#1379 - Are You Using Your Imagination To Your Advantage?

We went very deep on standards Today for episode number 1379, . Happy Monday . Are you using your imagination to your advantage ? As I mentioned in the previous episode , one of my favorite quotes is your reality becomes the parts of your imagination that you hold on to and pour into the longest .

But how does it happen where people end up with a reality that they do not desire ? I believe it's because they're imagining a negative outcome . I've been thinking of this for a long . This episode in a nutshell , but just the thought behind it , where we all know somebody who is always thinking about the worst case scenario .

They're thinking about what could possibly go wrong , they're thinking about all the things that could go wrong , and they kind of live their life that way , and then maybe you lose touch with this person or maybe you're not friends with them anymore . Whatever it is .

They exit your life And when you check in on them you say , oh interesting , that really sucks for that person that they're where they are today . I wonder if that's one of the reasons why I used to .

I did a post very early in the hyper-conscious days where I said if you put as much conscious effort into solving your problems as you did that you use posting your problems on social media , if you just took the effort that it took to post about your problems on social media and put it into real life , you probably wouldn't have as many problems to post about

on social media . And that kind of is this episode in a nutshell where are you using your imagination to your advantage or are you using your imagination to your disadvantage ?

So , as you know , i got a new car recently and I don't really like talking about it that much because I don't want it to make it seem like that's why I got it , so I could talk about it , and I don't . You know I have a weird thing with sounding arrogant .

I don't want that to be the case , but the reason I ended up getting that car is because I went to Podfest , a large podcast festival . I was on one of the panels and the car I rented was BMW And I was like , oh my God , this is amazing . If only imagine , if only I could get one of these .

But whatever And I'm not trying to lessen that , but for him , that experience helped you imagine a future where you're driving a car like that . And it was a Mercedes , right ? Do you remember the model or make or anything ?

And then you rented a car , a Mercedes , and you went to the drive-in which you imagine yourself in a car like that again For Taren's birthday , yeah , and you talked about the story about how people were like , dude , nice car . And you were like , ah , it's not mine , it's a rental , and you hated that . So what you're really doing is imagining your future .

And then you got some pain of like , ah , it's not mine , and all of this . And then fast forward , fast forward . Kevin and I are talking about this and I said , brother , if we were to get like five or 10 more clients like we could , we could afford that . We can achieve that dream , if you know if you're a game .

And so go get 10 more clients and let's , let's do this thing and fast forward , fast forward , fast forward . Business expenses increased So it ended up being more than 10 clients . But he , i remember you were ignited . I mean , you were going , you were killing it . And I remember thinking to myself like , okay , that's what we got to do .

I pulled the right lever as a leader , and so we're growing , growing , growing , awesome , awesome , awesome . And you ended up getting a car actually better than the ones you rented . Is that fair ?

And the question , the philosophical question for our listeners is would you have manifested for lack of better phrasing , the outcomes necessary to create that , to get that BMW if you didn't have all of those experiences and imagine it in advance ? No , no . And so the question becomes and I have this other quick story I want to share .

We have a team member who had a vision board of having a villa overlooking the ocean in Spain , and I remember having conversations . The cool thing about being a coach is you have the conversation and then you witness it happen months , sometimes years later .

I can trace a lot of people's dreams that they accomplish and things they accomplish back to a conversation I've had with them . You know , i have one client who started a business that made $450,000 in a given week , and I remember talking to him about that two years prior , and that's why it's so fascinating .

It's like you're imagining things long before they come true . I think that's why it's so tricky .

You know , i remember I was imagining being a men's physique fitness model when I was 220 pounds and I looked nothing like a fitness model , and then it took me two years to get to a point where I actually won a bodybuilding show , and that doesn't include the loss before that and all of the hard work and all that kind of stuff The parts of your imagination

you hold onto the longest . Both good and bad do eventually manifest , assuming you're aligning your actions , your thoughts , your beliefs with those .

So it's almost like I mean , just as an example , if somebody's out there right now and they're saying I imagine my dream partner , it's going to be really hard for you to settle for somebody if you're continuing to imagine that person . It's always there in your brain , like it won't allow you to make a different decision . In a way It's always there .

I remember telling you I'm not . I know it looks like I'm driving a certain car , but in my mind I'm not . I'm driving something else . It's already done in my mind . My imagination is very vivid where I can imagine what it's like to drive the car .

Especially now that I've driven the car , that doubles the imagination , because now you're not imagining it , you're just reliving what you've already experienced .

And once you know what it's like , that's another layer . It's real now . It's not fake .

Let me hear me out . Kevin and I love podcasting , but in order for us to be able to podcast , we have to do a plethora of other things that we don't want to do . And I said early in the journey It's 80 percent things you don't want to do . For the 20 percent of things that you really do want to do , and Then it becomes 79 , 21 , 78 , 22 .

In other words , more percentage , more percentage , more percentage what you love , less percentage , less percentage , less percentage what you don't want to do . But it never gets to zero . None of

us will ever . I Have a cat in Who got surgery , who has a cone , and I was tying a cone Properly to try to make sure she couldn't lick her wound like I . I love having a cat . I don't want to do that right and and , but I do it because it's worth it . Taurel is worth it . Goals are the same way . I also want to share this briefly .

When you plant a plant a seed , okay , what's the difference between a redwood tree And a and a birch tree ? I know .

Yeah , you can't get that thing in four weeks , Right ? you plant the seed in your imagination and it has an incubation period . It has . You know , a human baby takes nine months to grow . You know , a redwood takes a hundred years to grow . And so having the most successful holistic , self-improvement company , that's a redwood That's going to take our lifetime .

That's okay . It doesn't mean it's not possible . It's the same basic principle . Getting a Subaru legacy , i could do that next week . You see what I'm saying did that land ?

And so The the bigger your goal is , the rarer the outcome , the the more challenging the The goal , the size of the goal , the longer it's going to take to manifest it . And I think , i think people would believe in themselves more If they understood time perspective , and I'll be brief about this . But Your dream car is possible .

It just might not be possible next week , whereas getting subway or McDonald's is possible tonight , because it's a smaller Goal , but it's the same manifestation Principle . Yeah well , the reason , one of the reasons we were going to do .

Changing your reality is not as hard as you think , or something like that . Here's what happens , if it's only in my imagination . Again , i know we're using cars , whatever yours is , the house on the beach , the job of your dreams , the career of your dreams , the partner , whatever the body , the bank account , whatever it is .

When it , when you first get a little hint of it , it becomes realer . Seeing . For most people , seeing is believing . I would argue that experiencing is creating , in a way .

That's why I like when Tara and I went , so we went to Colorado to get married , and when we were out there the day after we got married , we I took her out to like a very , very nice dinner And it's like I'm imagining what that will be like . Just like as a regular occurrence .

That would be cool to go spend that kind of money on a dinner whenever I want . Like that's interesting . That'd be really cool . That when I do that . It helps me lock it in . Now that's locked , i've done it . When you've done something , when you climb a mountain , it's not that hard to imagine what climbing another mountain is like .

Everything's different , of course , but you know kind of what is what it's like . You've experienced it . You emotionalize it . There's parts of you that understand at a deep level what it's all about , that , that even I went to get my car inspected today and I was like thanks so much , man , i appreciate it . He's like I should be thanking you .

Like bringing a brand new car first , one of the more you know . A brand new car is perfect . It makes my job easy . It's like , that's weird . It's like but that's the kind of energy I get now with that car . I could see why people get arrogant when they get nice things , because you definitely get treated differently , for sure .

Because here's the thing I remember you told me this one day , alan You're like , hey , man , this like journaling thing you're doing probably can it . You're like it's probably not . You don't need to be like visualizing by writing down every day Like you're beyond that . And I was like , yeah , no , i agree , i don't really think this is doing much .

But that's when I started watching these mansion tours And for me it's just like it unlocks a piece of me that is these are all possibilities . These are all possibilities that I didn't really believe were possibilities until I exposed myself to them more and more . The more you surround yourself with something , the more it becomes you , and the more you become it .

The more you surround yourself with something , the more possible it becomes Very hyper conscious . I love it , man . I love it . I feel like you and I are in my living room in New Hampshire six years ago .

Kevin's vision board was basically blank pieces of paper .

I am so grateful . I couldn't say enough about him , please . If this is something you're considering , i highly recommend him .

Now you have like a better understanding of it all and how to do it . And he was like thank you so much , and it was a very kind message . I'm probably messing it up , but it was something along the lines of like I never would have been able to do this prior to coaching with you And I was like holy crap , awesome .

I didn't realize I had that big of an impact on fitness . I knew I've had a big impact , but fitness wise , that's awesome And so , anyways , i love messages like that . And then I remember thinking like Emilia and I climb mountains pretty , pretty regularly . Now regularly We've climbed five mountains , but now we're mountain climbers , right .

And I remember thinking like I wonder , so I looked it up I forget the name of the mountain , but I looked it up 2700 feet And I was like , oh , no problem , awesome , But that's because I just did one that was 32 . Right , and so once you experience these things , they become less daunting . That's my point .

I could have looked at that photo overlooking Arizona and being like , oh , i don't know , like that's really high . But I look it up and I go , oh , i've already climbed a mountain that big . I can totally do that , awesome . And so hopefully you can consistently expose yourself to these things . So maybe your dream car is $100,000 .

Maybe get one that's getting one rent one that's 30,000 or something or whatever , if that's going to help . I don't know if I am the person to talk to about emotional eyes and visualize , because I always get what I call impressions . All of a sudden I'll be folding laundry and I'll just see myself at 40 and I'll just see myself at 50 .

I'll see myself at 60 . I don't know where that comes from And it's not like I can visually see exactly what I look like , but I get these this feeling of like , oh yeah , that's going to be awesome , cool , that's fascinating , and I don't know if the vision piece has ever been a big challenge , and I want to bring the listeners behind the scenes .

One of the reasons I think vision did come naturally is because I had a lot of traumas in my childhood And I think the only way to escape the trauma was to go into the future . For me , like when the past is painful and the present is painful , i think the mind goes into the future , and that's at least an explanation that I think lands for me .

And so maybe you're out there and that resonates . But for me , i think I always was living more in the future because my past and my present had a lot of pain , and so I think I was just practicing that from a young age , not realizing that that was different , and I since have some clients that are visionaries that very much have similar experiences .

But if you don't , if that doesn't come naturally , if you're not getting impressions and you're not future oriented , and that's okay , but practice it for sure , particularly the visualization . That's why you came up with it . I had a whole equation for manifestation , but you were like , where's the visualization , emotionalization ? And I you came up with that one .

There's 10 steps in this and we'll put it in the show notes . We'll put a link in the show notes to the asset . It's a pretty intense asset . So if you have any questions , let me know . But Kevin's the one who came up with step two , which is visualize and emotionalize .

I would love to host a free retreat for the NLU community where we rent out like a mansion compound and we're going to lose money on this , but I think it would be worth it for the experience for the guests , and we maybe fly people out . I don't know . I would love to know somebody's belief in themselves before they attend versus after .

I think it does something . I really , really , really think it does something . Now , obviously , you have to believe that you're capable of achieving a result similar and you can't get an ego on it , like , oh , these people flew me out , like because that throws it off , but I am mad . I mean , i don't know , i really do .

We did an episode recently on seeing as believing , like , how do you see it in advance ? I think this is how you rent it . The best , one of the best things I ever did was rent that car for Taren's birthday . That changed me .

One of the reasons I mean we were having conversations of where to go I was like Europe will change me more than Hawaii or something I will identify as a different human . That's almost kind of what it is .

It's like the more stamps on your passport you get , the more traveled you are , the more experiences you have , the more you believe in the experiences that you want to create .

I feel like and that goes back to our episode that we did earlier this week which is your deepest pain is either getting along with others or manifesting , achieving , achieving And for me I had never succeeded really in the relationship arena . And now I have so much confidence because Emilie and I are , i mean , seriously . I never thought it was possible .

We've never fought . I didn't even think that was possible , and that's more because of her than me . Quite frankly , she's more emotionally regulated than I am . There have been a few times where I was close , but I didn't even think that was humanly possible , so of course I didn't . Oh , that's why people don't , because they don't think it's possible .

Possible for them Can you visualize something that you don't think is possible ? Not clearly , i don't think , because I couldn't imagine this . You know , i never imagined this . This is beyond my imagination . Genuinely , is that how you feel with this life ?

But like getting you know one thing , that One thing I don't have yet , like getting paid and flown out for a podcast speech , like that's my imagination but I don't know , seems far out . It hasn't happened .

But it is . It is Cool Because it's like , yeah , at one point , all of those , they were always possible . They were always possible . We just Didn't know how Yet . Yet You know . So I'm a possibility guy . Yes , we will go to Mars . Yes , there will be walking talking robots . Yes , ai is coming . Yes , there will be self-driving cars .

Yes , there will be flying cars . I don't overwhelm anyone , but those are all happening And that's okay . It's gonna be awesome . But my question for all of you , next level lesson what are you imagining ? What are you imagining for your own future that could manifest if you actually just Just suspended your fears and believed in it ?

If you want more deep conversations , if you want to be surrounded by people who have deep conversations , please join our private Facebook group , next Level Nation . You belong there , you are welcome there And you could be yourself there , and unfortunately , there are not many places where we can all say that . So Next Level Nation will always be one of them .

It is officially celebrating its one-year mark , podcast Growth University , with your one and only host , kevin Paul-Mary . That's me has done 52 episodes in a row , a full year of episodes . So this is a one-year anniversary . We also have a podcast production agency called Next Level Podcast Solutions that you hear about all the time . I am a client .

Next Level Podcast Solutions produces the Conscious Couples podcast , which is my other podcast with my beautiful girlfriend Emilia . If you want to start a podcast , you are one call with Kevin . Away from manifesting that And , trust me , it is probably much smaller of a mountain than you think to start . So face your fear , get it started .

The best time to plant a tree is right now . 20 years ago , yeah , the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago . The next best time is right now .

. Tomorrow for episode number 1,000 , 380 for some reason I was looking right at it but I couldn't figure it out are your weaknesses getting weaker ? I'm pretty excited and intrigued to do an episode on that . We are going to talk about .

The stuff that you're naturally drawn to is usually the stuff you get really good at , but when you get good at it , you usually don't work on the stuff that you need to strengthen . So we're going to dive into that tomorrow . As always , we love you , we appreciate you , grateful for each and every one of you , and at NLU we do it out of fans .

We have family . We'll talk to you all tomorrow .