Unlock Your GREATEST Potential | Lewis Howes

We are the creators of our lives and not the victims of our lives. Taking time in your life to invest in yourself is to invest in a future. And when you invest in yourself, you invest in your future. And when you believe in yourself, you believe in possibility. And I think that everybody secretly believes in themselves.

I want everyone listening for the next seven days to try something. And if you could give one to three different things that we could think differently or eliminate When a thought comes to us or we react in a certain way, if there's something you think that we eliminated one, two or three things and we did this every day for seven days, we would start to see incredible feelings of differently, would feel healthier, more lively, more love. What would be those few things?

Okay, well most people, number one, they get up in the morning and the first thing they do is they think about the problems in their life and those problems are memories from the past. So the moment they think about their problems or thinking in the past, right? Every one of those problems has an emotion attached to them. So they start feeling unhappy or unworthy or whatever. And how you think and how you feel is your state of being. So most people's entire state of being is in the past when they start the day. So if they're familiar past, they're going to live in a predictable future, right? So they get up and they check their cell phone, they check their text, their WhatsApp, their Facebook, they post something on Facebook, they tweet, they Twitter, they check the news, then they go to the bathroom, get a cup of coffee, take a shower, get dressed. check more emails, drive to work the same way, do the same thing. So, they're in a program. They've actually lost their free will to the program. So, if you start your day and you start your day with this simple question, what is the greatest ideal of myself that I can be today? You ask yourself that question. Now listen, your body's gonna go like, well, we gotta get a cup of coffee and you gotta go, I'm tired.

I'm tired.

And you gotta go, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, body. You're not the mind, I'm the mind right now. You're gonna sit here, I'm gonna feed you. You're gonna get your coffee, you're gonna do all those things, but right now, this is my time. You're gonna obey me, right? So now, the body's no longer the mind, you're the mind. And so when it wants to get up and you become aware of it and we turn back to the present moment, every time you do that's a victory. And you're changing some aspect of yourself. So then ask yourself, I do this all the time. Write down four thoughts. that you're gonna stay conscious of the whole day. I can't, it's too hard. You'd be surprised the moment you become conscious of what those thoughts are, how unconscious you've been to them all day, you know, for weeks on end. Write down what you speak, how you speak, four things you want to change, how you act, how do you act? Do you complain? Do you blame? Do you make excuses? Do you feel sorry for yourself? That's a victim consciousness. What emotions do you live by? Is it possible that you're so used to living by guilt, you don't even know it's guilt, it just feels like you? Do you allow your energy to drop? Become conscious of those states of mind and body and review them and say, this is the old self. Then say, what thoughts do I want to fire and wire in my brain? And start firing and wiring and start feeling it. What behaviors will I demonstrate today? What choices will I make? One day, one lifetime. And just like you did, rehearse them. Rehearse the whole entire thing. Begin to install the neurological hardware in your brain. and if you keep installing it, the hardware is going to become a software program and you're going to start thinking and acting that way. And then here's the tough part. Can you teach your body emotionally what your future is going to feel like before it's made manifest? And don't get up until you feel that way. Now, practice that for a few days and then see if you can stay in that state and watch all of a sudden all those weird doors start opening for you.

Synchronicities.

Synchronicities, whatever they are. Number two. Take up time at the end of your day, the end of your day before you lay down and give thanks for your life and feel gratitude and really teach your body what it feels like. The emotional signature of gratitude. When gratitude means you're getting something. If I give you something that's of value, you would say thank you because you would feel it, right? So when you're receiving, you're giving thanks. So gratitude is the ultimate state of receiving. So then people only accept, believe and surrender to the thoughts equal to their emotional state. So if you're in a state of gratitude, every thought is going to make it right down into your body. If you're saying, I'm healthy, I'm healthy, I'm healthy, I'm wealthy, I'm wealthy, I'm wealthy, I'm wealthy, and your body's programmed in negativity, it's saying, no, you're not, no, you're not, no, you're not. That thought is going to stop right here. So as you elevate your state, there are about 1,200 different chemical reactions that go on in the body that begin to restore and repair the body in a state of gratitude. And so we've done the research to prove that. Ten minutes and just feel it with all of your heart. That's it. Third thing and very important, take time whenever it is, sit down, close your eyes and begin to just open your awareness. to the space around you and just sense it and pay attention to it and become more aware of it. The act of opening your awareness begins to reduce the stress hormones and creates more coherent brainwave states. I'm doing it right now. It's just a practice. It's just a practice. And the more you do it, the better you get at it. Wow.

Who's been your greatest teacher?

Life, no doubt about it. I believe that life is our initiation. I mean, I do my best to see my life as a reflection of my mind.

And.

I think that life is our greatest teacher.

Reflection of your mind is essentially like what you've created is a reflection of how you've been thinking.

Yeah, exactly.

So if you're showing up sick physically, then that's what you've created in your mind.

I don't believe that terms make me sick. I believe I make me sick.

I do.

I mean, there's no germs with my name on it out there. I mean, they're called opportunistic bacteria because they're waiting for an opportunity for your immune system to be compromised. And so for me personally, you have to ask myself this question every day. At what point do I stop believing that I create my life? What is that point? So I'm always pushing that envelope a little bit more. So for me, I think life is our initiation. We don't need to go to any ancient school of wisdom in the Himalayas. Life is our initiation and when you meet the challenges in your life from a greater level of mind, you're going to begin to move through those initiations. What is the side effect of that?

Wisdom.

That's what we take with us, being wise.

Powerful. How can we connect with you online and go to your events? What's the best place to go to?

To see everything that you need. Yeah, so my website is just drjoedispenza.com, D-R-J-O-E-D-I-S-P-E-N-Z-A.com, and there's just a ton of resources there. We have an online progressive course now. I don't teach those courses anymore because my interest is in the weeklongs. So for people who come to a weeklong, they do a home study course where they get the basics, they understand what we're doing. It's about 23 hours, they can do it in however long they want. And then with that comes another study course, and then they can come to a week long and join a community of people that are all about passion and the unknown.

Amazing. When's the next event?

Well, the next event, gosh, the next week long is in Toronto, September 1st through 7th, and it's pretty close to sold out. Then we'll be in Australia in October, and then the UK in November, and then Cancun, Mexico in December. And then I got, you know, a couple events that I'm doing here and there. Wow. Other things, yeah.

Amazing.

Yeah.

A couple final questions for you. This one's called the Three Truths. I ask everyone at the end. If you imagine it's your last day many years from now, and you've achieved or created or been anything you've wanted to do, you've done it all, right? Everything you can think of has happened, created it, books, events, whatever you want to do, healed the world, you've done it all. For whatever reason, you've got to take everything with you. All your writings, your research, material, videos, events. It's not available for anyone to have anymore. But you have a piece of paper and you get to write down three things you know to be true about your life or the lessons that you would leave behind. And this is the only lessons that they would have access to. What would you say are your three truths?

Wow. Number one is that the divine lives in every human being. and that we have to make an effort to connect with it every day. And when we do, it answers the call in ways that we would just never anticipate. And I know that to be the truth and that nobody is so special to be excluded from that phenomenon. Number two is that we are the creators of our lives and not the victims of our lives. And that taking time in your life to invest in yourself is to invest in a future. And when you invest in yourself, you invest in your future. And when you believe in yourself, you believe in possibility. And I think that everybody secretly believes in themselves. And so taking time to understand that we are just works in progress and to find time to forgive ourselves and to forgive others and start fresh. The next day is a blessing. It's a blessing. And finally, I think that it's not our purpose in life to be popular or successful or beautiful or intelligent. Our purpose in life is to remove those blocks, those veils, those limitations that stand in the way between us and that divine intelligence. And when we do, it begins to make its way through us and we become more like it, we become more loving. It is a loving intelligence. We become more giving, it's a giver of life. We become more conscious, it's a consciousness. We become more mindful, it has an infinite mind. We become more willful, it has an amazing will. Its nature becomes our nature, its mind becomes our mind. And then we don't have to try to be liked or try to be important or try to be recognized. We're just happy for no reason at all. And I think that is the natural state of being. I think that we innately know that on some level.

What are three to five non-negotiable habits that every human being should, and if they could do on a daily basis, it would improve their lives and everyone's life around them. What are those non-negotiable habits on a daily basis we should do?

Yeah, three habits that would improve everybody's lives on a daily basis. It's so hard to give an answer like that because obviously everybody's, you know, dealing with different stuff, but there are a few things I think I do genuinely think most people would benefit from. so the easy answer would be, or the easy way to frame this would be reading. But I don't think it actually has to be reading books. I think it just is the, the habit of learning something new. So if you, you know, listening to podcasts, reading book, watching a good YouTube video, whatever, it doesn't matter what version of that it is. But if you go to bed a little bit smarter than you were when you woke up, that's going to improve your life and just having this thirst for lifelong learning, having an eagerness to learn or discover something new each day, it's going to pay off in a huge way in the long run, no matter what topics you're interested in. So a habit of some small habit of daily learning, let's just call it learn something new for 10 minutes each day. Some sort of physical activity. You know, this is, I think, an important realization about all habits, which is in most areas of life, there might not be a thousand ways to do something, but there's almost always more than one way. And, you know, I like working out in the gym, but not everybody wants to train like a bodybuilder, and that's fine. You know, like, you can kayak or go running or rock climbing or ride a bike or whatever. There's like a bazillion ways to live an active lifestyle. and you should choose the version of your habits that is most exciting to you. Like in a way, that's the first biggest hurdle to clear when you're building habits is have you selected a habit that you're genuinely interested in, that you're actually engaged with. Because if it's something that you actually care about, there are gonna be like endless opportunities for improvement. If you're not actually care, if you don't actually care about it, if you're just doing it 'cause you kind of feel like society is encouraging you to do it, or your parents want you to do it, or your peers are kind of, subtly saying, hey, this is something you should do, then even the obvious improvements are going to feel like a chore, you know? So let's call it 10 minutes of learning something new, some sort of physical activity, whatever is exciting or interesting to you. And then I think the other one is a process, a habit of reflection and review.

So.

It'S very easy in life to be so busy or working on stuff heads down, or just have the next task come up, whether it's things you got to do for your kids or responsibilities at work, that you never take even five minutes to step back and just breathe and ask yourself, am I working on the right thing? Am I directing my attention and energy to the highest and best use? And boy, there is nothing so wasteful as working hard on the wrong thing. So many people work really hard, but are you directing your energy and attention to the best spot? And so the only way to discover that, like I know I'm not smart enough to figure it out on the first time. Like I can't just sit down, give me five minutes and be like, oh, this is exactly what I should be focused on. It takes iteration, it takes refinement, it takes a process of reflecting and reviewing and looking back on the previous day and be like, Hey, was that a good way to spend my time? Like did I live a good life today? And the more that you do that, the more you start to course correct. and the other tricky thing, and the reason this needs to be a habit that you revisit consistently, I don't necessarily think it needs to be daily, but consistently, is the answer changes over time. You know, like what you want shifts over time, the situation you're in or the resources you have or the time you have shifts over time. And so you need to keep coming back to this. Maybe it's every week, maybe it's once a year, but whatever it is, you need a chance to reflect and review and to try to ask yourself, is there a better way to do this? Am I working on the right thing? Am I working on what actually matters? Am I directing my attention and energy in the highest and best way?

Yeah. And how important is accountability then in your mind when we are taking on these new habits for ourselves? Is it important to have self-accountability, buddy accountability, coach accountability, social accountability, do those support habits forming these consistent habits? And what are the factors are in play there?

They definitely support them or hinder them potentially, depending on the people you're around and the group that you're part of. Ultimately, the form of accountability that matters the most is self-accountability. It's almost impossible to exceed the standards that you have for yourself. like that almost always sets the baseline. You know, if your beliefs or your standards are almost always going to be the limit on what you allow yourself to do or what you accept. Now, it's easier to stick to high standards in a supportive environment than it is in an unsupported one. So there are a lot of things that can influence whether you want to maintain that standard, but ultimately the standard you hold yourself to is going to be the most important thing. Now, having said that, I do think that the social environment, the tribes that you belong to, influence your habits in a really dramatic way. So if I had to pick one topic that I think is even more important now than I realized when I was writing the book, I would probably say the social environment. You know, we're all part of multiple tribes. Some of those tribes are like really large, like what it means to be American or what it means to be Australian. Some of those tribes are small, like what it means to be a neighbor on your street or a member of the local CrossFit gym. But all of those tribes, large and small, they have a set of expectations. You know, they have a set of social norms. They have a set of beliefs that, Hey, this is how you act in this group. This is what's normal and expected. And the more that your habits align with the expectations of the group, the easier it is to stick with them, the more like appealing and attractive they are because they signal to the people around you, Hey, look, I belong too. You know, like I'm part of this. and the more that they go against the grain of the tribes that you belong to, the harder they are to stick to because you start to get criticized for them. And if people have to choose between, you know what? I have habits that I don't really love, but I fit in, I belong, I'm part of something, or I have the habits that I want to have, but I'm cast out, I'm ostracized, I'm criticized. I mean, the desire to belong will often overpower the desire to improve. You know, belonging will, will, the loneliness will lose to And so you need to get those two things aligned and join groups where your desired behavior is the normal behavior.

It is so true. And it doesn't mean you can't make it happen. There's a great example that came up this week. Someone on my team on our team call said, I asked everyone on the call, I said, what is one thing you want to let go of next year for your life? Like what's one thing that's not serving you right now that you want to let go of? and this person said, I want to let go of drinking, drinking alcohol, like, or at least drinking as frequently as I do with the social circles that I'm in. And I thought that was interesting because I've never been drunk in my life. I don't drink. It's not. It's not a part of my identity, right? I never did it from sports. And then in after sports, I was just like, why? It didn't make sense to me. Nothing good or bad about it just wasn't fitting my values personally. I have other problems, which is sugar, right? It's like, I've got that. That's my vice, right? So. no judgment here, but I was just like, this never stopped for me, you know, in every, until maybe the last four or five years, where anytime I'd go out in college, after college, then the business world and restaurants, networking events, like all that stuff, people would always try to influence me to drinking. And so I had to be, I, I had to be so firm in my beliefs and really just not even care at all about it. That I just knew that people were going to try to influence me. They were trying to say a joke. They'd be, I can't believe you never drank all these different things. Try to get me to drink for the first time. All this stuff. I knew it happened every single week. And I just realized, okay, this is going to happen no matter what type of circles I'm in, unless I find people that do not drink, which is very rare. And which is one of the reasons why with my girlfriend, when we started dating, I was like, listen, it's not gonna work. If you like to drink, I don't think I can date you. Like, doesn't mean you're a bad person. I just don't want to be in that environment for the rest of my life with the person I'm choosing to be with. And so I had to make a conscious decision. And she was like, well, I don't really need it. Like, maybe I drink a glass of wine once a month. I'm like, okay, that's fine. But if this is a weekly thing, like, it's just not going to work because I've chosen this to be a high priority of my value for my life. And, it's, it's very challenging if there's something you want to do and the people around you are influencing you the other way in terms of accountability. So I think it's, it doesn't mean you can't do it, but choosing to be around people or groups or tribes, like you mentioned, that are supportive, even if it's the local CrossFit gym or whatever it might be, find those communities as much as possible. You know, if your family isn't a supportive, find these other micro tribes to support you in that. have it for me, so I think it's really powerful. Think of all the amazing things in life that are expressions of just you. For instance, the song you stream over and over again while you're in your 13th hour of gaming at 4 a.m. in the morning with all the lights off trying not to wake up your roommates, or the recommendations that you share with your friends on the top six comedy podcasts that are the best to listen to on your way to the gym and back, or even your new haircut, which may or may not be an epic bowl cut from the 90s and hopefully is. Everything that makes you, you, makes all the difference. State Farm believes insurance should work the same way. Your plan, your coverage, they need to be personalized to you. And the ability to choose the plan you want by picking the options that fit you, like building your home and auto policies, is exactly what the State Farm Personal Price Plan is all about. Getting the coverage you want at an affordable price just for you. So, are you ready to make things personal? Call or go to StateFarm.com today to create your State farm personal price plan. Prices vary by state. Options selected by customer, availability and eligibility may vary.

And one of the surprising things that I came across when I was researching the book is a lot of these self-control studies, we typically will like kind of the standard story we all tell is, oh, man, I wish I had the discipline of that person, or I wish I was, you know, as consistent as this professional athlete or whatever. But in fact, the people who exhibit the highest self-control are often the people who are tempted the least. That's like the predominant pattern that is common across those different contexts is that they are- Put cookies in your house.

You'Re not gonna eat 'em.

Yeah.

And so, you know, you want to stack the deck in your favor and design an environment or join groups and tribes where your desired behavior is normal, where your desired behavior is easy. And if you do that for yourself, Sure, you'll still have to put effort in, but it's going to be so much more productive and easy to stick to the habit because you're in a space and a context that's designed to support it. And that's maybe one of the biggest hacks or strategies for building better habits is worry a little bit less about having superhuman willpower and worry a little bit more about designing an environment where you don't need willpower at all.

You did something really smart, which I think a lot of people aren't willing to do. you spent 10 years writing every week in an incredible article or articles that were so detailed, so thought out, so researched. And you said, how can I serve the maximum number of people in my niche and then start branching out in space as well and do it consistently over a decade without really making a lot of money? you know, selling other things. And then you came out with a book. And now this doesn't happen for everyone, but then you came out with a book and it became, you know, a one of the best selling books of the year of the most selling book of last year on Amazon, like you said, top five, I think this year as well. And it just continues to add value to people. And I think it's a testament to what you created for a decade plus of adding value. So congratulations on everything, man. Yeah.

Thank you. That's very, Very nice of you to say it's been a wild ride. There are a couple of things going on there. I do try to operate with this core value of always give value before you ask for value. And if you think about in any business, but like in my business, writing books, the amount of what it costs a reader or what it costs a customer is not just how much they have to pay for the book, it's also how much time they have to spend reading it or finding it and so on. and whatever that total cost is, time plus money, that's like the amount they have to pay. And then whatever I get paid is what I make, but what they get in return should be like well in excess of that. So like the value they get minus the time and money they spend, there's some surplus there. And we could call it whatever, but I like think about it as like goodwill. And I always want to have a surplus of goodwill. And so everything that I create, whether it's an article or newsletter or the book, I want people to have this feeling that it's like, oh my gosh, I get so much out of this. Of course I would want to open the next email or of course I would want to buy the book. It's such an obvious win for me. So I always try to give value before I ask for value. And I don't think that there's any one way to do this. You could start with the book and not have an audience, for example. But the way that I did it is I wanted to focus on building the audience first, building the platform first, give as much value as possible, get the audience as large as possible. And then I was able, you know, I didn't have any credentials, right? Like I don't have any background for, and there was no reason for me to get a book deal. I was just a guy with a blog. And the only reason that any of the publishers in New York met with me is because I spent that time building the email list and developing the audience. And then that got my foot in the door and got the book deal. And then of course you have to execute well on that and create something valuable. And then, you know, ultimately the book being a hit was sort of just all this potential energy that had been built up for two years or five years or whatever, and then it being released when the book came out. So I, you know, to a large degree, I kind of think that's the hardest thing about writing books is all the work is up front. you know, you have to build the audience and write it and edit it and make the marketing plan and start to record interviews and execute on that. You have to do all of that stuff before you sell a single copy. And most people are just not willing to delay gratification that long. You know, I mean, it's probably, depending on how you measure it, Atomic Habits took somewhere between, like, three and six years. Definitely at least three years, because that's how long it was from when I got the book deal. But I was doing a lot before I even got the book deal.

So.

It'S just a long time to work on something without making a scent from it. And so, if you're willing to do that, then you can get a great result.

One of the other things you talked about that I've seen you talk about online about mastering the inner self and the things that hold people back is ill will. And I think, it's like if you look in the mirror and you say, oh, there's anger inside of me. There's, Judgment inside of me. Is that also associated with ill will? Is it towards yourself, towards others, to the world? What does that mean, ill will?

To the mental state. Whatever triggers it is pretty irrelevant. No, it's sometimes also just think about it. When we were young and we didn't get what we wanted, we became angry. As a teenager, Somebody took something away from you, you got angry. Nowadays, 21st century, somebody takes something away from you, you are angry. The reasons why this anger came up, always different. But the anger is always the same. The anger you feel today is the same anger that you felt when you were in young ages. So that means, there might be the feeling that outside circumstances are triggering something inside of you. Yes, it's triggering something, but what eventually comes up is what you have not been able to adjust in the proper way yet. And the same is like ill will. Ill will is a state of the mind. It's not just doesn't matter if it's towards yourself, towards another person, towards an animal, towards your colleagues. It's always the same ill will. It is something inside of you which if you don't pay attention to is going to be a hindrance along your way of walking.

How do we heal or integrate ill will so that it's no longer inside of us. How do we reevaluate it, mend it, heal it, go beyond it?

Go beyond it, I think, is the more proper expression because this is now really playing with the words, but it's still important because we don't try to get rid of all of these things. You don't want to get rid of the body that it's never going to be inside of your body anymore. You don't want to get rid of your jealousy when it comes up. You don't want to get rid of the joy that you feel. You don't want to get rid of your feelings. You want to have a very great variety of different feelings that you can tap into. The only thing which makes the difference is if you are tapping into this world of feelings consciously or if that world of feelings is just unconsciously imploding inside of you. This makes the difference. And so to overcome it means to realize it is there. Yeah, but now, like sometimes what to do. You need to find something, a state of your, the state of level on which you are coordinating, which means you have to stand above you. Learn to get into a perspective where you are standing above you, which means this is not about you at the moment. This is not about you. Stand above it. It is about you see, okay, you see that person at the moment has an issue. How would you, as somebody watching at you, help him?

How would you coach, guide?

How would you coach yourself, guide yourself to the better version? And this is what it only means. to sometimes de-identify yourself with this one.

Yes.

If you are caught inside here, I think it becomes difficult.

There's some neuroscience that talks about that. You know, we're really good at being a negative or a critical coach to ourselves and putting ourselves down in those situations. as opposed to stepping aside and coaching from a different perspective to ourselves. And there's neuroscience that backs the importance of that as a tool to go beyond it as well. So I think it's really important. How do you, how often do you feel these emotions or feelings of ill will, anger, jealousy, frustration? How often do you feel them and how do you teach or coach yourself beyond them.

If I want to, I can tap inside of it right away and my whole day is filled with it. No matter where I watch around on the streets, there's no problem at all for me to generate the feeling that ill will starts to dominate.

Really?

Yes.

At any moment you can go there?

Yes. Yeah. It's just then I asked, but then I just asked, this feeling that you are in. Uh-huh. If you. Does it feel good?

No.

You know, and then the point is just like you said, it doesn't even feel good to be in it.

You know?

So if we would say ill will, if at least it would give you something by staying inside that state of the mind, at least then I would understand. But if you watch at it, there is nothing positive zero. There is no benefit to yourself and there is especially no benefit to the people around you that this ill will is going to cause. So that means what is the first thing that I do when I realize, let's say, I have this feeling. First of all, I need to know from what does it come? What is it at moment that triggers it? So, I try to identify very quickly what is at the moment the source that is triggering it.

What is usually the source for you in a situation that triggers ill will? Is it injustice? Is it someone treating someone poorly? Is it someone with a lot of money that triggers you? What's the root trigger?

Actually, this is now a question where, for example, I say it's so super helpful if you already have, let's say, some type of concept, some type of teachings, they tell you already where it comes from. Very simply. And this ill will to a hundred percent in all its different variation that it comes in this world. mainly from three reasons.

Oh, what are these?

Either from greed, greed of not getting more than you want, hate or jealousy of not getting what you want. And sometimes it's called, yeah, let's say ignorance or not knowing. Greed, hate, ignorance, and especially ill will easily falls into one of these categories or sometimes a combination of these things. So ill will can be: why does he get it? I deserve it. Why you deserve it? Because you think about yourself, you are the more. hardworking person in this room. So what is that combination? In that combination, it is like there's unfairness from your subjective view, unfairness, jealousy, no respect towards yourself. So which then also can maybe mean a low level of self-esteem, self-con of self-confidence. a lack of it. So it's very often like a variety of these attributes, I think. Yeah, but ultimately broken down. I think that's it. Greed, hate, not knowing.

When does ill will enter your emotions for you personally? Like, what is it that you see where you feel it for a moment? Obviously, it sounds like you know how to sketch it and go beyond it. pretty quickly. But when it happens to you, what do you struggle with?

I would say then, when it is like a very subjective, I have to say, yes, that because this is the reason why I always catch myself back and why then afterwards is not so bad anymore. But subjective unfairness.

Unfairness. Unfairness in the fairness in the world or is it some like a jealousy, unfairness, like, oh, they have something.

No, it's not that about they have something. It's about they project something upon you, not knowing the full truth.

Ah, so unfairness towards you, for example. Gotcha.

Yeah.

Maybe someone's judging you or has an opinion or criticism that they don't have the full story or the wisdom or the. They don't know you.

Yes.

Right.

And so that's. So when that happens, when you feel judged or criticized or there's an unfairness about you personally, they don't know better. How do you not let it ruin your day or stay in the emotions of anger or frustration or unfairness? How do you go beyond it personally?

I breathe in deeply and I breathe out. And this sounds super ridiculous, but if you really ask me, how do I cope with such situation, this is meanwhile what I do. I am very aware that I have it right now and I combine my breath, meaning something is getting out of me, together with my deep intention and with my deep connection of the mind together with the breath. First of all, they don't know better. If they would have more information available, they would maybe see me differently. And together with that physical aspect, this is what I do. This is the first and it's like a valve. Before you start imploding, before something starts to rise too much and the pressure builds up, first of all, get rid of that steam. Get rid of that air out. And that's why it sounds very ridiculous sometimes to really say just breathe out. But it's not about the breath only. It's about how serious. Are you living different type of teachings and methods? And if you are able to learn to combine the breath with an intention, work with intention more consciously, then I think it's very, very possible to get into an area where breath becomes everything to you.

Yeah, I'm a big believer in breathing meditation strategies, whatever meditation and breathing strategies work for you. But having some type of breathing practice where you slow down the breath, I feel like benefits all human beings. and there's lots of different strategies and styles of breathing. But I think focusing on the intention and the breathing combined, like you said, is extremely powerful. I'm curious if someone is feeling anger, unfairness, or any emotion around ill will about something that's happened to them and they feel this is unfair and they have this anger or defensiveness. You talked about the breathing. What is the intention? that they can think of during those moments, 60 seconds, 10 minutes, however long it takes to go beyond it. What is the intentional thought while they're in that stressful, the heart is pounding, I don't like this, I want to break free of this, what can they think or say internally along with the breath to help them go beyond?

This is sometimes what people then refer to as A mantra can be helpful. So especially in such moments you have something you always tell to yourself continuously repeat. And now these can be different things. If you merge together the sword, they don't know better. Together with the cultivation of a heart quality of compassion inside of you. you, then I think even this sword together with that hard quality and the breath has a very powerful impact. And this is why initially I said about there are hard qualities.

Hard qualities.

Hard qualities, yes. So that means this is why it's helpful to to really from time to time make clear to yourself again. Before the interview continues, if you feel.

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The greatest love you have ever felt in this lifetime. How did it feel? How does it feel? So if somebody would ask you nowadays, so when was the moment you really felt love? Well, First of all, you can't make it on the go. Second of all, even probably people nowadays are ashamed of even getting into this state of being while other people are watching around. This is why you need to do these practices alone, where nobody is watching you and where are you sure you are only with yourself. And there what you do, you start to travel. You travel into the world of your memories and you travel into everything that you are still able to recall in your mind. That has happened in the past. When somebody hugged you, your father, your mother, your grandfather, your first girlfriend, your first boyfriend, it doesn't matter. Recall the situation where you think this was the greatest feeling I have ever felt when I hear about that word love. So then at least in the 21st century, you are at least recalling it again and now know maybe how it feels. And after you have this feeling.

Now.

You ask yourself if something like this is existing and you would have the chance that the people in this world can choose in which state of being would you yourself personally would like to live and what would you wish the others to live in?

Wow.

I think you will only, if you're intelligent, you will only come up with one answer, which is for all of them. And this is the reason why out of that loving feeling arises then what we call compassion, which means I know how great this feeling is. So that's why maybe I know in which direction I would like to guide my life to finally have this feeling, let's say more in my life. And now you walk around and then you see people that are obviously sad. that are obviously having issues day in, day out and busy with their mind and you see how they are suffering. And because you see it and now have this direct comparison to yourself, this is why it becomes so much easier now that you are not going to act anymore out of ill will. So the ill will is only there Because you are not at that level yet where you can stand above it. Easily said.

Yeah.

Feel the love and the compassion for yourself and others at the same time. It's really hard to do though, right? When you feel like someone is against you, attacking you, hurting you, hurting someone you care about, saying mean things about you, nasty lies about you, judging you. It's hard to have the feeling of love and compassion in those moments because you feel like this is unfair, this is not right, this is not just. Why don't they just stop it?

Yes, exactly. In that moment. That's why if you feel like moments are too overwhelming for you, number one is get out of the situation. If we get into a big argument right now and you feel like, no, this is too overwhelming, I would now really start get out of the room. Number one.

Yeah.

So something very practical.

Yes.

If something is too overwhelming, then we say, get distance. First of all, get distance. Now, this is a nice part, for example, that our abbot, for example, in the monastery also teach us. He always said, you need to be able to adjust room and time. You need to be able to learn and adjust space and time. Yes. Sounds very philosophical. But space and time means if we are in an argument, a big one, I want space first of all. So that means I have distance to observe. That is the space. And I want time because time lets me think more clearly if I'm not under pressure. If you have someone that you really don't like, then vice versa you also know exactly what to do then. If he's a friend, he or she is a friend. you always give room and time. If you want to make enemies, you steal room and space. You don't let them move and you don't give them time to react. This is how you treat enemies.

Wow. You pressure them.

You pressure them.

You lock them in, you confine them.

Yeah.

Because this is what it is.

Wow.

What arises out of that situation, if you put people under pressure, is something that is overwhelming them. And overwhelming means your emotions are not under. That's your own control, which makes you vulnerable.

Right.

That is like the point behind this. So another thing to just keep in mind, no matter what type of emotion it is that we are sometimes feeling is you don't take decisions while you are emotional. Next one.

Don't make this. Don't make decisions while you're emotional. No. Yeah.

And, you know, I understand sometimes people in, in certain areas, fast paced areas where, like, time is money. Yeah. I don't have time to think about.

Yeah.

And so meanwhile we really have this culture where like somebody walks in gives me a question and expects the answer right away and I'm always asking myself why can't you just to some to some questions just say let me think about it. I'm gonna come back to it tomorrow, right? So that means sometimes there are questions you are being asked by people and where you feel it puts you under pressure. But maybe think about it. Why do you want to answer it right away? What's the point to give the answer right away? Especially if it's an important answer. I personally would prefer if I would come up to you with a really important question, I would even prefer for you to tell me, okay, that is something I cannot just decide on the spot. let me think about it. And tomorrow we're gonna talk about it again. And then also for me, I have no problem to say, okay, let's talk tomorrow. And this is also something where nowadays it's. Yeah, a lot of pressure is coming from. From these type of things that unconsciously you just give answers for the sake of giving answers, whereas it would be better to just wait.

Wait on it.

Yeah.

Think about it. Speaking of you mentioned enemies for a second ago. What is the Shaolin philosophy around enemies when you're not in a actual physical war, when you're not in combat, when you're not fighting for your life, but there is a potential enemy psychologically, business relationship, whatever family, friend who's feeling like an enemy. What is the philosophy of the Shaolin way on how to approach an enemy when it's not a physical attack?

If we are really not talking about physical attack, then I think it's very easily expressed that we are right now in the field of Buddhist teachings. or of Chen Chan or Zen teachings, which means it is about the mind. We are only talking right now about psychological aspects and every confrontation that you are feeling inside the mind. For me personally, what it means is if something is resonating and is still triggering me, mentally and therefore also emotionally. The only thing it means is that is one of the next areas I need to learn to adjust. This is my initial, I don't know what else to say.

That's the lesson. It's more adjusting within you, not them.

No, no.

The reason why they are there is to show you your weakness.

Thoughts that you say in your mind quietly every day and the words you speak. out loud every day. How important are they together? And which one is more valuable if you could only choose one? Negative thoughts but positive words? Positive thoughts but negative words? Or do they both need to be in alignment towards your mission and purpose?

Well, so I'll start with this. Your life is a physical manifestation of the conversation going on in your head. I'm gonna start with that.

Can we just speak for like 24 hours on this? I love this. Right.

Your life is a physical manifestation of the conversation going on in your head. So if you said nothing but thought everything, your life is going to show up to make your thoughts true. So you have one job. You have one job in your life for you to make what you think about life true so that you're not wrong. You don't want to walk around wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong. You want to be right about the life you see. So you're going to work hard, work hard to produce the life that you talk about in your mind, whether that life is no one loves me, I'm all alone. You can be in a group of people and you will think, I'm so alone. And you will feel alone and things will show up to co-sign your loneliness just because you're looking for that. And so if you start with, I'm gonna say the mind, like the mind is that thing. The mind is the core engine. It starts all things. It shuts off things down. When I start thinking something different, like, hold on, stop. I want to think something. I shut down that behavior. I shut down that outcome. When I birth something, I birth it in my mind. I focus on my mind. I see myself there in my mind. Before I got on with you, I was doing guided visualizations. I'm recording them. So people, and I mean, they're juicy, and I'm saying, see yourself here, because if you can see it and then the, the key is evoke the emotion as if you were there.

Yep.

Right. And that's why people are, who are sad all the time are sad because they're thinking of things that make them sad. And then the emotion follows the thought. So I'm gonna say everything starts with your thought, Louis. But let me just say this. When you speak, you Speak your future into the world. You speak your future. Whatever you say, whatever falls off your tongue, when you say, I am, right? The unconscious mind says, and you are so whatever comes on the other side of that. And so you ask me a hard question, which one is most important? It starts with the thought. I think the thought is that that's where everything originates. And then you add a whole lot of turbo boost to it. with your tongue.

Yeah.

When you align the two and then you add to it, like the B12, the B12 of action. Action is like, action is like, that's the nitro. That's the nitro. Like, right. And I see so many people, they think it, they write it, they journal it, they talk about it, and they do no action. And I go, you understand that the action is that that's like, that's like putting the flower in the sun because it requires sun.

And so, yeah, yeah, I had, this is a beautiful explanation. And I had a Navy seal on, I don't know, six, seven months ago. His name is Chad. And he, he talked about as a seal, he used the tongue as a rudder in a boat. He said, what you speak is going to lead you down, you know, the ocean or the river or wherever on the boat you're on. And so he never says anything negative out loud because it's so powerful in the Navy SEALs. You talk about how powerful it is. No matter how much pain they're experiencing in hell week and all this stuff they're dealing with, they never allow the tongue to speak something negative. Otherwise, they'll ultimately quit and give up. Right, right, right, right. It's too painful to deal with what they deal with.

Right.

To then say, oh, I'm hurting, I'm tired. I can't do it.

Right, right. Don't, don't, don't speak that. Don't speak that. And to the universe, you just 'Cause whatever you speak feels like it expands.

Of course.

Energy grows where energy goes. It expands. So speak life, speak possibility. There is not one dark situation that doesn't have a glimmer of light. It doesn't mean it's going to be convenient to see.

That's true.

And most of us are looking for convenient light.

Yes. Oh man, I want to speak for like five more hours with you, but I want to try to finish with a few final questions here. Even though I don't want to finish this, we'll have to come back on. Yeah, we'll bring it back on.

I promise it won't be as challenging to get me in the future. I promise, my friend.

I want to talk about for a moment purpose because I feel like right now we're seeing a lot of people with scattered purposes, especially with everything that's happening in the world over the last three months, six months. I've seen so many big influencers go through divorce who are publicly Had great relationships. I'm seeing people's businesses go under because of they were in the events business or whatever and they weren't able to adapt and shift. I'm seeing people scattered with their purpose and unclear. Right. How can people let's speak to this because I think it's two different questions. One is how to truly figure out what your purpose is because I think it's seasonal, you know, what your purpose was when you were 10 is different now. I agree. It's seasonal. So it's hard for it's a very broad question and I don't want to set you up with that. because I think it's unfair when people ask you that for me. But if you know, if you think I know what my purpose is, like, I know I'm meant to go do this thing. I think I'm supposed to go after this. I feel like maybe I should try this thing, but I'm afraid. How do you, how would you coach someone who knows what they're supposed to do, or at least they think they do until they figure it out and it's not it or it is it? How do you, Coach people or encourage people to actually do it, to actually overcome that final hurdle of fear, whether they're afraid of failure, afraid of success, afraid of judgment, whether they've got a really good life and a really good job, but it's just not there. It's not pulling them to their ultimate purpose. Where do you, where do you share in that line?

So one of the first things I do is I asked them to please let's quantify and give life to what does it cost you to stay still?

Oh.

So, you know, I'm a straight no chaser kind of girl, right? I'm a-- we're not just going towards something. We also have to realize that to the same degree that you asked the weight loss, why did I do it? Because what would it cost me with all my success? What would it have cost me to stay in that 220-pound body? what's the cost? And so when I saw that, that's why I responded. If I didn't give myself this, right, I was very clear with the cost. So number one, I would say, what does it cost you? And my students know me, I do this in my workshop, my trainings for my platinum level students and my coaches and students that are getting certified to be a Lisa Nichols trainer. And I ask them hard questions. What does it cost you to stay in that mindset? and they have to list it. And I say, what part of the price have you already paid? And they just give this role, like, ah. And I say, so how long?

I don't know.

Whatever you want, how much longer do you want to pay that price?

Right. Two years, 10 years, two months.

Or are we PIF? Are we paid in full now? Are we PIF?

I paid it full and I'm cheap paying.

Exactly. And so I use this metaphor that if you went to the store and bought a dozen eggs, and you went home and you scrambled all the eggs and you cook the eggs and then you took the empty carton back to the grocery store and you said, I'd like to buy these again. The cashier was like, but you already bought them. Why are you buying it? Why are you paying for it again? That's what we're doing. We're paying for the same behavior over and over again. And so one, get clear that you're PIF, that you're paid in full for not being in action. Like, I've already paid it. I've done three years. of wanting a dream and not have whatever your reasons are, right? Number two is let's talk about everything that happens if you fail. Let's just unpack that.

You go back to where you're at now.

Yeah, you'll-- actually, you never are back to where you are now because now you got some kind of lesson that you didn't have.

Experience, yeah.

Right, you got some kind of experience. So what happens if you fail? Okay, great. So what lessons can we pull out of that? So now let's agree to if we fail, let's fail forward. so then let's define what does failing forward look like. So then we get very descriptive on what does failing forward look like? What will I do with the lessons? What will I, I'll document four to six things I did right. And I'll document two to three things that I can improve upon and I'll implement them all on the next go round. So then we take out all the possibility and I even go as far as saying, so what if people judge you? I unpack it.

What do people judge you?

Let's say they, like, they talk really bad about you on social media for, like, a three days. Like, it goes a while. Well, then what happens? Well, on the sixth day, I get.

Up and do it again.

So all of a sudden, I take all the, all the juice out of the, out of the, out of the balloon of all. We just deep dive into the darkness of your Illusions. Deep dive into the darkness of your mind. So, like, what? Okay, well, my, I'll lose this money. Okay, you lost. How much? 40,000. Okay, all 40,000 gone. So now what? I don't know. Okay, well, let's, let's, let's figure out a plan because you already lost the money. We lost the money. Let's, let's, now I can start saving again. I can do whatever. Okay, great. So then every, all these big possibilities are now just situations. Then I go to, so what can we do to eliminate the possibility of that occurring? So now we go into strategy. So I'm real big on strategy. I'm real big on milestones. I believe that you should not set a macro goal. without setting several micro goals. So I live in micro goals. Like my number that I want to generate this year, I don't ever look at that after November of the year prior. After November 2019, I don't really look at it. I look at every monthly goal because that's my milestone. I know that goal and I know that goal is tied into my annual goal. So I don't have to worry about it. So I'm seeing if I'm on track, all track, all track, because I can handle that. That's palatable. Right? So then a lot of times entrepreneurs set like big bodacious goal and you have a release of endorphins when you first set it, but then it goes away because you don't even know how you're gonna get there.

Yeah.

And so I'm real big on my, like just on my campus, I'm real big on three things, a strategy, right? Milestones and accountability.

Yeah.

By when dates, by when, by who, right? And so make it doable, make it so you could see it, set it up in 90 days. And so I think that purpose comes with a plan. And oftentimes we leave purpose so big and so ambiguous that it feels difficult to touch. And so if you're supposed to inspire millions, okay, great. So for August, how many are you gonna touch toward that million? We're gonna get to millions. We're gonna get to million. But are we touching 5,000? Are we touching 50,000? And then by November, did you grow your social media platform by 3% or by 30%? Like less something trackable and measurable so that you can see that purpose being fulfilled. So you can trust your picker. So many of us haven't had enough indicators, haven't had enough evidence that we've done it the way we thought we would do it or better. that now you're starting to pull back on trusting your picker. Well, you need evidence. If the court of law sends a man to prison because of evidence or lets a woman walk because of lack of evidence, then why not use evidence in your life that you're ready for such a time as this? But you have to set it up in such a way where you can see the trackable evidence.

What do we say to ourselves When we don't do self-care, what are we saying about how much we are worth to ourselves when we don't, when we delay that for months and years of taking care of ourselves?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not important enough to put at the front of my own line. You always are going to have a line of people to serve, things to do, and you got one job to stand at the front of your own line. you're saying that you're training other people how to treat you by the way you treat yourself. And so you are saying, you're saying that I still need to heal in the area of feeling important enough to prioritize my self-care.

Yeah.

You also may be saying and can be saying, I still need to learn how to fall in love with myself enough to take care of me the way I take care of others. And that's so many people. You take care of those around you far better than you take care of yourself.

Yeah. Yeah.

This is beautiful. You, you shared last time. I want to see if your three truths are the same. So at the end of every interview, I ask people what their three biggest truths are. If this was their last day on Earth many years from now, and All of their content was, I had to go with them to the next place and there was no more videos or books or anything of your message, but you could share three lessons to the world or three truths. I'm curious if your three truths have changed in this season, so I'll ask you, what are your current three truths?

You are greater than your circumstances. It's your birthright. It's your birthright to have joy and abundance and love and fairness. And it's your responsibility to leave this planet a better place than it was before you came by your contribution.

My final question, what's your definition of greatness currently?

Being willing to lift others as you climb. Being willing to lift others as you climb. Being willing to speak even if your voice shakes. Being willing to lift as you climb and being willing to speak even if your voice shakes.

If it were just that a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step, everyone would pursue their goals. goals. Everyone would push back against adversity. Everyone, I mean, you can read the inspirational stories as many times as one needs, and I do think inspirational stories are very high value. In fact, I think they're vicarious dopamine. I think they give us the sense that we could, which then orients hope, which then orients us to the world again.

Maybe it's possible for me.

That's right. So let's say, let's take the example of somebody who's But with this for.

Fitness, that's that story of it's not about just taking a single step and one step at a time. Is it because there's adversities every 10 steps you go and so it's harder and harder. It's not just, well, it's just very non-linear.

You know, it's some days go, you know, I know this from my scientific career. It's a, you know, some days is easy, some days is hard. It's all over the place, right? So I think the thing to remember is that dopamine is this incredibly powerful molecule that allows us to buffer the effort process. It allows us to be an effort longer and it allows us to actually eventually enjoy the process of effort.

And not think about the reward, but just say, oh, I'm enjoying the process. Right.

Well, you just described the first step. The first step in learning to attach dopamine to the effort process, which is the key operation in order to succeed, is to be very careful about how much you focus on the end goal. Keeping the goal in mind is important for a proper orientation. You have to know the ultimate destination. But if at any point we were to evaluate our progress relative to that end goal, or if we don't know what the end goal is, there's a huge gap there.

And it can feel overwhelming and depressing. And I'm not good enough. I should just give up. What am I doing this for?

That's right.

Those thoughts will affect us.

And they're very realistic, right? As Carol will say and other people have said in the psychology field, positive self-talk oftentimes, unless you do it correctly, you're badly wrong. Lying to yourself won't work. Saying, I'm a winner, I'm a winner, I'm a winner, when you haven't lost. Or you haven't won yet is great.

But that's not the most effective use of these systems. Well, you're also being out of integrity with yourself. You're telling yourself a lie.

And then you're losing your ability to have confidence because you're just lying to yourself. And if it's really extreme, there's a name for it, it's called delusional.

Right? Right.

And people will start to point that out and then it becomes harder to recruit people into your goals. So I think the key thing is to attach that sense of reward to the effort process. It's saying, look, I am oriented in the right direction and rewarding the things you're not doing. I'm not back on my heels. I'm not just staying in bed all morning.

I'm not, yeah.

A good example of this came to me recently. I have a good friend. He did nine years in the SEAL teams. his name is Pat Dawson. And we were talking about the Admiral McRaven thing, get up and make your bed. And they really do that. And I think the way it was described was, so at the end of the day, even if everything doesn't go well, your bed is still made. For me, that's not that big of a reward, frankly. And so I said that.

I love it though. I make my bed.

Oh, I definitely make my bed in the morning. But I mean, going back and seeing that at the end of a hard day, it's not enough. I felt like there was something else there. So I asked him, he said, well, it's very interesting because part of it is about not just making your bed, but it's the things you're not doing by making your bed. You're not lying in bed and ruminating. You're not back on your heels.

You're not on your phone.

That's right. When so when you look at, and you have spent a lot of time with people in high performing communities, mainly through some consulting work, but what you find is that, you know, we can all be either be back on our heels, flat-footed or forward center of mass. And when you look at people who are in these high performance communities, they try and keep their center of mass forward, almost through what seem like trivial things like making your bed or making the cup of coffee. But it's not just about what you're doing, it's all the things you're not doing that can put you down the path of ruminating or put you down the path of unhealthy behavior. So the key to this is if we want to be very concrete, we should probably focus on actions. And I'll use fitness as an example because it translates to everybody whereas people's circumstances differ. Let's say somebody really wants to take on a fitness routine. They hate running or they want to lose weight in a healthy way, this kind of thing. So we've all heard the example, well, you put your shoes by the door on day one, day two you put them on, day three you go out the door, day four you walk around the block and then eventually they're running marathons. Okay, great, but to sustain that behavior or even to make the the behavior pleasureful and to give you energy, the key is to subjectively reward those steps. So it's not going to be, let's say I go out and I run a mile and my goal is to run 10 miles in a few weeks. The key is as you're in the strain of that mile, the hard part, you want to tell yourself, this is the good part. This is the part that gives me energy. And I'll be very surprised if people don't actually feel like they could continue further. So, it's a journey of a thousand miles starts with single is made up of, you know, single steps. But the key is to reward the harder steps, not the easier ones and not the ones where you get the thing that you want.

Don't reward yourself for putting your shoes on and taking a step outside.

You could if that was a huge barrier for you.

It was very hard.

It is very hard for you.

Running to 10 miles is hard.

That's right. Find the wall and push a little bit further through that wall and reward that process. so this is why I think reps in the gym, the final reps like reps to failure, are usually not the best example. First of all, most people aren't doing reps to failure and it doesn't translate to young kids and stuff where they probably shouldn't be doing heavy reps to failure, this kind of thing. What you want, however, is if you're going to go there to think about these are the, this is the hard part because that's when adrenaline, norepinephrine are getting maxed out and that's when you have an opportunity to bring dopamine in. and teach those neural pathways to slam that back down. And I don't want to highlight them too much because they are a very niche and specialized community, but you look at people in special operations, you look at the process, like the whole evaluation process of who gets in and who doesn't. It's really about putting people into stress and seeing who can not just make it through that stress but buffer that stress, reward the process through teamwork, reward the process of stress through some internal dialogue that has everything to do with not being back on your heels, not being flat-footed, but center of mass forward. And I should also be clear, I'm not talking about everybody being super aggro and always like, you know, work, work, work. In fact, if you're spending too much epinephrine, if you're too much of an adrenaline junkie, you will burn out eventually unless you can find ways to recover yourself or to buffer that with dopamine. and the recovery process is especially important. There's a second reward system. So you've got the dopamine system, and I guess to really put a box around it, the subjective reward needs to be done at the hardest portion of a process. The tough conversation with a significant other, it's like when it's really tough and you want, you just, that's when you want to start telling yourself, this is the good part because I'm not speaking, or this is the good part because I'm not reacting. Right, I'm not reacting or this is the the good part because I'm probably not doing it correctly, but I'm on the right path. They're upset, they're not feeling your empathy, this kind of thing, or you're not really understanding what's going on, you're getting frustrated, but if you tell yourself, this is the neural pathway getting ground in there, really dialed in so that the next time I'm going to breeze right past this, that's really how the process works. Remember, no one comes along and drips dopamine in your ear, even if you get a billion $10 million or you win a Nobel Prize or you win the presidency, it's all internal. These neurochemicals are all internal and while some of them are designed to be released in response to things very reflexively like food, sex, sleep, all these things will trigger these neurochemicals. We have this big forebrain which allows us to place subjective context on things.

How do you do it then? How do you bring dopamine in your brain subjectively through daily conversation with yourself.

So, there's a process I'm going through right now where I'm trying to write a book and it's hard. And it's hard. And I was told that the harder it is, the better I'm probably doing it. I was like, great. My editor is ready to kill me and because I'm slow and I know and I'm a very slow person. I drive people crazy. I'm like glacially slow because science is slow and I like to get things right. -You want to rush it? -Yeah. -I like to get things things right, but I'm very proud of the fact that everything we've published, I can stand behind, it was the best we could do with the tools at the time, and I just know that when I look back on a writing career or a scientific career, I want to be able to say, you know, every journal we put it in was rock solid, everything was rock solid, we had fun doing it, the relationship, so I go slow. But as a consequence, what I'm finding is there are a lot of interferences these days. I think social media is great, I teach neuroscience on social media because I think it's important to do public education. I think distraction too. But it's incredible and it's incredible how much time and energy it can take. So what I've started doing now is I turn off my phone and I lock it in a safe and I experience extreme anxiety. -Right.

-It'S so weird. -Why is that?

Is it because it gives you so much dopamine that when you're not having it? -Well, this is scary because I actually think, brief anecdote, on the weekend I was driving, there's a kid that I mentor and I picked up my phone and I was texting while I was driving and he said to me, that was really embarrassing for me, He said, you know, I wish you wouldn't text while you drive. And I put it down and I realized, this is crazy. I know that my life and his life is far more important and the lives of the people around me are far more important than any text message, which means I wasn't doing it rationally. It's just pure reflex at this point. So, I don't think I pick up the phone because I don't even know what I'm looking for there anymore. It's just become reflexive. For me lately, the longer I can keep that phone safe and write a grant or this book, what I tell myself is the agitation is good. At least I'm not doing that. Then I find that as I start to write and I get into the process, I start feeling good about it and I'll pause and say, okay, I have ultimate control over my behavior. I can put that thing away. There might be a nuclear war out there and I'm just doing this anyway. I have control over my thoughts, my feelings and behavior. So I tell myself that and then I find I have immense energy and all I want to do is write. And I kind of tunnel into the process. And I think that sometimes people need to write these things out for themselves so it's really concrete. I think some people are so unskilled at subjective rewards that writing it out is really powerful.

So, what would you write out for yourself as a subjective reward for this experience?

As long as I'm writing, I'm on the right path. As long as I'm not writing, I'm looking at my phone, I'm not on the right path. Because for me, the two or three things that are most important for my career are writing grants, working on this book manuscript, and writing scientific manuscripts.

I mean, there are other things that's going on. Anything else that you're not doing is holding you back from doing that.

That's right. So, you need to be focused, center mass forward on doing those things. That's right. So, I don't do any jumping around, power poses, things like that. I will use tools to kind of ramp up my dopamine. I mean, there are certain songs that are really embedded in my emotionally. In my emotional thing that go back to, you know, when I was a, you know, wild, you know, skateboarding punk rock teenager that will get me fired up. And I think there's real utility.

That's pure dopamine. That's just dopamine. But it's not sustainable.

You have to subjectively keep yourself motivated, I guess. That's right. And then if I finish a chapter, I will stop for a moment and I'll just kind of smile and laugh at myself. I'm big on self-reflection with humor and just thinking, this is crazy. My brain is under my control. There would be people out there that say, There's no free will, but I do not believe that. I put my hands in a lot of brains. You stimulate certain brain areas, people do things. You stimulate other brain areas, people think things. Ultimately, unless you have electrodes in your head and someone's stimulating them, We are in control of our thoughts and behaviors. We can't control all of them, but my goal is to be as deliberate and non-reflexive as possible in life. That's my goal from when I wake up in the morning until I go to sleep.

How do we get to that place?

Little by little and by rewarding each thing. If you get up and you, I'll use the make the bed example, make the bed, you're not back on your heels, you make a cup of coffee, you sit down, you script out something in a journal, you exercise, Maybe you call a relative that you think might need to hear from you or that you'd like to talk to. You do something in a deliberate way, just being deliberate and learning to push away the things that are trying to make you reflexive is so important.

I think same thing as reactive or what's reflective?

Yeah, so there are two modes of brain operations. So now this is getting a little nitty-gritty, but one is deliberate where we're in thinking duration, path and outcome. What should I do? How long should I do it and what's the outcome?

Deliberate.

Yeah.

Intentional.

And it feels like work. This is what people need to understand. That deliberate thought, deliberate action, writing the book, doing the workout you don't want to do, whatever it is, having the conversation, it's supposed to feel hard. It's supposed to feel hard. But you should subjectively reward it so that you get better at doing that. So it's supposed to feel hard because It's associated with this release of these neurochemicals that create this agitation. The mental strain you feel when you're learning something is the trigger for neuroplasticity.

For your brain to change. Say that again. The mental strain you feel while doing something is the what?

Is the trigger for neuroplasticity.

Which neuroplasticity allows you to expand your.

Mind to do more things. That's right. So, neuroplasticity is a process of taking something where there's duration, path, and outcome, where I'm working hard, thinking hard, maybe it's a hard conversation, maybe it's a business plan, maybe it's a scientific career. And the goal of neuroplasticity is to make things reflexive so you don't have.

To think about them.

Right?

For instance, I just started taking Spanish class one-on-one and it's extremely hard. It makes me want to say, why am I doing this? This is going to take me years until I'm conversational. Who knows how long until I'm fluent? You know, if it's this hard as like this stage, man, is it ever going to get easier? I have those moments every time I'm doing class. I'm like, this sucks.

Right.

Because I'm like, I'm 37. Can I learn this language at this point? It's so much easier when you're five. Now it's almost impossible. I watched your video on this a couple days ago on social media. And the video you talked about this is that, yes, it's harder when you're older to expand your neuroplasticity, but it's going, it's almost the, what I'm hearing you say is like, it's the only way to live. is the order you get, you need to constantly be expanding it, otherwise you'll be going backwards.

That's right. So, you know, when you want to learn something new like Spanish or a new physical skill, your mind shifts over. The forebrain comes on and says, okay, we're going to pay attention to things and now what am I doing? I get so tired. I'm like... And we start doing evaluative stuff to other people, to ourselves, and you can start using all sorts of examples like, wait, you know, I was a professional athlete in your case, or I want to be clear, I was an never a professional athlete, but you were a professional athlete. You've been successful in other regimes of life, but it still feels like effort, right? And so, but that effort is because two things are happening. One is adrenaline epinephrine is being released, so it doesn't feel great.

It's not fun.

It's like, ugh. And then, in addition to that, by bringing focus to something, you're recruiting a neuromodulator called acetylcholine, which is associated which is the molecule of focus. Now, it's important.

Which takes energy and effort.

It takes energy and effort. You feel it in your body and in your brain. And it tends to highlight, acetylcholine will highlight the areas of your brain that are active during that learning phase when the teacher's talking or you're talking and making that effort, it's paying attention how you're moving your mouth, what it sounds like to you, feedback cues. And it's marking those brain areas for change. And then later when you sleep, or when you work out or when you're having a conversation with somebody, that's actually when the brain changes occur.

So, during the actual activity, it's when you're not doing the activity, resting or recovering, when it starts to expand or it starts to contract.

It's when the, so, neuroplasticity, which is the brain's ability to change in response to experience and is the main way in which we go from deliberate action, duration, path, outcome stuff to reflexive action and thought. that process has two parts. One is the trigger, which is in adults is triggered by focus and attention and even heightened state of agitation. The more frustrated you feel, the more you're actually triggering learning. It's saying, this is important, this is important. Because the brain just wants to do whatever it wants to do. It needs to cue itself to, oh, this must need to change. And then the second part is deep relaxation, meditation, in particular a form of meditation called yoga nidra, which we could talk about, but forms of deep relaxation, deep sleep, like slow-wave sleep, that's when the connections between neurons called synapses actually get stronger. That's when the connections that you don't want get removed. And that's also in certain cases where you get new neurons actually born in your brain to help these circuits speak Spanish.

This is why in sports growing up, I remember I would go to basketball camps in the summer and I would always learn new footwork. And I always just wanted to be the fancy guy doing whatever. finger roll layups or something as a kid. But then we would go to these basketball camps and we just work on the fundamentals and the footwork and like all this different stuff. And I remember being in the moment of being very frustrating and challenging. I was like, I don't get this. And I would suck at it. But then the next day I would come back and I would all of a sudden like have it after a few times of doing it. But I never learned how to do it in the moment. It was always like, okay, I might have got it once, but then I fumbled on it. It was the next day or the next few days where it's like, oh, I can just shows up. It shows up.

It just shows up.

And that's because when the mind is able to relax, it's then making the connections on how to do that thing. Yeah.

So in deep sleep and rest is when the connections actually get built up. It's sort of like in with resistance training, right? The gym is a little misleading. Resistance training because people get the, you know, the famous pump. And so they get a, they get a visual glimpse into what they might look like later. But then of course it goes back down, right? But actual hypertrophy, the enlargement of the muscle fibers and the strengthening of the neural connections is later when you sleep. So it's the same thing with neuroplasticity.

How important is it for us to constantly be learning and challenging our mind the older we get?

Well, I believe it's very important for living a full life. And my hero in this, two heroes actually, is I would say Richard Feynman, the great physicist who had a very playful attitude about learning. That's one thing that I really should illustrate. If you are in frustration and strain, a sense of play is great because in play you have focus, you have intention and alertness, and it keeps you light enough that there's that dopamine release. Dopamine is released in play for a reason. because kids and animals, young animals and young children, learn social interactions through play. A puppy bites another puppy and the puppy barks out loud, that's why they have those sharp puppy teeth, to say that's too much of a bite. Then they play a little bit more. They're finding the boundaries. They're finding the limits to which they can use physical force for hurting another or just for playing. They learn soft bite. Play in animals as an ancient form of sampling these neural pathways. And as adults, we tend to be more demanding of ourselves. We don't tend to embrace as much play. Richard Feynman is somebody who really incorporated a lot of play into his adult life. He learned how to, in addition to being a Nobel Prize winning physicist, he also played bongo drums. He would learn how to sketch and paint late in his life. He did float tanks. He was kind of a wild man, but he had a lot of fun, and he was a lifetime learner. So I think it's important because it's a great way to learn dopamine release. And it's a great way to expand one's experience of life.

This is when we were, when I was in Poland with Wim Hof earlier this year, I took a group of like 13 guys and we were all nervous to get into this ice tub together for 10 minutes, like up to here. And for the first two minutes, it was not fun. We were just like, this sucks, this is cold. But then all of a sudden we were like, let's have fun. We're gonna be in here for eight more minutes. We might as well try to enjoy it. So we started chanting, we started singing, we started like just like in a rhythm together, smiling, and it was like, it's more enjoyable. It's still gonna be challenging, but you might as well try to have the most fun in the challenge than just suffer, right?

Yeah, team and community, not by coincidence, is a powerful tool for buffering stress. You know, children can learn very easily. Their brain is hyper plastic and very quickly is, the whole job of the young brain is to take things that it's taught and very quickly pass it over to reflex, including morals and beliefs.

-Right.

-Autonomic. Yeah, and this is what's scary is also, you know, the things that kids hear and they're exposed to, those beliefs become reflexive. Now, around age 25 or so, the brain is still plastic and forever for the entire life, but then you need more focus and you need what's called self-directed plasticity, neuroplasticity, self-directed, meaning the only person that can change their for the better after about age 25 is the actual person. You can't force neuroplasticity on somebody, positive neuroplasticity. So the other element that's really important to plasticity is this deep rest phase, and it's associated with the release of the molecule neuromodulator serotonin. Serotonin is a reward molecule just like dopamine, except that it's released in the brain in response to the subjective experience that we have enough resources. So when we eat a big meal or we enjoy, even better, when we enjoy a meal with friends or family and it just feels like one of those incredible evenings, you know, you're reset. It's that feeling of being reset. It's an anti-depressive effect. When we are, when you hold, you know, if you hold your child or a partner that you love or your dog, if you love your dog, there's this feeling of having enough. And so whereas dopamine is really the molecule that makes us look at things outside the boundaries of our skin, like to be in pursuit of things, it really is the pursuit motivation molecule. Serotonin is really about feeling like we have enough in our immediate environment. And it's so powerful because unless that serotonin box is checked off periodically, we cannot lean back into the dopamine outward pursuit process for very long.

So we need serotonin.

Absolutely.

To feel more, what, complete, whole, safe. Safe.

Once you feel, this is where people, you know, I think that the go-getters get it wrong, no pun intended, where getting after it and being hard driving is really important. But, you know, we've all seen examples of this. I've seen a number of these in Silicon Valley friends that did very well in tech get to the point where they reach that finish line. and then they don't have a whole lot or a whole lot of people to share that with, and they end up very isolated and depressed. And then they go through this whole cycle of trying to find themselves. And you need to balance serotonin and dopamine, maybe across the day, maybe across the week. You know, I think in religious practices, all religions, really, there's a kind of Sabbath, there's a rest period, you know, for many, many or, I think, all of them. That makes sense because there needs to be a renewal.

What are the main limiting beliefs that you just hear consistently that most people tend to have if they're not in a heavy higher level program that they've caught and switched with.

One of the main beliefs that they're caught up in is the lack of power they feel over their own health and their own reality. That I'm a victim. I'm a victim of my genes. I'm a victim of this world out here. I say if you The belief system is translated into behavior. If I believe I'm a victim, then my behavior will be as a victim. No power. You guys tell me what to do and I'll try and do what you just said. And I say, well, that's the biggest problem of all because quantum physics, as I mentioned, is the most valid science. And principle number one is you're the creator of this. It's like, well, when are you going to own that? and the answer is, I could say it, but then you walk away and a few minutes later, you're back into your world again. Everything's gone. You know, listen, it took me a while. I learned and understood that, oh, my God, this is how it works. And I was so excited. I wanted to get people. I'm going to tell anybody to listen to this. This is how it works. So I'm beginning, got some people together, and I started to go off. Let me tell you how to create the most beautiful life experience. and then they'd look at me and they go, you know, Lipton, for a guy who says you know this, your life doesn't look that good.

Interesting.

It was my wake up call that said, how the hell can I talk about how wonderful this is and I'm not practicing it? And I immediately said to myself, no, don't go out there and talk to anybody about this, why? Until you do it.

So what were the things that were holding you back? before you've discovered this. And then what was the new program that you started to implement for yourself on a consistent basis to have a hundred percent upgraded program?

Yeah.

Well, one of the things professionally, okay, I was doing a great job. I had a great professorship in a medical school, all that kind of stuff. You know, personally, my life sucked.

Really?

Put a relationship off the ground. I go, why not? I go, well, now that I know about it, I was programmed about relationships by observing my father and my mother. Well, they had dysfunctional relationships. So what do you think? I downloaded dysfunction. So my conscious mind goes forward and says, yeah, I want to have a great relationship. I get into it. My subconscious mind steps up and says, though, this is how we do a relationship. You.

Oh.

Uh-oh game over, you know, why? Because I didn't see. the negative behaviors that I was putting out. My partner, potential partner saw them and gave them cause for alarm. I don't think I want to be with this guy, you know, that was me. And then I realized that and that's when I really had to go in first thing and start to change. Who am I? And I'll tell you the biggest problem now after years of working, people do not love themselves. and I said, what does that mean? I said, if you have a program where you don't love yourself, then rationally, logically, can anybody else love you? And the answer is no.

Because you don't think you're lovable.

That's right. And somebody says you are that. Oh, I love you. And then you go, well, you know, you probably don't have any quality control. I know I'm not lovable. What's wrong with you?

You know?

And then at some point you push them away, and then they're not there. Then you go, I'm not lovable. Nobody's here. I pushed them away, you know, and I changed that. I was nearly, what, 45 years old, 40 some years old, and I had zero quality relationships for all that life.

Right.

I changed the program. And within a couple of years, I, I'm now with my partner, Margaret. And, and the fact is, she was involved with a workshop training program for people, so she understood processing and stuff. And when I came and we added science and the processing, we've been living a honeymoon for 26 years.

Really?

Years waking up every day going, wow, still here. Another day for fun. Another day for being in love. It was great and it still is. But if I didn't change the program, that would never have been part of my life at all. I would have been my whole life struggling.

How did you change it? And what was the thing that you started to say in replace of the previous program?

Well, the first thing was I had. We do muscle testing. Now, you're an athlete, all that stuff, and you know about muscles. Well, let me just say about muscle testing. The conscious mind is a creative mind, and the subconscious mind is a program. But the subconscious mind, being a massive processor, controls muscles. The subconscious, not thinking, man.

It's boom.

It's just programmed real fast. Reflexes. Boom. Like this. Okay. so if you make a statement with your conscious mind, the creative mind, and the subconscious mind doesn't agree with that. There's no history to support that statement. Then the two minds are not in harmony. I say, what happens when they're in disharmony? The answer is it weakens the subconscious mind.

Wow.

And muscles get weaker.

So how do we. How do we get them in harmony?

Well, you have to make sure then whatever statements you're making agree with the subconscious program. And if you want a statement that's positive and your subconscious program doesn't have it, then all of a sudden you say, well, that's where I got. I got to fix a subconscious mind. I don't need to fix a conscious one. And that's when it comes back. Well, then programming that subconscious mind. Another one that was so amazing was I tried to write my biology belief book. I got to three different times. I got started, got about halfway through, and then just. Petered out. I just disappeared. And I, and I was so upset because I really wanted to write this book. And then doing muscle testing, I found out that my subconscious mind did not support writing the book. I go, why not? And the answer was, because I'm a scientist. And if I wrote the book, which had spirituality in it, I would lose my support from my colleagues. So my subconscious mind was saying, Okay, that's enough. No more writing because if you conclude this, you're going to be an outcast from your society. So I remember doing one of these balances they're called 15 minutes or less. And in the process, part of the balance was, how do I want this book to be written now? Well, I said, I want it to be written fast because I wasted a lot of time. I thought struggling over it was a pain. I thought, you know, maybe it should be fun. Okay. And so for fun and easy, whatever it was, I balanced that. And I forgot about it because it was just 15 minutes and it was like, oh, yeah, I should do something about that, blah, blah, blah. And months later, the book is done. And I remember reviewing it, it's going to go to the publisher. This is the final read, sending it to the publisher, get down to the last page, down the last thing, get down the last line. It's finished. I pushed myself back in the chair and I said, wow, that was fast and kind of fun and it was easy. I said, holy, those are the words that I put in, which I completely forgot about. and I programmed my mind that way. And the moment I finished the book, I said, fast, fun and easy. I go, holy, that's what, that was the program. And it was what took me off. And, and, but go back to the I love myself one, because I can tell you now for a fact, and being involved with so many belief change programs, over 80%, generally 90% of every audience will not test positive. for I love myself. That's a very large number. And that means why so many marriages fall apart because they never really connected. They were sort of like, you know, on the surface is really nice, but their subconscious programs clash, boom, gone, not working. And then the idea is what? Well, let me give you a reason why you're an athlete. So I know I can tell you right where that programming worked. And it goes like this. If a kid on a sports team is not doing well. The coach doesn't go, oh, please try harder. You could do better. No, coach comes out there, that's not good enough. Who do you think you are? You know, you're not worthy to be on this team, blah, blah, blah. And the player immediately in the conscious mind goes, oh my God, I better work harder and be better. Great. Now I say, what if the parent is acting as a coach and the kid is five years old? I go, why is that important? I said, they're not using the conscious mind at five years old. They're in record. And the parent said, that's not good enough. You don't deserve this. You're not lovable. Who do you think you are? I say, the child is not thinking about what the parent was intending. The child's recording. I'm not lovable. I'm not deserving. I'm not this. And I go, then 95% of your life is going to come from that program and you see why you struggle. you don't love yourself because the first thing you'd be critical of yourself. I'm not good enough. I'm not this. I go, well, now you're self-critical and the moment you're self-critical you just cancel the whole game right at that point.

So what is this muscle balance test thing you were talking about? Is this called muscle testing? How do you do this?

Well, one very simple way. You can use any part of your body with muscles. I could push on your head, I could push on a finger. Usually it's done with an arm.

My arm, yeah, push my arm down.

And the game is this, it's not arm wrestling. People think, oh, I say, no, no, the idea is this, you have to keep focus, you make a statement and you keep your mind on that statement.

The difference between- Give me an example of like.

I love myself. Hold out your arm. Point, if the conscious and subconscious agree, the muscle is a rock, you could do chin-ups on that arm, okay? But if the subconscious doesn't agree with the conscious mind, you say, I'm lovable and the subconscious mind will give you all the reasons why you're not, then guess what? Now the two minds are in disharmony and now the arm will move. I say, well, how much does it move? I say, well, all you need to know is it moved that much. If it just moved that little bit, any more pushing or thing now that's arm wrestling. It was if if they both agree that's solid, that's not even going to move. But if there's the two don't agree, then just even the first downward movement like that says that's it. You don't have to do any more.

Any stressful condition that you are in, it's not going to stay there like that forever.

You'll be able to manage it.

It's going to change.

It'll all change. That confidence that things will change for better will help you. Third thing is.