231. Mitch Weisburgh | MindShifting: Stop Your Brain From Sabotaging Your Happiness and Success

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, we interview one of the world's top authors, and as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and live better. In today's episode, we have the pleasure to interview Mitch Weissberg, author of Mindshifting: Stop Your Brain from Sabotaging Your Happiness and Success. Mitch has spent over 40 years at the intersection of education, technology, and personal development, helping people shift their thinking and take control of their reality. He's taught thousands how to make better decisions, think critically, and break free from limiting beliefs. Through his work, he combines psychology, neuroscience, and practical strategies to shape how we learn, In this conversation, you'll learn how understanding your mindset can completely change the way you navigate your life. You'll also learn how your brain reacts to challenges, why so many people let their inner critic run the show, and what you can do to stop sabotaging your own success. We talk about the power of habits, how to shift your thinking in moments of stress, and why your perception, not your circumstances, determine your reality. If you ever felt stuck, held back by negative thoughts, or unsure of how to move forward, This episode is for you. Now get ready to learn and enjoy this incredible conversation with Mitch Weissberg.

Mitch, welcome to the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. I'm excited to dive right in, and the first subject I'd like to bring up is a personal development lecture that you were attending, and it was the first time you realized that our reality is negotiable, that you're in control of your own reality, and the metaphor that this presenter on stage was talking about was in a car. Can you tell everybody that metaphor?

I'm sorry, that's one of the topics that you're not allowed to talk about. No, I'm sorry, I'm, I'm kidding. Yeah, sure. So, so this was probably, probably in the late 1980s, early 1990s, you know, and, um, and I was running a company. We trained people how to use computers, and in order to have a company benefit, you know, we had this person come in and she talked to us about, you know, how we could be better people or whatever. And one of the big things was that you control the situation. And the example she used was a traffic jam. Like, if you're driving and you're in a car, sometimes you get really upset when everything stops and you're late for a meeting. And you're just like, oh my gosh, I'm late for a meeting. What's going to happen? My boss is going to get angry at me. My client is going to get angry at me. I'm going to miss this. I'm going to, you know, you just, it just boils and boils and boils. And sometimes you're in a car and you're stopped in traffic and you're listening to music and you're thinking about things. And she says, it's the same traffic jam. There's no difference. What's going on is something in your head. And so if you don't want to be upset at things, you can control your brain and how you react to the situations. It's your reaction. And when you take control of it, you can make it pleasurable or you can leave it as being angry and anxious and whatever, Whatever it was you were feeling, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, okay. So I don't know. A couple days later, I'm in the car. I'm I have to be in New York for a meeting, and there's a traffic jam, and I'm thinking about all the different things like this is a big prospect, and there's a salesperson who's counting on me, and all these things. And then I'm like, you know something? Maybe I can control this. So I start thinking, well, you know something? Let me think about how I want to run the meeting. Let me start. Let me reach out to the salesperson and find out what she's thinking we're going to cover. And it just you know we just I was talking with her on the phone. We were planning what was going to happen in the meeting. If if I wasn't going to be there, she was perfectly capable of running the meeting. As it turns out, I was there on time, and it was very pleasant. It was like oh my gosh, this stuff worked. And that was probably the thing that launched me into understanding that. It's your mindset that defines your reality. It isn't the reality that's there. You— your brain is telling a story about the reality, and that's a shortcut, but you can change the story.

Yeah, so many people struggle because they want to control things like a traffic jam that they don't have any control over. That's entirely outside of your ability to control the situation. But what you can control, if I'm hearing you the right way, is the story you're telling yourself about the traffic jam And you can control your response to the traffic jam. And so, I think if, if most people just understood that basic lesson, and we're only a couple of minutes into today's show, their life would be better off. And by the way, Mitch, I bet there are a number of people listening to this podcast while they're in the car stuck in a traffic jam. And so, this is a great opportunity.

I don't think so. I, I don't think people get stuck in traffic jams anymore. I mean, this is, this is the 21st century, right?

Oh, I wish. Listen, I'm in Boston. And, uh, we are known for our traffic up here. Yeah, well, I love that story, and I can't believe that was all the way back, you said, in the late 1980s?

Yes. Yep.

Yeah. And still, concepts like defining what you have control over versus what you don't have control over are still very novel subjects for most people. So tell us, uh, how did you get started in that business that you were running?

So, okay, so there's 2 parts to that. How, you know, you mentioned how do I get started in the business? And then how did I get started? So this isn't, this isn't a business. Okay. This is really a personal mission. And there is no business. You know, I, I, I wrote a book, I teach courses, but I'm, it's not running it as a business. It's running it to reach a number of people. But, you know, I've always been interested in, you know, how people can be successful and how some people aren't successful and what the differences are. And. And I always get upset about people thinking about the problems that we face in society. And instead of solving those problems and moving forward, we always lock, lock into, you know, fights. Oh, you know, we have to ban guns. Oh, we can't ban guns. It's in the Constitution. Oh, we have to do this. No, we can't do this. And so we ended up in, in these, in these big fights rather, rather than moving forward. And I guess I was pretty upset about something that had happened. And I got this email. Inviting me to speak in Niger, of all places, about education technology in the US. 'Cause that's, 'cause I was involved in education technology. And I'm like, yeah, there's no reason for university students in Niger to learn about edtech in the US. So, you know, one of these, you know, sometimes you get these flashes of like really, really stupid ideas. Well, this was a flash of a really, really stupid idea. I'm like, you know something? I'm going to write them an email. So I wrote them an email saying, I don't think it's going to help your undergraduates to learn about education technology in the US, but if you want, I can teach them how successful people make sense of situations and how they can use those same principles. And so an email came back and then we talked about it and this was June of, I think, 2017. And then we agreed that that I would fly to Niamey, Niger, and I would teach 2 2-day workshops to their undergraduates of 60, 65 people in each workshop. And it's like, okay, that's— we settled that, we agreed to it. And then like 5 minutes later, it's like, Mitch, you idiot. Like, you don't know how to do this. You know, you've never taught people how to be successful. You never taught people about mindsets. You, you know, I'd taken a lot of classes. I'd taken classes in neurolinguistic programming. There's something called the Landmark Curriculum. I'd taken the Landmark Curriculum. I'd read a lot of books about a lot of different topics, but I'd never taught this to anybody. So, but I had 5 months. So in that 5 months, I read 11 books on different topics. Like you think about situations where we have to make sense of things like economics is how we make certain types of decisions. Psychology, neuroscience is how the, you know, how neurons and the brain operate. Cognitive science is about how Our brains change. Learning science is about how, you know, how we learn and how you teach in order to learn. Sales is all about convincing and influencing people. Organization development. So I just read these books on all these different topics. And one of the things that came through to me is that there was— each one had a slice about how to make really good decisions and stick with them. But nothing put together the whole thing. So I figured, you know something, let me just try to pull together all these different fields and come up with something that would make a difference. And so I came up with this 2-day workshop, flew to Niamey, taught the first class of 60 people. And these are, you know, I said undergraduates, they're 18 to 25 years old. They speak French, not English. Some of them speak English a little bit. But after the 2-day class, I said, and that's it. And they stood up and they cheered. I was like, oh my gosh, I just struck a nerve. Because, you know, nobody teaches these things. Like, nobody teaches kids, you know, that just because they think something is true doesn't make it true. Just because you think you can't do something doesn't mean you can't do it. Just because you disagree with somebody and you can see that they're wrong doesn't mean that they're completely wrong and that you're completely right. You know, all these different ways that you can go about, about learning how to be resilient and resourceful and think critically. You know, we, we should be teaching those, but we don't. And these people were really hungry for it. And the same thing happened with the second one. And, and since then, it's like, you know something, this is really my life mission. If, if somehow or other, you know, we could get some critical mass of people, like, okay, so there's what, 8.5 billion people on the planet? Okay. If we could get 5 million of them to really understand how their brains work, to understand how to calm themselves down when they feel that they're fighting or flighting, fleeing away. How to be resourceful and resilient, how to how to get into a collaborative mode with people that you disagree with. How would the whole world look look different if five million people knew how to do that? They would be happier. They would be more successful, and they would then influence the world. So that's been my mission since say 2020 is how you know pulling together this material because I've added to it a lot, and then. And then how do I reach 5 million?

Well, I love your mission and you're influencing people right now on this podcast as they're listening to it or watching the video version. And you've influenced me as a reader of your book. And so, one of the subjects you just brought up, Mitch, is understanding how your brain works. And I want you to help me understand something quickly. There's a quote that I've been known to repeat quite often. It's a Viktor Frankl quote from Man's Search for Meaning where he says, between stimulus and response, There is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. But that's not necessarily true, because while I was reading your book, I learned that functional MRIs have shown it takes 2/100ths or maybe 3/100ths of a second for the heuristic and emotional parts of our brain to go into action, whereas it takes 2 to 3 full seconds for the analytical parts of our brain to activate. Now, let me paint a picture for you. For years, I've told people that I've improved my emotional intelligence and my ability to process before I respond through practices like meditation and journaling and other mindfulness practices. But I don't know if that's technically true because I think what I'm actually doing is maybe rewriting the default emotional and heuristic responses, not actually the analytical ones. So Could you break that down for us a little bit?

I have no idea how to do that. No, I'm—

no, dang it, you're the guy that was gonna help me solve that. Darn.

Okay, okay, well, this isn't the first time I've disappointed somebody, so, you know, maybe, maybe it'll be the last time. So, um, so Viktor Frankl is like what, you know, basically a hero, right? Um, you know, Man's Search for Meaning. And, and he's right, there, there is this space, but naturally We don't use that space. So naturally, we have these responses in 2/100ths of a second from our survival parts of the brain that all animals have. Okay. That's how we've survived. It's, it's searching for things that can hurt us. And when it finds something that can hurt us, it focuses all of our attention on that one thing. And in modern society, we don't have those things that can hurt us, but it can't distinguish. between something that might make us a little bit uncomfortable and something that's going to kill us.

Like public speaking.

Public speaking is a perfect example. Okay. We, you know, one person gets a little bit afraid of public speaking, and then that amplifies, and then that becomes their conditioned response. One of the things that you've done is, well, actually, I'm going to step back one. So, so in this limbic part of the brain, there are 5 different responses that— types of responses that it generally makes, forces us to make. Okay. One of the first one we learn is freeze. And, you know, when, as soon as they're born, babies learn how to freeze, they just do nothing. Okay. So freeze is the first one. And then flight. Okay. Running away or fight, fighting. Those are the first 3.

Mitch, can I pause you real quick?

Yeah, sure.

I have a, I I have a 3-month-old at home.

Yeah.

And it was funny because like when you kind of startle a baby, they just go, right, and they just freeze. And so I totally, I could see exactly what you're talking about. And I had never thought about it until I read, you know, until I had read that that's the first of the default responses. But go ahead.

So over time, we start building up these things that we're fluent in. Now, I, you know, I think you can call them fluencies, you can call them habits, but those also become part of the reservoir of tricks that our limbic brain can draw on. And so we build those up. And then, and then on the 5th type is we have this compunction to do what everybody else is doing, to copy others. And so, you know, copying what the people in our tribe are doing is the 5th. And that's one of the things that has made us So powerful in this world is that we band together and then we build great things. So that fourth one is habits. What you've succeeded in doing is you've succeeded in creating habits so that one of your early responses is to make this pause. Oh no! Okay, I'm I'm starting to get angry or I'm starting to be sure of myself. You that's right. Let me just stop a second. Ah, that part of the brain is quiet. Now let me tap into my creativity, my critical thinking, my ability to collaborate with others.

Yeah, that's fascinating. So what I've developed is not the ability to access the analytical part of my brain before the emotional or heuristic parts. What I've developed is the habit of pausing. So it's almost like an awareness.

Exactly, exactly. And you probably don't do it all the time either, because there are times— I don't even know, are you married?

I am, yes.

Okay. All right. So that's right. You just mentioned that. Well, that doesn't necessarily mean that you have a, you know, you're married, but, you know, so if, you know, so if you're like anybody else who's married, your spouse has the ability to get you white-hot mad at times, right?

Yes.

And those are the times where you don't catch it. But then what you do is, you know, over time you think, well, geez, I just got mad at this behavior. I'm not happy with myself when I'm mad. And you start thinking about other habits so that that behavior won't make you white-hot mad again.

For people in the audience that are listening today, I just want to highlight that some of the subjects we're starting to cover and some of the language we're using might seem new and uncomfortable. And, uh, but I just want to highlight that Mitch has written a book that progressively introduces these concepts, and there are visuals in the book to help you understand the order of things. And, uh, I highly recommend picking up a copy because it's really— Mitch, it's refreshing the way that you've written this. You Yes, you're combining ideas from all sorts, you know, all over the place, but they come together in this really cohesive and easy-to-understand format.

Wow. Well, thank you very much. Uh, a lot of the stories are, are either about me or about my family, but a lot of them come from classes that I teach where people, you know, people have reported, um, you know, one of the things that we, one of the techniques in the book is to tap into your, what, what, what I call your sage powers, your, your most resilient, resourceful powers. You know, and one of one of those is empathy. And so I challenged the people in the class one day. Tomorrow, what I want you to do is declare in the morning that you are going to be empathy. You're going to be empathy for the entire day. So the next day, this teacher comes back and she says, "You know, this was one. This was a really interesting experience. You told me to challenge empathy, and so I saw this girl in walking in the hallway." And I immediately said, oh my gosh, she's really upset. And I would never have known her, known that if I hadn't been channeling empathy. And so I went up to her and I started talking to her and, you know, she'd had some issues at home and she burst into crying and she gave me a hug and we talked about things that she could do. And then she says, at the end of the day, I'm walking out of this class, my class, and this girl runs up the hallway and jumps and gives me a great big hug. Because I made her day. And that would never have happened if I hadn't been able to challenge— to channel empathy for the day.

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Yeah, there are 2 things I want to highlight there. One is that when you teach subjects like this, you're forced to simplify them. And then rearticulate them. And so that, that not only helps you retain the information more, but it also helps you communicate it in a book like this so much more effectively. And number 2, I, I want to ask you about the reticular activating system. So when you're channeling empathy, is that because you're filtering for opportunities to demonstrate empathy and practice the skill?

When you're, um, when you declare well, any one of the 5 powers, empathy being one, it's like you are redirecting your mind to ask, how could I be most empathetic? If I was completely empathetic, how would I react in that system, in this situation? That's it. If you're verbal, if you're visual, you might visualize being empathetic. But it's just because you're so focused on this one challenge, You, you start off thinking about that power, but what naturally occurs is you're back in using your, your prefrontal cortex. You're the part of the brain that makes us human. And once you're using one power, all your other abilities to be creative and critical thinking and, and connect with others and attach to your higher level values and to be in a state of flow, all of those come into play also. But one triggers all of them. So I don't know if I answered your question exactly.

Yeah.

But, but I tried to.

Yeah. No, I think you did. It helps me understand it in a little bit of a different way. You've spent a lot of time teaching and lecturing and teaching teachers, and I'm curious why you think subjects like this, how the brain works, aren't taught in the traditional public education system.

Don't get me started.

That and personal finance. Those are the two things I think we all need to learn a little bit more of.

Yeah. Well, you know, our systems develop and then they develop a life of their own and they just continue even after they've proven that they're suboptimal or even harmful. And it's, you know, it's funny as you're talking about this, because what's going on in my head is information from what probably would be my third book, but my second course, which is about how we get stuck handling different situations. When we're in— when organizations are in situations where they're able to follow rules, they— the organization itself stops thinking. And so we have all these rules about school. You come into school at 8 o'clock in the morning, whatever the time is. You have 45-minute periods. Kids sit in their desks. Teachers talk to the kids. We test them. We have these tests that the, you know, that we give quarterly. We have these tests that, that our high-stakes tests at the end of the year. Once we develop those systems, we basically throw away our focus from thinking about, well, do they really make sense in society? And that's what's really happened with schools, in my opinion, is we developed systems between 150 and 100 years ago, and we've been kind of playing at the edges of those systems. But When we had, when kids missed COVID and then kids came back, you could see that the kids stopped buying into this system of schooling. You know, they didn't know any other way until they had COVID and then they stayed home and then they came back and they're like, this stuff is boring. This stuff doesn't relate to my life. This stuff is uninteresting. And what we're trying to do is we're trying to use our laws, our rules, our power to say, no, This is the way we've done it for 150 years. You've got to do it this way. And what we should be doing is be thinking, well, you know something? You guys are really right. This is boring. And this isn't related to what you have to do. And let's rethink what we want to do because the goal of schools, the goal of education should be to take kids from 5 years old and turn them into highly functioning adults when they're 18 or 19. That's not what, that's not what we're doing.

Yeah, very true. That's an interesting way to think about it. These systems, as they entrench themselves, they naturally start to defend themselves as well, and people step up and defend them. And it also— yeah, let me know if this is a stretch, but it kind of reminds me how neural pathways work in the brain as well. Once a default pathway gets defined and it continues to get more and more defined, it starts to defend itself because You know, there are kind of 2 ways the brain changes, right? Slow, steady changes over time, or one big massive moment like COVID disrupted the school system and allowed for change to happen faster. And it's kind of how the neural pathway or the different pathways and stories work too.

So now all of a sudden talking to you, I forgot what the term is, but you know, the, the branch of mathematics where, you know, you have these patterns and then if you go bigger, it's the same pattern, and bigger, it's the same pattern.

Fractals.

Fractals. Exactly. It's the exact same thing. You could talk about the individual. You could talk about small groups of people. You could talk about small organizations. You could talk about teams. You could talk about countries. They're all fractals of each other, and we react the same way.

Wow. I had never thought about it that way, and I've read 500 of these books on the brain. Right?

Right.

That's fascinating. Mitch, another, another subject that you teach in the book, and I want to give everybody a little preview. of what they might be able to learn if they buy a copy. You talk about silencing our inner critic, and that's a problem that everybody faces in some capacity. So, tell us a little bit about how we can silence that inner critic.

So, the inner critic is, is really part of that limbic system. Okay? They, um, it's really trying to keep us out of trouble, but unfortunately, that, that inner critic Is making us feel miserable at the same time and stopping us from making any progress. In any time you want to quiet the limbic part of the brain, there's there's really three ways of doing that. Okay, sometimes just by realizing oh my gosh this is the limbic part of the brain, boom you're you're done. Okay, because you realize that it's like ha ha ha I don't have to worry about that and and you can tap into your resourcefulness. Sometimes you can do it by, well, of course, first realizing it, but second, saying something, some changing your internal pattern. Like if your inner critic is saying, I can't do this, by a non-threatening statement like, well, perhaps I can. Okay. Which doesn't challenge it. It doesn't say you can do it. It just opens up a possibility. Okay. So you, so there's positive. non-challenging internal chatter that you can use on yourself, and to a certain extent you can use on other people if their inner critic is bothering them. And then the third way is by being very mindful, by distracting. So mindfulness, meditation, sports, art, music, hobbies, going for a walk, breathing and being very conscious of your breath, you know, virtually any of those can get that limbic part of the system to just calm down. And only once that system is calmed down can you then access the creative parts of your, of your brain, which reside in that prefrontal cortex.

Yeah. Going back to like the public speaking example, you know, you're about to step on stage. Your inner critic is, is basically telling you the modern, the modern version of there's a saber-toothed tiger that's coming to get you.

Right, right.

Or, or hey, if you say something the wrong way, you're going to get kicked outta the tribe. But then, if you just say, perhaps I'm here to provide value, and it opens up the door for a different perspective, it allows you to kind of slow down and then process things in a different way with the prefrontal cortex.

Exactly. And it's very possible that the first thing that— what you say to yourself is going to work. And it's very possible that whatever you've tried to say to yourself isn't going to work. But that doesn't mean the concept doesn't work. That just means, okay, I said to myself, Maybe I'm just here to provide value. That didn't work. Maybe there's something else I could say to myself, or maybe maybe just play a meditation, you know, exercise for and follow for three minutes. You will look at professional athletes and watch them reset as an example after they they make an error or before they they start something. You see almost all of them. There's like a a stutter or something that happens. for a second or for 2 minutes, you know, somewhere in between that time where you know that they're accessing their ability to calm themselves down so that they can be in a state of ease and flow.

Yeah, the visual that pops up for me is an NBA player getting ready to shoot a free throw. Like, there's that moment you kind of shake out, you bounce the ball, you get into your routine, and then you execute the shot.

But you watch Rafael Nadal in tennis, okay? He gets up to make a serve. And he bounced. Now, I don't remember the number of times, but he bounces the ball, I'm going to say 12 times, and that gets him into the rhythm. 12 times, and then he throws it up and, and, and hits it.

Yeah. Yeah. So you're kind of slowing things down. Yeah, I like that. And another, another takeaway from that chapter that I really enjoyed was the idea of positive anticipation. And I think sometimes the opposite, like a negative anticipation, that's what creates the anxiety. You're anticipating a negative outcome, and therefore, when you visualize it, you feel it in the present moment. You're anticipating the negative outcome, whereas if you just do the opposite, you get excited about the outcome.

So, you know, it's funny, you, you, you're saying that brings a smile to my face for, I guess, for 2 reasons, because I'm glad that you see that. But the other thing is yesterday I got a text from my nephew and he was saying, Mitch, I just, I, I just got your book and I just wanna tell you, I just used something. It's really cold out and I did not want to run, but I had just finished the session on positive anticipation. So I didn't want to run, but then I sat back and I thought, how happy am I going to be that I ran anyhow? When I finish running, knowing that I didn't want to run, and, uh, you know, I'm going to feel stronger. I'm going to be really happy with myself. I'm going to— I'm gonna tell my wife, I'm gonna tell the people in the office. I'm, that's gonna be so fantastic. And then he just went out and ran.

Yeah, that, that is beautiful. You're, uh, as, as you say in that section of the book, you're almost creating a memory of the future.

That's exactly what you're doing.

Feeling it in the present.

Yeah. You are creating a memory cuz imagining things in memory is actually using the same parts of the brain.

Yeah. That is fascinating. Well, I think we've done a good job at highlighting some of the early takeaways that I had in the book to give everybody listening or watching today a preview for what they might be able to learn. But Mitch, if somebody's on the edge of their seats and they're not quite sure if they want to go to Amazon and buy a copy or not, what else would you like to share with everybody?

It's, it's like chicken soup, right? It certainly couldn't hurt. Okay. You know, there, there's so many different people who are, who have the same goals that I do. And I'm not saying that my book is better or my courses are better than theirs. But just understand that I am making a really earnest attempt to change the way we all operate so that we can be more successful and we can be happier. And I hope that if you do buy the book, that you're going to find that it really makes a difference in your life.

Yeah.

You come across that way, by the way. You don't come across as somebody who's trying to sell books and then get people into their courses so they can make a quick buck and leave, right? You've, you've, you've done that, you know, you've had your success and now you're trying to take everything you've learned and package it in a way that actually creates an impact. And it comes across that way in your writing and in your entire disposition.

But I'm only 21, because if you take my age and you convert it to Celsius, I'm 21.

That's a great answer. That's a great answer. And that's only half of my favorite number, which is 42, and that's the meaning of the universe. Yeah.

But what was the question?

Yeah, well, that takes another couple of million years to figure that one out, right?

Right.

Yeah, that's such a good, such a good book. Let's go into my final couple of questions here for you, and hopefully it doesn't take a couple million years to calculate the answer. The first is this: for people that want to buy a copy of your book or learn more about you, where should they go? What should they do?

Uh, so the, the book is called Mind Shifting: Stop Your Brain from Sabotaging Your Happiness and Success. It's, it's available at Amazon. It also is available from distributors. So you can go to your bookstore and they can order it. It's also available in Audible and other audio formats, and Kindle and other ebook formats.

Okay, amazing. Did you read the audio?

I did not.

You have a great voice.

Oh, thank you. So I just decided it was a, it was a lot of work. I was doing a lot of work. And so I put it up on Audible for professional readers to do it. And I, when I put it up, I got, I think, 75 people who responded.

Oh, wow.

And so I had to listen to, I don't think I listened to all 75, but I probably listened to 50 different versions of people reading a sample. I whittled down to 5, and then I brought my wife in, and then she ended up picking the woman who did it. And I think she did, she did a great job.

Oh, that's amazing. I'll have to check out that version of the book as well. 2 final questions for you. This first one will be something that we've actually anchored in the introduction, and here it is. What have you learned from David Goggins? Because a lot of people view David Goggins as a crazy man who's way off the deep end, and he just uses discipline and pure willpower to achieve everything he does, and there's not a lot of strategy or science, but You are entirely rooted in strategy and science, and you're very well thought out. And so what have you learned from David Goggins?

So I think I refer to him just even in this book at least twice and probably 3 times. The, um, the technique that people seem to take best from him is the one that, that he calls the emotional cookie jar. And I can describe it if you want to. Yeah, yeah, go ahead. Okay, so in the emotional cookie jar, you first list at least 5 things that you've done in your life that you're proud of. Now, it could be, I finished high school, I finished college, I got an A in this course. It's things that you might have struggled with at some time. And everybody, an 8-year-old could come up with 5 things. Okay, now he has a process where you go And you start off with 5 things, and then you add 3 more, and then you add 2 more, which is even better. But but 5 things is is a good place to start. And then just look over those 5 things for a minute, and just think, you know something? These were all times where I doubted myself, where I didn't think that I'd succeed. You know, I must be pretty good to have succeeded these 5 times. And that's in that moment. Then at some point, you're going to be in the middle of something that you don't think that you're going to that you're going to complete. Bring out that list of 5 things. Or the thing, or however many it is. But bring out that list of five things. Look, look at them and bring back that feeling of like, oh my gosh! These were the times in the past where where I didn't have faith in myself. I didn't think I could succeed, and I found a way. This is just another one of those times where I don't have faith in myself. That's a sign that I'm growing and learning. Let me continue. And by channeling those other times more often than than not, you will continue. You will succeed. And then once you succeed, 2 things. One, don't forget to celebrate. Look what you just did. And 2, write it down. And that's your 6th thing. So, the next time you get stuck, you now have 6 things that you could draw on where you succeeded. And that was one of the things that he brought up. But here's a guy, you know, when he was 27, 28 years old, he was overweight, unemployed, a deadbeat dad, doing nothing. And 10 years later, he's been through all the elite training forces of the military forces. He's run marathons, he's run triathlons, he's run ultramarathons. He's a world-recognized speaker. It's like— and he did this by, by drawing on his past successes. So I have a lot of respect for David Goggins.

Yeah, me too. Me too. I'll have to tell you this story about how he was this close to coming on the podcast a couple years ago.

Oh no, he should be on here.

We'll still make it happen. I even offered to, uh, to fly out and have him put me through a grueling workout before we did the podcast just so we could get the raw version. But we'll make it happen at some point. Uh, well, thank you for sharing that, Mitch. And, and I know a lot of, uh, of our followers will have tuned in to hear your thoughts on that. Uh, but here's the last question and then, uh, we'll let you go. So, For your book, Mind Shifting: Stop Your Brain from Sabotaging Your Happiness and Success, imagine this book and the course got deleted, but you could leave the world with just one simple message from this material. What would that be?

When you're sure of something, that's a signal that you're in your, your survival mode. And stop and enjoy the moment. And tap into yourself because you're better than that.

Yeah. We could all use that with our political opinions, couldn't we?

Yes, we could.

Thank you, Mitch. Great conversation today.

Okay. Thank you, Nick. Thanks, Nick.

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