Rewire your brain for success (with Mike Zeller)

Success doesn't really actually begin with our actions, what we do. It begins with our minds, begins with how we think. And so today I sit down with my friend who's author and business mentor Mike Zeller, and we deep dive into how our identity and beliefs shape our actions and outcomes, why rewiring the subconscious mind is essential for personal growth and success, and how visualization and alter egos can help create new neural pathways. Now, Mike is a brilliant entrepreneur and business architect. He helps people specifically with neurolinguistic programming, NLP. He studied under the best, Tony Robbins, Jay Abraham, and I got to work with him personally for about 90 days in a coaching capacity. And he really, really helped me in a way I wasn't able to help myself before. He's the author of the book, The Genius Within. He's a brilliant entrepreneur, incredibly successful, and a delight to talk to. So I think you're really going to enjoy this conversation. Sit back, relax, and enjoy this deep dive masterclass with my friend Mike Zeller. Welcome to the Graham Cochran Show, where each week I help you create more money, margin, and meaning in your life. I'm your host, of course, Graham Cochran. Let's get into it. Mike, it's so Man, I feel good to have you on the show. I've really been looking forward to this 'cause selfishly, I get to have more time with you as a friend. And, you know, we've worked together earlier this year. You coached me, we had like 90 days of working together and I got to spend some time with you up in Nashville. And it's been a great experience and I feel like I had a lot of breakthroughs working with you. So I'm excited to bring you on to share with my audience some of what you do. So glad to have you, man.

Well, Graham, likewise, dude. Selfishly, I always love hanging with you as well. And it's a joy, man. You're a light and you're a creative genius and a gift to the world. And so it's gonna be a ton of fun to dive in, man.

Oh, well, I'll send you $100 after this for saying all that. Thank you so much for obliging.

If your wife's mad at you, just shoot me her number and I'll remind her you're a gift to the world. So.

Yeah, what a great service. Can we do this like on retainer? I think that'll be very useful. See, babe, I'm awesome. So here's what I wanna start real quick, just a little bit of context for the audience with us. Because I reached out to you— no, I was connected to you, um, through Kristen Boss. I think she connected us, and I was looking for another coach. And specifically, I was— I felt like I— the one way I described it to my wife was, I feel like I just need someone to talk to, to like untangle some stuff in my head. It wasn't like a specific, I need help launching this product, or I need— it wasn't very pinpointed. And, um, Kristen's like, oh, I know the perfect guy. So she connected us we jumped on a call together. And I, to be honest, didn't know much about what you did. I looked you up and I was like, well, he's worked with some really cool people. I trust Kristen's opinion. And that's why referrals are so powerful, right? 'Cause you trust one person and they recommend. But man, you took me in some powerful directions. We did some work together regarding NLP and all that stuff we can unpack that I had never experienced before. And I learned things that were new for me and knew about me. And I'm still unpacking some of that even after our official time has ended. And I almost feel like half of the time when I was working with you, I was like, what am I doing? I didn't fully understand the work we were doing in the moment, but it is becoming more evident as time passes. So it was just a wonderful experience. And I will just say, man, you are one of those people that the moment we got together, let's say for the VIP session in Nashville, You just like, you showed so much class and you loved on me so well and thoughtful touches and just like, you're the whole, you're the real deal. You're not just like, hey, I'm coming down from the mountain as the guru in this area, I'm gonna help you with this. You immediately became my friend. And I think that's one of the things I loved about you. And, you know, I've had a lot of coaches over the years. Usually they're all incredible people, but not everyone kind of feels like a friend from day one. So just, I love everything about you, man. I love how you roll.

Dude, thanks, brother. And likewise, it, you know, what I see a lot of people that I end up working with, they're, they're stuck in some way and they can't pinpoint it. And so I kind of think of myself a bit like Matt Damon in, uh, Good Will Hunting, where he sees these formulas and just boom, he sees they're popping in their mind. Well, I see patterns, patterns of thought, patterns of behavior, patterns that are also going to self-actualize. Because when we when we are speaking and acting in a way today, it projects into tomorrow, projects into next week, projects into next month and next year. And I like to say our words today are our boomerang tomorrow. You know, those words come back and they smack you in the face, the patterns, the beliefs, the identity, the energy. So to rewire our destiny, we often have to do that deep psychological makeup rewiring, which for me, I think it comes down to rewiring your identity, rewiring those beliefs that support that identity, and then thinking of how do I rewire the energy. So sometimes I think we can become emotionally constipated. How do I rewire that stuck energy so that it fuels whatever I want to create in the world? Because energy is the fuel. And Einstein and Tesla also talked about how the energy of the future, or the medicine of the future, is energy. And we're just now starting to understand. There's so much I don't understand, so much that some of these astrophysicists still don't understand about energy. But, you know, if you tackle all three of those, you can rewire your whole psychological makeup.

So let's start with like, what do you see? Let's, let's talk to entrepreneurs or anybody who's trying to achieve something in the world, because humans are humans.

Yeah.

What are what are the blocks? Like, where are people getting stuck? And they think it's maybe it's an information problem or I just need a strategy problem. Where do you come in and help people when, and what is the problem they're actually facing like inside their head that they don't even know about? Like, I didn't know I had some of these blocks.

Yeah, I think all of us were made up of what I would call programming. And programming is this unique mix of your worldview, your beliefs, the patterns that were almost seared in you as a child or as a young adult, as an entrepreneur, husband, wife, whatever. And then also the beliefs, the traumas, the societal norms that you've unconsciously accepted. Also the meaning that you've accepted about who you are, what you're capable of, and who you can become. Because unconsciously we make agreements all the time. And a lot of our agreements that we made, oh, this is what I'm capable of, someone told us when we were like 8 years old on the baseball field. Yeah, wow. And self-worth someone told us by their actions or inaction. And so we have to, you know, at the end of the day, our programming is not our fault, but by the time you're an adult, it is your responsibility. So taking ownership of, I gotta own reprogramming myself. Yeah, sure, I got suffered abuse, I suffered some things that were unfortunate, but I gotta rewire myself if I'm gonna achieve the highest levels. And you look at a, Tom Brady, LeBron James, Oprah Winfrey, et cetera, Tony Robbins, John Gordon, you know, anyone in our space, if they've accomplished extraordinary things, you'll notice they have incredible, an incredibly strong identity. That then they got the beliefs to support that identity, and then their actions and their energy are positive momentum towards, positive energy towards those beliefs and that identity. John Gordon knows he's gonna write another bestselling book. You know on your next book, your identity is strong enough with Rebel, hey, you're gonna hit the list with the next one. And then after you hit it, then the third one, you're gonna be like, I got this. You know, and as long as you—

Yeah, so tell me, 'cause you're right, when we first started to talk, it was identity. That was the first thing you wanted to talk about. So explain from your perspective, why does identity precede everything else? Like, why do we have to go with, wait, what do you mean my identity? Who am I? Who I think I am? What do I say? Like, why is that the most important thing and it affects everything else?

Yeah, I wrote in my book, "The Genius Within," that your identity precedes your destiny. And when you think of your identity, so one of my favorite examples, and I think it was the first book I had you read as well, and David perceived him as king. So there's that verse in Chronicles where David had already been proclaimed the next king of Israel. But he hadn't accepted it. He didn't receive and agree with it yet, so it hadn't actually become part of his identity. It was part of his potential identity. When he accepted it, it says in Chronicles, "And David perceived he was king." When that shifted, then he received, accepted, and became, and was willing to step into that. So it's almost like our identity is our self-label. Of who we are, what we're worth. And identity can be how much money we're worth. Like, "Oh, I'm worth $100,000 a year," or, "I'm worth $1 million a year," or, "I'm worth $20 an hour." So rewiring, learning how— and there's also usually a gap. I was sitting with another entrepreneur that coaches a lot of female CEOs yesterday, and I was doing some rewiring on her while we were— it was a coffee meeting, but I was like, "All right, let's— I see some limiting patterns here." And we worked through some of them. And she, her language patterns, one of the things she was saying is also, "It's hard." She said, "It's hard," like 3 or 4 times within a 5-minute span. And I was like, "Tiffany, let's observe your language because this story belief, it has to be hard, also reflects an identity that it can't be downhill, it can't be smooth, it can't be in flow and creating and building and all that." And then you're gonna be projecting that energy of struggle and Protestant work ethic and toxic hustle. And even though she's teaching women on how it can be easy and then like, it doesn't have to be this toxic hustle culture, but her language patterns didn't support that identity and didn't support those beliefs. So then we started reframing it.

That's so powerful. It's interesting, two things that come to mind for me. One, I don't know if you, do you know Cliff Ravenscraft?

Yeah, yeah, I know of him.

He was, yeah, yeah, he was the podcast answer man. Like, that was his thing years ago. He got like Michael Hyatt into podcasting. He got Amy Porterfield Waterfield into podcasting, into podcasting. It's kind of wild. But then he got into mindset coaching years later. But it, um, he, he shares the story of how when he was helping people with podcasts back in the day, like, he was like the guy to help you launch a podcast. It's like 17 years ago and nobody was podcasting or knew how to do it. He did like freelance services for people. And he had a client, he tells a story, we had a client who had a problem with his podcast setup. Cliff jumped on a call And within 2 minutes, like he charged by the hour, whatever, I might have been $50 an hour, $100 an hour, whatever it was. Within 2 minutes, he solved the problem. He knew exactly what it was 'cause this is what he's been doing for a decade. And the guy was ecstatic and he said, "Great, send me the invoice." And Cliff never sent him the invoice for that hour of service 'cause he's like, "It was only 3 minutes." And he never got paid for it, but he tells the story of how he, believed for so long that if you spend a lot of time on something, you should be rewarded for it. And really we're learning, right, it's the opposite. Like if he could solve your problem in 3 minutes, it should charge 10x because now you have your whole hour back that you can go do whatever else. But it was a limiting belief of I am only worth the time I put into something. It was just similar to maybe Tiffany's, like it has to be hard or it has to put in a lot of time. And I know a lot of people struggle with that. So I think about that, like that's more of a money story and your identity related to money. Which we did some work on, which was interesting. But then when you mentioned like my new book, like Rebel, it was interesting how with this book and after working with you, I've been very intentional to apply some of the stuff we learned about visualization, watching my language. And instead of like hoping I hit the New York Times or whatever the list would be, it's I imagine what kind of person is a New York Times bestselling author. And I am that person. I am writing a book worthy of the list, even though I know it's an editorial list and some people say, you know, it's not really about the best book. None of it's about, it's all bestselling. It's not really about best book. As Robert Kiyosaki pointed out with Rich Dad Poor Dad, he's like, it's not the best writing book, it's bestselling. It doesn't have to be a good book. But I'm writing a book worthy of the list. And I imagine like the books being in every store and stacks of them in the airport bookstores. I imagine it so much so that like it makes sense that I would write a New York Times bestselling book. And I have to almost assume that identity, which is then informing kind of how I show up and like, well, what would a person who's gonna launch a book that way do to make sure they move enough units, get enough press that the team at New York Times cares? 'Cause they don't care how many units you move if they don't care about you or think, you know. And so it's just been an interesting process of like, you know what, I am a New York Times bestselling author. That's an identity I'm assuming. And I'm gonna speak around that, use language around that, and my actions are gonna come from that, I believe.

Yeah, 100%. And that's spot on, and that reflects how you shifted your identity in the last 6 months in the process of writing this book, process of us working together, you working with Rory and John and other guys, where you committed, which also, as you commit, then you commit to growing into that identity. Right? And then your story changes, the internal story. The most important story is the internal story. 'Cause then that is what is projected outwards. And also that is what we tolerate in life. Wow. Right? It's determined by our internal story. You get what you tolerate in life, right? So you shifted your internal story and you, like you said, in shifting from hope to what's it have to be like to be, what would, who would I have to be to write a bestselling book? And becoming, and then you see it's actually just a process. It's a process of becoming. Yeah. No different from, hey, if I wanna drive down to Tampa and hang out with Graham, there's a process. I gotta boom, boom, boom, follow the roadmap. So—

Where do you think people get stuck the most though? Like when they, 'cause that's the problem, right? Is when you're telling somebody this, they obviously are stuck in some ways. How do you get someone to start the process of, it's not just, just think differently. Like you really believe that there's NLP, which you can explain if you want to, neuro-linguistic programming, if I have it correctly. Like there is literally grooves in our brain that are so well worn, it's hard to think differently. So you have some things that you do to help rewire. Like what does that rewiring look like? Because I loved how we, when we worked together, it wasn't just, well, Graham, stop thinking that. You're thinking these different thoughts. It was a little more, there was more care involved of like, there's a reason why you think these thoughts. We have to kind of undo some of the damage first before we can create the new thoughts. Tell me about that.

Yeah, so Einstein, you know, you know he was hit by a taxi doing a thought experiment. Poor guy.

I just literally picture a picture of Einstein getting smacked by a taxi, and I don't know why. Sorry, I laughed. Sorry, Albert.

No, it's— but he was lost in his thoughts and what he was doing, well, he was doing something magical though. So he was being lost in these thoughts. He solved the theory of relativity. Part of how he solved the theory of relativity and won his Nobel Prize was he'd be walking down the road doing these crazy thought experiments. And one of the thought experiments, he would see himself riding a light wave. So he's riding this light wave. So he's observing himself from a different perspective. And this light wave goes around like Mars or Saturn, and it bends because the gravitational pull has a pull on light. And he was like, all right, so that's— so something clicked where he saw that this is the formula for E equals mc squared. And it was because he saw himself from a different perspective. So like when we did the alter ego exercise, which Todd Herman popularized in his book Alter Ego, but I, I was doing it before his book ever came out because it's taught in NLP. So in NLP, We're teaching these different— you have different parts of yourself that make up yourself. Um, and this is also in Internal Family Systems from Dr. Richard Schwartz. And so you have these different personas, and you look at high performers, you know, Superman, Clark Kent, different persona. Beyoncé, Sasha Fierce. Kobe Bryant, Black Mamba. Actually, so Kobe Bryant develops this persona in Black Mamba that helps sharpen how he shows up on the court. But it's what happens is, so these neural grooves that we have, it's kind of like the highway of the United States, right? It's already there, and to build a whole new highway, you have to tear down neighborhoods, tear down forests, swamplands, whatever. But, you know, if you could just have a whole, like, fresh landscape to build something new and you have more creative freedom. So that's where you shift into tapping back into Einstein, who's obsessed with the power of imagination. So our brains don't know the difference between a reality and a very— like, if we're physically experiencing something like the free throw shooter experiment.

Yeah. Yeah. Where they— so wild.

Yeah. Versus just visualizing, intensely visualizing something. So then when we do an alter ego exercise like we did with you, then we shift you into this other state of you're connecting with a different part of you and then seeing those settings and experiences like I remember worked on like Grateful Graham and some other aspects, right? And so you show up differently and relate differently to yourself and others, whether it's in business, whether it's in your marriage or family or whatever. And when you shift into that persona, it's like it's easier instead of just trying really hard. Trying really hard, if you're programmed a certain way, trying really hard isn't going to get it done. Yeah, you— because your brain, you know, by the time you're 25, most of your neuro patterns are pretty, pretty firmly set unless you do radical things like, you know, move to a whole new country, learn a whole new language, create a radical upheaval in your life, or do like, you know, uh, different psychedelic medicines that double your neuroplasticity. You are pretty wired for the way you're shown up, but if you create these alter egos, now you have freedom. And my goal is to create internal empowerment for leaders to lead and guide their life and recognize that they are above even the person that's shown up today.

It's so powerful. I mean, and you referenced real quick the free shooter exercise. I read about that first in Dr. Maxwell Maltz's Psycho-Cybernetics. And he told the story, for those who don't know, they literally did a study with 3 groups that were basketball players. One group, they said, practice actually your free throws every day for a certain number of time. One group was to not practice at all for the same amount of time for a few weeks, and the other group was to practice in their mind. So imagine themselves making a certain number of free throws and then come back in 3 weeks and see who's better. And the people that actually practiced were the most better. They had improved by like 23%. But the people that did— and the people that didn't practice didn't get any better. So that makes sense. But what's fascinating is the group that just imagined the free throws in their mind, instead of the 23% improvement that the actual practicing people did, they had a 20% improvement. So it was like almost the same amount of physical improvement in just imagining themselves making the free throw. And the point being is, you know, your subconscious mind, your mind can't tell the difference between a real or imagined experience sometimes, which is powerful for the positive or negative. So I just was highlighting that for people that aren't familiar. And when you start to unpack that stuff, you're like, "Nah, that's crazy." But then you start to, see, you know, like Olympic athletes. I look at when the Winter Olympics are happening and the skiers are up there in the top, or even the gymnasts in the Summer Olympics. Like, you see them, like, their eyes closed and they're kind of bending their body. They're going through the, the twists and the flips they're going to do when they hit the vault in their mind, and they're pre-experiencing it so that it becomes muscle memory. And it's like, you can actually get benefit from imagining things in the, in the mental realm that translate into the physical realm. That connection, when I saw that That made me really stop and think maybe there's something to this. And what you're saying, which I think is maybe hard for some people to start out is, you said, you know, you got the highways built already. How do you create this new landscape? And I think adults in America, at least, and definitely in the West, but specifically in America, we're not taught to imagine.

No.

We're not taught to be curious. Like curiosity is beat out of us. Imagination is beat out of us once you're an adult. And so those are skills that don't seem useful in this modern era. Actually hard. It's not hard for kids to do this. And it's not hard for us to do this when we were kids, but for some reason, this is like, this feels weird. This feels awkward. I joked with you, if my wife bumped into us during our VIP session in Nashville, she would've looked at me, what are you guys doing? There's music playing, my eyes are closed, but I'm allowing myself to not think like rational Graham, like business owner Graham. You know, this is how marketing works. This is how you write. It was like, can we just imagine? What could be, and start to use that part of the brain that's maybe a little dormant. So maybe talk about like, where do people get stuck there? And when you work with people, does— is there resistance to even like go to this place of imagination? Are they like, how is this going to help me? Or do you find that people are so desperate that they're ready for, for whatever?

I, I find both. Um, I think people— there's often resistance, but there's also often desperation. 'cause they don't know, like they know they're stuck, but then their brain again is where I go back to, it's their programming. Even with my wife, my wife had a crazy traumatic childhood. And so there's a lot of triggers like today before, you know, we got, she was late for our daughter's school meeting to get her review. And our daughter's only 2, so it's not a big deal. It's not like, but guess what? She started getting all stressed. Lashed out at me, running out the door, frantic energy and all the stress. And, and I didn't take it personal because I recognize it's her programming. She's literally— and while it's way better than it was before, it's like half of what it was before. She would have had a panic attack before. Yeah, right. And because she was running late, she hates being late because she got in trouble as a child. So the programming that was kind of seared in, I'm in trouble, I'm a bad mom, for showing up late to my daughter's report card review thing. Yeah. And I'm like, you know, she's 2 years old, what are they gonna say, right?

But you didn't tell her that though, like, babe, this is stupid, why are you flipping out? That's not gonna work.

Exactly, it's not gonna work. That wouldn't work either. My programming used to say that, it does, but, uh, and that leads to fights, so my programming has been rewired mostly. Um, but So we have to remember, so our brain is wired to keep us safe, not to make us thrive.

Mm.

So the people—

Say that again. That's so powerful.

Our brain is wired to keep us safe, but not to make us thrive. So the people that master any game they're playing, master oneself, master game of business, master marriage, master parenting, whatever, they've learned to master themselves And if you come from, well, we all come from some junk. We got some junk in the trunk. So we have to clean that out and rewire. And that takes a lot of intentionality around your conscious beliefs, but especially your subconscious. Because 99% of our thoughts are subconscious and we have 60,000 to 70,000 thoughts a day. One of the other big hurdles that we have to overcome is 90% of my thoughts today are the same thoughts I had yesterday. Wow. And then 90% of tomorrow's thoughts are going to be a repeat of today's. So there's a problem, right? Yes. But how we get to rewire is we gotta— and that's why hypnotherapy is also really important. That's why what we do in NLP is— so I— we bypass some of your conscious thoughts and we created integration. Because when we are in disintegration or disharmony, internal disharmony, Jesus, Abraham Lincoln, etc., said a house divided against itself cannot stand. Well, I want your conscious mind and your subconscious mind to be integrated in integrus, as well as all the other parts of you. So if you have Grateful Graham, or I have Magic Mike and Badass Mike Z, and, uh, you know, we got, you know, my other persona, Weak Ass Willie, right? I have these other guys in Hollywood Mike Z, and I also have Playful Dad. So I gotta know, like a good, you know, basketball coach, I gotta know who to put in in what situation. And one of my mistakes, for example, in managing my own alter ego is I would be listening to a podcast because I'm like, you know, grow, learn, conquer the world, whatever, right up until the minute I'm supposed to like hang with my wife and daughter. Yeah. So I'll walk in and I'm like, I've got the energy of I'm gonna, you know, knock some stuff out, right? I'm focused and intense. Doesn't work. Yeah. So I gotta flip. And now I have the habit of before I walk through the door, ideally the last 10 minutes if I'm driving home, play some music, whatever, that shifts me into playful dad. And so I'm connecting and I'm playful with my, my daughter. And then so when we create those alter egos, it just gives us permission and much more internal freedom. And then we start figuring out how to rewire the beliefs and the energy to support that.

Hey friend, we'll get back to the episode in just a moment. Real quick, I hope you're enjoying the episode, and if so, please share it with somebody that needs to hear this episode today. It would mean so much to me. Also, I want to give you a gift for hanging out with me today. I want to give you my free Million Dollar Life-Giving Business Formula on-demand training. Inside of this less than 60-minute training, it will help you uncover your uniqueness to build a 7-figure boutique brand without burning out. This is some of my favorite material. These are the things that I'm taking my private clients through, but I want to share them with you in this free training. So if you've already built your business, but it's not giving you life, it's taking life from you, this is the training for you. It's absolutely free. Just go to grahamcochrane.com/life-giving. That's grahamcochrane.com/life-giving, all one word, and you can register for your spot right there. Now back to the episode. That's so good. Yeah, so like, I love that example, especially of like working up to the moment in the day. I think it's a very like having some time buffer. Someone said it years ago, to land the plane. Yeah, right. Like, you don't want to— if you're at 30,000 feet, you don't just jump out and be like, all right, I'm home. Like, let's just land the plane. And whether that's 10 minutes in your workday, or if you, if you have a commute, using that. Like, for years I didn't have a commute. I worked in, in the office or in my garage where I had a studio. And so it literally was just walking from the garage into the kitchen. And so I was like, no commute. So I had to give myself 10 minutes Yeah, to either like— sometimes it was to do some light reading or something fun I wanted to do, but a lot of times it'd just be to sit. And I think John Acuff said this years ago, like there's like the pause that refreshes. And he would just like, like take a deep breath before he like opened the door, even, even for a few seconds, like, wait a second, I'm entering a new space. It's not the same space. And I love how you put it, I can't even really show up as the same part of me in this world. It's not that there's a bad part or a good part or even a work part or a home part, 'cause it's all integrated. But there is a way of thinking in this moment, I have to show up more fully as the playful dad, you know, attentive husband. And instead of thinking, this is how I used to think, Mike, and you've helped me shift this thinking even in this conversation. I used to think, okay, when I go home, now I have to do, certain things so that Shay's happy, the kids are happy, or even if it's not for them, 'cause this is the right thing a husband or dad does. I was focused on the actions. But you've helped me shift it as to, no, how would a loving husband and loving father show up? Who is that person when he comes home who's not worried about work? 'Cause he trusts God's got it and he did what he could today and now he's closed the door and there's another day to fight it. So he's not worried. If I were that guy and I wasn't worried about work and I'm just happy to be home, Who would I be? What would I be like? And then it's not about the actions as much as it's about the identity. And then I show up differently and they can tell the difference and I can tell the difference. And that's been powerful.

Yeah, and it's shifting from doing to being. When I am being this person, I am this person, then the actions, the doing comes naturally. If I am playful dad, then I'm naturally gonna be more playful. So it's just shifting a switch in my brain and my energy. So I shift into that, and then we can— we can— learning, learning to master it. So like when I'm showing up on a podcast now, like my— I want to be Hollywood Mike Z. That's my more playful, entertaining, high energy, because I'm so calm. Like, yeah, off the camera I'm too calm and I need to tune it up, right? So, um, anyway, so yeah, spot on. It's like the— in essence, you're describing the doing versus the being.

One of the things that I loved about working with you, and maybe this is something that you do in your, as you call it, neural rewiring, but if it's not, it's okay too, is in business, let's talk about like in business, a lot of times we think in the rational mind of like, okay, I need a new strategy. We need it. So it's real simple. Like you need more leads, you need, you know, higher prices, you need more offers. And we're thinking about, and those are all wonderful things. These are all dials we can dial up But one of the things that blew me away from— what is it? I'm blanking on his name. The Big Leap, the author.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Gay Hendricks.

Gay Hendricks, yeah.

Gay Hendricks, yeah. So The Big Leap, when I read that book, I kind of first understood what he called the upper limit problem.

Yeah.

Right, and it was like we have this internal thermostat is the language he used, which was helpful for me to understand of this is kind of about the ceiling of how much love you feel like you deserve, how much money you feel like you deserve, happiness you feel like you deserve. And you don't know it's there, but we all have it. It's all set different places. And when you bump up against it, you will subconsciously self-sabotage to bring the thermostat back down to whatever that level is set. So no matter how much strategy you have, if I got on Oprah's show and she sent me a million leads per month to buy my book or my courses, I would somehow subconsciously not be able to handle if my thermostat was like low. I don't deserve more than a million dollars a year or whatever, I would somehow self-sabotage that success. And it's like putting fuel into a broken system or has a leaky bucket or whatever you wanna say. Do you find that the work you do is helping people raise that thermostat on like, look, you need to, if it's on a business client, like you're thinking too small in terms of your impact you can have, the amount of money you can make, or I find this too, people who like you kind of alluded to with Tiffany, your client of, if it's gonna be successful, it has to be hard. And so if they find that they're crushing it in business and it's kind of effortless, there's this weird guilt of like, this shouldn't be so easy. And I felt that years ago and I got over that as quickly as I could. And I don't feel bad. Somebody at a Bible study last night said, hey, you've been working hard this week. I was like, not really. I'm doing good stuff, but it's not hard. And I'm very intentional about that. But I struggled with that for a while. Do you find that like that's some of the work you're doing is helping people raise that thermostat?

100% because it comes down to an identity as well. Like Tiffany, for example, what's her body saying? Your body will not let you hurt itself unless you're like a Navy SEAL and you can bypass and you know how to cut off your own hand, right? Please don't. You have to be an extreme, like, to be able to bypass. But a normal, healthy, functioning adult, so Tiffany's saying it's hard, so more growth means more hard. And if her body is already saying, I'm tired, which it was, I was like, her body's gonna say no. Yeah. So that's what we part— and she sent me a text today, like, at the beginning, "What if it's easy?" is what she wrote on a new board. And so, you know, and then it's an identity, back to the upper limit problem. So if I'm— my identity is here, it's like an invisible ceiling. So if I wanna get up to the next level, then my body, the thing I have to rewire into your nervous system, not just what you say, but it has to be in your nervous system, how you feel about it, because memories are encoded according to feelings. So I have to rewire you to feel safe that it's safe. If I, like, you know, Kristen Boss, for example, $97,000 a year or whatever. When we started out, she was making about $100,000. About a year later, made a million, over a million dollars, right? And now she's a 7-figure. I'm not gonna go into any more details than that. But then, but she, her nervous system is actually started breaking down when she made, when she had her first like $35,000, $40,000 month. She's like, ah, I'm not worthy. She was crying like, and I hopped on Zoom with her and just coached her through it. 'Cause her body was saying, you're not worthy of this. This, you're a fraud. How's this happening? And I had to calm her nervous system down and realize it is safe for her to earn that, to become that, to be that. And then when it— then it's like this, it becomes a container. So think of if my life is a little tiny 1-gallon bucket, then I switch it to a 5-gallon bucket or a barrel. Doesn't mean there's 5 gallons of water. And let's say water represents money. But now I have the capacity to step into that.

Yes, yes, that's helpful.

Yeah. And then, then the other thing we have to do is, is look— our brains are trained to find evidence for whatever we think our identity is now. So then the beliefs are supporting that identity, like, oh, I screwed things up. Well, your brain will— like, think of it— I can give a perfect example. When my wife is in a depressed state she looks— or anyone in a depressed psychological profile, they, they find everything that is wrong with life. They forget all the good things. They forget the people that love them. They think, I have no friends, I have no family, blah blah blah, life's falling in on me. And when yesterday they could have been thinking about all the good things, but they fell off a cliff and they're in a depressed spiral, right? And I would see that with my wife when we were battling depression for 2 and a half years. And I'd be like, babe, you were just happy like 3 hours ago. But her brain was accessing all the files and all the memories according to her depression or her joy if she's in a joyful state. Same thing for me. So the beliefs that we have will often support our identity, but then there's an energy. The other thing is energy. There's a lot of stuck energy. And I didn't understand. I was never woo-woo. I'm kind of a rational thinker. Give me evidence, give me the facts.

You're a business guy. That's your background, building businesses and scaling things, yeah.

Yeah, and my energy was like, but now I see that trauma can have a stuck energy, that pain, sadness, or joy, and you can move up the energy scale to love. And you look at a Jesus, you look at a Gandhi, you look at a, You know, Mother Teresa, they had different vibrant energy and they would lift the rooms magnetically. Deepak Chopra lifts the rooms. Oprah Winfrey, Tony Robbins lifts the room. Graham, you walk into Kajabi, boom, lifts the room. You know? And that's what we wanna be. We wanna be lid lifters. But to be that, we have to have that energy where we're tapped into love and joy and it's flowing 'Cause it's almost like we want this energy to be flowing like a river, not like stuck and stagnant like a swamp.

That's so powerful. I think the container analogy is helpful for me. It's like an increase— before you can increase what you want, if you want more love in your life or joy or money, or for me, like us in the content space, I want more viewers or impact, you have to increase the internal, mental container to be able to allow that to be filled. It's funny, yesterday, Mike, I had lunch with a young gentleman at our church who's just sharp, man. He's building a real estate business and he's 25. His name's Josh. And I had lunch with him 'cause I really, we wanted to get together and I wanted to get to know his story. I'm like, dude, most 25, I was playing Xbox at 25, you know, like trying to figure out my life. And you seem to be really on top of it. And this is a different level of maturity. I'm like, what's your deal? What's your story? And he talked about what he's doing and building wealth in real estate. And he said, man, I was like, well, what started that drive? And he said, poverty, poverty started that. I grew up with a single mom, bad part of town in Tennessee. And I was like, I'm so tired of being broke and so tired of being poor. And he's like, when I was, I was like, well, what changed? He said, when I was 19, I was the first person in my family to go to college, and I'm in college and I'm still wasting my time, but I'm there. And at 19, it's like, I don't know what happened, Graham. He said, I just imagined myself as a millionaire. And I just was like, he just shifted.

Yeah.

He said, I know I don't want to be poor anymore. So he just, he's like, Graham, I literally could close my eyes. I just picture myself like, yeah, that makes sense. I'm a millionaire. And he really settled on that identity first. And then he was like, okay, what do millionaires do? Well, they invest in things or build businesses. And he's like, I don't know. And he just, he started to seek out mentorship and read books. But he's like, Graham, he's like, it's been, and now it's 6 years later and he's had a couple of multi-six-figure years and he has a few properties in Tampa that he's building and flipping and he's working for another company. He's like, the dude is, crushing and he's well on his way. He said, but my family, it's all the, oh, it must be nice, must be nice. He's like, I'm literally you. Like I just decided at 19 that I'm a millionaire now and I'm gonna figure this out, but they can't see past their identity. I just thought it was a really interesting picture of like he decided to expand his container and he hadn't filled it yet. He was still a broke college kid, but he's filling that container right now. And he's probably on track to create a billionaire container at this point 'cause he's just so sharp and so willing to get it done and he's such a people person. But that's been my story too of like, I just, the things I've asked God for in prayer, the things I've dreamed about, they've changed. They've grown so much because it used to, I could only see but so far. When I lost my job, I was like, if I could just make $4,000 a month consistently, I would be so happy. And that was all I could see as a container. I'm a $4,000 a month guy. I'm a $50,000 a year guy. And then it was, gosh, maybe I could be a $100,000 a year guy. Maybe I could be a multi, you know, then it could be a million. Whoa, that'd be crazy. And these containers kept increasing. I know we're using money as language, but it's really the same thing of you have to see it as being possible in your mind first. And then I think so many of us, and I'm a how person, I would get hung up on the how. How is that possible? But the how is not a great first question if you don't believe that you could be that person first.

Yeah, spot on. And we, Hal throws monkey wrenches in our story and we have to, you know, so many of us believe we have to figure out the how before we can really start. And that's just a total BS myth. Look at Elon Musk, 2018, get this, 2018, he was 2 hours away from being bankrupt with Tesla. That's crazy. And SpaceX wasn't far behind. Right? Like both businesses in the period of 2016 to 2018 were like in, like almost on the edge all the time until he finally got the breakthrough with the Model S and then the NASA contract and all that. And now he's like worth whatever, $250 billion or something. It's insane. Or more. And he just, he creates new companies all the time. Like, oh, I'm gonna build a Boring Company, tweeting on that he's stuck in traffic and he creates it. 'Cause he believes, he has an identity that says, "Yes, I am capable of this." And then his beliefs will match it, which then he takes positive energy, positive movement towards it. And so I think in that kid you're talking about, yeah, he's gonna be there because he's making positive energy and he's also putting himself, the other thing is, you know, our reality, our environment, either supports or undermines the reality that we want to create. And so that kid's being intentional about putting people like you in his life, right? Because now he's gonna see, oh, it is possible. This is how I can do it. And some other practical ways you can do this, I've done it. Like my wife really likes this one really nice hotel in Ireland. It's like $1,200 a night. And when we were there in 2020, I was like, I'm not paying $1,200 a night for this thing. Love you, babe. My psychology doesn't support that at that time. But I was like, all right, I'm gonna— but also I'm like, that's a limiting belief to say I can't afford this. So what am I gonna do? I'm gonna start moving my nervous system into feeling safe with that place. So we bought the $100, uh, person lunch thing that has all the fancy sandwiches on like 5 trays because it's a British high tea or whatever. Heck yeah. So we did that and we had that 3-hour lunch in that beautiful environment, took pictures and just easing my mind into it. I've done like, before I bought my first Tesla, I'm gonna get another one. I have an Audi now, but when I get a Tesla again, but the first time I was like, ah, I rode in someone's and it felt amazing. And then I was like, I went and test drove one 6 months before I, I wasn't planning on buying it 6 months later, but my brain had kind of shifted into, oh, it is possible for me to have a Tesla. And then I figured out a way, the how. And so I'm 100% with you, man. It's like you gotta move your identity, move your beliefs, and move your energy and environment to support the reality that you wanna create. And it is, you know, Henry Ford was bankrupt at age 43 for the second time. 10 years later, world's wealthiest man. And those things are possible for any of us at any season of life.

That's so powerful, man. Oh my gosh, I could go on and on about this. I have one last question before we get into that though. You have a couple of practical resources people can get, 'cause I have a feeling they're gonna be like, how do I start rewiring my brain? So what resources can people jump onto for free to start practicing this stuff?

Yeah, so I've got a, I call it Rewired Guide, and it's really an ebook. It's phenomenal. It breaks down everything from neuroscience, alter egos, how to rewire your identity, your beliefs, and your energy. Goes through healing trauma. We didn't get into healing trauma as much in this conversation, but the other aspect of when you heal trauma is a big deal for a lot of leaders, and we're most of the time unaware of some areas of trauma we might have. So we go through a lot of that, um, from the peak performance psychology. I also talk about flow state. The other thing that, um, when you shift into flow state, you're 500% more productive and you release all 6 neurochemical cocktails. So unpack some of that, and then also even some nootropics and other brain optimization supplements that you can get on Amazon that are pretty simple, but they make a significant difference to your brain energy, which means you feel like— I have an Olympic athlete right now, she's the world's 16th fastest woman using two of the supplements that I recommend because she's seeing the difference in their performance and her focus and presence. So those are some of the things. It's neurorewiring.com. Neurorewiring.com.

Excellent, awesome.

Yeah.

And then tell us, they also have the, you have this free NLP session, Claim Your Power, right?

It's called Claim Your Power NLP session. When you grab that ebook on rewiring yourself, you'll have the access to the Claim Your Power NLP. But you can also go to my YouTube channel, which is not nearly as good as Graham's, by the way, but Graham's is killer. So, uh, definitely check out Graham's if you haven't yet. But, uh, Claim Your Power NLP— I've had almost 30,000 people, um, do at least one session. I've had many people just go through it 10 or 15 times because they found it so powerful. Yeah, that's awesome. And that'll get—

guys, that'll give you a taste of like what, um, Mike and I did together a few times, both in person and then even on Zoom calls. Yeah, I love that. Neurorewiring.com, um, I'll link to that below. Uh, final question, man, before I wrap this up, because this is a segment we do and this can go in any direction you want. It can be off topic, something I call the Golden Rule segment, and it's really simple. Remind me your, uh, your daughter's name.

Sonnet.

Sonnet. I love that, such a cool name. I know your wife is mega creative as well, so that makes sense. Um, okay, so if Sonnet and, you know, she's 2, but you're teaching her incredible things and you're gonna raise her to be an incredible young woman and she'll do amazing stuff, I have no doubt. But if Sonic grows up and forgets everything you ever taught her except for one thing, one piece of advice that she actually would keep and carry with her for the rest of her life, almost like a golden rule, what would you want that to be for her?

Man, that's such a tough question because I could go down love, the pathway of love, go down the pathway of genius, go down the pathway of impact.

Yeah, pick one.

I know, I know.

On the spot.

So I would say for Sonnet, I dare you to love boldly while pursuing your genius without setting limits on your impact on the world because your life is meant to be lived out loud and to be an example to stretch others into the realm of possibilities for their own life. So live boldly, pursue your deepest areas of gifting because you will find your deepest areas of flow and impact will follow as you step into those two areas knowing you are meant to to serve and unlock people's gifting and joy and capacity for love. So that was not a one sentence, but—

You cheated, you cheated, Mike. It was beautiful, but you cheated.

You snuck them all in there.

Hey man, I have a coach at the gym says, if you ain't cheating, you ain't trying. So I love it. That's beautiful. And one thing you did say in there that I thought was great is no limits. And there's just no limits. I love how you help people remove those limitations so that they can achieve all the things that they're meant to achieve.

Yeah. Well, dude, thanks. Thanks for having me on. And dude, it was such a pleasure also, you know, working with you on the VIP side. Love how you show up. And, you know, it's— I can't wait to connect with your audience and see how I can support them as well in their journey. But dude, I can't wait for your next book. Rebel's going to be epic, man. This is— this is going to be a big Big stepping stone for you and your journey.

Yes, sir. Thank you so much, man. I'm pumped for it. Everyone, Mike Zeller, go check him out, mikezeller.com. Check out neurorewiring.com for the free ebook. And, uh, Mike, it's been a pleasure, man. Love you. Appreciate you.

Love you, bro. See you soon.