Your Thoughts Will Heal or Hurt You w/ Marisa Peer EP 1427

My friend, I am such a big believer that your mindset is everything. It can really dictate if your life has meaning, has value, and you feel fulfilled, or if you feel exhausted, drained, and like you're never going to be enough. Your mindset is everything. And our brand new book, the Greatest Mindset, just hit the New York Times bestseller back to back weeks. And I'm so excited to hear from so many of you who've bought the book, who've read it, and have finished it already and are getting incredible results from the lessons in the book. If you haven't got a copy yet, you'll learn how to build a plan for greatness through powerful exercises and toolkits designed to propel your life forward. This is the book I wish I had when I was 20, struggling, trying to figure out life 10 years ago at 30, trying to figure out transitions in my life and a book I'm glad I have today for myself. Make sure to get a copy@lewis howes.com slash 2023 to get your copy today. Again, lewishouse.com/2023mindset to get a copy today. Also, the book is on audible now, so you can get it on audiobook as well over there also.

Every word you say is a blueprint that your mind, body and psyche are working to make your reality. So when you learn that people can try and give you anything, but if you don't accept it, you haven't let it in. And if you don't let it in.

Welcome to the School of of greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin.

Welcome to today's special episode. Over the last 1300 plus episodes.

There have been so many impactful interviews.

That I've been lucky enough to have.

And I always like to reflect on.

Some of the most powerful.

And this episode was one that resonated.

With most of you guys in the.

Past, and I'm excited for the value it's going to bring you today as well. So I hope you enjoy today's episode.

Why did you get into this field in the first place?

Well, it's very interesting. I used to teach aerobics for Jane Fonda here in South Robertson. Yeah. Many moons ago.

Two blocks away.

Yeah, we were looking at it this morning. So I trained to be a child psychologist and I didn't love that because when you're a child psychologist, you have three patients, mum, dad, child. And especially the mum, dad, a divorce, it's very hard to get to the child because they use that child often. Or one says no sugar, one says all sugar. I found it very frustrating. And of course the kids that really need help, you're not seeing the rich, privileged kids who I want to punish one or both parents. So that wasn't really working for me. And I think I was too young anyway to do that. I was only 22. So I left and I came to LA and I ended up teaching aerobics for Jane, which I have to say was way more fun than being a child psychologist in the north of England. But I had a psychology background. I've always been fascinated by human behavior. And I noticed in her studio, she'd be the first to admit it, Every third woman was bulimic, anorexic, including Jane, who was bulimic for a long time. So they were bulimic, anorexic, exercise, compulsive or body dysmorphia. They go, look at this fat on.

My wrist or skin.

I know, yeah, but to them it was fat. And I remember thinking, this is just insane. And I lived in West Hollywood, and I had two roommates. One was bulimic, one was anorexic. One would defrost cheesecake and cry hysterically while eating the whole thing. The other would eat Frozen grape every 30 minutes. And it's like, oh, this is like mad. But also fascinating. So I found this genius hypnotherapist called Gil Boyne out in Glendale. And I trained with him and thought, this is like amazing. I've got all these people in my class. I've got all these issues. Now I've got this hypnotherapy training, and all I have to do is take all my clients straight out of my classes, which I did. with immense success. But what happened is I was so busy, people ringing up, Look, I know you're the weight loss hypnotist, but I've got a fear of bees and I only want to see you because my neighbour said you're like amazing. Or, I know you're the bulimic girl, but I've got a fear of lifts and I want to see you. Then I realized it was actually much more interesting. And so I continued to do that. And then I was doing it backwards and forwards, London and LA, flying, commuting. And then I worked on several TV shows, wrote some books, and then thought, you know, there's only me doing this, so I should teach other people to do it. And now I teach lots of people to do it, because now I've created my own method, which is really taking the world by storm.

What's it called?

It's called Rapid Transformational Therapy.

How does it work?

Well, it works by... So for instance, if you have migraines or you're obese and you go to a therapist, they want you to talk every week about how What's it like being obese? Very distressing actually. And what does that feel like? Frustrating. It's like you're going to the dentist and can I come in every week and talk about the infection in my gum? The dentist goes, no, get that infection out, 'cause it just does ongoing damage. So conventional therapy likes to talk a lot. And what I don't like about conventional therapy is they go, okay, you have bipolar, that's very complex. Therefore the treatment is going to be very complex and that is not the case.

We're gonna take it in stages. Yeah.

Natural medicine too, they treat the symptoms. Whereas when I work with someone who's bulimic, they can go, what happened? What happened to you? They go, well, my grandad had sex with me when I was 11 until I was 13. And I got really fat and I never realized the connection that I kept saying, I wish I could stop him looking at me like that. And the mind goes, that's the command. You want your grandad to stop lusting after your body, I'll make your body super unattractive. and you have to unpick that. So we had someone who had chronic migraines and had tried everything and she was having injections in her head and when I asked her, because we do this thing called role function purpose, we hypnotize someone. Role function purpose. And in hypnosis they go back and we say, be the headache and tell me your role. And amazingly they do it because they're out of their thinking into the feeling mind and they'll say things like, Oh, well as long as I have those headaches, I can't disappoint my dad who always says, why aren't you an overachiever like me? I spent all that money on your education. How can you just be a waitress? But now I've got the headaches. He goes, oh, my poor daughter. She could be an amazing barrister, lawyer, but she's got these headaches. Yeah, and then of course, when the symptom has a role, function, purpose, and an intention, It's not going anywhere.

So if someone has headaches, you would walk them through what's the role of that?

Yeah, what's the benefit? Yeah, what's the payoff? Even with children of five, if I say to a five-year-old, baby, I know this is a silly question, but if the headache was your friend, what would it be doing? They go, well, when mommy and daddy fight and I got a headache, they stop fighting. They turn off all the lights and we lie in the dark till it goes away. There's a kid who's had a thought, I've got to stop Mummy and Daddy fighting. And because they're not logical creatures, they're feeling creatures, they're feeling mindsets and illness will stop your parents fighting. Maybe failing at school will make them see that you're unhappy. Maybe getting acne will make your mum spend ages massaging the cream into your skin and you might feel that you matter to her. because every time you speak to me, I'm busy at work, I'm doing my emails, I've got to speak to work, and kids think, I want mummy to notice me in the mind, which is illogical, goes, can I come up with, well we can have asthma, eczema, dermatitis, irritable bowel, obesity, and 70% of these issues, although the symptoms are real, you have a real migraine and real flaky skin, the cause of them is completely psychosomatic because the mind's job is to tune into your thoughts and give you what it thinks you want and it can only work that out by what you say. When you say this 405 is killing me, I'm dying under paper, my boss makes me want to kill myself, your mind goes you better not go back to that place called work. I think I should give you an ulcer or agrophobia because you keep saying that The commute is killing you, the job is killing you. And we say things like killing it, dying here. You know, one of my clients was telling me that her boss just died. He used to sign off all his emails, busy, busy, busy, I wish I was dead. A joke, and then he got cancer and died really fast. But his signature was, I wish I was dead. And people say, oh, somebody asked me, I want to die. Oh, my boss promoted me, I want to die. I'm gonna kill it. I can do that. Yeah, and we don't understand that the brain has no sense of humor and only picks up words and thinks they're real.

Yeah, it's a lot of what we were talking about with Dr. Joe Dispenza.

He covers a lot of this stuff. Yeah, of course.

Wow, okay. So you started helping people from one phase, which was in losing weight.

Yes.

Let me understand people. It's much more than just losing weight. Yeah.

Yeah.

And you've been doing this for 30 plus years since you were 11.

Yeah.

Why were you so fascinated by human behavior in the first place?

Well, I was told I could never have children. I just, when I was 17, I stopped having periods completely. And all the doctors said, you know, you have infertility, unexplained, which I thought, that's a good title, isn't it? Unexplained. Because explained is your fallopian tubes are blocked or you don't have enough estrogen. but unexplained means everything's working. We have no idea what's going on. And so I decided to just work on myself and I simply wouldn't accept that. And I did get pregnant, but then they said, well, everything's gonna be wrong with this baby and it's gonna have the same issues that you've got. You've got all these different hormonal thyroid issues and they really freaked me out. And then when she was born, she was perfect. And they said, well, she's gonna be very underweight. She was seven and a half pounds. And I realized then that I was going to stop all the medication and just come out of that. And then I started working with infertile women. It's so rewarding. You'd come in and go, I can't get pregnant. And they'd always go back to, what's going on in this scene? I'm 50, and I think I went, My dad will kill me. Oh my God, my mum will kill herself. You know, we're Muslims, and I'm dating this white guy, and oh my God, the shame, the terror. and the day they find out they're not pregnant they go, Thank you, Allah. I'm so happy I'm not pregnant. Now the mind is crystal clear, having a baby will kill you and not having a baby is something to celebrate. And when you repeat something in your mind enough, it just can't unravel that. When women say, I've got the curse every month and oh, I hate this and I wish I never had them and then periods go away, they never kind of look at what's going on there. And so I found infertility really easy to fix. And then I had people with secondary infertility, which means you had a baby, you got pregnant like a high school girl on a date immediately, but you've been trying for seven years to get pregnant again.

Why does that not happen?

Because you go home and say to your husband, imagine if we had a second, oh that would kill me. Oh, I'd leave you if we had two keeping us up all night and that would bankrupt us. Can you imagine what a night we would like to have another one? The mind goes, Don't have another one. And of course you don't mean it. You don't mean it. We're gonna quite cheerfully throw this kid out the window the middle of the night. I could just give them away. I remember saying to someone, you, baby is lovely. Should come back at 2 a.m. You can have him. It's a joke. Like we say to our kids, you,'re so lovely, I could eat you. And they think, Really? So we sell this crazy stuff, which we know is crazy, but the mind says, this is literal. This is real, you mean it. When you say, I'm dying under my paperwork, the mind goes, no more paperwork for you. When we say, I'd die if my next relationship ends, if I got hurt like this again, it would kill me, the mind goes, you, know what? If it would kill you, why don't I just turn you into a complete bitch? You never have another relationship again, and then it can't kill you.

Right. And then you'll never have love as well.

No, no. Or men who go, you know, all women are ballbreakers, they just want your money, I'm done with women. go through that again. It would kill me if I had to lose half my property again. The mind goes, that's my job. You see, we think our mind's job is to make us happy. It really isn't. It's to make us survive against what were once really pretty bad odds. And how we survive is every time we say something that would kill me, I'd die if that happened, the mind goes on red alert to stop it happening. In the same way if you ate some mushrooms and were violently sick, you'll find the minute you think, oh no, no mushrooms again or shellfish and the next time you see shellfish you go, oh no, no, I couldn't eat that because your mind will always remember what hurts you because its job is to keep you alive by making sure you don't get hurt. But it doesn't know what hurts you until you say, that last boyfriend broke my heart, shredded it to pieces and jumped on it. No, He just got bored with you and you probably got bored with him.

Or it wasn't the right fit or.

A number of things. Yeah. And everything he loved in you was still in you. He was just your starter boyfriend. Maybe he was your starter husband but he didn't kill you. But we tell ourselves all this crazy stuff and then wonder why we feel so crazy. When all we have to do is tell ourselves better stuff. My mum will kill me if I get my shoes dirty. My dad will kill me if I don't get all A's. My dad will go crazy if I come home with a bad report card, which is not true. But if you believe that, then you create a world of stress, or because of what you say to yourself and tell yourself. But that's actually very good news, because since you say it, you can say something better. You're in control. Yeah, always.

What's the thing that you see the most that people struggle with? Is it a stress, an overwhelm, an anxiousness, a fear, a something.

It's always a belief. I'm not enough. That's the biggest thing. In fact, I always say to all my clients, there's only three things wrong with everyone. Everyone has got three things wrong. The number one is I'm not enough. The second one is I'm different, so I can't connect. And the third is I really want something like freedom from depression or success, but it's not available. But I'm Not Enough is the biggest. I mean, I've worked with hundreds of thousands of addicts. I've never found one ever that ever believed they're enough. And if we look at the key addictions: shopping, binging on food, binging on alcohol, binging on drugs, sex, sex especially, porn. All of those things come from a feeling of emptiness inside because we're taught, oh, you feel a feeling? Why don't you eat some donuts or go onto eBay and buy or Amazon buy something or have a drink and our feelings are the most real thing we have and we push them down and we find all this stuff to buy or eat or drink or take to keep us like John Lennon said, Comfortably numb. But then the feelings regroup and come back because they've always got a job to do and I always say to my clients, Look, you've got to feel the feeling until It no longer requires to be felt. You can't eat it or drink it or shop it away but we're all taught that we can and should. So I'm not enough is the biggest problem I see. I mean if you look at Amy Winehouse or George Michael or Whitney Houston or Philip Seymour Hoffman, an immense talent, a gift, beauty.

Why did they feel like they were enough though? When the world says you are enough, I'm gonna celebrate you. You're gonna have everything you want. We're gonna talk about you constantly. Stroke your ego.

Pay you a ton of money.

How come they still can't get over that they're not enough? That's a great question.

There's a couple of things. First of all, if you're Amy Winehouse and someone says, Write a song and you write Back to Black in five minutes, they give you eight million dollars. It's what I call the self- Destructiveness of talent. I didn't earn that. It's a bit like a lottery winner. I didn't work for that. I've got to get rid of it. You know, lottery winners who haven't had money will almost always go bankrupt very quickly. So if you didn't earn it, it has no value.

Yeah, guilty.

Not feeling like, well, I didn't work 10 years for this. Yeah. Even with guys, you know, guys like to pursue women, so they won't. If you just give it up to them immediately, they like it, but they don't want to see you again because you've taken away their desire to earn it. If your dad is an heir and gives you a ton of money to open a business, you won't respect it because you didn't earn it. So the first thing is this came to me so easily, therefore it has no value at all. And that's a big thing with rock stars and music stars who debase it. But the second thing is with many people like, for instance, George Michael and Whitney Houston always had to pretend they were straight. They have to live a lie from the very beginning. Michael Jackson had to pretend to him this lovely, God-fearing, wonderful, Walton-type family, and we know that wasn't true. Amy had to pretend that she didn't mind at all that her dad left her mum when she was four, and she minded very much indeed. So when you fake it and fake it and fake it and fool the world, you can't fool yourself. And then you're living a lie, and eventually it comes back and People like Whitney, who is just so talented, then use drugs to hide the pain because I can't now come out and say that I'm not straight. And I'm portrayed as this Bible-bashing, God-fearing man, heterosexual man loving girl. And that's not me. I'm a party animal. I like women. But she wasn't allowed to say that.

Coming from the church and everything else.

Coming from the church and it's It's so unfair to do that to people because you make them pretend to be something else which causes intense stress. And then when you're in intense stress, what do you do? You have to take drugs. I remember years ago, Carrie Fisher's mother saying that she would appear on screen with two baby diaper pins on her shirt and she was America's golden girl but her husband was cheating. She was a chronic bulimic all her life. and hit that and such a shame.

You mentioned something about leaning into the feelings until you no longer need to.

Feel them or until they go away. Feel the feeling until it no longer requires to be felt.

Why do we, why should we do that? So give me an example of this feeling.

So let's imagine you, you and your ex-wife are not getting on and you have a feeling of rage about the fact that she's trying to get your kid to call a new guy daddy and she's blocking you out and you feel so angry. You think, oh, I mustn't feel angry. You know, she's doing it for the interest of my kid. And so I just drink the anger and I drink the anger. And you see with a feeling, it's the most real thing you have. A feeling is like a little kid in a class going, notice me, I'm over here. And if you don't, they get more and more out of control. And so when you don't acknowledge your feelings, they regroup. and they regroup until they become outrage, rage coming out, and then suddenly they go a bit crazy in the car park of a store or the line of a store because the mind says, I've got all this rage wants to come out. Someone just cut into the line, take it out on them. And it's so ineffective because I have something I call triple A, which is be aware of your feeling. Most people have no idea what they feel. They go, I shouldn't feel jealous. I shouldn't feel envious. I shouldn't be furious with this kid who's keeping me up all night. So they're not aware of it. They certainly can't accept and they never get to articulate. If you can say, you know, my wife's a good person, but actually I'm furious with what she's doing. It really hurts my feelings. That's why group therapy in places like AA, the good thing is you get to say, sometimes I could quite cheerfully Hurt my wife. I'm not going to, but I feel like, oh yeah, I feel like that too. Because when you can express your feeling, it goes away. It goes away immediately.

Communicate it, yeah.

Even to yourself. So if your mother-in-law is the absolute from hell, and you can't say, by the way, Dorothy, you are the most horrible mother-in-law in the world, but you just go and shut yourself in the bathroom, turn on the taps, flush it all and say, JorOthY is a really unpleasant mother-in-law. And one of my... I feel better about that. Yeah, you feel so much better because you're not saying it to them. It's like feelings are like gas. They're in or they're out and they hurt much more when you keep them in and you want to let them out. Gas has to be in the middle of a meeting, but when you keep stuff in, it causes you pain. And one of my amazing therapists said, My mother-in-law really was the mother-in-law from hell. and I could never say anything because my husband was the golden boy. But after I trained with her, I started to say, you know, Brenda, you're a really unhappy person. And I know you're trying to hurt my feelings, but I just feel so bad. And Brenda finally said, you know, I've been bulimic for 32 years. Nobody knows. Could you help me? She completely transformed that woman in two sessions. Never been bulimic since. And I said, she likes me more than her son now. I'm now the daughter-in-law from Heaven. I've got a big halo. But when we keep everything in, it does so much damage. It's like little kids, they get angry and we shout at them, they go, oh, my anger makes you angry. And I'm not allowed to be angry. I'm not allowed to say, Express myself. And all psychiatrists will tell you that, and if you want to be sorted out, here's something you must do. Express your hurt as close to the event that hurt you happening as possible. You can't say to your dad, You know, 20 years I asked for a bike and you got me a skateboard. I didn't want that. They go, what? I worked nights to buy you that bike. You can't get any resolution after 10 years or 20 years. But when you can say to your friend, Look, I love you, you're my friend, but it really hurt me when you didn't even turn up to my wedding. And I still had to pay for all of that. You didn't call and it hurt me. I still love you, but you hurt my feelings. Then it's gone. But when you keep it in, It doesn't when you say to the friend, you make me feel so angry, well you make me feel angry. I didn't come to your wedding because your guest list that was extortionate asking for all this stuff. I mean, I'm not Bank of America and I didn't want to buy that stuff. But you can't get resolution. But when you say, I was hurt when, or I felt hurt by, and you can say it to a wall, you can say it to a force, you can say it to a mirror. You can write it down. It's not for the other person. It's good to say it. say it because it's out then. And then it goes away. It's the most wonderful thing. It goes away. And then everything is so different. Yeah.

It's interesting because the last two years, specifically, it's been magnified with men in the media who have created all these, you know, killing shootings.

Yeah, I know.

Racial marches, political distress, you know, domestic violence, all these things have been happening, and it's been magnified over the last couple years. Right. With me, too, and time's up and everything. And as a society, when men are unable to express or communicate themselves, or they're going to be known as weak or soft or whatever the word is, it's hard for them to express themselves in any other way except for this blow up.

Yeah, especially when you say this like, Stop acting like a girl. You're running like a girl.

Exactly.

You're acting like a girl.

Don't be a wuss, don't be this, don't be, it's less than their manhood or something.

Yeah, of course.

There's no wonder why if it's It's unacceptable for men to express themselves in this way. It's hard for them to just be stoic constantly. I'm not saying it's okay what they've done to act out, but I think society in general needs to have a big group hug and let it out in a way where it's more acceptable to express ourselves.

And also, whenever anyone does anything wrong, we go, what's wrong with you? We should say, what happened to you? What happened to you? And they'll go, well, you know, my mom always said she didn't want a girl boy, she wanted a girl and I've been brought up. I'll give you an example. I had a city trader as a client who really had problems trading and his boss said, you know, he's the best trader but he's so nervous. And when I worked with him, he was saying when he was a kid, his parents had two girls and then him and he would smash his Tonka toys and they go, what's wrong with you? Look at your sisters just combing their doll's hair and they're so good and why are you so aggressive? and a four-year-old can't go, well, because I have something called testosterone. Right. And they don't. And I'm designed to run and jump and hunt and fish. And I got to learn what to do with aggression. Smashing my cars together is good for me. He didn't. Four-year-old doesn't have anything because they live in the world. Yeah, they just live in a world of feeling, not logic. And he said, I never realized I spent my whole life thinking something's wrong with me because my parents would say, everything comes. What's wrong with you? Look how neat you are. They don't get peas on the floor when they eat. And he said, I heard it every day until I formed a belief something's wrong with me. He didn't date women because he thought, well, I should be like one, but I want to be like a man. And that session totally turned him around. He said it was like someone had sprayed him with pheromones because he went out that night and women were attaching themselves to him like a magnet. But he just got rid of the feeling of Something's wrong with me. Because most people do walk around going, Something's wrong with me. I'm just majorly messed up. And you can't heal.

And no one understands me. No one gets me.

Yeah, and I don't understand me. And if I don't understand me, how can you?

And why should I even be here?

Yeah, because you can't heal what you can't understand. And so all the treating the symptom is like putting a Band-Aid on an infection. It doesn't, when you understand it, you can totally change your perception of what it is because events actually don't affect you but the meaning you attach doesn't do.

The story we tell ourselves about the story.

And that's, I love that because when I just got all my Stevie Awards it's like, oh, I feel like I've got an Oscar. And that's good because I take clients' stories and I give them a happy ending, always give them a happy ending. But then you have to understand a bit more of psychology because Humans are hardwired to recreate what they know. We like what's familiar, even if that's very bad. If I've never had money and I win the lottery, I'm gonna get rid of it. Or if I've never had love and you love me, I'm gonna reject you because it's so unfamiliar. If I've had a dad who calls me an idiot and worthless, guess what kind of guy I like? That's it. Because when I meet them, I go, oh. I feel like I've known this guy my whole life. We just clicked and they think, oh my god, it's because he's my dad. But now I've been sleeping with him for six months. I don't know what to do with that now. Because we are wired to like what is familiar and to resist what's unfamiliar. And that's what kept us alive. When we lived in Wald City, we didn't go, I'm a bit bored with this group. I think I'll go outside the Wald City and find another tribe because they might have killed you. So we have this wiring that says, run towards what's familiar and run away from what's unfamiliar. But the very good news is you can make anything familiar. And the most important thing to make familiar is praising yourself. If you could just do that, that in itself would change your entire life.

How do you praise yourself?

Well, you get up in the morning and go, I'm a good person. I have a skill, I have a talent, I have something to offer the world, I'm here for a reason. You look in the mirror and go, oh there you are, you're a good person, you've got a good heart. You know, the most important way to answer that question is this, what did you always want your dad to tell you? Even if you never had a dad. If you had a dad, a good dad, what would he have said? What would your mom have said? What would a nice teacher have said to you? And it would be something like this, I'm proud of you. You're a good son. I'm so glad I'm your dad. How lucky I got to have you. And a teacher would say, you,'re such a smart kid. What a joy it is to teach you because you're smart. And we all want to hear the same stuff. I love you. I'm proud of you. You're interesting. You're a great company. Nobody needs to hear, I'm the best dentist in Beverly Hills, because that doesn't work. It's emotions. and many of my clients, their mother might be dead, but they're still trying to get her to approve of them. Dad's living in another country, but they're still working to make him like them. And you know, the most important thing is you like you, so whatever you wanted to hear, say it to yourself, because your mind doesn't even know that it's coming. And also it doesn't care, your mind doesn't care what you tell it is right or wrong. or true or false, or even if it's good or bad, it lets it in like chapstick on your lips. Your lips don't go, is this organic, fair trade? Just lets it in. It needs a bit of nourishment. And we need some nourishment. And words are very nourishing. And there is actually nothing on the planet that will raise your self-esteem like praise. But self-praise is better. Because if I said to you, I just adore you, you're amazing. By the way, you know, Can you do this and this and this? I've manipulated you. But if I say it to myself, my mind knows there's no manipulation and the mind likes repetition. And when you say it every day, your mind kind of goes, oh yeah, here you go again with that praise. You say it every day, must be true. And now it sinks in. Problem is, if you criticize yourself every day, it says the same thing as well.

And that hurts you. It's interesting because, you know, the big talents that commit suicide or die, you know, the, Who's a comedian?

Robin Williams.

Robin Williams, Amy Winehouse, all these individuals who had the world praising them, but they weren't able to praise themselves.

Yeah, and they don't let it in.

It doesn't matter if everyone else acknowledges you. It does matter, but you have to.

Be willing to acknowledge yourself as well, right? And they're familiar, unfamiliar. If praise is unfamiliar, but criticism is familiar, and you say to someone like Robin Williams, oh my God, that last show was funny. Didn't you notice? I left out the best, but I fluffed a word. It wasn't as good as the one before. So if you're not used to praise, you'll reject it. And if you're used to criticism, you'll add it in. Because we do what's familiar. So if we say to someone, I love your book, they go, oh, actually it's not that good. The other one is much, I love your talk. Oh, I got it in a car boot sale. It's five years, I've got a hole in it. So if we haven't got praise, we actually reject it. And you just have to say to yourself, I'm going to make this familiar. I'm going to praise myself for every day. It might feel weird, but I'll keep doing it. It's a bit like running. You know, running isn't familiar, especially around Beverly Hills. But if you put your shoes on and go for a run on concrete, eventually it becomes familiar and then you like it. I mean, sticking a lens in your eye, that's the weirdest thing. Very unfamiliar. The first few times, oh, my God, I'm coming at my eye like that. And then after a while, you can do it. almost without thinking because you get used to it. You can make anything familiar or unfamiliar. And my advice to everyone is look at your bad habits and make them unfamiliar. And look at what you want, especially praise and make it familiar more so because if you've got a startup or you're working for yourself, the days of a boss going, well done, good job, pat on the back are over. and you have a praiseful muscle and no one's gonna build it up except for you. But if you build it up, it makes you bulletproof.

Yeah, it's fascinating. I'm so glad you're talking about this because we have a similar philosophy and a lot of people that come to me are afraid of certain things. And at an early age, I was afraid of a lot of things. I was afraid to talk to girls. I was a 12-year-old, I was afraid of speaking in public, I was afraid of dancing, I was afraid of all those things.

Right?

And I got so sick and tired of being afraid that I just said, I'm gonna give myself a challenge every day. You know, when I was afraid of girls, I was like, every time I see a girl that gives me butterflies, I'm gonna go up to them and start a conversation. And it's terrifying and I'm sweating and I'm stumbling over my words. And people rejected me the first few times, but I just kept doing it until a girl said, hi. Nice to see you. and you give a little confidence until, you know, by the end of the summer, when I was a teenager, it was like every girl was talking to me.

Of course.

And I tell people, you gotta embrace the fear until the fear disappears.

Yeah.

It's similar with the feelings.

Yeah.

You've gotta live in the feelings until.

What would you say? Feel the feeling. It no longer requires to be felt. That's right. Because what you're really describing so eloquently is you had a massive fear of rejection talking. girls speaking in public, asking-- Feeling enough. Yes, someone asking them to employ you or pay you. So we have a great fear of rejection, which is not surprising because when we're born, we have two drivers: find connection, avoid rejection. After all, if a mother rejects a child, if a lion rejects the cub, it's not going to be adopted. It will die. Or it just starves to death. And so we know innately that our survival on the planet is linked to not being rejected. and not that long ago you would have died from rejection. You know, in a thousand years ago when they banished you outside the walls of the city or you marooned a difficult sailor or you cast someone out of the community, you pretty much died. There was nothing out there but purgatory. So we have a wiring that says rejection will kill me and that's why you had the fear. But when you can dialogue with the other person, no, it feels like it will kill me. It can't kill me because no girl can reject me unless I give her my permission.

Right, give them my power.

You can't reject me unless I agree with everything. I don't like you because you've got short hair. I don't like you because you're short. I don't like you because you're white, not white at all, short glasses, not. But when you say you can't reject me, I can't be rejected because the only person who can reject me is me. You can talk to girls realizing even if they say, no, you're not my type, I'm with someone, no thanks, or even, Ooh, no, no. They can only reject you if you let that in. And all schools should be teaching kids you cannot be rejected. You can ask for a pay rise. You can ask for crowdfunding. You can go to someone and go, Here's my idea. You can write a book. Speak in public. Because I was a lot of actors who say, I'm so scared of rejection. I'm like, well, how are you going to be an actor then? Because you're supposed to be rejected. So what you and I write books for everyone who loves it. There's going to be the odd person who goes, I hate this. this book and I hate that writer too, but we don't let it in. We have to laugh about it when you give a YouTube talk. I mean I've got one of my talks got like 3 million views and there's a few in there going I hate her stuck up English snob, but they don't know me because that's not me at all. But I don't go oh my god I can never write another book. I'm okay because I don't let it in because the only opinion that matters is my opinion. I know I'm not stuck up English snob. So that can't hurt me, because if it did, I wouldn't be sharing it with you, right?

Yeah. So if everyone's giving you negative feedback or critical feedback on who you are, your performance, your, your work, how does someone not let it affect them? How does someone say, okay, it can't hurt me?

That's such a great question. So if someone just comes in and goes, I hate that shirt or that, that color is so not you, or you should never your hair or whoa you've got a bit heavy, you just go thanks for sharing that. Just a really simple thing which says thank you for sharing your opinion which I can choose to not let in, you don't have to do anything else. When the minute you go your shirt's pretty awful or look at your hair or calling me heavy, you look Anna Rex that you've let it in and now you're trying to retaliate and it's like a game of tennis. If you if you put down your racket and walk off the court, you can't volley. So the first thing to say is, thanks for sharing that. And it's very good for the little barbs we get from people, family, friends, sisters, cousins, exes. If someone is really mean and says, you know, I listened to your talk on YouTube. Oh my God, you stank up the place. I was embarrassed for you. Then you go back and you say, I missed that. Could you repeat that for me? Slowly. They will usually not bother because they know that in you asking them to repeat it slowly, you're going to call them out on it. And they usually go, oh me and my big mouth, I'm just having a bad day. I didn't actually really watch it anyway. Just ignore me. And if they do, you must not go after them and go, no, I want you to just repeat it right now, say it to my face. Don't do that because a bit like a lion who bears the teeth. They're saying, back off and I don't want to attack you. When a lion bears its teeth, you don't go up to it, you walk away. It gives you a chance to retract. So saying, could you repeat that slowly? Is giving the person a chance to retract. They almost always do, but occasionally they'll come back and go, no. I just said you're so wooden as a speaker, it's an insult to wood. And then you have your third reaction, which is, Oh, are you trying to make me feel bad about myself? Amazing. They usually go, no. No, me? No, I thought I should tell you how bad you are, because you need to get help or never speak in public again. I mean, I had a nanny once who was so awful, I had to say to her, darling, you're wonderful, but you're not meant to be a nanny. And I didn't criticize her, I just advised her to go and do something else. And we're still friends. And sometimes people think that the criticism and the barbs and the humour are a good way to give you a message. So when you say you're trying to hurt my feelings, they often say no. When you're being bullied at school, if you say they go, yeah, I really am. I want to hurt your feelings. That's the point, dummy. Why? Because it's a domination. Bullying is just dominating. It's a bit like a seesaw. The bully feels there at the bottom and you're above them and they can only diminish you or embellish themselves to be above you on this little seesaw.

So they feel inferior, a bully feels inferior.

Yeah, bullies always feel inferior. So let's imagine you're poor, your dad drinks, you don't have any money, and there's this kid with new trainers and a new backpack, and they come up and say, you,'re just a faggot or you're gay, because they can't really embellish themselves. So the next option is let me diminish you. I mean, the embellishment is, no one in my family has been divorced, so when we fight, it must be your fault. I mean, you're from divorced or well, I've got a degree and you haven't, or I've already raised a kid and I've got no problem with those ones, so this must be your fault. So you can embellish yourself, but if you can't, you go into diminishment. And so when someone says, Yes, I am trying to hurt your feelings, you simply reply, well, it's not going to work because I'm not letting that in. And I was in my garden last week filming an anti-bullying program. which we're giving away to every school. And I had these kids and this little girl was saying, I'm not letting that in. That's not going to work. And I said, How do you feel? She goes, I feel so good because he's not hurting my face. I'm not letting it in. He can't hurt me because I'm just saying, I'm not going to let that in. And then when it was his turn, he said, I'm kind of running, I'm becoming demotivated to bully her. I'm totally demotivated. I was enjoying it. because he got to the horrible things. He said, I'm so demoralized, I'm running out of stuff to say because she just won't let it in. And then they switched and she said the same thing, what's the point? He's not letting it in. I just want to stop this now. So that's the fourth option. Well, that won't work because I'm not letting it in. And the fifth stage is to say, particularly with adults, if you have a bullying co-worker, do you know, since we're sharing here, You do know, don't you, that people who are critical have so much criticism reserved for themselves, they actively dislike themselves. And you're actually showing me and the entire office that you really don't like yourself. By critiquing me, you're just showing me. Yeah, critical people always have criticism reserved for themselves. They are full of self-criticism, but they reflect it out. And superior people and happy people always praise and people who feel inadequate always criticize. Because criticize withers you and praise builds you up. And if you can use those five things, thanks for sharing, could you repeat that? Are you trying to hurt my feelings? Won't work, I'm not letting it in. Since we're sharing, did you know what is running your critical behavior? You don't let it in and being able to not let in criticism that too will change your life. It makes you bulletproof. You can't stop being mean and having a horrible day and we now have trolling which is becoming an epidemic so it's actually worse. Our kids used to get bullied at school and go home to a sanctuary.

Now they're bullied online.

Now they're bullied online, on the phone and it never ends and they feel really attacked and see when you find trolls they usually really miserable and unhappy, but they love the power, because they have no power. They live on their own or with their mum. They have no life. I mean, we had a terrible situation in England where somebody was trolling this person whose child had been kidnapped, and when they exposed her, she killed herself.

Oh, man.

Which was a terrible thing for her, but obviously her sense of shame that she was outed and to kill herself, but she must have felt terrible. I felt so sorry for her. But she was very vicious in her trolling, but that's a really unhappy person. She needed a lot of help. But when you can teach people to come back from criticism without fighting or going, well, I hate you too, or you're all shut up or crying when you can just teach them, Look, I'm not letting it. It's like if I try to give you a gift, you go, I don't need that gift. I'm holding the gift. I can't give you something if you don't take it. I can't serve papers on you unless you accept them. I can't serve a volley to you unless you volley it back. So when you learn that people can try and give you anything, but if you don't accept it, you haven't let it in. And if you don't let it in, it can't hurt you. It just hurts the person who's left holding it.

Years ago, I used to, when I got early in my career, I would react to any negative comment that I got online. Twitter, Facebook, whatever it might be. Anything that was critical towards me, it was like I had to defend myself.

Sure.

You don't know this much.

Because you let it in.

I let everything in. I let everything control, consume me. So, I was driven to be perfect to try to like never let anyone critique me. And then when they did, I was like, you don't know me, you don't know this. And I remember feeling so exhausted.

Of course.

Trying to reply and be defensive and whatever it may be. And sometimes these arguments online, we go back and forth for days and weeks.

Just waiting for... -And then you forget what you've even argued about in the first place.

-And a good coach of mine at one point, he saw me... This was years ago. Saw me like... I'd gotten a lot better but still five years ago, I like tried to defend myself with like a very positive response that was like, well, here's why I did this, this, this and this, but nothing negative about that. Right. And he called me out. He said, listen, don't even respond like that. Just say thank you for the feedback.

Yeah.

Period. Thanks for sharing. Exactly what you said. Just like, thank you for the feedback and let it go.

Yeah.

And really now I think about, you know, the biggest critics are the ones who aren't creating. If you're, you don't see an author.

You never go on Amazon and leave a negative review for another author. No, I have a question.

Yeah.

And it says there's never been a statue erected. directed to a critic, and I gave it to one of my clients who's an actor. That's great. And it was such a great thing. There's never been a statue or a monument directed to a critic. That's great. Yeah. We had a critic in London, a play critic, and he actually wrote a play and it was absolutely hammered. And he went, I never realized what I was doing to people, how much I hurt them when I reviewed them. Thought it was funny to make a joke at their expense. Oh, my God, this book should not be put down. Indeed, it should thrown as far away from the unfortunate reader as possible.

Wow.

He wrote that and then people started to get their own back. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The trouble with this book is once you put it down you simply can't pick it up again. That's funny isn't it? But not for the person who wrote it.

Exactly. Wow this is fascinating. What do you think is your greatest challenge that you face internally, personally, emotional challenge as someone who's helped thousands, tens of thousands of people personally.

Oh my God.

And understand all this stuff.

Yeah, I suppose it's not a challenge to get more people to understand it because people need it. You know, we all need to be nourished. You know, we need nourishment. Our soul needs to be nourished. It's not about organic avocados from the O1 market. That's great. But we all need this emotional nourishment. Is it a challenge getting more people to accept it? I don't think it is because everyone I see, oh my god I love that. And so all go, you know, I listen to you, oh that's rubbish. But then I found myself going into the garage and saying nice stuff to myself. So maybe my only challenge, but even then it's not a challenge, is I would say half the medical profession love what I do and really go for it and go my god this this is amazing, I'm using it with my own patients. The other half go, this is all silly. Illness is caused by disease. You can't talk yourself better. Talking to yourself doesn't make any difference. You can't possibly give birth just using positive affirmations. It's like if you had cancer and you had a very good oncologist who might go, Look, you know, the way you think, the way you eat, the way you act, the way you rest can all affect. And they go, no, you got cancer. chemotherapy, there's nothing else that will work and all that stuff is hocus pocus. So that is a challenge. But it's not so much because I find so many doctors love what I do and go, wow, all these illnesses are autoimmune illnesses. Many years ago, there was a wonderful psychiatrist in London called Dr. Maudsley and he had a great expression. It's always been my favorite and it says, the feeling that cannot find its expression in tears may cause other organs to weep. So he knew 100 years ago.

That's beautiful.

So beautiful and so true. The feeling that cannot find his expression in tears will cause other organs to weep. So he's sort of saying, if you don't feel the feeling, your body's gonna feel it. If you don't open your mouth and say, you hurt me, don't be surprised if you get a screaming. Everyone's got this. screaming headache. I've got this angry red rash. I've got this thumping pain. And by the words they're using, angry screaming, they're saying, I have rage that can't come out.

I'm not expressing it, but it's kind.

Of expressed through my body. Yeah, because the body is very clever at finding something. I worked with someone who couldn't walk and all she said was, I can't stand there. I can't stand my ex. I can't stand my life. I can't stand my kids and you can't stand up. Isn't that interesting? She had sort of phantom leg pains because she couldn't stand anything. Bulimics also say, well what makes me sick is my sister-in-law. Oh, I'm so sick of her. She just makes me sick. I vomit in my mouth every time I hear her voice and then they wonder why they're bulimic. Right. Because our words really affect our reality partly because, and it's such an easy thing to say, Every word you say is a blueprint that your mind, body and psyche are working to make your reality. So we make our thoughts and our thoughts make us, then we go out into the world and we justify our thoughts every day. But our words are a blueprint and when you know that you think, well I better pay attention to that blueprint. I better not say this kid is killing me. My job is making me want to die. I'm so stressed out by what? The queue in Hughes Market. Well, go to Zimbabwe where there is no Hughes Market and there is no queue and there's no money to buy food anyway. Then you can say you're stressed because your problem, the queue in error one and the bill, is someone else's fantasy dream come true. You. This freeway is killing you. You have a car. You have to look at people on four buses. I used to. take my daughter to school and I'm on one day thinking that it is torture. What? The traffic, yeah the traffic, the queue, people keep ringing me, the phone ringing, it's torture. Well maybe if it didn't ring that might be worse. Some of my clients who are models will say my life is hell because people look at me. It's like really? Well one day they won't and then you might miss it. Yeah, but I get on a plane and guys hit on me, it's a nightmare. Well put on a baseball cap. school hat and glasses, read a book, then they'll leave you alone. But that's not a nightmare, it's just mildly inconvenient. It's not killing you, but we use these incredible words. This is torture, this is killing me, this is a disaster. What is? Well, I went to the bathroom and I forgot to pause my movie. That's not a disaster, but when you use those words, because your mind can't differentiate, to feel like it really is a disaster.

The flip side of this, the beautiful part, when we understand and appreciate that our thoughts become reality.

Yeah.

We can create the life of our dreams as well. We can start to manifest our thoughts by visualizing, by telling ourselves what we want, who we want to become, and taking those actions toward it. We can manifest our dreams.

You really can. You can stop being ill. You can change the shape of your body, you can change your digestion, you can have physical things, you can change the way you interact with your kids, the way they... So here's a good example. My kid is a nightmare. Change that to my child is age appropriate.

There you go.

That's it. This builder's gonna go, oh my God, that's a disaster. But a good builder will go, it's a challenge. When you said talking to girls is terrifying, you just change that to it's challenging. But hey, There's hundreds of girls out there. It's a numbers game. One will say yes, some will say no. And even if they say no, the only risk in life is not to take the risk. That's the risk. If you don't take, when you take the risk and it goes wrong, you learn something.

It gives you feedback for how to show up differently the next time. My girlfriend's a doctor of physical therapy and when she works on people, she would agree with everything you're saying because people's bodies are so tight, not because of something they tore or something sore, but it's because they're holding on to something emotionally.

And she says once they start to.

Talk, their bodies relax.

Yeah. And the pain goes away.

Yeah.

All the pain where they can't lift.

Their shoulder, they can't turn their neck. Once they let it out, their feelings.

Yeah.

About their relationship or their insecurities or.

Whatever it may be.

Yeah.

That's when they have a pain-free body. Because the body keeps score. The body holds on to pain and and tension and grief and we carry around all this stuff and yet we really don't have to if just more people knew even to say I'm enough every day. And to say another of my favorite things is I'm choosing this and I'm choosing to feel great. I'm choosing to work on my website all weekend. I'm choosing to go to the gym. I don't love it but I love having a six-pack. I'm choosing to say no to Krispy Kreme donuts and yes to apples.

Love Krispy Kremes.

Do you?

I could eat 12 of them right now. Oh, so good. But I choose to eat the empty.

Yeah, yeah, and if you say, I'm choosing to do this and choosing to feel great about it, your mind has a very clear image. The way you feel about everything is down to two things, the pictures you make in your head and the words you say to yourself. There's nothing else. So if you choose to run, going, I'm running, so I'm raising money for charity, so I'm going to complete this run even though my feet hurt, my knee hurts because I'm going to raise money. But you could run going, oh I hate this. I could be at home watching Netflix, I haven't eaten and now my knee hurts and then you'll have to stop. So when you keep saying I'm choosing it. Yeah so if you're an Olympic athlete you would choose to get up at 4am and train. If you are a diabetic you choose to put a needle in your arm. If you wear lenses you choose to jab your your finger in your eye, but you don't go, oh, I hate it. I can't accept it and I can't change it. And when you say, I'm choosing to study, to work, I want to go and talk to this girl I really like, or to put good food in my body, and I'm choosing to feel great about that too. There is no resistance. When you go, I want donuts and I can't have them. I've got to eat this freaking rabbit food. What your mind does is it creases a desire for donuts because you said, I want donuts, but I can't have them. I want pizza.

I'm eating kale.

I can't have these, but I choose to use pizza. I can eat pizza every day. When I'm 95, I'm going to knock myself out with pizza. But right now, I actually want to look really good in my clothes, maybe out of them, too. So I'll save the pizza when I'm 80 because that door is probably shut then anyway. Then you can have loads of pizza every day. But you have to reason with your mind and negotiate, and your mind will always do what thinks you want, that's its job. And if you could only tell your mind what you want using relevant up to the minute words, you'll get exactly what you want.

What do you struggle with telling your mind? Is there anything that you...

It took me a long time to tell my mind not to eat sugar. I still look at it and go, it looks so nice.

That's me.

But I still look at candy. The other day I was really tired and so I went into a shop to get a coffee and they had jars of jellies and I thought I could eat all of those.

All of it.

But I'm choosing not to and I just had the coffee. So working out, you know, and we're on a schedule, sometimes just finding the time to go to the gym or do yoga, making the time. Yeah, that's probably the only two really eating healthy food all the time, even on a plane, even sometimes where there is no healthy food, then you've got to wait and choosing to make myself X, that's when I don't want to. But other than that, nothing really, because I couldn't do what I do unless I was really good at dialogue. My mind is my best friend. It's the best PA I've ever had, and it does what I want because I give it clear instructions.

What do you say to yourself on a daily basis? Is there like a process in the morning, afternoon, night, or what would it be like?

Actually, when I wake up, the first thing I always say is I love my life. I love my linen, I love my cup of tea, I always wake up going I love my life. And then when I make my coffee, I love this tea, I love the coffee, I love the shower gel in my shower. Because I really believe that if you can make your mind get excited by little things then big things every day is like Christmas. And I think when you wake up you should go oh what have I got today? Oh a world of stress. I've got this, this, this, this, this. So you should always wake up and go, I love my life. I'm alive in a free country. I've got all this stuff to make tea and life is great. So I do that. The second thing I do is I tend to stay in bed and do all my emails because then I feel like I'm not working because I'm in bed propped up, drinking my tea and I get all of that out of the way. Yes, that's true. It's more relaxed. Not stressed. I try not to have to rush to go to base, but sometimes I do. And I mean, I'm very lucky because I love what I do and I do what I love. People say, you work really hard. I go, I've never worked a day in my life. I don't know what that is. I don't have to go, where's my life? Is a weekend? People say, oh, the weekend. I go, what's a weekend? I can take time off. I mean, I love my job because I get to make such a difference. so I don't really have much to moan about. Maybe communicating with my daughter is sometimes a challenge because I'm so positive that she occasionally wants me to be super negative.

Why is that?

Well, I guess because you have to be the opposite of your parents. So I do all these positive she's an artist and she does lots of negative statements on her paintings, on her t-shirts because that's the deal. You've got to be the opposite of your parents. But I that. But she's great. But really I don't have much to complain about.

You have a positive conversation with yourself pretty much 24/7. What about a nightly routine? Do you have a thought that you say to yourself?

Well you see for me, I really believe that first it's what you do and then it's who you are. So first you're doing it and then it's who you are and it's so who you are that it wouldn't occur it hurts you to have to make yourself do it. See, I would never sit on the couch going, my case is lost, I just know it, it's all going to go wrong. There's no cabs out there, this is a horrible flight. I now have a belief, and it really should be, that there's no such thing as being bored if my flight is late. I mean, I just get on my laptop, on my phone, I mean, I have 24 hour entertainment empty out my emails, look at something. The days of having to wait and being bored, even waiting in the car, My little phone is like everything, books, messages, videos. I love that. I don't really mind about missing stuff and being late anymore. In fact, when I was last landing here two weeks ago, I was hoping to remember because I was so into this movie. Hopefully it's delayed. When the pilot said, We've got to go around, I thought, oh, that's so great. That's exactly how long is left of this movie. But I think it's important for people to understand that it isn't what you do. It's a bit like people who say, I've done yoga every day and now it's just my soul. Like Meghan Markle said that, Yoga is in my soul. I don't do yoga. Yoga is part of my life. It's like you don't say, I walk my dog. If you've had a dog for 20 years, just get up, pick up the lead and it's who you are, not what you do. And so for me, it really isn't what I do because so a part of me and I like it and so I'm quite lucky that I'm pretty happy and positive but I really do love my life and that's a good thing.

If you believe it to be true.

Yeah, you are what you believe. It says that in the Bible, man is what he believes. You can choose whatever you wish, negative, positive, you get to choose. What you can't choose is what you do to your body and your health and your You can't choose that. I could say I'm just a negative person but over here is a positive person. We all can choose to do that but you can never choose how you ruin your health, defeat your immune system, paralyze your autoimmune system, affect your nervous system. What goes on in your body when you're negative is horrific because the body can't it has to react to negative. You make cortisol, that's a stress hormone, that shuts down fertility, it lays down fat. So all the stuff you're doing when you're negative, giving yourself heart attacks and strokes and high blood pressure, all because you're choosing to be negative when you come over to the positive world, which is so much better, you have better health, you live longer, you look 20 years younger, that's a good thing. thing too, because all the stress leaves your face. You don't have to take laxatives and all those antacids and stuff that people take because of their thinking.

I hope you enjoyed today's episode and it inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a full rundown of today's episode with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me personally, as well as free listening, then make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Share this with a friend on social media and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts as well. Let me know what you enjoyed about this episode in that review. I really love hearing feedback from you and it helps us figure out how we can support and serve you moving forward. And I want to remind you if no one has told you lately that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.