Do THIS to ATTRACT your DREAM LIFE (Your IDENTITY & Fears Are LYING TO YOU!) | Rob Dial

We think and we feel like intellectual fears feel like primal fears in our body. I shouldn't go and do this. I have this fear of failure. There's danger. I shouldn't go and try to create the life that I want. I shouldn't try to manifest the life that I want. When you look at a fear that is an intellectual fear and you say, okay, now that I've identified it, how to overcome it. The key to it is you can't overcome something that doesn't exist. When you feel fear, what's a hack? The only hack is you're going to have to get yourself to a point where you're like, I have to do.

This or else I'm not going to be able to create the life that I really, truly want. And my biggest fear How can we make sure that we pursue the things we want and not get paralyzed by needing to be perfect due to our fear of failure? Yeah, so I think you gotta have a dream.

The School of Greatness.

Really?

Yeah. Please welcome Lewis Howes.

Welcome back, everyone, to the School of Greatness. Very excited about our guest. We have the inspiring Rob Diale in the House, Mindset Mentor, Man, Man, Man, Man. Welcome. you've got a book out called Level Up, How to Get Focused, Stop Procrastinating, and Upgrade youe Life.

Yes, sir.

And we've been in this similar space for a decade together. You've been doing your show for eight years. I've been doing mine for 10. And we've both experienced a lot and also researched a lot and interviewed a lot and just dived into this content for a long time. And one of the things that I see that a lot of people struggle with is having the motivation to go for authentically what they want. They want to accomplish, achieve and manifest more, but they don't have the motivation or the desire to actually consistently shell up for that work to attract and draw it into them faster. And I'm curious if people are looking to attract and manifest faster what they want. what are the three things they're gonna need to let go of in order to draw that desire to them faster? Yeah, good question. This is a great question.

I'm excited about this. So when I wrote the book, the original title was Take Action, 'cause I looked at it and I was like, all right, I have 1300 podcast episodes of the Mindset Mentor. What do I teach? What is it that I actually teach? And I looked at it and I was like, the majority of it is tips and tricks, neurological, psychological stuff to actually take action. We both know everyone listening knows people who they want something in their life, but they won't actually take action towards it. And so the entire book was gonna be called Take Action. I was like, that's not really sexy. Level up sounds sexier. Because I look at life as a video game, which is, when you go to a video game, it'd be the most boring video game if you played it and there was no challenges, there were no bad guys, any of that. And every time you experience a challenge, you experience a bad guy, even when you die or fail in a level, it always makes you better. and then it allows you to be better when you do get to the next level and the next level and the next level. And so it's just the idea of leveling up and seeing that every single challenge is brought to you for that. But there's three parts to it in the book. The first one is why youy Don't Take Action, which is perfect 'cause that's what we can talk about here. The second is how to take action. And then third is how to actually turn it through neuroplasticity or action into habits. And so the two, I'll give you two things that are the main ones. I'll give you an easy one. That'll be the third. People want to control everything. That's one of the biggest things where they want to control, which I am a recovering controlaholic, that's for sure. But I've gotten to the point in my life where I realize if I just take the right action and I'm heading in the right direction, if I'm taking the right action, time will work itself out. And so for me, I remember being 21, working 110 hours a week and being like, why am I not a millionaire yet? And then I realized now that I'm 37, it was like, time just has to catch up. You know, it's like we think so much in the short term and it's more of like, if you think over a decade or two decades, it all works itself out eventually. And so I think control is a big piece, but there's two parts in the book that are two things that are in part one. Number one is people's identity of themselves and who they think they are is a real big piece. And then the second piece is the fears that they have. And so when you look at like identity, Identity is a big piece because we are, it's interesting, we're like brought into this world and we're these perfect beings that are just have no identity. We don't know a name, we don't know what we're supposed to do. And what I always say is that people are not really, children are not socialized, we're kind of domesticated. So we fit in and we do exactly what we're supposed to do. And in turn, the average child is reprimanded eight times more than they're praised, which means the average child thinks, I don't know what I'm doing subconsciously or I'm not good enough subconsciously. eight times more than they think, I'm good, I know what I'm doing. I think that turns into a lot of self-love problems that people have. And so with identity, over years, we build up this identity of like, this is who I am and this is my personality. But then when you look at like the root word of personality in Greek was persona, which is the mask that people would wear on stage when they were in plays. And you can change a person at any point in time. You just have to get rid of the identity of who you think that you are. And so if you look at identity, like I see people who are saying like, I want to lose 30 pounds and they can consciously want that, but then subconsciously they have this identity of my whole family is overweight, it runs in my genes and this is just the way that I am. I've tried it so many times and it's never worked before. And we build this identity up and think, well, I consciously want to lose the weight, but it's not going to happen because of this thing, this thing, this thing. and all of that, is it harder for some people to lose weight than others? Sure, is it impossible for someone to lose weight? Absolutely not. And so we build this identity of like, or in some people's relationships, they build this identity of like, I'm unlovable. It can come from their parents and then it's reflected in being cheated on and we start to build this, I'm unlovable identity. And then it reflects in all of our relationships from then on out, unless we decide to change it. And one of my favorite quotes around identity is Alan Watts says, you,'re under no obligation to be who you were five minutes ago. like you can just change it, just decide to be somebody else today if you really want to. And then the second thing that holds people back, I guess it would be the third that holds people back is the fears that they create. And fears are a real big one that people, we can dive into that really hold a lot of people back and how to work through and overcome those fears as well.

Why do people create fears that hold them back from attracting or manifesting more?

Yeah, so when you look at fears, It's really interesting because so many people are held back by... I'll take a step back. So when I look at fears, I categorize them in two different types of fears. There's primal fears and a primal fear is there is physical pain or death that's attached to it. And so we should have primal fears. So what kept our species alive? But there's actually on two fears that people are born with. It's the fear of loud noises and the fear of falling. are the two that are built into the human circuitry. Everything else is learned. And so out of all the other ones that are learned, you have primal fears, which is actually like physical pain or death attached to it, which we need to survive. The other ones are intellectual fears. And an intellectual fear would be, like I ran a webinar last night with a few thousand people, we were talking about the book, and I said, what's your number one fear? Everyone put in the chat, the thing that's holding you back the most. 90% of them is a fear of failure. So it's like the fear of failure, the fear of rejection, the fear of not being loved, the fear of running out of money. All of those are intellectual fears, because they're not actually existing in reality in this moment. And there's a quote that's in the book that I really loved, which is fear, an intellectual fear like we have and we're talking about, is a perception of a imagined future event. And the key part is imagined future event.

It may never happen.

And it's not happening right now. And so what's happening is we have these, we think and we feel like intellectual fears feel like primal fears in our body, which is there's danger. I shouldn't go and do this. And so it's like I have this fear of failure. There's danger. I shouldn't go and try to create the life that I want. I shouldn't try to manifest the life that I want. And so we have these fears. And then so people say, okay, like, Louis, I've got this fear of failure. Tell me how to overcome it. And then here's the craziest part is when you look at a fear that is an intellectual fear and you say, okay, now that I've identified it, how do I overcome it? The key to it is you can't overcome something that doesn't exist.

So how do you let go of it then?

Right, so that's the key, right? So first off, people need to really get into their heads first off, is you cannot overcome something that doesn't exist. You are creating in your mind the boogeyman and all day you are fighting the boogeyman. But the lookie-loo doesn't exist in the first place. And that's your fear of failure, the fear of rejection, the fear of not being good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough to have the success that you want, the imposter syndrome, all of those are just figments of our imagination. And we're fighting them all day long and they don't actually truly exist. And so what it comes down to is, okay, I can't overcome it, but it still kind of lives inside of me from my childhood, right? And so what I've been teaching people is it's not about overcoming the parts of you that exist, It's about integrating the parts of you that exist. And so it's like, you can have the fear of failure. Like, I'm afraid of failing all the time, and I screw up all of the time, right? And that's just the way that it goes. But it drives me to create better content. It drives me to create better stuff. And so the way I like to look at the fears that you do have that are intellectual fears is they are tools for your tool belt, where it's like, okay, I have this fear of failure. I feel it inside of my body. which is usually where you feel it first. You don't notice the fear in your brain. It's usually like, I feel kind of anxious right now. And so you notice the fear inside of your body. It's like, what am I afraid of right now? I'm afraid of failing. Okay, I notice it. I'm not trying to get rid of it 'cause you can't get rid of parts of you. If you look at like internal family systems, it's a version of therapy, it's the different parts of you. And so I can say, okay, this part of me is afraid of failing. I can listen to that part of me or I can say, how can I use this fear to actually help me create better content or help me create write a better book. You know, if I'm afraid of like putting this book on it just completely flopping, couldn't do that, right? Or I could say I remember when I was writing it, I was like, I really want this to be good. It made me do more rounds of edits, which in turn hopefully made it a better book.

Yeah, and get more feedback from people and make sure you're more prepared and things like that. And there can be a how can we make sure that we pursue the things we want and not get paralyzed by needing to be perfect due to our fear of failure.

Yeah. Yeah. So that actually goes perfectly, which is the third part of chapter one, which is what holds people back. So there's identity, part one, which is identity, which is fears, and then the purpose that people have. And there comes a point in your life where you have to realize that failure and success are not different. They're two sides of the same coin. When you look at the creator of Honda said success is 99% failure, you and I, we've put out over a thousand podcast episodes. I think I'm at like 13, 1400. I think you're fed 1500, right?

It was keep track.

We've had some flops, right? We've done some things which are not the best. We put out content that is not done really well. But what it's really about is you stop looking at the numbers and you say, what's my purpose actually behind this thing? One of my very first mentors used to always say to me, you've gotta get off yourself and you've gotta get on purpose. Off yourself is thinking about all of your intellectual fears. If we're talking about creating podcast episodes, right? 'Cause we're both podcasters. If I don't wanna start a podcast 'cause I'm afraid of my, I work at a job and I'm afraid of Nancy and HR making fun of me for it, right? It's a fear of failure, it's a fear of judgment, it's a fear of not being accepted, kicked out of the tribe, whatever it might be. And so we can look at it that way and say, well, I'm not going to start because I'm afraid of people judging me. And that's being on self. I'm thinking about myself. But if my purpose is, for me, my purpose is I remember what it feels like. I was nine years old, my dad was an alcoholic. I remember him passing away when I was 15 from being an alcoholic. I remember the trauma that came from it. And I remember what it felt like to be in absolute suffering in my mind. And it was hell. and I would never want to go back there. You couldn't pay me enough to go back to that moment. But through years of working on myself and trying to become better and coaching myself and reading books and going to courses and doing therapy and doing all of that, I've gotten myself to a place where I can overcome things that become hard. And I feel obligated to teach that to other people. That is my purpose. And my purpose is to have people not be in suffering that I was in at one point in time, because I know what it feels like and I hate that other people are in there. And so I don't care what anyone else thinks about me because my purpose is so strong that it doesn't matter if somebody says, this podcast sucks. If it doesn't matter when I get a one-star review that people are like, I love his content, but I hate that he cusses. And I'm like, but that's authentically me. Right.

And so-- It sounds like when people get in alignment with their purpose, It doesn't matter what fears they might have or it doesn't matter what people, what they're afraid of people saying them because when you're truly on purpose, you're willing to risk making a fool of yourself being judged for failing because you care more about the purpose than that fear.

For sure. 100%. I care more about what, and what's interesting about is like the fear that we have of, oh, I'm gonna be judged if I put this out there, if I do this thing. There's such a small amount of people that judge you or that will be, there's such a small amount of haters in the world and there's such a huge amount of people who will actually say, this is amazing, this is great. And so we think there's gonna be way more haters than there actually are. There's such a small amount of haters and there's a large amount of lovers that are out there in the world and a lot of people just don't start the thing that they really truly want to because they're afraid of just.

That one person that could possibly say something to. That's true. Something I think about a lot. and this has helped me overcome any insecurity about putting something out or launching something or the fear of failure is really thinking about my future self and saying, would my future self be proud that I didn't take the shot or more proud that I actually did take the shot? I failed. I learned something from it and it led to something even better after that failure or that loss. And I don't think our future selves will ever think, I'm proud of you for not taking a chance.

No, I'm proud of you for having.

A dream and not going for it. I'm proud of you for playing small and for shying away because you were afraid of what a few people might think or say about you. I'm proud of you. Way to go. I don't think our future self would ever say that. I don't think our, you know, mentors, whatever, say, you know what? It was a good thing that you didn't go for it. You didn't give it a try.

Does it?

It doesn't matter if we succeed or win in everything we do, but it's The effort of doing it, I think, is where we gain pride in ourselves. So I think that's really cool.

I think that's also where confidence comes from. A lot of people will ask, how do I get confident? How do I build confidence in myself? And they think, I have to go do something and I have to succeed. That's not necessarily the truth. Sometimes I think a lot of our confidence comes from feeling fear, doing it anyways, maybe not having the results that we actually wanted to, But in turn looked at it and said, I'm really proud that I showed up for myself.

Yes.

And that builds confidence in you.

Huge time.

Yeah.

When you show up for you, that's big. But a lot of people don't know what their purpose is or they feel like they have too many ideas, too many passions, and they don't know which direction to go. So what have you discovered about how to discover or find your purpose at this stage of life? And is there a formula you teach people?

Yeah. So there's a couple different things. The thing that I hear more than anything else is that most people don't know what their passions are. They don't know what their purpose is. More than I hear that I have too many of them. I heard a couple of that last night when I was live and some people said that they did have too many things that they could do, but majority of people were like, I don't know what my passion is. I don't know what my purpose is. And then I ask them, I'm like, well, how often do you do something new? And they're like, Not very often. And I was like, so here's the key to it is, It's okay right now if someone's listening not to know what their purpose is. It's okay to not know what their passion is, but it is not okay to not wake up every single day and not be in constant pursuit to find what that passion is if you don't know what it is.

And so if it's- and that takes trying new things.

Of course. You have to try a ton of new things. Like, for instance, my wife- Ruling out things you don't like. Yeah, exactly. And try things and be like, oop, that didn't work. I don't like that at all. Like, you know, for-- and the other thing that's important to know about passion and purpose is that you- passion doesn't have to be your paycheck. Like you can look at people and see like, I'm lucky enough, you're lucky enough that we're so passionate about this and we happen to be paid from it. That's amazing. Like that's by the grace of God, the best thing that's ever happened to me. Right? But there's other things where it's like some people like, I really enjoy riding horses and how do I make money off of horses? How do I make them my passion? I was like, you don't necessarily have to make money off of it, but maybe you start going, well, you know what I like to do? I like to take my horses and I like to teach people that are in the inner city how to ride horses or I like to teach people who have maybe psychological symptoms and they have anxiety or bipolar and I've learned that horses end up calming them down in some sort of way and you decide that you want to help them. It doesn't mean you have to make money off of it. But I always say, if you found something that you love so much, why don't you try to spend as much of your time doing it? And so if it is this horses thing and maybe you make like five grand a year of horses or maybe it costs you more money, Can you have a job that you at least somewhat enjoy, not hate, but you somewhat enjoy, but it gives you enough free time to do the thing that you actually makes you feel alive? And so people always say like, well, how do I find those things? I think my personal belief is I think that God, the universe speaks to you through energy of the energy that we feel doing something. Like when I get done with this podcast, I am going to 100% have more energy than when we first started the podcast. 'Cause this is what actually makes me feel alive. I feel the most alive doing this. And so I think a lot of people need to think, where's the most energy for me? Where do I have the most curiosity to try to learn something? What would I do even if it didn't make me any money? I would still, I mean, for years I didn't make money off of the podcast or anything that I did. You kept doing it because you loved it. Yeah. Hundreds of podcast episodes before I made a dollar off of it. Just because I love learning about people. I'm obsessed with neurology. I'm obsessed with learning about sitting down with someone and be like, why is Louis Way that he is? I want to know about his mom. I want to know about his dad. I want to make connections and put this puzzle piece together of this person. And so it's like, it gives me energy to meet people and find out.

What'S going on and where they come from and how they became that.

Yeah.

I was interviewing someone yesterday, and her name was Jenna Zoe, and she had a curiosity and a love for this thing called human design, which is about understanding kind of your, your not personality type, but your energy type.

Right. Based off of when you were born and.

Exactly. Yeah. And she was she had another business where she was working in the food industry, creating something around food, and it wasn't really succeeding. But she loved doing this other thing on the side for years, like reading people's charts and like really helping them identify their energy type and making sure, are you in alignment with what you should be doing? And just supporting them in that, that creation of life. And she did that for years. And, you know, she didn't make any money for a long time. Then she made a little bit of money, but she enjoyed it so much that eventually she's like, why don't I just try doing more of this and see if I can make money after five, six, seven years and eventually started making money? Then I said, you know what? Okay, now I'm going to go all in on this. It doesn't have to be all in right away or you don't have to monetize something you enjoy right away. Maybe at the timing will come later, like it did with you in some ways as well. And maybe if you lean into the curiosity and just keep doing that on the side or on the weekends with your horses, eventually you could make money.

For sure.

Maybe you can, maybe you can. But finding the time to dive into things that you love more, I think is always gonna help you.

You know what I found that kind of goes with that too that's important is that people wanna start something and they think they should be like making a bunch of money in three months. I found that for the majority of people who I met that have become like something like big and they've been able to do something very successful, it takes at least five years. Five to seven is pretty average before it like really starts to take off. I don't know if it's like the universe testing us to be like, do you actually want this? Because you better keep on this path. But I think the path of mastery is something that I really love. My first tattoo is a Roman numeral for 10,000 because I love the 10,000 hour rule. It's on my wrist right here, so I see it every single day. And I just love the idea of mastering something. And I think that if we find something that we're kind of interested in, that seems interesting, that seems fun, and we start putting energy into it, we start getting better at it. It's like Tony Robbins always says, progress equals happiness. When you feel like you're progressing towards something, not making money, but just progressing towards something, it makes you feel good and you want to keep doing it. And you fast forward five years or seven years and you've become one of the masters of that thing. That's usually when people can write a book about something, they can start a podcast, they can grow a following on it, and that's usually where they can start to monetize.

Yeah, you got to have some type of skill set or some type of mastery. Maybe you're not the master, but you've mastered a part of it. and you'll start to attract more financial opportunities that way. But one of the things I feel like holds people back from discovering their purpose, tapping into their purpose, taking action on their purpose, is the old character they've been playing for so long. You talk about this in your identity chapter, they've been holding onto an identity that has been developed for them that isn't in their highest best way, right? It's been the way society wants, parents, kids, whatever it might be. How can we get the courage to eventually kill off the parts of ourselves that are no longer serving us for our highest sense of purpose?

Yeah.

Have you ever seen the documentary Jim.

And Andy on Jim Carrey? Yes. Incredible. It is incredible, right? So everyone should watch it. Jim Carrey is amazing. He did the movie the Man on the Moon, like in 1999. And there was Andy Kaufman, right? He was playing Andy Kaufman, right? So he was playing Andy Kaufman and he's a method actor, which means that he had to literally become him and he had to play him all day long for three or four months straight to the point where even his driver said when he would pick him up in Hollywood and drive him home, he would still be Andy Kaufman in the car. On the way home, he'd be Andy Kaufman on the way home or on the way to go and shoot every single day. The crazy part about it, though, is that Andy Kaufman also played other characters. So Andy Kaufman was also Tony Clifton, which is a whole other character. And so he would, if, if they stopped shooting and he was Tony Clifton, he would go home and be Tony Clifton. And so he was Andy Kaufman some days, he was Tony Clifton some days, he was never Jim Carrey in those three or four months. And it's really interesting when you watch it because the people who were in taxi with him and they were on the show were like he was almost indistinguishable. Like he was the closest thing to Andy Kaufman that I've seen since Andy Kaufman. To the point where even his daughter, Andy Kaufman's daughter, went into sessions, like almost like mini therapy sessions, sitting down with Jim Carrey as Andy Kaufman as being her dad. That's crazy. Crazy, right? And so what's crazy about it, though, is that when it ended, he said he forgot who Jim Carrey was. Like, he literally forgot. There's a point where he, there was that song, I think it was REM did the song Man on the Moon. They're like, Can you be, you know, we're gonna shoot the video, the music video for it. Can you be Andy Kaufman? And he's like, I don't think I can. He's like, 'Cause I lost myself so much in that role that when it ended, I forgot what I liked, I forgot what I didn't like, I forgot my belief systems, I forgot everything about who Jim Carrey was. And the quote that he says, and it's actually in the book, is I realized if I could lose Jim Carrey so easily, then he could lose Jim Carrey. And he realized it was just another character that he was playing in his life. He was waking up and unconsciously every morning deciding to be Jim Carrey. And he was being that person. And if you've seen the spiritual awakening he's gone on in the past 20 years, that was the beginning of it. It was because he lost his identity. You forgot who he was. And it shows you that it's like our identity is just something we're choosing to be every single day. And we can look at parts of ourselves and we can say, do I like this aspect of myself? Do I not like this aspect of myself? So like, there's aspects of myself that I like, there's aspects of myself that I don't like and I've changed over years. Like one of the things that was the hardest for me was, you know, with my father not being around, my mom working a lot is I don't feel like I really felt a safe space of love when I was a kid. I didn't feel like it was just there and omnipresent. Like my wife, you know, her mom and dad are still together. She's got her two sisters. They're all really close. We were never really close. So I never really had that. And so we've been together now for 10 years. In the first couple years, she was way more loving, and I couldn't open up to the love. Like, it was hard for me to. Because I felt uncomfortable. Like, my nervous system was like, what's going on? This person's too close to me.

It almost didn't feel safe for you because it was unfamiliar.

100%. Even though it should be the safest feeling.

Right, right, right. But you're like also afraid of it. Right.

You want it, but you don't want it. Yeah. And so it was like me noticing different aspects of myself of like, I'm not as loving as I think I probably truly am or what I could be. So let me, that was a part of me I didn't like. And so I was like, how do I open myself up to be a little bit more loving? Which is, hard because, you know, opening yourself up to be vulnerable allows you to be vulnerable, especially when you love somebody, allows you to be really hurt, especially when you've gone through heartbreaks and you've been, you know, if you've been heartbroken, cheated on, divorces, all these things that people could have. I think it really comes down to how we try and have the courage to do it. It's funny because I literally have two tattoos and I'm referencing both of the tattoos. So the only other tattoo that I have is a tattoo on my arm. When I was first starting the podcast, I was really nervous. And when I left my job, I was making like a quarter million dollars a year, and I was like, I'm gonna do this thing. I don't know why it just feels right. Like the feelings felt right. And I was really fearful. And I was like, I might go back to work for someone else. And my sister comes out, I went home, and I was back for Thanksgiving in 2015, the year I started the podcast. And she goes, Hey, have you ever seen this box from dad? of dad's stuff. And I was like, no, and my dad had passed away, you know, 14 years ago at that point. And there were these, you know, it was like a t-shirt of his, it was his glasses, and there was these letters. My dad was in jail for a little while, and he wrote letters to us. And he wrote a letter to my sister on her 20th birthday, which was a year before he passed away. And the very end of the letter it says, I hope you live your life with courage, love, and laughter. And I read it and I was like, this is actually speaking to me, because I'm in so much fear right now that I'm gonna go back to work for someone else and literally throw my passion away. And I took my dad's handwriting, exact handwriting, it's on the inside of my arm right here. Yeah, it's on the inside of my arm. That's cool. You wanna see it? I'll show it. Yeah, I do. Anybody that's on YouTube. So it says, Live youe Life with Courage, Love and Laughter. It's an exact handwriting. And at the end of that letter. It says, Courage, Love and Laughter. Right? Which if you think about it, I was in so much fear. I was in so much fear that I was about to give up my entire passion and everything that I felt like I was born to do. because I just wanted to go back to what was safe. And I think everybody feels it. And it's like when you feel fear, we're always like, what's the hack? The only hack is you're gonna have to get yourself to a point where you're like, I have to do this or else I'm not going to be able to create the life that I really, truly want. Right. And my biggest fear, like I have fears, of course, I'm just a normal person. But my biggest fear, like I remember, Louis, I remember sitting the first person who I ever knew that passed away was my dad. Nobody I'd ever known that had passed away before. I remember flying up, we had flown up to go see him and he was still in the hospital at the time. He was unconscious and we were flying to go see him. And by the time we got to the airport, we got the news that he had already passed away. So I went up there to go see somebody, ended up being going there for a funeral. And so we were in this tiny little room and we were viewing it, the casket, and he was in the casket and we were on this this sofa that was right there, and it was myself, my grandmother, which was his mom, my mom, my sister. The four of us are just sitting there, and I was looking at him, and my dad was a dreamer, and he was an amazing person, but he had a lot of demons that he had in his life. His father killed himself, and he walked in the room and saw it right after it happened. So he had demons that he just didn't overcome. And he was a dreamer, and he was an amazing person, but I remember looking at him at 15 and being like, this guy had so much potential. and he didn't follow his potential. I know that he didn't create the life that he probably would have wanted to. And I was like, that will not become my life. It will never become my life in any sort of way. And so can I feel fear? Of course I can feel fear. But at some point you've got to decide, am I going to live a life that's full of fear or am I going to start being more courageous and live a life that's courageous? Because we all have a choice and we could go one way or we could go the other. But really what it comes down to is like, I know I'll be ridiculed for putting stuff out there. I know that people are going to bash different things that I put out there, but it's more for me of like, what feels right in my heart is what I'm going to follow. And I think that's what people should think of. It's like, where do I have energy? Some people are like, I'm 45 years old, I've been in this job, I went to college for this. I'm like, you could live to 90 years old, you're halfway through your life, and you're gonna live the rest of the 45 years doing something that you don't want simply because you went down the wrong path for a little while. And so I think you just gotta get to a point where you realize there's gonna be fear that's omnipresent, it's always gonna be there. just the way that we are as humans, you've just got to be courageous at some point in time.

Yeah, and you talk about your life won't change unless your identity changes.

Yeah.

And there's a great quote from Dr. Joe Dispenza that says, you, personality is your personal reality. And some people don't like to hear that because they don't want to change their personality.

Yeah.

And it doesn't mean you're bad or wrong or good or right. It just means what do you want to create in your life? And if you want to have a better feeling, a better experience, a better life, if you want to manifest and attract more, you're gonna have to think about your identity and your personality, because that is creating the reality around you. For sure. It's either drawing things into you in a positive way or a negative way. You're either magnetizing more bad things or you're magnetizing more good things based on the choices you make around this. So how do we How do I identify what our identity is? What's working and what's not working for us? And how do we start to change our identity to manifest?

Yeah, it's interesting. So I love talking about manifestation first off. So I love that you're bringing it back up because I didn't talk about manifestation the first part when you asked it. But as far as manifestation goes, I remember here about the law of attraction like 2007, 2007, 2008 when the Secret came out. And I remember sitting there and being like, all right, so you're telling me that if I just say money's coming into me, money's just gonna come into me, like that sounds like BS. And I was at USF in college at the time, and I was like, there's no parking at USF. I was like, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna manifest a parking spot. And so the whole way is like a 25 minute drive. I was like, I'm gonna get a parking spot. I'm gonna get a parking spot. I'm gonna get a parking spot. It's gonna be right up front. And I literally pull in and someone's pulling out of the very front. I'm like, that's a fluke. There's no way, right? That's that. There's no way. Yeah, it's definitely a coincidence. Right. And, and what I've come to find is, like, people are always like, here's the steps to manifestation. The way that I think of, of, and I'll give you an example of manifestation. I've told you this story is I was in, I was in Rome in September, and Laura and my wife was, were sitting there, and she's like, so the podcast has become this big thing. Like, it's blown up. What are you gonna do? Like, what's it gonna become? And I was like, You know what? I think I want to sign with a bigger company. And she's like, so what do you want to do? Do you want to go with Spotify? And I was like, well, Spotify is great, but the problem is that I'd have to be Spotify exclusive. She's like, so what do you want? And I was like, I'll tell you what I want. I want to sign with Cirrus XM. And that's the company I think I'm going to. And I know Lewis just signed with Cirrus XM, and I know that they're kind of going into a little bit of the personal development space. I want to sign with SiriusXM. And she's like, Cool, what would that look like? I was like, I don't know, but I trust it's gonna happen. And I didn't talk to you. Like, we had not, you know, like happy birthday, whatever it was, text messages. You text me 12 hours later, Louis. 12 hours later after I said, I want to get into a conversation with SiriusXM. And you're like, Hey, are you in a contract right now? SiriusXM wants to have a conversation. And I was like, Lauren, look at my phone. Wow. But I think the key part of manifestation is not like, I'm going to sit around and money is going to fly from all ears of the universe or any of that stuff. I think it's about alignment. Like so many people are out of alignment with what they truly want to do. The way that I see life is pretty simple is I think if we were to put it into like an analogy, we basically have this life path, this this river, right? Just imagine there's a river and it's going to take us from one place to another. And that's the journey of life in some sort of way. And I think most people, what they're doing is they're putting boulders in that water and boulders are limiting beliefs, it's fears, it's going down a life path and deciding to stay somewhere where they don't want to be, it's staying with someone that they don't want to be with. And if you've ever seen a river, a river flows beautifully. And usually people don't drown in rivers that are just flowing. Usually where people drown is when they're in rivers where there's a ton of white water and there's all of these boulders that are in your water. And that's when it really starts to move fast. So you can drown in the white water. And so I think is when you start to find like this place of alignment, It's like the gentle flowing water and then things start coming to you. And so it's like for me, the amount of things that just like kind of happened, you probably had this happen too. Like opportunities that come to you that are like, I've been wanting this for a while and it came to me better and faster than I thought it was going to. And I think it comes down to like, are people actually in alignment with what they truly want to do? Because I believe personally that all humans are here to create in some sort of way. It doesn't mean they have to create a podcast or create a social media. It could be create art. It could be that they just create music and it flows out of them. But so many people are creatively constipated where they just hold it all in because they might have been ridiculed at some point in time as a child. They were afraid of being judged in some sort of way. And I think that every person needs to kind of find like, what's your river? What's the one thing that you can do that is you? Because you don't want to be everybody else. But what's the one thing you can do that's completely you that feels the most authentic to you? and I think that when you find that and you start actually speaking for what it is that you want, it becomes really powerful. And so there's a, like I really believe and I love that when I was at your event, you had a huge thing that said, I am. And I love I am because if you look at, like I'm not religious in any sort of way, I believe, I read the Bible and I read, you know, the Bhagavad Gita, Jay got me to read the Bhagavad Gita like in 2017. So I read that and there's a lot of things that I associate with it. and one of the things that when you look at the Bible, like the only time when God actually comes and says God's name is says, I am that I am. And then you look at it and it's like, I am is the only time that somebody, that God comes in and speaks God's name. And so I think that when we say I am, we are tapping into like that infinite potential that is inside of us. But too often what we're not saying, we're not saying I am, we're saying I am not or saying I can't. And we're literally closing the door of all of the opportunity that we could attract into our life. And so when I say, I am going to be one of the best XYZ in the world, I am going to be the best possible father that I can be. I am, if someone's afraid of, oh, I'm going to screw my children up, I am going to be one of the most successful businesswomen and one of the best mothers that I could possibly be. And it literally, I think that the point of attracting things can seem corny, but I think that what happens is when you start to say, I am and actually pull it in and you fully believe, When I believe something, I try to imagine all 40 trillion of my cells saying, yes, we're on board. We're going to go get this thing. And so when you look at like the potential of a human being that you that you have, right? I think that if I'm remembering the math correctly, there's 40 trillion cells in your body. Every cell has about 1.4 volts inside of it, which you if you do the math, that's 70 trillion cells or 70 trillion volts inside of a human body. the most powerful of energy. Potential energy is the key part, right? Is potential energy. So that's 70 trillion volts inside of a human body. And I did, and I looked it up, what's the most powerful lightning that's ever been recorded? It's 300 million volts. And when you do the math, 70 trillion divided by 300 million, that means that potential energy inside of a human body, 233,333 times more powerful than a lightning bolt. So if we could take, in my mind, if I could take all the potential energy in me and say, I'm going to get this thing. And there is no other reality where it exists, where I don't get this thing. That's where it kind of like the universe starts to get out of your way and say, okay, here's what you want.

Right, right. But I think you got to start with the command, which is I am this. And then the command, you need to make a decision because your identity has not been allowing you to attract what you've wanted so far. Or maybe it's taken longer time than you wanted. So you've got to say, I am this. You've got to make that command. And then you have to make a decision of which actions you're going to start taking differently to support this new commitment, really this new commitment of identity, of personality that you want to step in.

Yeah, and how often do people say, I am, and then the next thing that follows it is not powerful, right? Where it's like, oh, I am smart enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm not lovable. And that's the majority of people are always saying, I am, and it usually follows what they don't want.

Yes.

And so I think with changing the identity is I am and switch it to the thing that you want. And there might be like a BS meter of like, ah, buddy am I? And you've got to start to actually physically believe it into yourself. I was not confident before I started in sales years ago. I was very shy. I'm still really an introvert. But as you start doing these hard things, you start overcoming things, doing things you didn't want to do, you start becoming more confident in yourself. And as you become more confident in yourself, you can start to speak into reality of things that you want more of. And I think that's the important part of manifestation is people can say, oh, there's all of these different things that you can do to manifest. But I really think it comes down to like, can you get your brain and your body on board to say, this is what I'm going to be doing? And if it's on alignment into life path you're supposed to be on and what feels right inside of you, I think that's where people just naturally start attracting things.

What if someone has a story from their past, from their history, from their family, from their lack that keeps them playing small? How do they change the story So they're not lying to themselves, but they're empowering themselves with their story.

Yeah, well, then it comes down to like affirmations, right? Affirmations I used to think were super corny as well. I'm like, All right, I'm just gonna talk to myself and I'm gonna believe this. Because a lot of times people are like, okay, I'm broke. I don't have any money. I want to attract money. I want to be somebody who has money. And so they're like, I'm gonna create an affirmation around money. And they sit there and they're like, Money is flowing from all areas of the universe into my bank account. Immediately, right? And then you get done and your BS meter is like, no, it's not. Dude, you're broke. You got negative $12 in your account, right? And there's the BS meter. And so when I take affirmations, I say there's three parts that someone has to have. Number one is they got to be true. Number two, it's got to be present tense.

Number three, it's got to be empowering. And so someone can-- Give me an example. If someone's broke and they want more money, how can they create a story.

A narrative, a script, or a story.

That will empower them to attract more.

I am committed today to working off to make more money. I am committed to taking the actions necessary to make more money in my bank account in the future. I am committed to losing 40 pounds over the next 12 months. Even though I've never done it before, I'm going to change the person who I am to make sure that I do that. And so it's not about like sitting there and meditating and just imagining the money coming into your bank account. It's how can you make a true present tense and empowering. Today, I am committed to taking the action I need to in order to make more money in my bank. Today, I am committed to making the action I need to to make my children feel like I love them, to make them feel more love that I maybe haven't been giving them over the past couple of years because I've been so busy working.

Right, right.

And so it's literally about how can you make it true, empowering and present tense? Because when it's true, you might not have money in your bank account right now. But I will take the action today to eventually bring more money into my bank account because usually money doesn't immediately come to you. Usually it's like a lagging indicator of how of the actions you've taken in the past. So today I'm going to take the actions I need to knowing that the money will be coming to me at some point in time.

What do you think causes people to stay in procrastination mode for long periods of time? What is that reason they stay in procrastination?

Yeah. So when I look at procrastinating, I remember I was talking with one of my salespeople and we were talking about this lady and he's like, well, I was like, so what was her problem when you had the sales call? And the problem he said was she procrastinates too much. And I said, that's not the problem. And what's the problem? And he's like, what do you mean? And I was like, the problem is not procrastination. The problem is a symptom of a cause. And so it's like, for instance, it's a downstream effect of something else. Procrastination is almost always the downstream effect of identity or fear. and that's really what it comes down to is the reason why you're procrastinating is because you either don't think that you can do it or you're procrastinating because you're afraid of something else that's coming in the future. If I were to be able to, like, if we had a light switch on the side, like a little switch on the side of our head, and we could turn off, like, our amygdala of, like, the thing that creates fears in our brain, and we're just say, okay, I have no fear. I can just take action. Everybody would have the life that they want to. They wouldn't be, nobody would procrastinate. Right? And so it really comes down to that. That's the first thing is, is the fears and identity. And the other thing is the reason why somebody's doing something. And so like one of my things when I used to give a lot of talks, I used to love doing this is I would say, you know, you go into a company and everyone makes like 40, 50, $75,000 a year, $100,000 a year. And I would sit in front of people and I would say, everybody here, what is the percent? This is very drastic. I know everybody who's listening, but this is very drastic for you to be able to hear, right? I would say, Hey, what's the percentage chance of you making a million dollars in the next 12 months? And everyone would be like, 0%, 0%. I would say legally too. Right, right, right. Million dollars legally. Not go sell drugs, but a million dollars legally in the next 12 months. And people would be like, 0%, 0%, 1%, 2%. There'd always be like one person who really believes in themselves. They're like 5%. And I said, okay, let me change it up just a little bit. What's the percentage chance of you making a million dollars this year? and if you don't, everyone that you love dies. Everybody goes, a thousand percent, a hundred percent, a hundred percent, a hundred percent. And I said, hold on then. The time frame didn't change. The goal didn't change. What changed is that you actually care. You actually have a why behind it. And I would say, would you ever, if your children's life, if your wife's life, your mother's life depended on it, would you procrastinate? No, you wouldn't. You would just do what needs to be done because the fear of losing them is greater than the fear of being judged or the fear of failure. Or the fear of failure. Right. And so I think that procrastination is never the problem. It's always the downstream effect of something else, which is either they don't have a why that's strong enough, their identity is holding them back from thinking that they can't be a person that can achieve it, or they have too many.

Fears that are just holding them back from taking action. Yeah, I think you gotta have the why that's strong enough is the main thing because whether it's a million dollars or a hundred thousand or whatever the number is, First off, do you want that thing bad enough and why do you want it? If it's the million dollars as the example, why do you need that and why can't you be happy with where you're at or whatever it might be? And do you need that to impress people or is it because you have a greater purpose you want to use that money for? Because you want to build a company, you want to empower people, you want to donate it. So you have to understand why you want something and be clear that it's not just serving ego, but it's serving something greater than you. I think that's when the river opens up. and it widens and all the boulders go away when you say, I want this thing for me, but also so I can serve or empower others.

For sure.

Then it's like the Mississippi. You know, it's like, why, this is the biggest river there is. And, but when it's only for you, I feel like later down the line, you're going to hit a dam.

Of course you are.

You might attract what you want, but then eventually get blocked up because it's all about you as opposed to about others, including you.

Yeah. and you can make money when it's all about you. Yes. Many people do it. It doesn't mean you're gonna be happy. Right. That's usually the problem, right? Because you get to a point, I mean, how many, this is what I really think about all the time, is that how many successful people, and it's so sad, get to being ridiculously successful and then commit suicide? Like there's many that have done it. And so, you know, there could be mental health issues to that, but I think a lot of them think, when I get to the top of the mountain, then I'll finally be happy. But it's always about, like, it's not the top of the mountain, it's not the destination that's gonna make you happy. It's about finding your happiness in the journey to get you to where you wanna be. be. And if someone's like, I want to make money for me, you can definitely do it. There's definitely people in this world that do that. But what I found that was really surprising to me is that some of the most successful people I know are the most giving people I know. And it's almost as if God of the universe has been like, Hey, I trust you because I've seen that you're a good steward of this money, you're a good steward of what I've been giving to you. I'm going to give you more of it. Let's talk about money real quick because that I think is important is This is a way I like to give it as an analogy, right? Let's say you have a toy and you have two different children, right? You have child A and you give him like a red toy truck and he's like, Red, I hate red. This is blue, like, this is my favorite color is blue. And it's like, trucks, I don't even like trucks, I like cars. And you're like, well, I don't have any other toys. He's like, Fine. And he goes and plays with it and he messes with it and he slams it into other toys and complains about how it's not the one that he wanted. And then when it's time to go eat, he lives his toys all over the place, right? So that's child A. Child B might be the exact blue might be the favorite color. Red, red, sorry, blue might be the favorite color and they might like cars more than they like trucks, right? But you give it to him and he says, thank you. And he goes and plays with it and he plays with it nicely. And he and when another kid comes up, he shares, oh, can I play with your toy? Yeah, here you go. And the other kid was like, the kid comes up, he's like, no, this is my truck, right? He's like, yeah, you can play with it. Then when it becomes time to go to dinner, they take their toys and they put them away. If you had the option, the next time you have a toy, who would you give it to? You'd give it to the kid who took care of it, right?

It was grateful, appreciated it.

Shared it, took care of it, was a good steward of it. Now imagine we flip that and God is the one who has the toy. The toy is money and it's either your person A or your person B. Most people, when they get their paycheck, I was this person for years. I get my paycheck, be like, It's still not enough. It's not enough. And I'm literally from the moment I see my paycheck bringing in negative energy towards money. And I'm like, It's still not enough. It's not as much as I want. I don't know if I could pay my bills with this. This is crap. And then what do I do? I share it with anybody? I don't give anybody any money. And I hoard it. Do I take care of it? No. I complain about it. I don't have enough. I don't enjoy it. I don't share. You- wasted it. Yeah. I wasted it. I buy stupid stuff. And then you see on the other side someone who gets their paycheck, and this is a big thing that I changed in myself like seven years ago. Anytime that I would get a payment, because what's cool about building business online is you can get payments at random times. I would get a payment and I realized that I was for the longest time child A. I would complain about not having enough money. The amount of times my bank account was overdrafted over, I didn't even have zero dollars. I had negative dollars in my bank account many times in my life, you know? and I switched it to every time I started seeing a payment come in, I would close my eyes and I would see the person's name and I would say, John, thank you so much, God, thank you so much for bringing this into my life. I hope that I can make some sort of transformation and I just wanted to bring that energy to it. And then I started changing to try to be more like Child B, then I started sharing it more. And I realized that the more that I share it, the more that I'm grateful for it, the more that I take care of it, the more that I learn about how to be smart with my money, the more I've been trusted. with more. And I think that's the difference is that most people go on the path of child A and I was there for a very long time. And I went to child B, which is I'm gonna be grateful for whatever comes in. If I see a penny on the floor, I'm gonna pick it up because if I can't be trusted with a little, I can't be trusted with a lot. I'm gonna pick it up, I'm gonna put it in my pocket, I'm gonna say thank you for giving me this universe. I appreciate it. I appreciate the small amounts, I appreciate the big amounts because I'm gonna appreciate the small amounts, the big amounts. I'm gonna share it whenever I can share it. and I'm going to try to be the best steward of my money that I can. And what's crazy is it just like you said, it's like the river just widened because there was now more space for me to be able to be a good steward for it.

If you're looking to level up and get focused, stop procrastinating and upgrade your life, make sure you get a copy of this book from my man Rob Dial. You can get it, it's out right now. Make sure to grab a copy. Follow you on all over the places on social media @robdialjr. robdaud.com, also your podcast is one of the biggest personal development podcasts out there. Make sure you guys check out Mindset Mentor Podcast as well. And what else can we do to support you today, man?

That's it, man. I'm just here to serve. If people want to listen to podcast, there's 1300 episodes. If they want to read the book, they can read the book. I'm all over the place. Wherever you like to consume content, I'm there. You can find me and hopefully I can serve people.

That's a lot of great content, man. And you have so many great chapters and exercises in here. So I want people to make sure to go through this, different prompts, different things like that to help them overcome the things that are keeping them from the life they want. So make sure you guys get this copy of Level Up. Couple final questions for you. This one's called the Three Truths. Imagine it's your last day on earth. You've accomplished and achieved everything you want. But it's time for you to go. You get to live as long as you want, but it's the last day. And for whatever reason, you've got to take all of your work with you. Every piece of content is gone. This book is gone. Everything you've ever done, the 1300 episodes, gone. And all you get to do is...

-I work so hard for all this, right?

-It'S all gonna go eventually anyways, you know? -But all you get to do is share is three lessons to the world. Three things you know to be true from your existence. And we don't have any other content of yours. except for these three truths. What would you share with the world?

The first one that comes into my mind is love is all that matters. I think that's all that really matters. I don't know how it works, but the older I get, the more I start to learn it. I think that love is actually the only thing that matters. I used to think that it was success and money and all that stuff made me happy, but I've realized that what I was really searching for when I thought I wanted to be stable and financially stable was emotional stability. which I think my wife has helped me feel and bring to me and go, this is what I've been searching for my whole life.

Right?

Like, I've wanted this. I think love is all that matters. I think that goes along with that as well, is be kind to everyone that you meet because I think there's so many people going through so many things. You know, like if you think about the guy that you were talking about that committed suicide, like, he could. What? You had no idea. And you were his past, and he seemed like he was okay and stuff. And when you see people like Robin Williams, who are, like, one of the lights of the world, commit suicide, it's like you never actually truly know what someone's going through. And there's a lot of people that, that look like they have it together, but inside, they just really need somebody else. And so I think that's a really big piece to it. And, and I think the last one that's, that's important is, and it's so cliche, and I didn't, get it, like really get it until probably two years ago, is the destination doesn't matter. It's all about the journey. And I've heard it so many times, but it never actually fully hit to me is, you know, in this journey of personal development, I've always wanted to be done. Like, I've always wanted to be done with my fear and done with my issues and my traumas. And I've come to realize that I don't think I'll ever get there. But I think that I'll just have tools to be able to work through them if it comes back up again. And so I think that what I've come to realize is that when I want to get there, it causes more conflict internally inside of me. And when I can say, you know what? You fell off the path again. Like, the path of being a human is losing yourself and finding yourself again, and then losing yourself and finding yourself. And hopefully when you get lost, you get better at finding yourself quicker the more that you do it. And so I've come to realize that it's There is no destination to get to. And if I can just learn to go, all right, you screwed up again. All right, hey, listen, I still love you for doing what you've done. I love you for the awareness that you have, that you now have understood that you've gotten yourself out of this thing quicker than you used to. It used to be a week that you were in misery. Now it's just two hours that you're here. And I think it's just enjoying the journey and not feeling like the destination is something that we need to be getting to.

Powerful, man. One final question for you. I want people to check out level up.

Yes.

But I want to acknowledge you before the final question, Rob, for having courage, love and laughter in your life and allowing it to come in. And it sounds like with your wife, you've allowed healing to occur as well.

Well, yeah.

You've allowed this last 10 year journey to heal and to not just drive for success, but also for significance and to feel love deeply. And there's no coincidence that that's what's on your your arm, courage, love and laughter, and love matters was the first truth for you. So I acknowledge you for living into that and honoring this current identity of courage, love and laughter in your life, man. Yeah. Final question. What's your definition of greatness?

You think I'd remember that you were going to ask these questions. Like, I've heard your podcast before, and I completely forgot these were coming. I think the definition of greatness is loving yourself for where you currently are while still striving to be a more evolved version of yourself tomorrow. I think that's what it comes down to. It's not about being better tomorrow, because when you're better tomorrow, it implies that you're worse today. I think it just. It's. I love myself as I currently am, knowing that I'm evolving myself into a better version of myself every day. And the pursuit to do that.

There you go. Rob.

That. My man. Thanks, brother. Yeah. Thank you, brother. I got a PhD in psychology. I did a year-long clinical internship. I worked on a psychiatric ward. That is not.

And I knew from the word go that that was not where I would end up.

It just, but you got people, they're.

Drawn to that and that's a wonderful.

Thing about the world. The difference.