer all of the how to achieve these goals. Yeah, I already know, so I know it's doable. So then he leaned in again. He said, so are you interested or are you committed? And so I was. I was scared. And him, I was like, oh, my God, he's putting me on the spot. And I don't know why, but blur. I blurted, you know, very, very quickly, I'm committed. So then he reached out his hand. They said, in that case, I will be your mentor. And I go, oh, my God, that's great. What's a mentor? And I was like, reena had no personal development background at all. And he said, a mentor is somebody who will show you the path. A mentor is somebody who will show you what to do and what not to do and why, how to do it, when to do it. And a mentor will save you time, energy, and money to do the things that you should be doing and to stop doing the things you shouldn't be doing. And so I was, like, so excited. I said, oh, wow, that's great. I want a mentor. It was great because my father was a cab driver and really didn't mentor me on anything other than hard work. And this gentleman, his name was Mr. Brown, started to mentor me on being smarter.

So Mr. Brown was your guru because gu is mean darkness, and ru is the remover. Yeah. So you found your guru. How can. And I'm gonna go off the script a little bit. How can we found your Mr. Brown? Your version of Mr. Brown? You know, like, how can we find our guru?

Well, there are a variety of different ways to find ways to remove the darkness. We can read. We can go to YouTube and watch videos. We can be on social media. We can join groups. We can be part of Mastermin. We can hire a coach. We can go and work for somebody, you know, who knows how to do what you want to learn how to do. And so the first part, though, is to become resourceful in the absence of resources. So I'll give you an example. Mr. Brown says, I'll be your mentor, your guru. And I said, awesome. And next thing he said to me, he says, well, I need you to move from Montreal to Toronto. I said, what? I don't know anybody in Toronto. I said, I don't have any money to get an apartment. I don't have a car. I don't have, you know, I don't have a job. He says, well, you don't need money, a car, an apartment, or a job. First you need to make the decision, then you Figure out how to get all the rest. I said, I know, but you don't understand. I left high school in grade 11. I have $60 in the bank. He says, that's okay. He says, make the decision, then you figure out how. So I said, well, maybe I could move in with my brother. Yeah, you can move in with me short term, sleep on the sofa because it's only a one bedroom apartment that I live in. And so I ended up moving to Toronto. And then right after that, at the same, same sentence, the same lunch that I had with him, he said, and I need you to enroll in the real estate school that costs 500 and it starts on April 20th. And this was in 1980, just to give you an example. I said, you want me to go back to school? I left school at grade 11. I failed English, I failed math, I'm terrible at school. And I need $500. I only have $60 in the bank account. I understand, but first you make the decision and then you figure out how. I said, Mr. Brown, I don't have any money. Like I can't make the decision, you know, to go into school. He says, oh yes, you can. He says, many people think that you have to have the tools, the knowledge, the skills, the resources before you make the decision. And he said, you know, John F. Kennedy made a decision to put a man safely on the moon and return him back to earth before we even had the technology to be able to do that. He says, average people look at their current circumstances and their past and they allow that to dictate what they do or don't do. He says, highly successful people create a vision for what they want and then they use their powerful brain to figure out how they can, because they must. So I said, fine, I'll find the money. Well, my brother then said, well, I can lend you 100 bucks. My mother lent me some money, my sister lent me some money. Three weeks later, I moved to Toronto, took the real estate course. Five weeks later, I passed the real estate test because I studied every day and he showed me how to. And so in five weeks I moved to another state. I found the money for a course I didn't have money for. I passed the test even though I thought I wasn't very smart. I became a licensed real estate agent, all because I made a commitment to doing it, even though I didn't know how, even though I didn't have the resources, the financial or non financial resources. So one of the greatest lessons he shared with me is vision comes first. Goals Come second. Strategies of how you're going to achieve them. Come third.

John, I want to cry because this is so good. I mean, I feel it in my body just like everywhere. Because you're not the only one who tell me to make the decision. But how many times we hear, you know, mentor, expert, teacher, guru say make the decision and then we'll figure out later, commit first, figure out letter. Right. And yet we, you know, normal people still having a hard time making the decision.

And the re. And the question should be why am I having a hard time making the decision first? And the answer is because of fear. So I fear that if I make the decision and I fail, then I'm a failure. I fear that if I make the decision and it doesn't work out, then I'm going to be disappointed. I fear that if I'm disappointed and maybe I disappoint you, then I'm going to be embarrassed or ashamed or ridiculed or judged or worse yet, rejected. So it's not that I don't make the decision because I don't want to. I don't make the decision because my brain is thinking what might happen in the future if I can't follow through to completion successfully. And then it's causing me to feel that right now. And that puts the brakes on my motivation, which is really another word for a motive for my actions. You know, I've looked to answer those questions for 40 years in my research and, and there's behavior. And then if we want to go deeper, we understand what's causing the behavior. Not taking action is a behavior.

Right?

Right. So it's a behavior. Procrastination is a behavior. Self sabotage is a behavior. And the question is, what's causing me to not feel safe making a decision? What's causing me to procrastinate? What's causing me to self sabotage? And if we answer those questions, what I just shared are the reasons. So the question then becomes, are there ways for me to feel the fear and do it anyway? Yes. Are there ways for me to upgrade my self image so that even if I fail, I'm not embarrassed or ashamed? And even if somebody tries to ridicule me, it really doesn't matter to me because I think more of myself than anybody else can in a healthy way.

Tell us a little bit about, you know, you're talking about knowing what caused your fear. So how can we get over it? How can we overcome that? How can we use the inner side to get out of that limitation so.

Everybody understands you can Exercise to strengthen your muscles, your organs, your ligaments. But have you ever considered that you can inner size your core neuromuscles? So what if we said that focus is a neuromuscle and you could learn how to focus on how to do something versus how not to do something? What if awareness was a neuromuscle and you could be aware of the negative and the positive? What if you could be aware of emotions that cause feelings and some feelings I want to move away from and some feelings I want to move towards. Is it possible that my habits are just a cluster of neuro muscles that have been reinforced and I could learn how to delete or get rid of disempowering habits? And if I understand how to inner size, do mental and emotional techniques and some physical work, I can strengthen new habits? Is it possible that our beliefs, our neuro muscles and I have some that are weak and some that are strong. And it's possible, based on the latest neuroscience, to create a new self image that overrides an old self image. So our self image is kind of like a self image neuro muscle that holds itself in place and we walk around like, you know, like a, like a, we have a frame around our self image. We take it everywhere we go. Well, what if we could set aside our old self image and create a brand new one with more confidence, more certainty, more personal power? Well, we can do that through behavior, of course, and taking inspired action and gaining more confidence and certainty. But we can also do that, for example, by visualizing ourselves taking action, by visualizing feeling the fear and doing it anyway. And one of the sentences that I love in the, in the world of visualization is in the human brain, visualization is simulation. And when we practice simulations that are new beliefs, new habits, new self image, practice makes permanent. So if we understand how our brain, our neuro muscles are formed, what if we just said, okay, how do you build, let's say a bicep muscle? Let's say it's weak, it's very, very weak. Well, let's say you just did this every day for 10 days and you just squeezed at the top, it would get stronger, right? Well, what if I took a £1 weight the next week and I did this? It would get stronger, right?

Right.

And what If I did £3, then £5, then £10? It might take me 90 days. But if I can only do my arm right now and 90 days worth of practicing made my biceps stronger. What If I did 90 days of practicing in here, now I can practice in here and I could do this. And all the research shows that whatever we practice, we make permanent and whatever is permanent that we reinforce becomes fixed. So maybe we have some beliefs that are fixed that we just need to replace. Maybe we have some habits that are disempowering us, we just need to replace them. Maybe we have a self image challenge that is just not healthy and we just need to replace our self image because we weren't born with any fears, we weren't born with any beliefs, we weren't born with a self image, we weren't born with any of the things that are holding us back. So inner size is really about how to use mental and emotional techniques that you back up with taking action a little bit at a time that over 30, 60, 90, 180 days a year, you strengthened it and you have more confidence, more certainty, more personal power. So now your self image, self worth and your identity matches the destiny you want.

See, I, I also interview a lot of people about how to become a self made millionaire, including Brian Pessy. And he said in order to become, in order to achieve something, you need to become it. And, and what you mentioned about inner side is right, really becoming it. And I, I love your story about your vision board for your dream house. And then you open the box and you with your son, right. And, and then like you saw that picture. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

Sure. So whenever I want to create anything, whether it's my physical body, a home, a car, a trip, there's a big part of our brain called the occipital lobe. Back of our brain, even when light comes in through our eyes, right. Cells in the back of our brain activate and an image pops up in our brain. And that image that pops up into our brain is connected to the motivational center and the thinking center part of our brain. So if a negative image pops up, we reduce our motivation and we don't take action and then we reinforce that pattern. But let's say I have an image of something that I really want, something that inspires me. Then as soon as I pop up that image in my brain, I actually release dopamine, okay? The reward neurochemical in my brain that actually creates motivation, that's actually tied to what I call as the Einstein part of the brain that can actually help you figure out how to achieve that thing. And so I create images of what is it that I want to create for health, wealth relations, career, business, charity, fun and experiences so that I can activate the reward circuits in My brain, the motivational circuits in my brain, the thinking centers in my brain to help me figure out how to achieve it. But the other purpose of a vision board is to give your brain the instruction of. This is the stuff that's important to me that I want to create, do, be, have, or give.

Right?

So, you know, we all have, you know, 50,000 thoughts a day. We all have so much on the social media, whether it's. It's Facebook or Instagram or YouTube or Clubhouse or whatever, all the different, you know, stations and channels are, and the people that want to gather our attention, well, why don't we become better at focusing our attention on what we want to trade our life for?

What about when someone is really having a hard life, hard time, they're in the situation that they don't want to like. I don't want to practice my inner side. I don't want to visualize what suggestion you have for them, you know, when they have the dark night of the soul.

Well, listen, if you don't feel like doing something once in a while, then you're human. But like, let me know if this resonates with you and whoever's listening. Let me know if it resonates with you. Do you agree with this statement? In life, you're going to either pay the price of discipline or you're going to pay the price of regret. Discipline weighs ounces. Regret weighs tons. That's Jim Rohn, by the way. And so when you're sitting there and saying, I don't feel like it, my question for you is, what do you not feel like it more? Doing this little thing or living a life of regret?

Wow, that's huge, right?

So let's create a juxtaposition against what I don't feel like doing. And let's use contrasting to say, are you okay with this being your character? Are you okay with this being your life forever? Are you okay with developing a lazy habit and lazy disciplines? Are you okay for the next one year, three years, five years, 10 years, 20 years, 30, 40 years having that as your modus operandi and your identity? If you're okay with that, great. Don't feel like it, don't do it. But then don't complain and don't want anymore. But if you're not okay with the short term and long term consequences of that decision, then here's what I want you to say. I know I don't feel like it, but I will do just a little bit now. Why just a little bit? Listen, I know the Power of the mind where we don't feel like it, but I also know the power of our brain when we say, I know I don't feel like it, but I will just do one minute. What does that do now? You develop a new pattern of hearing and feeling. I don't feel like it. And then you are in control saying, I'm going to override that and I'm going to do a little. And so let me ask you a question just to put this into perspective. Can you jog a marathon right now? This is a question for everybody who's listening. Can you jog slowly a marathon right now, non stop, 26.2 miles? Most people say, no, I can't jog 26.2 miles. But let me just prove something to you. Let's say we made. I'm going to, I'm going to continue where we started. Let's say we made a commitment today. You're out of shape, you're lazy, you don't feel like it. You can't run a marathon. You don't know what to do. You don't know how to train. You don't know what to eat, you don't know how much to rest. You don't know what help you need. But let's say we committed that one year from now we're gonna jog a marathon together slowly and safely. If today you made that commitment and all you did was get up, put on your running shoes and moved in your living room for one minute, and tomorrow you move for one minute and the next day for one minute, the other day, for one minute, after seven days, you'd have seven minutes and you'd also have somebody who may have been lazy, that didn't want to, that didn't know what to do, how to do it, when to do it, why to do it now has exercised for seven minutes now, what do you think that does to your self image and self esteem? Hey, I just did something every day for seven days now. Maybe I can do more than I think I can now. What if you started watching videos on YouTube and maybe reading a little bit or talking to somebody who's run a marathon? Say, hey, what did you do to exercise in month 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7? What did you do to eat? What foods did you stop? What did you do for your sleep? How much rest did you get? Maybe I should join a group of people who are beginner, beginner, beginners. And maybe in week two, you just did five minutes a day. And in week three, it's 10 minutes a day and in week four it's 30 minutes every two days. Is it possible that if we made a commitment and we upgraded our knowledge and skills and we got into the environment maybe of some people that can help us and we can help them stay motivated? Is it possible and probable that almost everyone one year from today could slowly and safely jog a marathon? Right. So all that has to happen is you have to make a commitment to not staying stuck. Right now all you have to do is get started and do as little as possible to get in motion. Why? Because an object in motion tends to stay in motion. Newton's second law of thermodynamics. And an option, an object at rest tends to stay at rest. So what kind of self image do you want? What kind of self discipline do you want? What do you want to believe about yourself? That you're lazy and undisciplined or that you can make a commitment and take even a little inspired action every day? Which one do you think will help you achieve your goals? Which one do you think will keep you stuck?

John, I feel like you really like opening up the map, you know, and breaking it down into the micro task that just do this little by little a day, you know you, if you think of the whole marathon is going to be super hard. Wow. Like really breaking it down. Thank you so much. You really open our eyes. I wish we have this teaching at elementary school. Yeah, I wish too what you would like to tell your, you know, 18 years old self when you have lunch with Mr. Brown, like now if you can go back until you're 18 years old, what would you like to tell him?

You don't need to be so afraid of making mistakes. You don't need to be so afraid of looking dumb. You don't need to be so afraid of not having the knowledge or the skills. There are ways. There are teachers, there are books, there are coaches, there are, there's more information available for free today, okay. Than at any time in the history of our species. If you're really committed, there's a way people will help you. But if you're not committed, you'll never find a way and nobody can help you because you're not prepared to help yourself.

Thank you so much John. Well, my last question is what is the new exciting project that you're working on right now and how can we reach out to you?

Thank you. So if anybody wants to dive a little bit deeper into this, pick up my book Inner the new signs to unlock your brains hidden Power. It comes with nine brain training audios that I give away for free that are worth like $200 and the book's like 14, $15 on Amazon. And so that's number one. If you want to learn how to your brain better go to the brainathon, which is brainathon123.com brainathon123.com and maybe Nim, you can put a link in there. And I'm all over social media so people could could follow my work. And I'll just leave everybody with this one thought. It's 2021 and there's 108 or so billion humans that have walked on planet Earth since the beginning of our time as a species here on Earth. Everything that we want to achieve, for the most part, 99.5% of what we want to achieve in health, wealth relations, career, business, fun experiences, spirituality has already been achieved by others. And there's already blueprints for what we need to think, how to manage our feelings, what we need to do, how to develop habits. So all the how to that almost every one of us needs is already here. But you will only go after and find and apply all those things if you're committed to.

Yep.

So make a commitment to trading your life for what you love and for training your life for what will make you feel phenomenal. And then go and find the teachers and the other people that are on the same path looking to achieve those goals. Because together, if we help each other, we can achieve the goals faster and easier than ever before.

Thank you so much for leaving the legacy. For leaving the legacy. This is legacy that we all can carry on generation after generation. Your book in the side is going to be the next book that myself and my two children will read together in the morning. Awesome.

Thank you so much, Neil. 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.