Victoria Song: A Meta-Framework to 'Bending Reality'

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A few weeks ago, I sent out a tweet and wrote, if you want to 10x your business, you need to 10x yourself first. The reality is your business will only grow as fast as you grow. Hi everyone, I'm business coach Steve Sandusky for Barron's Advisor, and welcome to Actionable Intelligence. My guest today is Victoria Song. Victoria is a leadership advisor to successful founders and CEOs of the fastest growing technology companies in Silicon Valley and celebrities with power, platform, and influence. She began her career as a venture capitalist investing in technology startups and was featured on the Forbes 30 Under 30 list for her investment success. In today's conversation, we discuss how to bend reality so you can 10x yourself and your business. Victoria reveals the META framework behind peak performance, self-development, therapy and meditation that is accessible to all of us. This is not about mindset. It's about how to go beyond the mind and harness the full capacity of your consciousness to make quantum leaps in every area of your life. So keep an open mind and let's get started with Victoria Song. You have a new book out and it's titled Bending Reality: How to Make the Impossible Probable. And we're definitely going to talk about the how-to part of the impossible, but where I want to start is just really the opposite of that. And I want to talk about the prevent from. And what I mean by that is, what is it that prevents most people from ever getting close to what they are capable of either doing or being?

Hmm, that's a great question. So I think what I've noticed is that most people operate from a place of protecting themselves. And that could be protecting themselves from harm, keeping themselves unsafe, which results in a lot of avoidance. So avoidance of maybe certain people that don't feel good to be around, certain uncomfortable situations, maybe conflict, maybe disappointment, failure. And then you end up, you know, there's a metaphor in the book where it's like, when we're born, we have access to this beautiful castle with infinite rooms. And then because we don't want to feel certain feelings or be in certain situations, and we try to control and predict life, we end up really in like one room that we have mastery over. And so we've limited, you know, our access to this beautiful castle to this one tiny little room that we have mastery over, which is really about controlling and predicting life, people, situations. So I think it's really that desire to feel safe and to protect ourselves from any harm that leads to things like our impending doom generator, where our mind is always coming up with what could go wrong, the ego not wanting to look silly, not anticipating something that can go wrong and maybe getting pie on its face without realizing that it's actually inherently the, the knowing and the trust that we would be fine no matter what, and that everything is okay and will be okay no matter what. That gives us access to all the possibilities, all our dreams, all our visions. And in some ways it's like, if we can only have a dream that's bigger than our fears, then that's when we can pull ourselves over that hump to get us over and outside our comfort zone.

Yeah, so this idea of the comfort zone, I think, is such a big issue for so many people. And the people that have reached the highest levels of achievement, clearly they've embraced the idea of expanding the comfort zone and to keep testing the limits of what that comfort zone is so that they can continue to expand it. I'm really curious about this title. So, "Bending Reality." I would imagine there's a story behind that, but tell me, what does bending reality mean in the context of the book that you've written here?

Yeah, I chose that title to reference Steve Jobs' reality distortion fields, which I know a lot of people are familiar with. And we all know that Jobs used it in a way that served him, that inspired people to do things that they didn't even realize they could do. And I like this title mainly because I truly believe we can change the odds on our reality. And that without realizing, we are always creating, bending our reality. It's just we're often doing so in a very unconscious way. And when we're doing so in an unconscious way, it's often rooted in, again, a lot of that fear that I just mentioned. And so we're often bending it in a direction we don't want, because it's coming from a place of fear and avoidance and protection. And so the book is designed to consciously guide you so that you can start to bend reality in a way that is in the direction you do want.

So let's talk about reality. We could get really metaphysical here, and the way our brain and our vision system has evolved over time is there's a lot of things that are happening in reality that we're not seeing because we've got this filtering system. So as you think about this idea of bending reality, as you think about trying to achieve greater levels of success? How does this idea of having a lens on reality play into our ability to either achieve more or prevent us from achieving more?

Yes. So in some ways, this work is about seeing clearly. And so to answer your question is like, how can we see reality more clearly, more extensively in the richness and the gray zones and not just the black and white that sometimes happens when our again, like we get into that vigilant state of the fight or flight, and then all of a sudden we have tunnel vision on reality. And the lens is something that I believe we all have a lens on reality. I mentioned in the book that we've seen this with perhaps we have a hypochondriac of a cousin or friend who's always fearful that they're going to be sick with whatever they've learned over Google lately. And then in some ways that fear becomes self-fulfilling and that perception becomes reality. And so, you know, I believe, and again, like we're probably going to talk about this, but one of the lenses that I think a lot of us have is a lens of contraction. And when we're in this contractive place, you might notice, and I can just, for your listeners, have them drop into this experience right now, which is to think about an event that happened in the last week that was unpleasant, that brought up maybe some disappointment, maybe some guilt, or, you know, wish it didn't happen. And you know, when you tune into that space, and we can do that for a moment, You might notice like your heart starts racing. You might notice some fire in your belly or some discomfort in your chest. You might notice like your nervous system tightening up. It's essentially a feeling of discomfort and tightness throughout the body. And this is a state that I call contraction in the book that I believe without, again, consciously realizing it, most of the world is operating in. 'Cause if you just think about the moment you step outside your door, there's all these things to be constantly scanning looking your environment for to make sure that you're safe, there's no threats. Sometimes our emails can trigger, you know, a threat state if it's unpredictable. So essentially, if we have this contractive lens on, then it's almost like trying to get work done when there's, you know, a tiger chasing you, or like a murderer waiting right outside your door. It's very hard and difficult to access your inspiration, your creativity, your visions. It's more easy in that state to again, like almost pulling into your center, feeling like just defensive, protecting, you're more likely to get stuck in what Cartman calls the drama triangle, where you immediately feel like you might be the victim in the situation and name a villain that's making you feel this way. And it really just narrows your reality down to this very black and white, limited perception where you might put things into boxes as a way to create a false sense of certainty. Anyway, I can go on and on about this, but essentially these boxes that we then put ourselves into again limit our ability to see reality clearly, because we get into this yes/no, success/failure, good/bad, very binary. And then we start to put everything in reality, whether that's politics, religion, gender, you know, everything then needs to be fit into this tiny little box that brings us a sense of clarity and certainty and control and prediction, which again goes back to that first question of this is where we tend to live is like in this wanting to control and predict our reality.

Yeah, and this idea of contraction and expansion was a big theme of the book, and it was one of the areas that I definitely want to be digging into because I think this is such an important point. And then tying in the importance of emotion, because a lot of the folks that are listening to this are in the financial industry, and we talk a lot about emotions when it comes to investing, and the markets are going way down, and how do we deal with the emotions. And so let's go a little deeper here with this idea of the contraction and expansion. So how should we be thinking about that as folks who want to achieve? How can we identify when we're in this contraction state? What are some things that we can do to acknowledge, to overcome, to move beyond, to get to the point where we can be in expansion? Let's just start with that.

The first thing that's counterintuitive is to actually allow yourself to feel it. So when we don't allow ourselves to feel these uncomfortable emotions, like the contraction, the stress, the anxiety, the fear, what happens is it actually gets frozen in the body and left unprocessed. And it's sort of like having all your browser tabs open. It just slows down the whole system. And so in order to unblock those parts and get it out of your body, the first step is to actually let yourself go into the feeling and feel it. And it's important to note that when I say to feel the emotion, I don't mean think about the emotion, because a lot of times what happens is we compound the negative emotion by feeling feelings about the feeling. Like, I'm mad, I'm upset, I'm sad that I'm upset. Now I feel bad that I'm angry, you know? And then we're just actually locking and freezing it in place even more because now we're compounding the negativity. And so the way to get out of that is to just let it flow through you. And so one thing you can do is just to locate where is the contraction in the body. So for some of us, we might feel like, gosh, my throat feels really tight, or it's in my chest, or it's actually my belly. Like there's actually like fire in my belly. Like I I feel like I could scream, you know? And so first it's locating where is that tightness or anger or sadness or fear, where is it in your body? And then to allow yourself to imagine that you're kind of turning up the dial on it. And again, very counterintuitive because most of us want to stop it and numb it and make it go away. But again, that just freezes it in place and slows everything down. So you want to imagine that like, if you can feel it right now, turn it up. What does an 8 feel like? Then get it to a 9 and like go up to a 10. And in that sense, it's like you're going into the center of it and imagine yourself feeling it wash over you. Like, okay, I'm going right into the middle of it. And it's almost like, can you stand the heat? In a way, I think that those who are very successful know how to stay calm in the heat under pressure. And so it's almost like you're also strengthening your emotional intelligence by allowing yourself to be with the discomfort, learning to walk with fear, learning to walk with the stress, because what is from a young age, we're often taught that we don't wanna feel uncomfortable emotions. So we will do whatever it takes to push it down or avoid people in situations to trigger those emotions. But if you can imagine, if your life is about avoiding uncomfortable situations, you're gonna be quite limited in what you can achieve and the dreams that you're gonna reach for in your boldness, your risk-taking, all of that. And so the first step is again, going right into the center of it. And you can even try saying Speaking, I'm safe. Everything's okay. Like, I'm mad right now and that's okay. Nothing's wrong. You know, I feel scared right now and that's okay. Because what happens is our bodies are wired to feel like, oh no, this is bad, danger zone. I'm feeling angry. I'm feeling sad. I'm feeling fear. Like, make it stop. And we try to fix it or block it, but really counterintuitively, again, let it flow through you almost like ocean waves, you know, just letting it feel like, okay, like a wave passing, coming through me. And you'll be surprised that it ends up dissipating as quickly as it comes on when you allow yourself to go into the center of it.

Well, and what you're talking about is like a foreign language to me, meaning I'm the kind of guy who has historically lived in his head, meaning that I try and approach things from an intellectual standpoint, and I try and reason my way through something or rationalize my way through something, as opposed to what you just described, which is just really feel what's going on in your body. And so I want to share a quick story here. A few years ago, I went to a Tony Robbins event, and I know people have strong opinions one way or another about Tony Robbins, so let's just put that aside for the moment. But I'm at this event, it's— I think it's the— I don't know if it's the second or third night of the event. And if you've ever been to a Robbins event, these things go for like 10, 12 hours. So we're 2 or 3 days into this It's the evening on Saturday night. And the thing that he did, that he took us through at that point was very similar to what you just described, where there were 7,000 people there. He's up on stage and I am literally like in the second row. I mean, I'm right up there. He's like in my face. Okay. And he takes us through this exercise where he says, I want you to feel like, you know, the biggest limiting belief in your life. What's the thing that is bogging you down? What's the worst thing that makes you just feel, you know, like the worst? And so he goes through this for like an hour. And then he says, "Now turn it up to a 9, turn it up to a 10." And I gotta tell you, at this point, people are wailing and bawling and screaming and moaning. It's like you're in a horror movie. Just all these sounds that are coming out from everybody. He does that for like an hour. And then he flips a switch right when everyone is at their most vulnerable moment, he turns it around and talks about replacing that with the most empowering belief. And then did that for like an hour. And by the time we were done with that, he brings out the Super Soaker water guns and he's up squirting everybody, and we're all getting doused in the front row with the water, standing on top of our chairs and yelling and screaming. The music and lights and, you know, it was like a cathartic experience. And so again, that was foreign to me. That's getting me out of my comfort zone. But fortunately, I realized that that's exactly what I needed. And so one of the things I loved about your book is that essentially, that's one of the things that you talk about, that you have to experience. You can't just think of these emotions and try and intellectualize them away, like I had done for so many years. And then when you're doing that, it can help you bend reality as you described.

Exactly. I love that you shared that story 'cause what wires together rewires together. So in a sense, he was helping you remove the charge around this negative emotion and associating with the joy and the empowerment and helping your nervous system create ease of like, oh, it's safe to go here. Like I was able to go to my worst and then combine that with my joy. And so then now your body has this new neural pathway in a way of like, I'm not scared to go to the dark places because I now know what it feels like to come out of it and be fine.

And then how do the emotions play into this? And one of the quotes I pulled out of your book was you wrote, until you own your emotions, they will own you. So tell me a little bit about that.

Yeah, so I believe that, you know, for many reasons I discuss in the book, and even as simple as, you know, for those who are parents know that out of convenience sake, it's easier to not deal with your kid crying, screaming, feeling their emotions. And so I think at a young age, we're kind of rewarded and trained to like, stop crying, we'll get ice cream, you know, like whatever it is, just stop feeling that negative emotion. And again, in the workplaces, we're just continually told like, hey, what's wrong? Is everything okay? Like, it feels like something's the end of the world if we might be crying or feeling angry. And so for all of these reasons, we don't feel our emotions. And then I believe that because we're afraid to feel our emotions, we end up kind of playing small in a way of like not quite going to the edge of our comfort zone, not stretching ourselves past what we know we're capable of into the zone of, wow, let me see what I'm made of, you know? And it's in that uncertainty, that unknown past the threshold of our comfort zone that we really discover what we're made of. But for a lot of us, if The thing holding us back is, well, I don't want people to laugh at me. What are people going to say? What if I sound stupid? What if I get up there and fail? You know, there's all these fears. And for a lot of us, these fears can often remind us of moments from our childhood that we're actually still protecting ourselves from feeling. So for instance, if we were bullied in school, and this is true for most of my clients, a lot of high achievers had memories of being bullied in school. Then that public failure, humiliation, being picked on, being embarrassed, feeling so misunderstood, feeling laughed at, like that is a feeling that they will do whatever it takes to avoid ever happening to them again. And by avoiding that at all costs, they might not take the bold risk in their career. They might not go after the love of their dreams. They might not, you know, speak their truth on a public platform on something that matters to them. And then these are all the ways that they end up not living freely because they were afraid to feel these emotions. And so that's why I believe emotional freedom is the key unlock for all freedom. Because when we know that no matter what happens, I'll be okay, then the big moves you're willing to make are limitless. And so this is actually a great question to ask your listeners, which is imagining a dream or a vision you have, something that feels almost too big, you don't know how to make it happen. And I want you to tune in to what would the flip side of that be? Like, what are you afraid of might happen if you try to go after that? Is it that it wouldn't work and you might be publicly humiliated? Is it what people might say? You know, just really tuning into like, what's the fear in the way of that vision? And it's my belief that it's not until we can hold the flip side of the worst thing happening as we go after and chase our dreams, that we're finally ready actually for that dream to come true for us. I'll give you the example of putting this book out into the world. Like, yes, everybody can handle the positive of that. Like, yeah, I'm gonna get the book out. People are gonna, it's gonna be sell hopefully thousands of copies. People are hopefully gonna love it. Anyone can handle that. You know, that's a dream. But then could I handle people hating it? People talking about it, people leaving me bad Amazon reviews, people saying like, gosh, why did she even bother writing this book? You know, could I handle that? Could I handle even like the bullies from middle school laughing at me and like, I can see their faces still, you know, like, can I imagine kind of the worst thing happening around my book? And if I know in my nervous system, like tuning into that feeling, like I know and trust that I would be okay. Like even if the worst thing happened, I'm okay. Then I know I'm ready for that dream. Then I know I can go full speed ahead after that vision that I have. I really do believe that we need to trust our nervous system. And again, like this is about that feeling of contraction in our body, If the thoughts of being public humiliated, feeling like I ruined my reputation for whatever reason, people hated it, and now I'm laughed at, and now I'm not taken seriously, and everyone I used to work with in finance is laughing at me, if I cannot handle that, then I need to tell myself, you know what, it's probably time to take my foot off the gas pedal and feel like, what do I need to do? What internal work do I need to kind of heal in myself to know that I would be okay and that I would be safe and that I could handle that fear, that failure, you know? And the truth is we're so much stronger than we realize. And in some ways, I feel like every day we have this opportunity to go to the emotional fitness gym, you know, where we're every day handling different versions of disappointment. Some are higher or lower. And then over time, you'll be surprised that you can lift the 300-pound weight, which is like the equivalent of something not going the way you wanted to, and you actually would feel strong enough to handle that. And so that's ultimately what it is, is instead of focusing on protecting ourselves, the focus really should be on strengthening ourselves, like almost like how we build our physical core and fitness, right? Like we talk about how we're physically in our, you know, our abdomens, our core strength. It's about our emotional core. Can we build up our emotional core, strengthen our emotional core to know that we can handle anything life brings us?

Yeah. And I think as humans, we are, much more resilient than oftentimes we give each of ourselves credit for. And it's usually not until we're put in that really difficult situation where we realize just how resilient you are. While we're on this therapy track, let me, let me ask you one other question here.

Yeah.

And it relates to emotions. And so let's say that our emotions can go from a scale of 1, which is like the worst, most dire emotion, to a 10, 10, which is pure, absolute joy. And I know there's no absolutes, but some people— and I'm going to put myself into this category— for, for a long time, I would be sort of stuck in the middle range. I don't want to go too low, and I don't want to go too high. But I think over time, I've been able to really broaden the range of emotions that I'm willing to experience and to embrace. So from your standpoint, as human beings, do you think it's important for us to really experience that whole range from 1 to 10? Because we are going to have situations in our life— deaths of loved ones, that sort of thing— where we're probably going to be closer to the 1. And hopefully we're going to have experiences where we're going to be closer to the 10. So from your experience and from your research, do you think as humans that that's good for us to try and experience the highest of highs and the lowest of lows as well?

It depends on whether you want a life of aliveness. If you want to live more like a Buddhist monk where everything's very neutral and you're always calm and, you know, the meditative state feels like that would be a life of joy for you, I wouldn't imagine a monk jumping up and down when some great news happens and then like grieving, you know, I would see them very kind of just neutral and calm. What I have found with, you know, my clients is that what you just described can be experienced as a level of numbness. And just as when you take an antidepressant, it impacts your whole emotional range, right? When you take an antidepressant, you're not just blocking out the negative lows. Everybody who's ever taken or has any loved ones or seen someone on it knows it also blocks your highs. And so as far as I'm aware, there is no way to selectively numb only your negative emotions and still feel your positive emotions. So if you're someone who's decided that you want to feel joy in your life, you want to be moved by beauty, you want to be moved and have things take your breath away, if that's the kind of life you want to live, then absolutely you're going to have to learn to ride the lows and to go there and feel them. And, you know, I say emotions are energy in motion. So that's a way to kind of neutralize even the concept of something being negative or positive. And also just understanding that, yes, some emotions are more or less pleasant. But again, like every time you can feel grief or sadness or heartbreak, whatever that emotion is that in the moment feels so painful, know that you're growing your capacity or really like the 88 keys of the piano, like you're really extending your capacity to also feel the things that take your breath away, the joy, the beauty, all of those things that I think make life, you know, make life fun, rich, meaningful is to be able to feel everything. And, you know, again, like we talked about earlier, If you're not willing to feel your fears, it also blocks you from the risks you're willing to take in your life, the bold moves you're willing to make, the courage that you can access if you're scared to feel those things too.

So I have a couple more things that I want to talk about here as it relates to the emotion and contraction. So one of them is let's just talk about a practical example. So if I'm a financial advisor and the market is crashing 20% and I've got a few of my clients calling me panicking, saying, hey, I want to move to cash, As advisors, we talk a lot about trying to control our emotions. So do you have any thoughts in that type of situation where people are getting emotional about their money? I'm losing money, the market's going down. What's the best thing that you think a financial advisor can do or say to a client who's really having an aggressive emotional experience with the market going down? Any thoughts on that?

Yeah, it's a great question. And I think this probably comes back to every profession, which is the level of trust that exists in that relationship. Because I think, you know, it's important to not override what your client wants. 'Cause even if you're right, it's not gonna feel good for you to go against what the client is asking for. So I do feel like hopefully to date that you have shown that client through the portfolio and returns to date that they can trust you, that you know that they should ride this out. When I think that oftentimes people who don't have the conviction get scared very easily and wanna jump out of things. And so I think kind of remembering Reminding that client of the fundamentals of why this scare is just something that they can ride out. It's not fundamental to the asset class. I think reminding them that this is when you make money. In fact, the smart ones know when to double down and put more money in because the fundamentals have not changed. And so I think there's something around, yeah, just reminding that person that you don't make money just because you pick the right ones, but you know how to double down and put more in when things are low. It does come back to that trust and also just really listening to the client. Cause I think it won't be the same answer across the board. Even if you're right, you will still have some clients that cannot handle the fear in their nervous system. And I don't think it's your job to push them through it because that's a level of pain that a lot of people are willing again, like to put themselves through to succeed, to, you know, et cetera. But in the book I mentioned how you don't want to override your nervous system's response. So if your nervous system truly cannot handle that amount of fear going through its system, you need to honor that, even if it means you might not make as much money as you can in that moment.

And does it make sense for the advisor to acknowledge on the part of the client what they're feeling and those emotions? Because as we've been talking about here, we can't just ignore the emotion, we can't try and rationalize it away.

Yes, I do think I think acknowledging why, like normalizing it helps them because I think that sometimes we get even louder in our defense and our reaction if we don't feel like the other person is hearing us. And we often don't feel like the person's hearing us because they haven't acknowledged and explained that like it makes complete sense that we feel the way we do. You know, so absolutely like step one would be saying like, yes, supernatural, this happens this often in my career. And I'm telling you that the opportunities to make money are in these moments when we actually, yeah, double down on this opportunity when it's down. And I think that in a lot of ways, your clients are in training and calibrating to your vibes. So the more conviction, trust, confidence, courage, calm, truth that you can stand in, as you're having that conversation, it will unconsciously just ease your client's nervous system. And then they will be able to, yeah, slow down and listen to you. Because I think it's when we're in fear and shock that we can't hear anything that you're saying. And even if you're completely correct, we won't listen to it. So yes, acknowledging it and just making sure that you're coming from the place that is almost role modeling what you want them to feel.

The second thing I wanted to mention here as it relates to contraction, taking maybe just a little bit of a different angle on what we've talked about so far, is I'm going to read a couple of very short quotes or excerpts from your book that I think will set the stage. So the first one, you said, quote, contraction can create experts, expansion creates masters. So that's the first quote. And then the second is supernatural ability does not come from talent, It comes from transforming contraction. So I'd love for you to expand on that a little bit, talking about the importance of the contraction phase, I'll call it, or the, the contraction emotion, or the contraction experience, and how the people who have bent reality, the people who have achieved at the highest levels, contraction is a benefit if they use it correctly. If I'm understanding that correctly, that seems to be what you're saying.

Yeah, it's a great question and something that I, you know, when I reread the book, I'm like, oh, I wish I added another line just explaining that a little bit more thoroughly.

Now is your chance.

Yeah, so, you know, I'll put it this way to start. When we learn a new sport or a new skill, so much of that initial learning process is memorization, right? It's just rules, it's just memorizing, it's if-then statements, you know, and And when we're in that place where it's very analytical and our brain's very lit up, we're actually much more likely to be in this contractive state. So I actually mentioned in the book that it's our hyper-analytical part of our brain that can kick us into contraction. So sometimes it's not even an emotional contraction, it's actually just intellectually kind of just like forcing something to happen, focusing so much that it's almost like you feel tight in your system because of the hyperfocus, you know, you're putting on that problem that you're solving or that sport that you're learning. And I believe that after we understand, okay, these are the rules, I've now understand, you know, I've become an expert at understanding the sport across the board, whatever you're learning, mastery comes from knowing, okay, these are the rules. And then now there's an intuitive level, there is a flow actually, that allows you to transcend root memorization and allows you to start playing into the trust and the intuition. Around that sport, right? So that's when you get the masters. And when you're in that intuitive state, you're in a much more expanded flow state of ease, right? Because it's not trying to tightly hyperfocus anymore. It's actually almost widening your awareness and your horizon to be able to take in more information. And in that more open, more easeful state, you're trusting yourself and your ability to intuit What would be the right response based on the situation? You're no longer having to go back to the rules in your brain, if that makes sense. And so the reason I say contraction creates experts and expansion creates masters is if you're still coming from that really forceful push energy of like hyperfocus, I think you can become an expert. But if you look at the Olympians and the athletes and the musicians who truly mastered their craft, you'll notice that they're in this state of flow. They're in a more expansive state where it's intuitive and the movement feels much more fluid.

And I love that point because I spent a lot of time thinking about mastery and what is mastery and talking to people who— sports psychologists who talk about mastery. And we had Michael Gervais actually on the podcast early on here for The Baron Show, and his podcast is called Finding Mastery. And so he spent a lot of time thinking about it. And one of the things that I just heard you say that I want to reiterate and make sure I heard it correctly is that— and I'm going to relate this to another example from a gentleman I was talking to, Michael Port, and he's a speaker coach, but he was also an actor. And he was telling me that when you're up on stage, obviously you got to do a lot of preparation. And he said— he used rehearsal because he comes from a theater background— he said you have to rehearse, rehearse, rehearse. Now, when a lot of people hear rehearsal, they think, okay, it's going to be rigid. I'm on stage, I'm going to do this, then I'm going to do that, and then I'm going to say this, and I'm thinking about the next thing. And he said, but what happens is when you get to the level of mastery, if you have prepared enough and you have rehearsed so much that by the time you step up on the stage or you're acting, you aren't thinking about your lines, you aren't thinking, I say this and then the actor, you know, does this, and I'm thinking about, well, how do I respond to them? You know it so well that it's just— it's the complete flow that we've, you know, learned about for several decades now, that you're not thinking back to what my training is. It's so a part of you that it just happens. And I think that's this wide aperture idea that you're talking about, where our field of vision gets wider, we can take more in, and we don't have to mentally process it because We're so ready for this that our body instinctually responds to it in a way that's a level of mastery above someone who's just an expert that has memorized something. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it becomes that unconscious confidence. Exactly.

Yeah. So I think that's a great way to look at it. Now, maybe switching gears here just a little bit as well, there's another thing that you wrote here that I think is a nice segue for an important point. And I'm going to read another quote here from your book. You said, in my experience, there are few pure business problems. There are many personal patterns that show up in how we conduct business. By going deeper, we solve tactical issues in the short term, and we also resolve the underlying patterns that solve these challenges in the long term. So I thought that was really interesting in that there's not business problems. And if, if I'm reading that correctly, maybe you're talking more about the personal issues, the personal patterns, the unresolved emotions that we have personally that we bring into the workplace that are causing us issues in making business decisions. Do I have that accurate there?

Yeah, there's very few purely business problems because, as you mentioned, a lot of them comes back to how we're seeing the problem to begin with, you know? And so it's how we relate to the unknown, how we relate to uncertainty, how we relate to a sense of loss of control, how we relate to the fears of what if I make the wrong decision? Would I be able to handle that flip side if I make the wrong call? So when I see business leaders spinning, stuck, unable to, you know, solve a business problem, it's often the way they're relating to the problem. So I think that that's probably more what I would like to clarify from the book, that yes, there are sometimes purely strategic problems that don't have to do with personal or any people or even how you look at the problem. It could be just a formula. I do believe that the reason why I work with my clients for years is because it's really not about business problems that once you solve them, yeah, that's, that's it, you know, because it's really about patterns and how you're relating to these things that keep showing up in your life and your blind spots. And, you know, how do you deal with conflict? Do you avoid having hard conversations? How do you deal with failure and mistakes being made? How do you deal with, you know, the unknown and navigating the sense of uncertainty and loss of control that can happen, especially when you're growing as fast as a lot of these tech startups do? That's why I believe that it's mostly psychological, personal, and the patterns and how we relate to our work, it shows up in every part of our life, you know, and if we come from this place of, as I mentioned, protection, It's often rooted in scarcity and lack. And one of the biggest lacks that a lot of us feel are a lack of time, a lack of money. So often we feel like we're running out of time. It's not going to happen in time. No matter what I do, it's never enough. We start the day and already feel defeated because we didn't get through everything we wanted to, or there were new fires to put out. And this is a level of scarcity and lack that is rippling out into how you're viewing again, this lens, how you're viewing a lot of things in your life. I believe that when we can, in some sense, address the root lens that you're viewing your life through, then we can solve a lot of your business problems.

Yeah. And another thing that you talked about here that I think relates to what you just said is in the book, you also mentioned that sometimes we can get attached to our contraction and it becomes part of our identity. And I think back to another show that we did with Robert Fritz, who talks about systems thinking. And one of the things that he talked about was the patterns that show up both in businesses as well as in humans, and the idea that we have oscillating patterns and that we have advancing patterns. And this idea of the oscillating pattern is that we may have an objective. And so as we move closer to that objective, we've got another thing that's pulling us back to the starting point. And it could be a blind spot, it could be an attachment to our contraction. And so as we get closer to this thing we say we want, it like stretches the tension that then pulls us back to that original contraction that we're identified with, or a hidden blind spot that we don't really know that we have, but it's there. And so you kind of ping pong back and forth. And so as I think I think about that and I think about what you're saying and what I read in your book, it's like, if that's a type of pattern that we're in as a human, we may bring that into the business place as well. But then businesses have those same patterns. We have two goals that might slightly contradict each other. And so, as we get closer to one goal, it increases the desire to go back to the other goal that sort of competes with it. And we kind of go back and forth. There's all these issues that make humans and businesses a little messy.

Absolutely. No, that makes a lot of sense. And yeah, I think for attachment to contraction, it's usually just whatever's familiar to us, you know, even if what's familiar is not healthy or good for us or going to lead us to success, that is where we're most comfortable. And we tend to repeat what we're familiar with. And so it's very common that leaving that comfort zone, even if it's not a good comfort zone for us, and it's limiting our growth will feel very scary and very unsafe. Yeah, I imagine in businesses and with people that the moment you go after your dreams and stretch yourself outside your comfort zone, your body will process it as unsafe. And your impending doom generator will get louder with all the worst-case scenarios, what, what-if scenarios might happen. Yeah, I think in some ways, comfort zones can create plateaus in our life. Because of that, I find that it's much easier to get someone who's someone who's almost in pain struggling to a place of joy than it is to get to someone who's numb and who's like, yeah, things are fine and then comfortable, and then get them to a place of overwhelming joy. You know, it's much easier to take the person who needs it and it's coming from a place of, gosh, like this is really painful, I have to do something about it versus taking someone who's already comfortable and making their life better.

Yeah. And I think one of the important pieces of this idea is just simply recognizing if you're in a pattern, whether it's your business is in a pattern of oscillating or your personal life is in a pattern of oscillating, if you do nothing else but just be able to recognize that, that might be a good first step on the road to trying to move to more of an advancing pattern. So, all right, well, Victoria, as we get ready to wrap up here, just a couple more things. I would love to know what was like the hardest part of bending your reality, whatever that reality is that you've been bending. Was there a hard part on that journey for you?

Yeah, I feel like there's a new version of hard every day, just up-leveled problems every day. But again, like, also I'm stronger, so the problems don't seem as debilitating as they did when I was starting. But I would say that at the beginning, and still true sometimes as well today, is it's easy to believe something that you see evidence for, and it's way harder to believe things that you have not seen evidence for. And then it's even harder to believe things that go against what you were taught or what the rest of the world seems to believe. And so much of what I write about in Bending Reality goes directly against what I was taught and what I've learned growing up. And it directly goes against, you know, what most of the world believes. And there's a lot of unlearning that I've had to do in my journey. And, you know, one of the hardest things when I was starting was to kind of protect, in a way, my beliefs as they were be firming up to become deeper knowing, you know. So before we know something to be true, we need to believe that maybe it's possible. And I, when I was in that phase of turning a belief into a knowing, I had to not share what I wanted, my dreams, my visions for the world, my beliefs with people who I knew had the opposite beliefs or just didn't feel that way, because I felt that I would be very sensitive and very influenced by them, especially family, parents, siblings. And I think, yeah, it's really important that you just recognize that reality is made up of what everyone has decided is normal to believe is possible. And this book is really about making the impossible probable. And for a lot of people, that's going to raise a lot of eyebrows and seem like it goes against a lot of beliefs. And so I think, yeah, for me and for a lot of my clients, that initial unlearning and also like being really intentional around who you let into that very sensitive timing in your life when you're stabilizing your new belief systems is super important. And I've had to set some boundaries around people that I love and that people who I know want the best for me because I knew that they were afraid for me and that fear was sort of leaking out and rippling into my ability to not doubt what I felt could be true and could be possible for me. So yeah, that's probably been the hardest thing and one that I, yeah, that I hope that As I've created evidence of this being possible in my life and my clients have become evidence that just over time this won't be such a strange thing to believe. We can make the impossible probable and that there will just be evidence of it everywhere.

Yeah. And one of the things I love about your book is just how you laid it out. So you've got these 5 codes to bending reality and then you've got 11 key unlearnings for those codes. And so you spell those out pretty clearly and give some good examples. So I think it's just a great book. So what's the best way for folks to connect with you and purchase the book as well?

Yeah, so I am on Instagram, Victoria E. Song, and then my website is www.victoriasong.me. I'm launching a new Bending Reality live course for anyone who loved the book and wants to go deeper in embodying the principles so that you can bend reality. And yeah, I'm really excited about that. And thanks to Simon Schuster, you can find the book anywhere, wherever books are sold. And I would love any of you who want to write a review for it on Amazon. I would appreciate that.

Perfect. So one final question here, and that is, what is the one thing that you would want a reader of your book to think, feel, or do as a result of reading your book?

I feel like It would be to feel a sense of freedom they've never felt before in their body and to feel— and related, he said one— as to just feel a sense of possibility around things that, yeah, that maybe they didn't think were possible. So just really stretching your sense of what's possible for you in any area of your life, whether that's your romantic partnership, your business, money, your health, just wherever you're stretching the possibilities. I'm I'm very excited for you.

Excellent. All right, Victoria, this has been fantastic. Appreciate you taking some time here today and congratulations on the new book.

Thank you.

My key takeaway from my conversation with Victoria Song is how fear gets in the way of us going after our big vision and dreams, and that it's not until we are willing to face and feel those fears and know that we'll be okay that we're finally ready for that dream to come true for us. All right, that's all for today. Make sure you like and share this podcast through your favorite social platforms, and for more great podcasts, visit us at barons.com/podcast. Take care and be safe.

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