Talking About... How To Reshape Your Emotions In A Relationship | Behind The Shades Show

Both can somehow figure out the weather here. Where we are, Texas and Toronto.

Yep. Texas stays a lot warmer than Toronto does. I can guarantee that.

Yes. I think when it comes to that bet, you'll win it every single time.

Until the summer when it's 104 degrees. But, you know, that's what air conditioning and the lake are for.

Yeah, but I'll take that. I'd rather complain about the heat than complain about the cold.

Right, yeah, tell me about it. Tell me about it. Why I'm here as opposed to there.

Absolutely. So I know today you're joining me to talk about hypnosis and reframing your emotions.

Absolutely.

Bring us up to speed. How does that happen and how does that work exactly?

So hypnosis is a set of techniques that gives us access to our unconscious mind. Right. And there's a number of different ways to get down there. The swinging pocket watch works, you know, the little flashing lights works. But I just tend to talk people down there. Kind of like a guided meditation, just taking another level deeper in your mind. And the important thing to recognize is that your subconscious mind, your unconscious mind, is responsible for processing the world around you and kind of interpreting reality and kind of showing you what it means. Right. So all the sights and sounds and everything else comes in, got to be processed by your brain, filtered, interpreted, and then acted upon. And it does that based on what things mean. So the meaning that we assign to things really drives how we feel, how we think, how we respond, the opportunities we're allowed to take, if the opportunities we're not allowed to take, all that stuff. So the beliefs, the meaning we assign to everything is incredibly important. The beautiful thing about hypnosis is it allows us to actually get down to the subconscious mind, figure out, okay, what do things mean? Why do things mean the things the way that they do? And once we can understand that, we can start making some adjustments to make everything easier.

So if I were to, let's say, apply that to the different types of relationships that we have in our lives, and then would that mean that our past experiences shapes the meaning and the value we put onto certain emotions and how we go from there?

100%. And it's more that the. The meaning that we assign to things drives the emotional response. Okay, so if I feel like I'm not good enough and somebody comes up and says, brian, you really suck at that, I was going to push that button really hard, I'm gonna feel bad about that. Right. But if I feel like I'm awesome and somebody comes up and say, ryan, you suck at that. I'm like, what are you talking about? I'm awesome. It's not gonna push that button because there's no button to push. I'm not gonna have that same emotional reaction. Right. And so understanding how the experiences in our lives have shaped our view of ourselves in the world really helps us understand what our mind, what meaning our mind has assigned to different things and why we respond emotionally and mentally to the way we do. And the important thing to recognize is that up until about 4, 5, 6 years old, your rationality, your reason, really hasn't come online the way we really want it to. Our intellect really hasn't come online the way we needed to. And we don't have these more sophisticated understandings of the world's sophisticated frameworks to use. So we're making very basic conclusions from the world, you know, very emotional, very understanding the patterns, that kind of thing. And those conclusions are what drive our emotional responses. The right side of our brain, emotional side of the brain, is looking at patterns over time. They're just running through things. Okay, so it's getting very simplistic, high level, forced kind of view conclusions. But once we've made those conclusions, when we're young, they kind of get locked behind a wall. They get locked in an unconscious mind. And from there on out, our mind judges true and false based on what it already believes. Okay, so if it matches what it believes, it's true. Awesome. Comes on in, pushes that button. If it doesn't match, it's false by definition, gets ignored. Which is why it's so hard to change all those deeply held beliefs from the outside in, because they're ignoring all evidence that they're wrong. We can do a lot of stuff on the left side of brain. Individual issues, individual problems, individual beliefs, individual situations. But those don't change that higher level emotional construct. Right. That has to be done from the inside out. By getting down to the unconscious mind, figuring out how it came to be in the beginning, and creating different conclusions from the same data. That makes sense.

It does. It does. Because then that would mean why sometimes when some people believe something so wholeheartedly, it's hard for them to let go, whether it's right, wrong, or indifferent, because it is, in a sense, hardwired in them. An example you gave, right? I think I'm great at something, but everyone tells me I'm not.

Right, Right, right.

So how do we get to the.

How do we.

How do we get to the point where we can objectively then accept how, how the world, how our emotions are viewed in the world and how the world views our emotions.

How do you mean by that?

Well, I'll give you an example. So if I'm in a situation where I'm going to use relationship, let's say if I'm dating someone and I am, I have a get into the argument and I respond in a, in an aggressive way, not physically, but emotionally and verbally, right? So now if some, if let's say this was in public, people may think that I'm a wife beater, I am abusing this person, I mistreat them, whatever the case is. But on my end, I can just be viewing it as I'm standing firm in my position and this is a square that I'm going to stand on. So they have to meet me on my island instead of me going over to meet them where they're at.

Man, that's a really good question. I don't know if there's a particularly universal answer to that question, because fundamentally the emotional response you have is correct. Often we think that there's one correct answer, what we think is right or what we feel is right. But because our mind is looking at the world from two different perspectives simultaneously at all times, it's looking at both the trees and the forest. What you think and what you feel are always both 100% correct at all times. Okay. Because you're looking at it from different perspectives, different tools, different lenses, different mechanisms. Right? So you may be coming up with two different answers, but they're both going to be correct depending upon the perspective you're using. The question then is which answer is most appropriate to use for the present situation to solve the present problem? Okay. You may feel all that anger. It may not necessarily be appropriate to express it or act upon it. Right. There are these things called social norms. There's these rules that are out there. Most of them are unspoken, most of the ones we write down are wrong. That's not how we play the game. Right? So you got to know your audience got in those situation. You know, blowing up angry at your girlfriend in the middle of a bar is probably not the right thing to do in public, probably not the right thing to do. Probably not the right thing to do in private either. But sometimes that's what you got to do in order to get your point across, right? So there's a time and place for everything. What I would say is that if somebody is trying to invalidate your feelings, saying, no, I feel this way, oh, you shouldn't Feel that way. That's not the right way to feel. Yada, yada, yada. It's like, okay, they're denying the reality you're living and what they're doing is trying to impose their worldview on you. They don't care about how you feel, what you think. They're trying to get their needs, their situation, whatever that is, met. They're trying to make you play their game rather than stepping in and playing with you.

And then could that be in a sense them not accepting the reality of the situation because internally then they see it as one way as your behavior is inappropriate, regardless if that is how you're expressing it? Because I don't like the way you're expressing it, I'm going to shut down, turn off, and therefore invalidate your experience.

Really good question. Is what is the reality of the situation? Because you're assuming there's one reality situation, right? Could be yours, could be theirs, could be something in between. You don't know you, you could very well be wrong about how you're viewing things. You could in fact be acting inappropriately. So them saying you're wrong to feel that way could actually be correct. Right. And if you're on the same team moving the same direction, you should probably take an account. If there's somebody who's generally on your side, probably should take that account. Maybe it's time to take, take a step back and say, am I actually going this right? So it depends upon your relationship with the person and your, their relationship to you and your goals. If this is a stranger, yeah, it's really hard to know whether or not they're on their side. If there's a friend or on your side, probably got good advice. If there's somebody you know you have an adversarial relationship with or a boss that really doesn't care about you, they're probably looking out for them rather than you. Right. So the way to judge any opinion or any, any interaction in my opinion is are they on your side? Are they helping you get to where you want to go? Right. Are you guys on the same team? If yes, pay attention. If no, then their opinion doesn't really have a whole lot of value because it's for to suit their goals, their needs, their objectives rather than yours. Right. And that may just be keep the peace because I don't want to deal with this. It could be I want you to do something else other than what is something in your best interest. Right. Who knows? But judge the opinion, judge the data, judge the inputs. From the perspective of where do they stand in relation to you and your goals?

And then how would we know if that person is on our side or if they're just looking to protect themselves and not really have a vested interest in what we're experiencing in our reality?

That's really. That's a really good question. That's something you got to understand, like, gotta assess out for yourself. That's discernment, right. That's taking a look at the reactions and how you guys play together over time. And even if you guys are on the same time, say, even if you guys are on the same side, they maybe need to protect themselves from you because you're too much. Right. It may be that you're in the wrong. They need to protect themselves at that moment because you are in the wrong aggressing and they need to protect themselves, then protect themselves. Doesn't mean it's the wrong reaction. It may be the appropriate reaction in that situation. Right. But again, just take a step back. You know who's on your side, you know who ain't. You know you can trust, you know who you don't. Right. It's not that hard to figure out. You already have an internal sense of that.

That brings me back to like a time in my 20s where I was trying to figure my life out and the people around me. I had an idea that maybe they weren't the most appropriate people. But when I would express my feelings and my thoughts, many times I felt invalidated just because they weren't listening. They would hear me, but they just weren't listening. So what I had to do then is I took a step back and I changed my perspective of the landscape.

Yeah, right.

And then I realized, okay, they no longer fit the reality that I want to aspire too. So it wasn't necessarily that they were bad people overall in general. They were just bad for me and where I was going in my life. Right, exactly. So when I started to change and as you put it, to reframe everything, I was like, okay, this is what I feel, this is what I want, this is what I think. So what I started to do is I started to search out people to your point. Discernment. Right. So, okay, I understand. This person is for me, this person isn't for me. But then there was a part of me that used to look back and say, what if I just try to fix this person so they can fit my reality, so they can fit the way I want to live my life? Do you see that as well, where we Know better. Or sometimes we try to Frankenstein people into fitting into our reality when we know deep down they shouldn't be a part of it.

A couple things I'd say there. Number one, when we're in a situation where we honestly don't feel that great about ourselves, right? We don't have the highest opinion of ourselves. We may be aspiring to something better, but right now, like, we ain't there, right? This idea that we're not good enough. When you have that overarching kind of emotional conclusion, if I'm not good enough, you've gotten that negative opinion yourself. Typically, we're growing up in environments where we just can't get what we want. That's kind of the inevitable conclusion that we create. I'm not good enough. I don't measure up. I don't deserve. When we don't deserve, we settle for what we can get, right? We settle for what we get. Okay? These are the friends I have. This is what's available to me. I got to make it work, right? So it's either I become what they need in order to fit in, or what do I need to do to them to make them give me what I need, all right? And both of those are making our ways to make a crappy situation less crappy, to make a miserable situation less miserable, right? Neither one is a good situation, right? The answer, of course, is to level up and believe in yourself, let yourself deserve more. Things get better friends that are actually more in alignment. Because fundamentally, what you're trying to do is trying to change your environment to fit how you feel, to change how you feel inside. I'm in pain. I'm not getting what I need. I need to change that out there to fix this in here, right? Same sort of situation where, like, my last big relationship I was in, I screwed that one up by the numbers. Because beautiful one having a lot of fun together, great time, intelligent, putting together really well. But her life is a mess, right? And I fix people for a living. That's literally what I do. That's literally what I do, right? I'm like, oh, I know how to fix this. This is the easiest thing in the world. I know exactly what's going wrong. Let me help you sort yourself out so your life is better, and then we could be together and everything's great. She didn't want to do that work. She didn't really want to have to go there, didn't want to have to address that stuff, didn't want to look inside that kind of thing. And the Resentment built and built and built until she dumped me. It's like, go away. I can handle this morning. Go away. Right? And what I realized was, like, she didn't want to work, do that work. And I wasn't actually giving her a choice, right? You got to fix your stuff because your stuff is causing me a problem. I wanted her in my life, couldn't handle the chaos that she would bring in my life. Okay, you got to fix that chaos because I want you, but I don't want the chaos, so you got to fix that stuff. I was fixing my problem by trying to fix her. Oops. Correct answer was, okay, if you're this kind of chaos as you bring into my life, I need to let you go, no matter how awesome you are, or you need to tell me that you want to fix this stuff. So it's your choice. So I'm not imposing you on you, right? But quite often when we're trying to change all that stuff outside, we're trying to fix our internal pain by changing the people around us. And that ain't the right way to go about things. It never works. It always ends badly.

Why do you think so many people do it that way instead of the other way?

Because it's much. Okay, so either, number one, you have to give up something that you need in order to get them out of your life in order to fix that internal thing by focusing on you. Right? And when you're in that place of lack, when you're operating from a place of lacquer or, you know. Yeah, that. A place of lack rather than abundance, of not being good enough, rather than being good enough, deserving, it's like, okay, I can't let this go because I don't know if I'm going to get anything else anytime soon. So I got to hold on to this, right? So that. That. That lack, that desperation in a way, that undeservingness, the fear that you're not going to get something as good or better anytime soon if ever, you know, causes you to hold on to what you got as much as humanly possible, right? And if that's the case, then you kind of have to make it work with what you got, right? You kind of have to find a way to make it work. Kind of have to find a way to fix it in order to fix your internal problems because you don't have the option to letting that go, right? The other thing that happens is it requires you to be aware of the fact that you are trying to fix your own pain. Requires you to own the fact that other people get to make decisions and live the lives they want to, even if it's against, even if it causes you problems, even it makes you uncomfortable, right? It's not easy to see homeless people on the street who are like, destitute and everything else. Like, that ain't easy, right? But that's their choice. They're there for a reason. Whatever situation they got themselves in, there's a series of choices, whatever, that led them there, right? There's a lot of them that don't want to be helped and to want lot of ways. They're addicts, they're mental health issues, they don't want to live the normal life, whatever that happens to be. So we kind of have to let them make that choice. And if they want help, here you go. Be there for them, offer the opportunities, but you gotta let other people take it, right? But it takes a lot to recognize that it's your internal discomfort that you're trying to fix, right? And a part of why that happens is this whole idea, like, emotions are pain, trauma, wounds. Okay? Because if you have a trauma narrative, if you got this idea that you're wounded, if you have this idea that emotions are pain, then trauma is something that happens to you, which means that feelings are something that happened to you. Other people make you feel things, right? Other people are the source of your emotions. Other people's actions and words are the source of your emotions. So the way to change the way you feel is to change what they do, right? One of the big changes that I make or one of the big shifts that I made through my work and one of the things I do with my clients is, okay, emotions aren't pain. They're questions, they're signals, they're queries. They're your mind asking you for help to solve a problem. They are your interpretation of what's going on, right? Your interpretation of what's going on based on what you think things mean. This is very powerful because, number one, means there's no wounds. Trauma takes on a different thing, but it also means you're the one who creates every feeling you make. Every feeling you experience, every thought you have is 100 yours generated by you based on what you think, which means other people don't do it to you. It's not because of what people do. It's not because of who they are. Something that you have, you create, which allows you to take ownership and be sovereign over what you feel and not depend upon changing other people or the world outside you. To change how you feel.

Then. Is that why some people will say, well, because I've said this before where I can control what I feel, because if someone does something to me, I have a choice. Either I can be upset, either I can move on from it. For the most part, I can control what I feel because I've taken that away from that person. I said that, okay? I'm not going to enable anyone to damage me or offend me or hurt me in a sense, because I want to be protective and I want to be able to control that part of my life. But I remember it took a lot of work to get there. And one thing that I had to admit to myself was that I was allowing people to hurt me just because I wanted people to be around.

So I would say there's a number of different things. This idea of controlling your emotions is. It's a powerful one. I think it is looked at the wrong way, okay, because there's a sequence of events. There's a beautiful set of experiments in Germany in the 1970s that demonstrated conclusively that we become consciously aware of something about a half a second after it happens. Okay. Something happens about half a second later. Become consciously aware of it. Right. And that makes sense because your brain's got to take in all this input, process it, do all stuff, and create an output that you can understand on a conscious level. Great. What that means, though, is that your emotional mind has already interpreted the world and giving you the emotion before you're ever aware of it. So the idea that you can control a process that's already completed before you're aware that it even started. How do you do that? How do you do that? How do you consciously control what you feel when it's already generated before you're even aware of it? So I'm like, ah, that's not really how it works. What often happens when we say is like, I can control my emotions is we've said this is too much. I don't want to freaking feel this. I can't handle this anymore. Don't show me, don't tell me, don't give me the signal. Right? Which doesn't mean things aren't happening. Things don't mean the same thing. Things don't get triggered. You just don't get to hear the signal anymore. You've turned off the car alarm. Doesn't mean people aren't still breaking into it. You put the little seatbelt thingy on the seatbelt horse. You don't have to hear the beeping thing. Whenever you're not wearing a seatbelt, right? Doesn't mean there's not a problem. Check engine light. Took the light bulb out. Great. Engine still has a problem, right? And what happens when that. What happens with that? In my opinion, kind of, from the way I'm looking at it, is if emotions are signals, if they're questions you say, stop asking me. Your mind's like, okay, I can't ask you this question anymore, which means I can't solve it. You can't help me solve it. So these are places I can't go anymore. These are issues I can't deal with anymore. This is parts of my life I can't explore anymore. Your life gets more narrow right now. There's a difference between suppressing that signal. Don't show me, don't tell me. Versus I get the signal and I make a different decision one way or the other. That's not emotional control. That's controlling your reactivity. That's taking that pause of, okay, this is what I feel. Let me choose on a more deliberate way how I want to react and interpret it. Right? That's. In that case, you're still engaging with the emotion, still getting the signal. You're being more aware of the choice you make in response. I think that is a beautiful thing. Right? The best possible solution, in my opinion, is, okay, let's figure out why the heck I'm still getting that signal at first base. Why do I have a button that they get a push? Like, why is there a button there that they get to push? Because I wouldn't feel this way if there wasn't a button. What the heck is button. Why the heck is there a button for them to push? Right? What do I believe about myself? What negative opinion do I have about myself down there that allows them to trigger me? Right? Because that's the problem. Problem is there's a negative opinion of yourself, a negative view of yourself, a negative belief about yourself that they are messing with to generate that emotion, to generate that pain, to generate that hurt. Okay, the heck is that? Let's fix that. Because if I can fix that, there's no button for them to push. Doesn't matter what they say.

It's like the person who grew up poor and they became sensitive to not having money. And now anytime someone brings it up or they mention it, they get triggered and they're like, okay, I need to put some distance between me and that person. But they're not realizing it ties back to an earlier experience in their childhood. Why do you think we miss that connection then between the two events quite.

Simply, because out there we focus on two things. We focus on the conscious mind. We focus on our physiology, biology, neurochemistry, right? It's either something I can do myself on a conscious level in a rational way that I can control, or I find the physiological tool that I can control. Right? Andrew Huberman. Okay, go outside, do these things like red light therapy, dopamine, yada, yada, yada cloud, blunt blow forth, so forth. So on all these different supplements to control your thing, right? If I throw, throw the right stuff in there, if I can figure out the lever to pull, then I have control. We want conscious control over the process because we feel like if we have conscious control of the process, we can control the outcome. So we find the lever that we can pull. Unfortunately, it's kind of like the drunk guy looking for the keys under the street light. Because that's where you can see, right, if the keys are in the car, if they're in the yard out there, dark like you're never going to find. I don't care how hard you look, right? And by doing that, we ignore that big honking chunk in the middle called the subconscious mind, right? Which is where everything's being processed. Why? Because we can't see it, we can't control it. We hate that. So we look where we can. Whatsoever that can actually control, right? Don't have any control of that. Don't like what it's telling me. Wish it would shut up, right? So let me do anything but go diving down there, right? And quite frankly, it's really hard to do that on your own. Because when we're in our waking state, we don't have access to that part of our mind. We can ask questions, it'll tell us or not. We don't have control, can't make it right. So there's this powerful adversarial kind of conflict that we have with it. It's not doing what we want it to. It's not telling us what we want to hear. It won't shut up, it won't change its mind. And we try and make something else happen. Because it's like, I can't handle this. This is too painful, it's too ugly, right? It would require me to accept things about myself that I don't want to be true. What I think is correct, what I feel is wrong. Because I like this answer better. I can control this. I can do this. I've got leverageable, right? This is. This is something I can actually make happen. So I'm gonna stay here where it's happy and safe, where I got a sense of control, rather than over here that I don't like, that I can't control, I can't change and can't fix. Heck of a lot safer to keep playing in this playground over here.

It's like the person who knows what's wrong with them, but it's easier for them to suffer and by extension make others suffer. But if they were to change it, they're like, okay, this is the unknown. This is work. This may show me things about myself I don't like, which is going to lead to further work, further struggle. There was someone she had. I was working with her and she had an issue expressing her emotions. And the reason why she said it after some conversation and some work, similar to some of the questions you pose, is that it made her feel vulnerable. And by extension, she thought that she looked weak to other people. So now, as to the question, I asked the question, why is it so wrong for you to be viewed as weak to others? Like, what happen that someone maybe wasn't there for you when you're vulnerable, Right? So she looked at me, she's like, for me to tell you about my vulnerability, I gotta get vulnerable.

No, that's true. That's true. Yeah. Think about this way too. Like, we have this idea that if there's two answers, one of them has to be correct and one has to be wrong. We think one thing, we feel one thing, okay? Them has to be wrong. Well, I know this. I proved this. I know exactly why this is true. This doesn't seem like it's right. I know that I'm good enough. I measure up in all these different ways. Why would I still feel like I'm not good enough? This has to be wrong. Doesn't make any sense from logical, rational level. And you're right, it doesn't because it's not looking at the same stuff. Right? And because we don't understand that we're looking from two different perspectives because we don't understand that this answer hasn't changed from way back when. Once we got it, we're like, oh, well, that just. That doesn't make any sense. So I'm gonna stick over here because this makes more sense, right? I got the whole story. I can lay it out, I can prove it. That makes total sense, right? The other thing is like, okay, let's assume for the sake of argument that I assume that this is correct. Great. Now what am I supposed to do? With it. Can't jump down there and fix it. Ain't listening. So what am I supposed to do with it? So even if I accept that that's true, where do I go next? I don't have any levers I can pull myself. Right. And like 90% of the modalities we have out there for change are conscious. They're deliberate. Right. Some of the best stuff like ifs internal family systems, conscious process. We're talking about subs. Right. Are we allowing our unconscious mind to put stuff in a framework and play with it better? Yeah. 100%. Much more effective. EMDR. Are we taking away emotional content? Great. Is it still a conscious process? Yes. Right. Is it somewhat hypnotic and play with self down there? Sure. Do we have a lot of control? Nope. The only two real ways to get down there with any sort of fidelity irregularity is psychedelics and hypnosis. Psychedelics Going to take you on a ride. You got control over that thing. It's going to show you some stuff whether you really want to see it or not. Right. But there's really the very little ability to do change work while you're down there. Right. You're on a ride, you're bringing in a certain set of tools. That's it. Certain set of frameworks. That's it. And there's very. There's limits to how much work you can really do because it's taking you on a ride. Once that ride is done, doors closed, can't touch that stuff anymore. Right. It's beautiful. For open up possibilities. Breaking some old beliefs you have giving you a better understanding of things. But that's really hard to change. And again, you don't have control. Right. Then there's hypnosis. Go down there. We can play with stuff, we can work on stuff directly. But you don't get to do it on your own. You got to have somebody else do it for you. You got to get out of the way while they play with your head. Not exactly. The most. That's a little bit on the scary side for a lot of people. For a lot of people. Right. Go ahead, sit back, relax. I'm just gonna play with your head. Don't worry, it's fine. Don't worry. It'll be fine. Right. But fundamentally that's how it has to work. Because in order to get access to that part of your mind, consciousness has to take a back seat. You got to step aside so that that part of you can come forward and actually speak and take control. Show the world what's going on, right. And that's like one of the most difficult things, especially for people who are self improvement oriented, change oriented, high performers, all that stuff. What do you want to do? You want to do it yourself. Why? Because that's how you've made all the changes in your world. That's how you've improved yourself. That's how you've gotten everything you want in the world was by deliberately, consciously, directly making things happen on your own. So obviously that's the way you have to do everything. Right? Because that's.

Yeah. Then you're telling them, yeah, and to your point, Ryan, right, You're like, you're telling them, trust me, let me do the work that you were doing your entire life, whether you're doing it the right way. Well, if you got this far, you're doing it right enough, I guess.

Right enough.

Right, right enough or you well enough or are you doing it the wrong way? But then if you were to convince someone, let's say in your example, self improvement oriented, where they got to this point in their life, they're successful enough by whatever metric they're using to measure it, and they're saying that, you know what, Ryan? I know there's better. I know there's more out there for me. I know I can achieve more, I know I can do better. But they turn around, they say, I don't know if I can relinquish control.

Sure.

Do you have that type of conversation with them? Because as to your point, some of the modalities, it's them either doing it in partnership or them giving up complete control, letting someone else do the process for them.

Well, there's a few different ways to kind of go about that. Number one, you can simply say, okay, cool, you can get the results you want, or you can stay in control. Which would you like? Option A, I should be, do you want this thing here or do you want to stay in control? Which is more important? That really kind of points me as a shoot. Well, I want both. Okay, great. Have to pick one. I'm sorry, One or the other. Don't get to have both. Right. Number two, if you're fighting yourself, if you're, if you've got this kind of conflict with yourself, guess what? Your mind doesn't trust you. If your mind trusted, you'll be doing it what you want, right? And all the changes you want to make, all these things you want to do are to do things that your mind thinks are bad, wrong or dangerous in some way. So why the heck would you let you Change it, right? So fundamentally, if you want to go where you want to go, then you're going to have to have somebody else have that discussion with your mind because they ain't freaking listening to you at all. And it doesn't have to. It has a veto. Right? There's this thing called the basal ganglia. It's this part of your mind that says, okay, you've made a decision. Awesome. I'm going to decide whether to do it or not. It's doing it based on emotional content, emotional associations with previous stuff, and you don't get a say in that. You say, I want to do this. It's like, nope. Is there anything you do about it? Right. We've all had the things, I want to do the thing. And your mind is like, sorry, not happening. It's the most frustrating thing in the world, right? So if that part of your mind is essentially the part of your mind that controls the reality of perceive the options, list of options you're allowed to choose from and has a veto of every action you take, every decision you make. You're not really in control. You're in charge, but you ain't in control. You can say, I want to go. That way it doesn't have to listen. So if that's truly the relationship that's going on here, then you can't force that change. It's kind of like you're the company. You're the boss of a company. All your employees are union and they're on strike. Can't fire them. Negotiations are broken down. Now what do you do? You hire a third party negotiator to come in and make the changes for you, because they're the only person that can break that log jam, right? So you got an option. You can keep doing things on your own. 100, knock yourself out, get people, keep on getting the same results you always have. Not knock yourself out. Enjoy. Come really far. You could probably keep going down that road as long as you really want. Have fun. Or option B, you can change all those dynamics forever. Get everybody on the same team working together as a unified whole, move in the same direction and be unstoppable. But you gotta let me do it for you.

So, Ryan, I'll give you an example. I have a former friend and he. Because what you said actually reminded me of the situation where he said that he knew what was wrong with him. He didn't say what it was, but he said that he knew what was wrong with him. But one of the problems that he was running to which is why he was losing so many friends, was that instead of changing anytime he was confronted with the issue, he would attack people sometimes physically, verbally, emotionally. Right. Which created distance between him and that person. Then eventually, in a lot of times, the relationship. Sorry, the friendship ended. So when that situation happened to me was I was one of the last ones left standing in their crossfire there.

Yep.

I told him that my concern for you is that it's one thing to be verbally and physically aggressive with men, because men, I find, in general, they know where the line is.

Right.

They'll go as far as that line. But I think in general, men don't want a physical confrontation. They'll just go as close to the line as possible. Now, I told him my concern is when you get into a relationship, you do that with women. Right. Because in one example, he said that when I call you, you have to answer the phone. So he would call like 10 times during the day. Just keep calling, call. It goes to voice mode. Keep calling. So I asked him, I was like, if you're in a relationship and your girlfriend is at work and you call her, and because she's running out of late, she doesn't pick up, what's going to happen to her when she gets home? Right.

Think about that.

So, yeah, go ahead.

Yeah, it's. It's people like that. Okay. When you believe that emotions are pain and you've been through a lot of negative emotion, that means you suffered a lot of pain, Right. Which means those survival circuits, your brain get activated, and your mind has to treat your emotional state, your mood, as a threat to your physical survival. Because in a lot of ways, it is. Right? So what happens is our mind then has to control our life and the way we move through it in order to keep those buttons from getting pushed or to keep that pain to a minimum. All right. The reason why we respond with anger to things is because there's a threat to us. Right. Anger is that fight response. Something out there is a threat of some kind. I can use force, pressure of some kind to make it go away. Right. I can use violence of some kind to make it go away. Great. You're pushing that button reminding me of the thing I don't like. Awesome. I'm going to pressure you. I'm going to threaten you. I'm going to use force of some kind to make you go away. Knock it off. Shut up. Among men, physical. With women, verbal, emotional or physical. Right. And the thing is, while that button is still there, it's going to get pushed and he's going to react that way because he can. He's got the capacity. When you're looking at survival responses, fight, flight, freeze, fawn, flop, kill it. If I can, run, if I can't, hide, if I can't, roll over and surrender, curl up in a ball. Option number one, best option everywhere. If I can make that thing go away, it's never a problem again. That's where I go. Because of men and testosterone, our capacity to use violence and threaten that violence. That's where we go first, right? And from a survival perspective, that's the best possible option. Now, the survival threat isn't a physical one he's responding to. It's an emotional one he's responding to. But that don't matter. And yeah, that's exactly why some people are so freaking dangerous. Because they got the capacity for violence and they're so freaking reactive because they're so touchy, because they've got so many freaking buttons and they cannot own that part of themselves long enough to make it long enough to fix it. Right. Because owning it would be admitting that that negative part of them is what they really are, and that's something that they can't handle, is too big a threat to your survival. If that's what I am, how do I know now?

Yeah. And that's what I was trying to explain to him, that it's dangerous because you have the capacity to go there. Even though in a lot of cases who he was going there with, unless he were to grab an object, it wouldn't necessarily be that serious. But you don't ever really know because you can be amongst friends. And how many times do you see or do you hear on the news or situations where, yeah. People are joking around and all of a sudden someone's dead.

100 As a result, I think it's like, those kinds of people, if they're like that way, see you have fun, enjoy your life. I ain't gonna be anywhere near you. It's like, you got problems that I'm not gonna bother solve. It's like, you are. Being around you is a problem for me. I ain't gonna let that happen. Right. But again, that kind of goes back to the whole, like, if you don't think much of yourself, you feel like you don't deserve, you kind of just hold on to whatever you can and put up with crap for way too long. Way too long, Right. That's one of the big indicators of, like, okay, maybe I need to look at myself. If you're surrounded with a bunch of people, this kind of crap is going on. Or you got like, massively reactive or they're not doing much of their life or their lives are messed. Like, if I'm the average of the five people closest to me and this is one of the people I'm closest to, what does this mean about me? Right? Maybe. Maybe I need to take another look at what I'm doing, where I'm at. Maybe I need to change some stuff, you know, but it's hard to do that. You know, it's. It's hard to take that look at yourself because it means owning and accepting parts of yourself that you don't like. It means allowing things to be true that you really wish weren't, that you've been fighting to try and change. Right? Owning that is incredibly hard, you know, but it's the only way you can change it.

Like the person who. So I was gonna say it's like the person who surrounds themselves with like, let's say cheaters and manipulators and users, and they're like, well, that has nothing to do with me. But that's all you're around. So either you're like, that you're okay with this, with the behavior because you're tolerating it, or, and I think sometimes, and I'll get your opinion on this, I think sometimes this happens, is that people of a certain behavior, what they would do is they will surround themselves with people whose behavior is less than to kind of make themselves feel better and righteous in a sense, because they're the fixer. They're the person that is a step above for like. Or do you see that happening as well?

Sometimes? I think there's a few different things. Like, number one, I hate this idea of like, oh, if you're there, if you're around it, you're like, you're okay with it. Most people are not. Most people tolerate it because they don't think it can get better. Right? There's. There's a big difference between okay with versus I have to put up with this because I can't. Like, I can't. Like, this is the best I can do. I have to put up with it. Right? But yeah, there's definitely a dynamic where it's not necessarily that, okay, I'm a fixer, I'm better than you. It's. I can be valuable as a person. If I'm coming here to save you, if I come and fix you, you have to value me, right? I can buy affection, attention, closeness, whatever. By providing value for you in terms of helping you, saving you, fixing you, whatever that happens to be. Because I can't just come in and be me. I'm not worthy enough, I'm not valuable enough, I can't just be. No, I have to do something for you. I have to save you from yourself. And when I save the damsel in distress, I get the damsel in distress. That's how that works, right? Slay the dragon, get the treasure. That's how that works, right? That's how that works. So all I gotta do is go slave dragon, right? That's all I gotta do. Gotta save the Samson's stress, right? And I gotta get em some stress. Perfect dupe.

Is that why then some of these people don't ever find themselves around people who have healthy relationships because maybe they will stand out as a sore thumb and they're like, oh my God, Ryan is doing well here. So it makes me feel insecure. In my job and Train has this marriage, it makes me feel insecure in this type of relationships. Like instead of them feeling valuable around those who around them now, they feel invalu. Invaluable? No, not invaluable, but they feel insecure. Yeah, they feel worthless, right?

What I would say is like, okay, if I have no value, if I feel like I'm worthless, if, if I don't feel any value and I can't offer anything to you, then I can't buy your affection. So if you're a healthy person, you're not insecure, there's nothing you need to fix. I. I don't have anything to offer you. You can't possibly value me because I haven't done anything for you. I don't have any value. The only value I can create is through doing things for you. So if I can't do anything for you, I can't be valuable to you, so I can't be around you. Right? Plus, healthy people don't put up with crap like that. They don't have to. They're healthy, they know what healthy relationship like they don't have to be around anything less, right? Because they know they deserve better. So they simply don't put up with stuff like that, right? Yeah. Would they?

I'm. I told one person that because when I did my, my work and I removed everything that was like causing chaos in my open drama. There's one person and I was listening to them and they're telling me this story how someone broke up in their peer group. Was this a friend of a friend? They said that someone broke a man, I think. No, a woman broke up with a man. And what some of the people in that group were doing was they would stalk their page and see if that person is saying anything about their relationship. And I sat back and I was listening. You know what happened, Ryan? After a couple minutes, I was like, I don't have to listen to this. You know, like, it just. It just hit me. And I went to that person and I said, do you mind if I stop you for a minute? She's like, yeah. I was like, you do realize that the only time I hear drama and chaos is from you talking about a mutual friend of a friend. And then she was like, oh, my God, you're right. Like, the only time I speak about these people is that I was like, you didn't even notice it, right? And I told her, the reason why you don't notice it is because when you're in this chat group, when you're around it, because that's the only thing they talk about, you've realized it's the norm with them. But now when you come to someone like me who doesn't have that in their life, I'm like, what the hell? I'm like, what the hell is this? Right? So what do you tell someone who is, I guess, maybe trapped between two worlds, like, they have one foot, they're leaving this chaos, drama, and things like that, and they have this life where they've seen, oh, my God, there's healthy people here. I have more to. I can offer something without giving something.

Right?

Just my presence is enough. Just my friendships being around them, just the time, okay? Right. But because they still have a couple of toes in this pool, they real. They. They struggle to maybe let go completely because there's a part of them that is still in it to a degree.

Let me think about this. How to. How to say this guy by the name Matt Khan, Spiritual guy, spirit, hilarious guy. Did a. A talk on, like, soulmates. Soul contracts twin flames. Twin flames are like people that come in your life to teach you a certain lesson, help you learn something, right? Kind of like in the cosmic scheme of things, right? And the idea is like, okay, once you've learned the lesson, they kind of stop showing up, right? If you notice in relationships, you kind of have the same relationship until you wake the hell up. It's like, okay, cool. Not going down that road again, right? Same kind of concept, right? So. But it's like, okay. You know, once you're like, okay, cool, I've leveled up Outstanding. Where's my new friend group? And it's like, oh, wait, why is everybody leaving? This idea is like, oh, you've learned a lesson. You're having a twin flame garage sale. All the people in your life that are around that kind of theme are getting the hell out of your life. I guess you don't need that space anymore. They're. They're going away. Cool. What's happening in a lot of ways is either you haven't fully learned the lesson yet, right? Partly. Right. Or you're afraid that if you let this go, you're going to be left with nothing because you're not actually fully accepted in this space yet. You don't fully have this yet, right? Monkey holding on to one branch before he grabs the other one, won't let go of this one until he has it, right? And it's hard to make that leap, especially when, like, if you're in that kind of a group to begin with, kind of a negative group like that to begin with, you're not coming from a great environment. You're not coming from a high opinion yourself. You're coming from a place of lack of. I have to make do of whatever, right? That's a hard. That's a very deep hole to dig yourself out of. It takes a lot of work doing it on your own, right? And so it's real easy to say, oh my God, I can't let go of this. I can't step away from this because what if I don't have anything and I'm screwed, right? Because a lot of the reason we have these people around us because we need connection. We need that thing, right? It's really hard to be on alone. It's really hard to be alone, right? So if I gotta have connection, I'll make sure I have connection, good or bad. And if holding on to the bad gives me security, I'm gonna have something. I'm gonna do that, even if it's dumb.

See, when you said that, it reminded me that she told me that someone did that. Like they ended up in a relationship and it was going really well, and the person started to point out certain things that, okay, why does this happen? What does that happen? Don't you think this is wrong? And eventually she made a decision, this other friend, and she's like, okay, I can't do this. And she ran back. She ended the relationship and she ran back because, yes, to your point, right. It was what she knew. And this person, her boyfriend at the time when he was pointing out all These things. She was like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, but I don't want to grab this branch yet. So she went back and she put both arms on this branch, and she went back. And people outside of that group, like her other friends, were very shocked. And the feedback that she gave that she. That she got, that she shared was very. I don't want to say negative, but it was very pro. The man saying that, hey, he was showing you things that need to be changed. And because you didn't want to accept it, you went back to this. Right? Is that what you're saying happens a lot of times?

Fundamentally. Fundamentally. It's like, oh, my God, this person is showing me all these things that are wrong with me, all these things I know fix, right? And I can either own that and do the work, which is incredibly hard, because it means I have to admit and own that that's who I am. Right? It means I have to admit and own that I've been wrong, admit and own that I don't measure up, admit and own that I'm broken and flawed. Or I could say, this guy's a jerk. I'm leaving. Hell of a lot easier, right? Because again, our mind exists there to try and protect us from that pain. This guy was pushing buttons, not because he was trying to be mean. He's like, hey, like, you've seen this, right? But you've seen this, right? It's like, push the button. So it's pushing a lot of buttons. So now she's in a lot of pain. So what does her mind say? Get the hell away from this. It's a threat. Caused me pain. Can't fight it. Can't make it stop. Time to leave. Right? Most natural thing in the world. Makes total sense when you kind of start looking at it from this perspective. Right. The biggest threat to ourselves is emotional pain. Physical threats aren't really that big out there. Threats to our identity, threats to our ego. Emotional pain. That's the biggest threat that our mind has to protect us from these days. So that's what it does.

Is that why then? A lot of times people experience an identity crisis when they're trying to separate from a group of people that they've always associated with.

Yeah, fundamentally. And think about it this way. Talking about identity with a friend of mine a while back, and one of the things I point is, like, okay, we create an ego when we don't like who we are. Right? This is. It's like I asked myself, who am I? I get an answer. I really don't like, it's like, okay, can't be this. Who else do I need to be? Right. What other thing do I need to be? Do I need to be an athlete or father or entrepreneur, whatever the heck, Right. And we create those identities based on what works in our field of view. Right? So in our environment, okay, something's working, something's not. Okay. Whatever that's working there, I'm gonna go be that. Great. So we use that. We create an identity when we're young, try to become something else. Great. We are now accepted by a group as that person, as that identity. Okay, great. I have now become good enough, worthy enough, whatever you want to call it, within a certain context. What happens when I leave that context? Now, I don't have any external reinforcement of a positive identity I've created for myself, Right. So I don't have anything to counter all these voices in the back of head. Seeing you really ain't much. Right. I don't have those. I don't have that positive reinforcement to weigh these, like, negative voices. Shoot. I don't have any proof. I don't have any proof that I'm not this anymore. Right. So, yeah, it's incredibly challenging to let go of that branch because now you're. You're kind of flying without a net there for a minute until you can create a new identity that's being reinforced by stuff outside. Right. But what are you trying to do again? Your unconscious mind does judges true and false based on whatever I believe. Still trying to prove this wrong. Trying to find another thing to use to prove this wrong. Right. Hey, you gotta listen. Any ego construct is fundamentally a lie, and you know it. It's a mask. It's a Persona you're playing. It's a person you want to be. And since you want to be this, it means you ain't. You don't want to be you. You're already you. You don't have to want that. You don't have to change yourself to be you. Right. So if you want to change, that means you don't like who you are. You want to be something else. Means you don't like who you are. Also means you ain't that right?

Would that explain then? Yeah, I was gonna say, would that explain then? When people get into groups and they take on the identity of the group is, like you said, they qualify now. They accepted, you know, one of us. But when they start to. When one person starts to grow now, then you have the other people start to attack that person, and now they have to Make a decision. Do I try to deal with being pushed out because my growth is creating the distance, or do I say that, you know what I don't want? I don't want to be better. I don't want better. Let me go back. Because it's easier for me to, as you mentioned, stick with that. Because this is telling me you're. You may want more. This is saying you're not really good enough. Stay over here. And it's countering each other.

Well, I think it's more the crabs and bucket mentality of, like, if you're improving, that means I'm not enough anymore. I gotta drag you down to my level so you don't prove that I'm not enough. If we're all on the same level, then everybody can pretend that everybody's good enough. But as soon as you start getting up there, it's like, oh, wait a second. No, no, no, now I'm less than. Can't let that happen. Get your ass back down here.

Yeah, you can't. You can't be toxic. You can't leave me being toxic.

You can't leave me being. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. And so that whole idea is like, it's fundamentally a toxic friend group, Right? Fundamentally. But at least you're all on the same level. You can pretend that you're all good enough and pretend that you all measure up and kind of pretend that this voice in the back of your head is a lie. Right. But as soon as one of you starts proving that wrong, oh, that's a problem. Right. So if you're the person trying to get out of the bucket and everybody's trying to retract your back, it's like, oh, it's like, do I want to go back to being the person I was, knowing that this is possible? Can I do that? What does it mean about me if I give up on myself that way? Right. It's like, oh, maybe the pain of being alone is less than the pain of disappointing myself and living less than I could possibly be. And knowing that I'm living less because that's the painful thing. Knowing your bill for more and choosing not to take that shot because it's safer.

Yeah. I couldn't imagine living a life where I know in my heart, my body and soul that I should be achieving more and I'm accepting less just to fit in. Like, it reminds me of this guy. He. He wanted to get a house. He wanted to start a family. He had all these dreams, and then he was. There's a couple Guys in the, in the group and they were saying that getting a house is not worth it, it's a debt, it's not an asset, blah, blah, blah. And he gave up on his dream just to continue to be a part of the group. Because to your point, maybe he felt that, okay, if I don't, if I leave this group, am I going to find like minded people or am I going to continue be alone? And for a lot of people, Ryan, being alone is so scary that they will do anything within their power not to be alone. But then absolutely, if you, if you give up on your dreams, let's say we're the toxic ones, right? We're not sure. Let's say we're the toxic ones, right? And Johnny gives up on his dreams because of us and eventually you and I move on and he's left without his dream. I can't imagine how he would feel as a person that he gave up on the life that he wanted just to fit in with a peer group that I think in a lot of ways they do move on, could be.

But if we're the toxic ones, why would we care, right? Fundamentally, if we're the toxic ones, why would we care? From Johnny's perspective though, think about it this way. Fundamentally the trade off is like, okay, I can take a shot at the stream, which may or may not come true, or I can take the bird in hand, right? Burden hand is worth two in the air, right? And in a lot of ways, if you're kind of stuck in that position where there's a big gap between where, where you are and where you should be, you're kind of trapped in what I like, what I call the cage in my book, right? Got the cage and the treadmill. Talk about treadmill in a minute. Because that one's going to really be kind of a brain breaker for you. The first one is the cage, right? Things are okay, lights are on, food's on table, roof over your head, bills are paid, things are okay. But you're living a life of relative mediocrity. You know, you're meant for more. You know, you're here, you should be here. Or you could be here, right? But everything worthwhile is on the outside of the cage. Why? Because if you take that shot and miss, it proves all these negative things about yourself are true, right? The pain of failure would prove for a fact that you're not actually able to. Not actually good enough. You're not actually that kind of guy. And that kind of confirmation would be too much down the hole you go. Because again, what's your mind trying to protect you from? Emotional pain. Why? Because of the threat to your physical existence. Deaths of despair killed over 300,000 people in the United States in 2023. How people felt killed over 300,000 people, right? It is actually a literal threat to your life. All right? So it's safer not to take that shot. If you got everybody around you saying, don't, it's too risky. It's not worth it. Hang out. It's. That's amping up that risk and the perception of risk, which means it's safer not to take this shot. And hey, you've got all these friends. It's been enough. It's okay. You're getting by, right? So it's the most logical thing in the world to stay where you're at rather than take that shot. Welcome to the cage. And that's going to be that way until the pain of not having that stuff on the outside is just as dangerous as the pain of taking that shot. Because the danger of the cage is, yes, if you take that shot and miss, you die fast. You don't take that shot, you starve slowly of all the things you need and you die slow. But your unconscious mind is looking at right now, so solving the right now problem, so it doesn't care about you starving slowly. It can't see that. It doesn't understand that, can't even take that into account, right? But that's got to pop up as danger before you're able to actually start making that move. So what happened to me, right? Had to get bad enough where it's like I can't get what I need in life, and I can't handle this anymore. I got to do whatever the hell I need to do to fix it, right? The second trap is. Is the treadmill, right? And this is the sneakiest one. You're in a bad situation. Everybody's got a Batman origin story in this place, right? The terrible situation to get away from, right? But they found that thing. They got that one thing that's academics, athletics, entrepreneurship, whatever that happens to be, like, join the military. That was me got me the heck out of that, right? So I do out saying, this is my thing. I'm going to keep on running. And it's really successful. You're leveling up, making more money, getting better people, better cars, better house, career, yada, yada. You're making. You know, you're racking up points in that scoreboard of life, right? Getting all this external affirmation Right? So you're heading the right direction, getting plenty of rewards. But as soon as you take your foot off that gas, all them demons come up. Those thoughts, everything else. Right. Keep on chasing that carrot or you get the stick. Right?

Only two ways to move the donkey.

Yeah. And the thing is, it's just as much of a trap as being in the cage. Because you're not allowed to do anything else. Your life gets really narrow. Right? And if you can't say no, if you can't step off that, if you can't take your foot off the gas without getting beaten. And what you're doing ain't a choice, it's a compulsion. Right? Your mind says this is what you must do to keep yourself safe. Keep running.

So the person who just going, person who works and works and works and then works two jobs and the minute that there's a break or they're forced to take a vacation or time off because of their health, like they lose their mind. Like, I'm really not worth anything outside of this job.

Yes. Or the self improvement guy who's always trying to level up and change this out and the other and optimize. Or the sales guy who's always trying to make bigger targets. Bigger targets, Right. Or these guys have set the goal. Five year goal, you know, nine month goal rate. You hit it outstanding, you celebrate and then you start feeling kind of empty inside. Got set another goal. Just keep moving that goalpost out there further and further and further. Right? Alex Hosi, perfect example of this brilliant entrepreneur. Guy is phenomenally talented. Right? Half a million. Half a billion dollars. And revenue in his 30s. Like, are you kidding me? But what's this thing? Create a stack of undeniable proof that you are. You say you are. So what's the problem with that? Got one piece of underproof. Ain't you done? I don't know. I don't have a proof that you are here. Say you already should be done. So why do you need a stack? Why is the sack not big enough? Why do you keep adding to it? Right. That never ends. There's a guy by the name of Andrew Wilkinson, brilliant guy. He's an entrepreneur up there in Canada. Wrote a book called Never Enough. It's his journey from being a barista making six bucks an hour to being a billionaire. Right. Grew up in poor. It's like outstanding. All I gotta do is make enough money. He's gonna solve my problems. Became a billionaire, realized he was just as insecure and anxious as when he was breezy Making six bucks an hour. I looked around, the other billionaires, same thing. Multi Billionaires, same thing. 100 millionaires, same thing. Tens of millions, same thing. Millionaires, same thing. If a billion dollars ain't enough, that don't work. I don't care who says otherwise. If a billion dollars isn't enough, isn't a high enough score on the scoreboard. If that ain't enough, that thing don't work that way. I don't care. Right. It just doesn't work that way. Which is why taking a look at getting in, fixing that deep stuff that came up from the beginning is so important. If you got a Batman origin story, guess what? There's some work to do. Yes, it's driven you some great heights, absolutely freaking lutely. But you're doing it from a pace of pain, doing it from a place of fear, right? Which means you don't really have a choice. You're not doing it for the love of the game, Right? You're Michael Jordan, you're Mike Tyson, right? You're Conor McGregor, right? You're not Michael Phelps, the swimmer, right? Pain, resentment, anxiety, all this stuff. Gotta prove it. Love of the game. And this guy crushed it better than anybody ever had, right? Like, what, 12, 12 world records, like 30 gold medals that year. What I do afterwards, I'm retired, I'm gonna hang out, just smoke some weed, just walked away perfectly fine. What happened when, like, Mike Tyson retired? All kinds of stuff. Like Michael Jordan couldn't believe he had ever taken any time off, right? They were driven by fear, pain, resentment, whatever that is. Right. Couldn't stop, didn't have a choice. Right. Wouldn't you rather be playing the Elon Musk game? Change course of humanity. There's no scoreboard to that. Ain't about the money, ain't about points on board. But you can only do this when you have a choice.

You think then, Ryan, that because a lot of people who find early success and who are driven by, they usually use, like, their pain, some hurt, do you think they could then transition that and heal it and then go from a place of love where there isn't a scoreboard, where they can just continue to thrive and not have these other types of emotions that's driving them to a goal that is always going to be out of reach?

Fundamentally, that's exactly what I do for people. That's exactly the kind of thing I help people do. You're coming from a place of pain, fear. Got that? Batman origin story. Outstanding. Let's fix that thing at its Core so you can move from the love of the game, from the love from, from a place of love, from potential, from impact, from whatever you want to call it, right? So you can do something of value to you rather than being boxed into what's going to put points on the board, right? Same thing for the guys in cage. Outstanding. Let's find a reason, let's find out why you're stuck in the cage. Open that freaking door for you so you can live that life. You actually want to lift, so you can take that shot, right? And fundamentally it's all about making it safe to do so. Safe to take your step, foot off the gas, safe to hop off the treadmill, safe to get out of the cage. And number one thing I do is change this idea that emotions are pain because when they're not pain anymore, they're just questions. They're your mind asking you for help to solve a problem. Then you can engage with them as much as you need. And your mind is actually, they're actually a good thing because your mind helping you figure out the problem is so you're going to get to where you're going, right? So feeling bad becomes a good thing in a lot of ways, right? It also means you're done fixing yourself because if your hand hurts, you're supposed to look at that thing as it. Busted. We feel emotions in here, feel them in here. That's why we think we're the problem all the time. But look at all the number of things you fixed and you still feel the same way. Maybe you're not the problem, maybe you're not the thing that's supposed to be fixed. Maybe you're looking for any needle, a haystack, and there ain't no needle and hay stack in the first place. Given how I'm built, given how I'm wired, everything's working exactly as I should. Problems out there, how do I get what I want out there? How to navigate those problems out there. That's where the problem is. Not in here. Stop fixing it. Stop trying to look in the wrong place, not where it's. At that point you're really moving in a different way, right? Because getting anything you want in life is just solving a series of problems. After I know what the problem is, I'm already fixing it, no big deal. But I don't know what the problem is. Guess what? I'm going to feel some stuff and what I'm feeling tells me what kind of problem to look for, right? And the hardest part of solving a problem is Figuring out what the heck the problem is in the first place. Right. So if everything I feel helps me find the problem faster, guess what? I get to where I want to be faster and more effectively. Right. The other thing is my capacity to work is based on my capacity to withstand, like, suffering and discomfort. I can only train until I get sore. Right. Well, if emotions are no longer pain, can I actually suffer mentally or emotionally? No, you can't. So what is my capacity for mental and emotional work? Basically infinite. So I can work however long I choose. I solve problems faster, find problems faster, which means anything I want in life is mine. It's just a matter of time. Ain't even gonna be long. Ain't that an interesting place to move from? So be in pain if you like. Knock yourself out. I'm gonna do this. I'm going with plan B.

When you mentioned, like, the Batman origin story, reminded me of this video game I used to play, Street Fighter. And there's a character called Akuma, and he was fueled by rage. And because he. And he used and he focused that rage, used that rage, he got stronger, stronger, stronger. He's able to beat everybody. But the problem with it was the rage was actually killing him on the inside.

Yes.

Right. So he had to make a change. He had to master that rage to continue to live forward. And the reason why I can me personally connect with that story is because when I was growing up, I grew up with all my mother, my father. And I was very upset because I didn't have the upbringing that a lot of people at that time, they showed you. You grew up with your mother, father, and you live this perfect life. So I was very upset. I was very disappointed. I was very angry. I had this rage, and similar to that character, I realized it began to consume me. So I had to heal it and be driven somewhere else.

Yes.

But I think I was fortunate enough that I didn't lose my drive because instead of me being driven by my rage, because at one point I want to was. Both my parents have corporate jobs. I was like, I'm going to be better than them. I'm going to show them. Because they left me all this other stuff. Right. So that was driving me achieve everything I achieved in school. And then I realized I was like, I can't do it this way. So what I did is I learned that I want to be driven by the love of helping people. But the people that you work with. Yeah, go ahead.

Okay. The basic rule is that we move away from pain and we move towards pleasure. Right. Okay, great. If you're driven, that means you're moving away from something, which means you're still being driven by pain, just not the same kind. The only reason you're driven is if you're pain because you got to get away from something. You're not being pulled forward. You're being driven away from something. Right. Being driven out of the love of helping people means you have to help people. You don't have a choice. Right. Whether they want to or not. You do the right thing, you can do the wrong thing. You do for the right reason. You can do it for the wrong reason. If you're doing the right thing, helping people for the wrong reason, you have to. You're gonna do it the wrong way. Much better to do the right thing for the right reason. Right? And that means figuring out a way to not be driven, to be pulled instead, because the pole is moving from pleasure, moving reward, moving from will.

How would we identify the. The difference between the two for someone?

Well, that's easy. Do you feel driven? Then it's pain, and you're doing.

Just ask them just like that. Okay.

Are you driven? Yep. Go for it. Right. Well, like, I don't mean to, like, be grandiose or anything, but, like, one of the guys I was talking to earlier today was saying, like, what's your. What's your mission? What's your purpose? It's like, well, my mission in life these days is to end human suffering and unleash the fullness of human potential to the maximum extent possible for me to engineer this lifetime. Am I doing it because I have to? No, I do it because I choose to. I think it's a kind of a cool thing to do. The world doesn't be. Doesn't want to be saved. Okay. They don't have choice. That's your choice. I can let them, right? To the maximum extent that I can engineer this lifetime. And to do that, they have to give me permission. They have to ask, because I've got a solution. But I don't know if there's the right one. Works really well for me. Don't know if it works for everybody. May not actually be the best thing to do for the world. So if they say no. Sweet, right? But that's being pulled. I think it's cool. I find it interesting. It's freaking fascinating. I'm having a ball doing this. It's a lot of fun. Somebody doesn't want my help. Okay, Totally get it. What I do is hard. Might not be for you being pulled right following my North Star.

And that's fair. That's fair.

I'd fall in that first star. Yeah, yeah.

Because it's like, it's like the people who do charity work, but they just do it just because they don't do it for the glam or the highlights. Like I work with a woman's charity and I do it just because I want to like the job that that job doesn't pay me anything. I just do it because I love to do it. Like the job I do nine to five, it pays for this microphone, the house, the car and everything. Versus, let's say, someone to your point, I'm thinking I understand where they're doing it because they feel like they have to like I gotta end world hunger because I have to. Right. But to our earlier point, there's some people that don't necessarily want to be helped for a number of reasons. You can't force yourself upon them because now you're imposing your will on people that don't necessarily want your help or.

The way you want to help them. Isn't the way that actually going to help them? Oh, we want to end your whole world hunger. Outstanding. We're giving you all this Monsanto wheat that can't reproduce. So now you're dependent upon wheat imports every year. It's really how weather is that honestly the way we should be doing that. Right. Rather than sustainable agriculture, they could do their own. We should just make them dependent upon us and their stuff. Right? Oh, we want to end world for hunger. Right. We're going to give all these African people baby formula all the time. Great. Now their milk dries up so they can't feed the infants on their own. They're going to depend upon the baby formula. Sweet. That's the right way to go about things. Maybe not. Right again. Right thing, wrong reason, gonna do it the wrong way. And it's so tricky. And once you see it, you just like kick yourself in the pants because like why? It becomes obvious. Right. When you start looking at it through that lens. But man up until then it is so easy to miss it because doing the right thing feels good. It's supposed to. If you don't take that step to look at why, it's really easy to miss. Real easy to miss.

Yeah. I wonder then if that's the case. People doing the right things for the wrong reasons, are they then doing it for themselves? More so for than the other person.

Remember how I was talking about like solving your own pain, doing it for yourself? Right. You're Solving your pain. It hurts me to see all these starving people in Africa. I need to do something.

I don't know if it's the right way to do it.

Right.

But I do it.

The climate is going anywhere. We're all going to die. I have to do something. So you all got to stop eating meat, drive electric cars and walk everywhere, get a bicycle. Why? Because I have to save the world.

Well, yeah.

And that example, you see it everywhere.

Yeah. See it. Some people. Yeah, some people get attacked. So, Yep.

Yep. It's fascinating once you start digging down there and start looking at how the mind really works, man, it's a fascinating ride.

Yeah. Like, it puts you in a situation where when someone is so determined or to use your. Your language, right. So driven to do something, and if you're not a part of it now, they see you as an obstacle that has to be removed. And as we talked on earlier, a lot of men was the first one is to fight out of what they can do. Right. So if they can remove you from it, in some cases permanently, then they can do what they want to do. And then you put them in a very dangerous situation, which is probably why you have so many people who, when it comes to some of these causes, they determine that we need to cancel or outright remove permanently these people because we don't view them as an ally or as a neutral party. It's either you're with us or you're against us.

Yes. Cancel. Culture is a beautiful example of social violence and economic violence. Right. I'm a silence you. I'm going to take away your job. Right. That's a form of violence as a use of force to overcome an obstacle. You can kill someone just as easily that way as put a bullet in your head. Right. Take away your job, take away your ability to talk to people. Great. You just starve to death. I don't have to worry about it because I don't have to hear you about you anymore because you're not on social media. Yeah, man. It's so insidious. It's so wicked.

I find that to be so dangerous. Like, that's like, that's the slow death of you removing someone. You're like, I'm going to take away your ability to provide yourself with the basic needs. And that could be impacting you. It could be impacting your wife, your husband, your children, your family. Right. Because if you're not with me, you're against me. And you see that in so many different aspects of life. And I guess, right as we close however, some ways, then we can protect ourselves from being attacked in that way.

You don't. And here's why. Number one, if you're trying to protect yourself from being attacked in that way, you have to censor yourself and conform to their ideas and not be offensive, right? So you can choose to be what they want you to be and say what they want you to say and be silent, or you can be you and be your authentic self. All right? Now, what that does mean is that you need to be willing to take that shot to be willing to take that hit, right? But if we go back to those buttons, right, If I know myself, if I own myself, if I have made peace with all these different parts of myself, accepted all those parts of myself, made peace with my past and all these things I hate about myself before, great. What button do you have to push? I like who I am. I know all my flaws and I own them. Right, so you say you're a baby killer. Maybe. What else? It's like you're a racist, okay? You're a sexist, okay? You're transphobic, okay? And. Their power rests in you conforming to their idea. Their power rests in you responding to their insults with some sort of thing. You're racist. And because they're supposed to say you're racist, you're supposed to be feel bad about it. You're supposed to change your behavior. You're supposed to deny it. You're a misogynist, okay? You're transphobic. And you've got it. You've got a point. What's your point? And, well, that means you're a bad person, possibly. So they have been on occasion, maybe even today. And it does mean you need to be able to have some financial security, right? And that's been much more difficult in the past than it is now. I think that whole cancel culture thing is, like, losing his power a lot, right? So now I don't think you have the same risk of losing your job. There's these online cancel culture mobs that can make your life hell absolutely freaking lutely. But there's ways to insulate yourself from that. Now, if you look at kind of like the right wing stuff these days, like, okay, everybody was canceled. Hey, how about you guys? You guys help out? Sweet. Outstanding, right? Oh, they're screwing you over. Cool. Come on over, we'll take care of you. Right? There's a whole culture, a whole movement these days that people are like, okay, you've been attacked by left and like, canceled. Outstanding. We'll take care of you. Don't worry about it. Come on in. You don't even have to agree with us. We don't care if you're not them. You're on our side. That's good with us, right? You're not on that side. Hook you up, right? And again, there's also that place where there's a lot more ability to create your own economic future, Right? If you're your own boss, it's hard for them to fire you.

Right?

Really hard. Like, okay, fine, yes. You can complain to the manager. He's right here. What would you like to say? Right? Takes a lot of the window sales, but you do that. You can only really do that if you can own and like who you are. You don't like you are. It's really easy to have buttons to push, right? There's a difference between vulnerability and authenticity. I don't really ever think of myself as being vulnerable really anymore. Because being vulnerable says you can hurt me. I put my position for you to hurt me.