Rob Dial: How to Break the Cycle of Procrastination & 3 Ways to Change Your Repeated Thoughts

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The Mindset Mentor podcast. Rob simplifies neurology, psychology, and cognitive behavioral therapy to help people grasp how their brains and bodies function together. Rob's podcast is one of his biggest projects. If you're not subscribe yet, check it out. And Rob's also the author of Level Up. The book is out right now and it guides people to take action, overcome procrastination, and form lasting habits. Rob believes that when you master your mindset, you master your life. If you don't have

this book already, go and order it now. Level Up by Rob Dow Welcome to the show.

to figure it out, making content, figuring it out. And we'd connected because I think we had a similar set of like values and beliefs around the kind of mindset, and you were always really curious about Eastern spirituality, and I felt like we just had great conversations. We went on a couple of walks, hung out, and I was just we were just saying this offline. It was you who actually said to me back in twenty seventeen. You

were like, dude, you should start a podcast. And I was like, I don't know if I have time, I don't know if I'm able to do. I don't know what it would be if you know, And you were like, I remember you literally saying that you should just record yourself walking around, like just whatever.

And you're like, well, traditional is good. You told me the reasons why. And it was like I always say, like in life, you never see the entire path, but you can look like in the headlights where it's like if you drive at night, on see the entire path to where you're going, but you can see the next hundred feet in front of you. And like, the first one hundred feet was calling my friend and I was like, hey,

you have a successful book, what should I do? And then the next hundred feet was calling you up and You're like, yeah, you should do this. And so then I talked to an agent, well a little bit further on, and it took three years, but it eventually came out, but you were a part of it as well.

of light on it, so this is perfect. Talk to me about why, because I know you love the neuroscience. Why is it that we all want something? We have goals, we have things that we believe are important, but we struggle to focus on them.

So I literally wrote it. I got it like the next week and read it while we were traveling, and so there was that, And as I was writing the book, I was like, what's the thing because the original tide of the book was the psychology of taking action? Because I was looking at the mindset mentor podcasts. I have fourteen hundred episodes and I was like, it's just me speaking for almost every single one of them. And I was like, what do I teach? Like what do what

do people want for me? And I was like, it's almost all like tips and tricks understand yourself to take action because everybody who's listening to a podcast has the awareness of I want to improve, I want to get better, I want something different, but how do I do it? And so I started saying, Okay, if taking action is what the book's going to be about, like why don't

people take action in the first place? And one of the things that pops up for people is fear, like they're just there's some sort of fear that pops up for them and I had a conversation with one of my friends who went and lived in the tribe with a tribe, a native Brazilian tribe in the middle of Brazil, and so he had to fly into a town, he had to hop on a boat and go for two days on at in the middle of nowhere. And he started talking to me about these things that he called

primal fears and intellectual fears. So, like a primal fear is pain or death is attached to it, and we don't really come up with too many primal fears in our life nowadays. Intellectual fear is like what we deal with all day long, which is, you know, the fear of rejection, the fear of failure, the fear of not being accepted, the fear of success. We all these fears, and all of these fears are made up in our minds.

And so I was listening to I'm pretty sure it was sad Guru I was listening to, and I was like, I put on and I was driving around in Sedona as I was writing the book. I was there just to try to get my whole mind together, is by myself writing it. And I was like looking at fears and trying to figure them out. And one thing that he said that like really hit me more than anything else, is Okay, I've identified my fears, and the next thing is, well,

how do I overcome these fears? And if it's an intellectual fear, the fears that exists in our minds is you can't overcome something that doesn't exist. And so we create we basically wake up with in the book we wake up in the morning, we create the Boogeyman, which is like the fear of success, the fear fairy, whatever

it is. And instead of actually taking the action that we need to and focusing on what it is that we want, we take all of our focus and put it towards trying to overcome this fear, when in reality, the fear doesn't even exist in the first place. And so I think the biggest thing for most people is like the fear is keeping you from focusing. But there's also like the identity of who you think you are. And one of my favorite things is challenging who I

think I am all the time. Like I love the story and I put in the Book of Jim Carrey when he decided to be and man on the moon and the Man on the Moon was a movie where he ended up playing Andy Kaufman, and there was a whole documentary that was done on this and they curbed it for like twenty years because it was so off the rails of how crazy he went and what he did was he It's a documentary called Jim and Andy that's on him playing the role on Man on the Moon.

So Andy Kaufman was a guy who was once alive. And the crazy part of any about Andy Kaufman is he also played other characters. So it was Jim Carrey playing Andy Kaufman, who played like Tony Clifton and other characters. But the thing that happened with him was that he would never break character, so he was a method actor.

So for four months he played as this real life person, and even to the point where his driver that would pick him up in Hollywood and drive him to his house said that whoever he was playing at the time that they stopped recording, whether it was Andy Kaufman, Tony Clifton, he would play that person the entire day when he was driving him home that night and he picked him up and he was still the same person, not Jim

Carrey anymore. And so what happened was he he ended up like and it gets kind of crazy where he ends up doing therapy sessions with Andy Kaufman's real daughter and his family to help them overcome his sudden death. And so what happens is they stopped recording four months later, and he's like, I don't know who I am and he lost who he was, and he's like, I don't know my beliefs. I don't know what makes me happy, well, what makes me sad, what pisses me off anymore. He's like,

I've kind of just lost who Jim Carrey is. It's kind of like his spiritual awakening that you've seen him go through over the past twenty years. And he realized, if I can lose Jim Carrey, then who the hell is Jim Carrey? And he realized that Jim Carrey is just basically a character that he's playing all the time that is completely somebody else, and he could just wake

up another morning and act like he's somebody else. And so I think that two of the things that really keep us from focusing on stuff is we get really afraid and fearful of making change or judgment or failure and all that, and the other thing is like, who we actually truly think we are will hold us back from tiking either the action that we need to or you know, staying in the exact same position that we're in.

and you see a lion. It starts running after you. You know, you run from it. You turn, you look over, your shoulder's getting closer. You're still running from it. You turn and look over your shoulder just as teeth are about to dig into you. And you wake up in the middle of the night and your body didn't move at all, but you're sweating, you're out of breath, your heart rate

is in tensely going. And the amazing thing about being a human, you know they usually say in any case, is what your biggest strength is is also can be your biggest fault. The thing about humans is that we can project our minds into a future that doesn't exist yet. And so what we can do right now is we can sit here. You know, we're in the studio. Everything

is amazing we have food, water, shelter, clothing, everything. But if I'm like a lot of people do, Like if I'm starting a business, right I can sit here and I can think, well, I really want to start this business, But then I start playing out all of the things that could go wrong, which is what we tend to do, not what goes right, but what could go wrong when

I project my mind into that future. The crazy part is that my mind and my body are constantly connected, So my brain is sending neuropeptides to my body and creating hormones as if that moment is actually happening right now. And so what happens is we tend to as humans, as a protection mechanism, we tend to project ourselves into a future that is fearful, that is scary, and that fearful, scary feeling usually keep us in the exact same place.

And so what I always say is like, if I'm going to imagine the worst that could happen, why don't I at least try to see the best that could happen. And so if I'm going to notice myself the awareness of like I'm really in a lot of fear right now with starting this business, and I'm going, man, what's the worst that could happen? Well, then I might as well close my eyes and say, like, what's the best that could happen? And what would it feel like to start this business and to be able to crack a

million dollars in a business? And how proud of myself would I be to break a million dollars in sales and to be able to build this and travel with my family and provide what I've always wanted to provide. And if I'm going to feel the feelings of fear, why don't I also just try on feeling the feelings of success in getting there. And so if we notice it's an intellectual fear, the first piece that I always say is there's three pieces. There's the awareness of it. Okay,

I'm aware. Then I'm in a state of fear. I need a practice to get myself out of that. Okay, if I notice myself in a state of fear, what's my practice to get myself out of it? Well, I'm gonna go ahead, and I'm gonna calm down and take six deep breaths, and I'm gonna connect back to my heart, and I'm gonna ask myself like, what's the best thing that could happen. That's the practice to get myself out of it. And then the last piece is repetition. So

it's awareness, it's practice, it's repetition. If I do it over and over and over again, eventually I start to rewire myself. So like, one of the things that that I found in myself years ago that I didn't like was was that I judge people. And I'm like, man, I love people like I love I try to do. I try to be of service as much as I can. But an immediate thought that will come in my head sometimes is like judgment of somebody that I don't know, and I judge them, and I was like, I don't

like that pattern. I want to change this pattern within myself. It's awareness. I've become aware of what I want to change. And the one the first time I really did it, I was at a grocery store and this guy had this like bluetooth, you know, like the long bluetooth. It was like as if he was, you know, making cold calls at an office, but he was at the grocery store. And immediately the first thought in my head was judgment. And I always say, you can't change your first thoughts,

you could change your second thought. I noticed a judgment is a first thought. Awareness. My practice that I decided for myself was I'm going to force myself in my head to say three things that I like about this guy. I pause myself in the moment I found myself in a pattern that I don't want to be in anymore. What are three things that I like by the sky? And I said it, and then I went on about my day and I started doing this over and over

and over and over again. And one thing that I noticed is that my first thought started changing to less judgment and more acceptance, because ultimately that's what I really want to work on, is more acceptance and loving of people and of myself. And so I think it's it's becoming aware of it. Once you're aware of the things that you're trying the patter of you're trying to change, what's the practice that you're going to take yourself down? And then noticing that you're just going to need to

do it over and over and over again. But one of the biggest keys is to give yourself grace as you're doing it, because a lot of times we make were become aware, and then we judge ourselves and we beat ourselves up for it. So I think it's giving yourself a lot of loving grace and going hey, I've noticed this pattern. Don't worry, we're going to change it. Let's go on practice and just continuing to do that.

why Juni is now on shelves at Target. So head to our store locator at Drinkjuny dot com and find Juny at a Target near you. I think so often we get scared even of having the thought of what could be possible, because we're scared that it can't be possible, and we just find another thing to be fearful love.

And I love this idea of what you're saying around transform in your thoughts, because I've definitely the more and more I've studied books, the more and more I've read and I've thought, I've discovered that all of our failure and success in life is based on our most repeated thought. And one of my biggest questions to most people I

meet now is what is your most repeated thought? And most people don't know the answer because they're not aware in your words, and a lot of people who do know will say it's something like I'm not good enough, I don't like the way I look, I am ugly, and whatever else it may be for them, right, And so we're either aware and it's negative, or we're unaware because it's so subconscious. And I've started to recognize that most of the thoughts we have are not that different.

They're the same thought that comes in a different voice, a different tone, a different vocabulary, a different language, but it's the same repetition. And so I've started to really think about what's my most repeated door and how can I be more? As you are saying, how can I be more selective about it, and how can I choose it more effectively rather than just let it be something that's kind of just coming up.

thoughts a little bit more. Because when we close our eyes, you know, about sixty percent of our brain is visual for visual things to see. So when we close our eyes, it kind of turns off a lot of parts, and so thoughts usually come up and we become aware of those.

Like one of the things that I've been doing a lot recently is like trying to be in as much silence as possible, Like I'm just trying to be as much silence as I possibly can, because I feel like that's where a lot of my awarenesses, a lot of my answers come from, and so when you sit there, and the analogy that I love when you start thinking of your thoughts is it's like sitting on the edge of a mountain and down below there's just a road

going that you're looking at. And sitting on the edge of the mountain is like meditating or just sitting in silence and just you know, looking at your thoughts, and you can watch the cars go by, the thoughts that go by, and not have to be attached to them. You don't find yourself getting sucked into the red car that just went by. You just watched the cars go by. And that's the way that I try to see my thoughts, which is Okay, I'm going to watch them go by.

I'm not going to connect to them, but I can look at them and be like, is this thought, which you know about ninety percent of our thoughts the same as yesterday, is this thought helping me and trying to get to where I want to be in life? Or is this thought holding me back from trying to get to where I want to be in life? And if

it's helping me, then I want to strengthen it. If it's not helping me, well then hey, as that guy on the podcast said, I can control my first stop, I could troll my second, So what would I prefer my second thought to be?

You talk about procrastination in this book, and that, again going back to your earlier title, is a block against the psychology of action, and we all have a friend or maybe we are that friend that constantly puts things off. We postpone, we procrastinate, We say I'll do it another year. I want to launch a podcast. Someone's been saying that for two years. There's someone listening right now who wants to start on Instagram page. They put it off for

six months. There's someone listening who's like, oh, I missed out in the clubhouse thing, and then I missed out on the TikTok thing, and now I'm missing out on whatever the next thing is. And we procrastinate, hoping that one day will come. What have you learned about procrastination through your research when you were writing the book that has helped people break that cycle? Because it seems to apply to so many of our lives.

Give me numbers, and everyone's like zero percent, zero percent, zero percent, one percent, there's always one percent, like five and that's like the most it'll get to. And I said, Okay, I'm gonna give you the most extreme example, but I just want to see what happens. Okay, what's the percentage chance of you making a million dollars this year legally? And if you don't, everyone that you love dies. And everyone's like one hundred percent, one thousand, one thousand percent.

I said, what changed? The goal? Didn't change, the timeframe, didn't change. Why you're doing it changed. Would you wake up in the morning if everyone that you loves life depended on it and be like, yeah, well maybe I should scroll on TikTok for a little while. No, you'd be like, I'm going to take action immediately. And so it doesn't need to be like a fear of losing everybody. But what's really behind that is like why, like why

they're they're doing it? Like if I have a reflection of anyone who doesn't know Jay, like you're one of the hardest working people I've ever met, but you have a really strong why, right, And that's like one of the best parts about it. Where it's like when I see jam like this guy has he has this internal feeling of like I want to change the world, and you work so hard trying to do it. And that's one of the most beautiful things about you, is like you're wanting to change the world and you have a

really strong why to it. And I think that if most people could figure out, like, oh, yeah, well I want to do this thing, why do you want to do it? And my very first one on one coach used to say to me, he would say, what's your why? What's your why? Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this? Even like hammer it home in my head and I was like, why you asked this so much? And he would always say, because if your why is

strong enough, your how will reveal itself. If you know why you want to do something, how it's going to be done, you'll figure out it doesn't matter. Things are going to get in your way. There's going to be obstacles. There's always gonna be obstacles, there's always going to be challenge, there's always going to be moments of like I don't know if I can do this, But if your why is so strong, it's like I don't care what comes up in front of me. I'm going to get it done.

Like most people, they want to be motivated. And I have come to hate the word motivation because motivation is so fleeting, like we can wake up and we can listen to a podcast where we can get you know, read something and be motivated, and then something can happen to us and it's gone, which just disappears. What I want to be is I want to be driven. Like when you see a driven person, like you see it

in their eyes, like yeah, they're not stopping. And the difference between a motivated person a driven person is that a driven person has this why that they want to see have happened in the world or in their life or for their family. And so I think if people are like I want to accomplish this goal, the very next question is why, and then go why why? Why why?

And go deeper into it. An example I'd give him the book is I had a coaching client years ago, like eight nine years ago, and he was like, Rob, I want to make one hundred thousand dollars this year. I've never made it, And I was like why, And I took him through what's called seven levels of why, just keep asking why, why?

it wasn't the motivation. I didn't have to talk to him say hey, you know how close you'd make a one hundred thousand dollars this year? I said, hey, how close are you to provided more safety for your children this year? Because he wanted them to move in with him. He wanted to be able to provide for them and

to make sure that they were safe. And so I think that if we just ask ourselves, why do I truly want to accomplish this goal, it kind of reveals itself and it makes it a lot easier to take the action.

Like why do you need to do anything? And I was like, We've just got to the start of Like I just got to the beginning of where I need to be. I was like, we've just got to a point where we can connect with lots of people, but we need to give people the step by step process to transform their life. And now we can take them on the journey because people are listening, they're engaged. We have a community, we have a connection with people. But when I started out, we didn't have any of that.

So I see it as we got to the start of where I want to be because and it was just interesting to me that so many people struggle to find their why, and I think it's because we don't no one's and you just said, your coach helped you do it. It was the same with me my art teacher at from age eleven to age eighteen. He was my art teacher at school, and every time i'd paint something, or draw something, or do a collage or graphic design and whatever i'd do, the first question he'd ask me

is why did you do it? And I'd be like, because my initial response because it looks good like that, you know, I was a kid, what do I know?

more layers of my psyche in a similar way. And again, I've owed it to someone in my life who pushed me to ask the question why, same as you, and so I think what we're both saying is please ask that question to yourself. But what if someone asked that question and they feel stuck and they kind of go, I've asked it, but it's kind of just like just want a nice house. That could just want a nice car, or just I just kind of want to you know,

like it's not that deep. And I think you're right, like you said, we don't have a lot of primal fears. Like some people are listening right now will have fears of survival and that is driving them and they are working hard and they are pushing and at the same time, but people who are like driven, but they're like, I'm not driven enough because I haven't got anything to be that scared about it, right, or that worried about what? How do that person discover their work?

like I was slowly withering away. And I could see what the future was going to be while I was there, and I said, oh, okay, if I do this for another five years and I'm thirty two years old and I'm still doing this, or I have my manager's job, is that going to fulfill me? And it actually gave me more anxiety to think about having my manager's job. And then I sat there and I thought, Okay, well, like I really want to do this podcasting thing. It

seems to be going pretty well. I want to coach people. I want to help people. And I also at the same time, was like starting an Amazon business and trying to make money online and do that. And so I thought about it and I asked myself, Okay, if I fast forward five years from today, do I want to be the person that's in sales management like I'm doing now and consulting. Do I want to be the guy that's selling stuff on Amazon and you know, incredible Amazon

business person. Or do I want to be the guy that's coaching people and helping people change their lives. And the immediate answer was very clear, coaching people and changing their lives. And I was like, Okay, well, that feels like it's the path and then immediately comes up is all kinds of fear because I don't know what I'm doing. Like back in the day twenty fifteen, nobody made any money in podcasts. I didn't have any idea of how to grow a business any of that type of stuff.

But what was important to me was number one, when I fast forwarded into the future, the futures that I didn't want seemed way more painful than trying the unknown and what could be if I did take the path, And so that was that became more of a fear, like the fear of judgment, the fear of putting myself out there are the people's opinions. It was there, it's still there, and I don't know if you ever get past it, but you just kind of get more used

to it. But the fear of being in the exact same position, working the same job, maybe making a little bit more money doing this for every day until the day I die, was terrified. That that was a fear, and I was like, well, then this path of the unknown isn't as scary, and so I might as well take this path of the unknown and I'll be fully transparent. There was I shared this on like one other time. I think there was a moment in twenty fifteen where

I started the podcast. In August of twenty fifteen. November of twenty fifteen, I was feeling like a whole lot of fear, and I was like, I might have to go back and work for someone else again. And it was just fear was so in my head, and I was like, I gotta go back to making money. I got a new house, I got a mortgage. I don't know how'm gonna do this. I'm not making any money doing this. My sister came out to me, and I believe, you know, if you're silent, the messages are always there.

If you're looking the message, you're always there. And my sister, I was at her house and she goes, hey, have you ever seen this box the dad's stuff? And I was like no, and she brought up my father was an alcoholic. He passed away and I was fifteen from his alcoholism. And she brought out this box and it was like his glasses, there's a t shirt of his, it was his watch, and the other things were a bunch of letters. My dad was in jail for a little while for multiple DUIs and they put him in jail,

and he would write letters to us. And he wrote a letter to my sister on her nineteenth birthday and I was reading this, you know, twenty fifteen, so he would have wrote it to in nineteen ninety nine. And the very last line was I hope you live your life with courage, love and laughter. And I read it and it was like the universe warped. And I was like, oh,

he wrote this for me. Like there was a moment where I was like, he wrote this to my sister, but the universe is giving this sussage through my dad because I need to hear this right now because I'm in so much fear. And the very first line is courage. Live your life with courage, love and laughter. And I was like, I got to commit, Like this has to be the thing. I've got to make a decision. And when you look at the root word of decision, it's dicaderia,

which means to cut off. I'm going to cut off all other options.

I don't know what to do. I was like, I'm going to get this tattooed to my arm, so I literally have you live your life with courage, love and laughter tattooed to my my very first tattoo I ever got. But it was like for me, people always think like when you make a decision, the fear disappears, like I wish that I could do these things, but it's like it's always there, but you've got to learn that, Like

the fear is always going to be there. But my big fear is getting to end my life and having not done this, having not tried to help people, you know, like being in the room with my father after he passed away when I was fifteen years old and realizing, because he was the first person I ever met the past away, I'm going to be there one day. And I saw it. I was like, oh, yeah, that's I'm gonna He was a dreamer and he was an amazing person, but he didn't do what he wanted to do. I

am not going to live that life. I'm going to create what I want to create. And now I have all of the other fears that everyone else has, but my biggest fear is getting to end my life and not having tried or not having at least gone for it.

his safe job. Right, Jim Carrey said that in life, you are probably going to fail at something you don't love, so you might as well try something you do love, like this idea that I'm choosing the safe option, or I'm choosing something that my parents taught my family wanted, or I'm choosing something I think is secure even that's unstable and uncertain, and so the uncertainty that you pursue actually is less fearful because you're on top of it,

you're aware. And I think that's one of the biggest habits that I think is changed my life is that I stopped believing and accepting that I would get to a place where I no longer had to use my brain. Right Like I think we all believe subconsciously somewhere that there's a paycheck, there's a bank balance, there's a home, there's a fashion, there's a partner. That means from that point on, I don't have to think about anything because

it's all good. And I'd say my best habit in life is recognizing that that is the biggest myth that we've been sold and I just don't accept it. And I'm okay that my life requires constant work, ethic and effort and awareness and being astute and being conscious because that is what's actually being demanded by this world. A uncertain world forces you to be conscious. But if you're unconscious in an uncertain world, that's leading to a really dangerous place.

feel any happy, I don't feel any more loved. And what I realized was I thought that the achievement, the recognition from other people, the money in my bank account, the buying cool stuff would fill what I actually thought was and consciously now know is I thought that all of those things would fill a void that was inside of me. And what I realized is what I was searching for from the external world is actually what I

was searching for for myself. And so the reason why I spend so much time in silence nowadays, I'll just go out of my porch and I'll just sit there for a couple hours is because I'm trying to fill the void that I have created through life and through patterns, and through heartbreaks and through all of the things that happened in my childhood. And I'm trying to be there as the thirty eight year old man for the nine

year old boy that's still healing. And what I've realized is that none of the material things, anything externally, will ever give me what I was ever searching for. Everything I've always searched for in the external was what I've been searching for for myself. And so I don't one hundred percent agree with you. I don't think there's any destination we ever get to. I think I'm constantly going to overcome more things every single day. And you know, if I lived to one hundred, I would be so

lucky in another sixty two more years. I don't expect that I'm going to get to the end of my

life and be like I figured it out. I think the beautiful thing part about it is I think that I was given this need for achievement to realize that it doesn't change anything because the path of wanting to achieve and doing it through business and doing it through growing and all that stuff has actually lit up inside of me a spiritual journey that wouldn't have been there had I not wanted to go for those things.

still have to learn. And when I'm listening to you about your spiritual journey and that's silence, I'm intrigued by that walk us through how you fill that void almost

practice wise, because I identify with that fully. And it's funny because we always talked about how our lives were kind of opposite because when I met you, I'd kind of gone down this deep spiritual pause but had no money, and you were in the other boat where you you had sustained yourself financially and create a really good stable place for yourself, but you were seeking spiritually, and so we were kind of at right. We had that conversation. Yeah,

and let's talk about that too. But I'm intrigued as to how does that a couple of hours or whatever, that time on your porch.

He walked into the room and his dad had just shot himself in the mouth of the shotgun. And so my dad grew up in rural Tennessee. This is nineteen you know, sixties when this happened. Nineteen seeah, nineteen sixties. When this happened, there wasn't a whole lot for him to understand it. There weren't podcasts, there weren't books to read like we have nowadays. And so I always consciously knew that what was happening was that he had not

healed his pain. And Gabormante says, don't ask why the trauma, asked why the pain. And when I first heard Gaborimate, I was like, oh my god, someone's finally saying what I always thought with my father. And so you know, we can look at him and say, oh, yeah, he's an alcoholic and he didn't overcome as trauma. The trauma the way it came up in my life is I

became a workaholic, and so I didn't. You know, sometimes we could see someone and say, oh, they drink too much alcohol, they do too much drugs, they eat too much food. They and we can say, oh, yeah, that's their their addiction. The problem in the hard thing in our society is that my addiction of workaholic is rewarded and people look up to it and they're like, you're doing so great, You're making so much money. All of

this is so good. And what I came to find is that my workaholism was just basically me trying to not feel my feelings and to not work through and process those things. You know, like scrolling on social media could be that way for somebody. It could be some people are addicted to working out, some people are addicted to, you know, watching TV, and there's so many some people addicted to shopping. There's so many different addictions that we have.

And what I found is that the hardest thing for me was to stop and to just not have to. I was always trying to fill every single moment of my day. I always try to be so busy. When I didn't have something to do, I'd find something to do with my business. Businesses, you can always work all

day every day. And so what I've tried to do and I've built in my business is a lot of systems and processes through my VP of Operations has really helped me with this a ton to be able to take a lot of stuff off my plate so that I have more time to just be. It's my personal belief that I think that God, the universe, life, whatever it is, speaks in silence, and so if I want

those messages, I need to be silent. What I found for myself is when I would be silent, a lot of anxiety would come up, and I'll you gotta go to the next thing. You gotta go the next thing. This is stupid, you should be doing something else. And then I just realized that what I was trying to do is achieve to fill a void. But I could sit here and There's been moments where I'll sit on my porch and I'll literally just start crying, and I'm like,

sometimes it's gratitude. Oh my God, I can't believe I've been given this life. I can't believe I've had these challenges. I can't believe that I've had this come up, but I'm so grateful for every single aspect of it. And sometimes i just sit there and tear it up and I'm like, I don't know what this is, but this is something my body's releasing, and I need to be okay with this releasing process. You know. There's a really interesting thing that that people could look at. There's two

videos that are really interesting on YouTube. One of them is called polar Bear Trauma, where they show a video of a polar there and they shoot it with a tranquilizer gun from a helicopter, chase it down the helicopter,

really heightened experience. They shoot it with a traninkloves a gun, so it's still awake, but it's not, you know, completely out, and it starts having a convulsion, starts seizuring, and eventually after its seizure is it's what it's doing is it's releasing all of the cortisol, all of the adrenaline from its body so that there's no trauma that comes with it. And so then it goes after it's shaken for a while, it takes a really deep breath and it just kind

of calms down. Almost identical video of a impaula that gets attacked by a jaguar, and the jaguar gets scared off, it starts to convulse, It takes a deep breath, and then it moves it. And we're taught in our lives at some point in time not to remove this and to work through these traumas and these feelings. I think

children naturally do it through like temper tantrums. They move it, and sometimes as adults we either need to have like an adult temper tantrum in safety where you just take a pillow and you can be angry, you could be mad, you can just scream, you can cuss, you can smash it against the bed, whatever it is in safety by yourself without other people around, so you don't scare as well. And then sometimes it's also just like sitting there in

silence and realizing that what is coming is going. It's like when you squeeze an orange, what's inside of it orange juice, because that's what's in it. Right when you sit there and you put pressure on yourself or you give yourself space, what's coming out is ask you what's inside, and your body's natural intelligence is trying to let go

of it. And so for me. That's what I found is that there's some moments where I'm just like incredibly grateful, or some moments roun by doing nothing, Jay, I get so much anxiety and I'm like, what is this why? And instead of running from it, I get curious, and I think if we could just get more curious. Like I've been reading a whole lot of Christian Murty recently. I love Christian Murty, and one says. One thing he says is don't know yourself because knowing is based in

the past, and past is based off of memories. Start learning yourself, which is in the present moment. So be present and be like, what comes up? How can I be curious about this anxious feeling or these tears or whatever it is, and just be be in the space to just know yourself or get to know yourself a little bit better.

a completely different humor. Sure, so then who are we? Right comes back to this know thyself asus learning thyself? Like, what has that spiritual journey taken you on to understanding identity?

what was me? My father was this way, he did this to me, did this to me, and my teachers acted this way versus me going like, I think my soul chose this life because this is whatever is needed for this path that it's on for, you know, whether it's reincarnation or whether it's heaven or hell or whatever it comes after this, I don't know, but I do know, like right now I do have this life as Rob dile, and as I get older, the thing I realized that my body changes I'm not as fast as I used

to be. I'm a lot more sore than I used to be. Like my body's changing, but my soul is this thing that is just always there. And so the thing that I've that I've come to realize is that I want to I don't know if it's going to sound weird, like I want to unattach myself from this body, from everything around me, and I want to try to connect back to what's internally inside of me. And the one thing that I find is that that never changes, like that there's like a truth that's behind that, and

truth is a thing that never changes. If something changes, or if something could be questioned, it's not true. But there's this feeling that feels like truth inside of me at least. And everybody has their own truth, but for me, my truth is there's something that's behind all of it. And the more that I connect to it, the more

peace that I have. Like I listen to a lot of Ramdas, and one of the things that he said I was listening to him on the drive over here and I listen to his meditation every day is the only work that you have to do is the connection to your own heart, and so I'm always constantly thinking what's in the way of my own heart, what material possessions, what things that I want to get her in the way of that. And the reason why I think that it helps is number one. I've had so much more

peace from trying to connect to that. And my relationship with my wife has been so much better because of it. Because I'm not blocking her from letting her in, she's experiencing me fully, she starts to be able to open up even more in different ways, I'd be able to experience her more fully. And so for me, it's just like connecting to the thing that's behind it that feels like the only thing that's true. Now. Mind you, if Rob fifteen years ago had heard this, he would be like,

what the hell is that guy talking about? It would make no sense. But on this journey, I've just kind of realized that there's something behind it all, and I want to try to connect to that something behind it all and see what it is. And so for me, it's like I like to use myself as a guinea pig. Everything I teach in the Mindset Mentor and the podcast is all stuff that I'm trying within myself, and I use it as almost my own therapy sessions where I'm

talking to everybody, but I'm talking to myself. I'm reminding myself of all these things. And what I realized is I realized that after fifteen nineteen years of personal development, it's like, you know, personal development's like this cup right here, and I feel like my cup in person ELM was overflowing.

And then I found spiritual development and I realized, oh my god, it's a lot bigger cub and it's not even close to being full, Like it's a bucket and it needs It's my next thing that I'm working on. So for me, it's like the mindset, the working through, like I'm constantly working on those and trying to get better. But for me, it's like I want to connect to myself and see what else is in there.

white knuckling my way through life anymore. I'm not I can take action and not be so wrapped up in my fears and my limiting beliefs, and so it's not like I'm in the world and of the world at the same time, where it's like the soul is here and I get as I'm speaking to everything that I say. Is also something that I struggle with every single day. I have not met for this process. There'll be times where I find myself just so in the world and

I'm just like stress, there's things happening. There's this business where there's all of this. You know, we've got employees, we're hiring people, there's stuff happening. And then I just take a step back and I'm like, it's just it's just like a kind of like a game, like take a second, like that's it's all real. I'm not saying that's it's not true. It's not reality. It's not in

front of you, it's all there. But behind it all, if I can connect to like a deeper sense that's within me and in the soul that I feel is in there, I'm like, hey, man, chill out for a second. Like it's really not that big of a deal, right, most things you know, there are There are definitely some things that are big deals in people's lives, and there's deaths, and there's there's things that people have to you know, be in control of and be able to pay bills

and all that stuff. All those are real and they're definitely necessary. But behind it all, you're still there, and there's this thing that if I can take myself back and kind of like out of my own head and kind of into my heart, which has been a big journey for me because I was I'm so analytical and was never really taught like feelings and how to feel

and process emotions. But if I can take myself out of my head and into my heart, what I've always found is that my head is always projecting itself into the future or sometimes projecting itself into the past. But most for me, like if I said, owt to meditate, sometimes it's like all of my to do list, all of the things that I have to do, and it's projecting itself into the future. So my brain is always

somewhere else. My body it's always here. And so when I know as myself gets stressed, I knowice myself get anxious, I notice myself whatever feelings I might be feeling. If I can take a couple of deep breaths and kind of get back into my body, I'm like, it's not that bad. Like you'll fit you. You have overcome so many things in your life. You'll figure out a way to get through it. And so what I've found is

that it's not that I don't take the action. It's not that I'm not wanting to achieve more and more things and be able to have more fun and more do all of this stuff in the external world. But when I find myself kind of take a step back and kind of be in my heart is it may makes it a lot easier. I'm not like white knuckling and forcing my way through life. It's almost like I'm

allowing life to happen through me. And I don't know how it works, and I don't pretend to be smart enough, but things start happening around me that helped me in the process of getting to wherever it is that I actually want to truly go.

time there is a greater reality. So rather than this feeling of everything's one, everything's the same, or it's disconnected, there's real and fake, it's actually this idea that a lot of things are real, but they're not the full picture. So the idea that today in La it's like saying the weather is rainy and cloudy, but that's not the weather everywhere. So it's my current reality, but it's not

reality across the whole world. And when you start looking at life in that way of there's this reality and then there's this bigger reality, I think that's that. Zoom out, that's that, Let me take a breath, that's that. Let me look at the inner world as well. And I think what it does is it gives you a certain grace, and it gives you a certain detachment disconnection, but also way recognition of the significance of what you do and the insignificance.

And so I think it's really interesting because the more and more I'm learning, I'm like, I have to learn how to hold these two seemingly opposite things, but actually they're so connected and symbiotic, and they're so synchronous because they both have value. Going back to which thought has value, the collective thought of my life is significant and insignificant is the most helpful thought, because thinking I'm significant and insigniant were both unhelpful thoughts.

as children? When was it programmed out of us? And how can I connect to that child and bring that spirit back in and be like, yeah, I'm going to do some amazing things in the world, but without it being stressful, with just with it being fun and with it being something that I can do in it and it effortlessly flows out of me, Like I believe that every single person is incredibly creative and we are creators at the actual core of us, and a lot of us have lost it, and I lost it for years,

and so what I think is, how can I make the creativity flow out of me in some sort of way and just allow the space for it to happen. And one of the things that happens, and it's not necessarily my goal of it, but when I sit in silence, I get ideas that come through and I'm like, oh man, I don't know how I didn't see this, And that's where they all are. So it's like a lot of times we're trying to force things that happen. We're trying

to force creative You're trying to force ideas. But sometimes when I get there, I'm like, oh man, yeah, this is the thing I've been searching for. And it's just I think every person just needs to give themselves just a little bit more space to not be on their phone, to not be constantly, you know, And a lot of people have children and their children are up. Can you wake up a little bit earlier and not be on your phone and just sit in silence and see what

comes up? And I think that it's really important for people because what you'll notice is exactly what you're saying, which is what we do. Like this life is so important, but it is very insignificant, and that's okay, there's nothing wrong with that. Like I've I love watching videos on YouTube about how small the Earth is compared to the rest of the universe, and it stresses my wife out.

She's like, I'm gonna have a panic attacker. Why do you watch this because I like to remind myself that even though it's all happening and I'm in it, none of it actually truly matters.

same time. Like now we're no longer ever with one person. We're with one person, we're both on our phones, and we're watching a show at the same time, and we've got our laptops doing work. So you've literally got three screens in front of you, five screens in total. And there's so much distraction, right we know that, How does a person possibly And I say this out of like compassion and empathy because it's like it requires so much from us because everything around us is built for distraction.

The foods we're eating, the things we drink and consume, the stuff that's created around us, it's all to distract. So you're fighting like almost what feels to a lot of people like a losing battle.

think is freedom. And the way to get through to that freedom is to work on yourself, whatever that looks like for whatever stage someone is in you know, and I can have empathy for every person at every stage because I've been through so many stages of my process, and I think that it comes back to like why are you doing it? What do you want? If you're trying to disconnect from your phone? Why you know? Like for me, like I recently deleted Instagram from my phone.

I did it last year for a month fell like, go was amazing. The book came out and I was like, I gotta get back on. I got to promote, I got to make sure things are good. I recently just deleted it again. And now everything that I post, everything flows through my team, So it's not like it's just gone, it's just now I just happened to flow. Everything flows through my team. Why did I do that, though, was because I don't want to live my life on that phone.

And that one thing that I noticed is that Instagram was one of the things where I would pick it up and I would just somehow get to it, and I wasn't even thinking about getting to it, and I was like, my life is not this little tiny thing. My life is everything that's out here, and so why do I want to get Why did I delete it was because I actually want to be in everything. I want to be present with my wife when we have children.

I want to be present with our children. I want to be the most present version of myself as I possibly can. And I can't imagine that I'll get to the end of my life, be one hundred years old and be like I wish I would have spent more time on Instagram. I wish I would spend more time watching Netflix, you know, and I've I've been addicted to all of those things. I'm not, you know, above any of this stuff. But I started looking at my off and saying like, is this helping me get to where

I want to be in life? Is it creating more peace in my life? For me, it was creating way more stress. To was perpetuating these feelings that I'm trying to let go of, trying to work with. And so for me, I think what's important to people is like, if you want to make a change, why do you want to make the change? And for me, looking at a screen is not as important as actually physically being in front of my wife and giving her what she

actually truly deserves. It's just one hundred percent of my attention because there's been times where I've not given her one hundred percent of my attention. And as we start to have kids and stuff, I don't want to be a distracted parent. I want to be with them. I'll never sit there and go, well, when my kids were kids, my kids were children, like I wish I would have spent more time on Instagram. I wlush to spend more

time watching Netflix. I just think if for me, like the level of the place I met in my life is, I want to be as present as possible. Because I've worked for things that I've climbed ladders, I've gotten to different places. I've realized none of those things fulfilled me any sort of way. And this journey I've been on in the pasta you know, ten years, seven years ago, and we started talking about the bag, about Gita, and I started meditating a whole lot more and getting into is.

I realized, oh, these things are bringing me peace. And the more peaceful I feel, the more that it becomes easy to actually achieve and create the stuff that I want to in life. And so for me, the presence in the piece at this point in my life, things might change. I don't know what it's going to be in five years are actually things that are the most important to me.

They come to me Rob, I'm a people pleaser, and it's like they'll change themselves to try to get love and acceptance from somebody else. But that's just feeling a you know, it's like a hungry ghost. It just continue. The food just goes through the ghosts, it doesn't go anywhere. And what we're actually searching for is what we're searching

that love and acceptance for our self. And one of the biggest things that I think I've learned in probably the past two years is I was always trying to grow and change myself because there were aspects of myself that I didn't like and I resented. And what I've changed it to in the past couple of years is I'm going to love every aspect of myself. So there's some parts of Rob that are beautiful, that are amazing, that love people, that want to connect. There's some great

parts of Rob. There's some parts of Rob also that are very selfish, that are very judgmental, that are a little bit short, not as present as he should be. Instead of trying to change those and hate those, I've actually just tried to love them and realized that the selfish rob that exists was some sort of thing that was a part of past conditioning that came up from needing to be selfish as a child for whatever it might have been, whatever reasons it might have been, And

I can love that side. I mean, what I realized is that if I try to change it, it gets stronger. If I love it and I accept it, it kind of chills out and it doesn't disappear like I'm not like, yeah, these parts me don't exist. It's me looking like Internal family systems is a therapy where you look at all parts of you and who you are, and you try to figure out a way to understand how the entire

orchestra works together. You know, when I was writing my book, I was sitting there and I was going so hardcore. Like you and I come from the world of creating viral videos. I would spend so much time on every single line to make sure it was perfect right, because I wanted to make sure, like I've only got thirty seconds or a minute to get the message to be as clear and concise as possible. Let me try to make as perfect as possible. And I used to do

a lot of poetry. I used to do a lot of songwriting when I was younger, so I was used to making every line as potent as I could. As I was writing this book, I was like sixteen rounds of edits in editing every single piece of it. And there's a part of me that said it said why are you doing this? Like? Why are you doing this? And I was like, I want to write a book

that helps people and changes people's lives. I want someone to not know what the mindset mentor podcasts, but they walk into Barnes and Noble acs book and they're like, interesting, let me read it, let me pick it up, and they read it and it changes their life life. And then I've played Devil's advocate. I said, but you also want it to be successful, don't you. You also want it to be a New York Times bestseller, so you can have a little badge to put on yourself and say,

New York Times bestseller. You want it to be this incredibly selling thing because you know, if it takes off, you're gonna make great money for a very long time if it's a perennial seller. And I thought to myself, Okay, can I use that ego e side of me to actually help me create a better book, and I could. And so what I realized is instead of hating that aspect,

it's like a tool on my tool belt. When I need to bring that side of me out, I can bring out that side of me out and say, you know what, I'm going to create the best freaking book that I can of, the best podcast that I can are, the best real that I can to try to impact people. And so it's not about like trying to force change on myself. It's about loving every aspect of myself the quote unquote good and bad. Eventhough there is no good

or bad but every aspect of Rob. And if I need to use it, I can bring it up and say, hey, Rob, I need this version of you right now. But I'm not going to fight it anymore.

shame it away. You can't just guilty away. It has to be engaged in a higher service IY impacting others, helping others, improving your own life, improving the lives of others. Because when it's engaged, then it becomes purified. Because if you just ignore it, it would just stay there, and if you try and push it away, it's gonna push back and just get it. But if you engage and go, yeah, you know what, I do have that in me, but I'm going to use that tendency to try and help

this person do this. That's the only way that it starts to be purified. And so that resonates very strongly.

No one else can do it for me, you know, Like there were times when my dad would even though it was and he was an amazing person, I always tell people like I was, I'm so grateful that I had the father that I had. He was. He never beat me, he never yelled at me, he never touched me in appropriately. He would just get drunk and fall asleep. And when he fell asleep, he'd forget about me in

a lot of different ways. Right, So there was that neglect of like I might he would say, Hey, I'm gonna come pick you up and we're going to go fishing, because I lived in Florida, and I, you know, would sit on the front porch for an hour or two hours in my fishing pole and he would just never show up, right, And so were there were aspects of that, And I think somewhere along the line, I developed this feeling of like, no one's gonna help me. I have

to do it all on my own. Which there's a piece of that which there is some truth, right, like I do have to sometimes step forward and be the person to do it. But for the longest time, I never understood the phrase no man is an island because I was like, I have done everything by myself. And then I started looking around me and I was like, no, I haven't. The universe has always been there giving me everything that I need in every person to help me in some sort of way and prove and get better.

And you know, as everything's grown, the podcast has grown, my company has grown, all this stuff. We have thirty people on the team. Like I can't do it on my own. I can't help people on my own the way that I wish that I could if i've I'm not thirty people. I don't have thirty days. You know that they can get done and we can get done in one day that I could get done in an

entire month. And so what's been big for me is is trusting people to be able to help me and to be able to ask for help, whether that be in a business, but also like go into my life and be like, hey, I'm really struggling right now. Can you just talk to me for a few minutes, And knowing that she doesn't think like, oh, he's not man enough, which is you know, fear that I had, like oh, if I go to her with my problem, she's gonna

be like he's not man enough. But for her to be like, yeah, let me hold space for you, let's talk it out. And so I think the biggest thing for me is like, is learning that I can't do it all on my own. It's okay to it's actually strength to ask for help. It's strong to ask for help, and that I need to be better at at asking for help when I do need it.

this really tough conversation. I mean, he said, Rob, if a business succeeds, whose fault is it? And I was like, I mean, what do you mean. He's like, if a business succeeds, all one thousand employees move into the direction they have a successful year, who's faults it that the person who orchestra it. I was like the CEO. He said, if a business fails, whose faults it? And it's the CEO.

He said, Rob, if you get to the end of your life and it's not what you wanted it to be, and you didn't create the life that you wanted to make the money she wanted to have, the success, the love, the happiness, travel the places that you wanted to, whose fault would it be? And I said it'd be my fault. And he said, if you did create the life that you wanted to you had to love, the happiness, the abundance, everything that you wanted, whose fault would that be? And

I said it would be my fault. And he said the problem with you is you're treating this treating this life as you if you're the victim. And what you need to realize that everything that happens to you is your fault and that your life won't change until you decide that you want to be the CEO of your life.

ownership of their life. One of my probably my first mentor without even being on purpose, was my uncle Dan, who was an incredibly successful guy, had a bunch of success, but also is incredibly giving, always so loving, and he never blamed anybody else. For when his business failed and he brought it back from nothing and rebuilt it, he never blamed anybody else. He was always there for everyone else,

but he always took everything as his responsibility. And you know, it's like, not everything that's happened to you in your life is your fault, but whatever it is that you have it is your responsibility to work through. Will Smith also said this right where it's like, it's not my fault that my father was an alcoholic, but it's my responsibility to do with what do with it because it's the reality that I have and I have to work through those things. And so for me it was like

it rang really true where I was. I was like, Okay, it's right, and if my life is going to change, I have to be the person to change it. And that's when it clicked for me. That conversation, I could say, is absolutely on the one conversation that changed my life completely.

it's affecting the entire world. And if parents were aware of how their actions are affecting their children and as you know, a son, if I'm aware of how my actions are affecting my mom, my sister, my wife, everybody around me. If we could take five minutes to practice being more self aware, I think that the entire world would be better.

resonated with you, what connected with you. I love seeing and I want Rob to see as well, what you're practicing, what you're trying to put into action in your life. And I can't wait for you to level up.