My 5 Keys to Success #15

kind of touched on on that. But I recently was reading Tony Robbins' book, Awaken the Giant Within, and I just wanted to share some parts of the book where he talked about beliefs. It's insane, I'm actually super into this stuff. I love Tony Robbins, I'm hoping to take his life coach training class sometime in the near future, hopefully in the next year or so because I think the stuff he teaches is extremely powerful.

Tony Robbins gives tactical steps that you can use, things you can actually implement into your, your daily life. And for that reason, I wanted to share some of the stuff he talks about. So just for a quick flashback, the whole idea behind cognitive behavioral therapy is that your thoughts create your feelings, your feelings create your behaviors, and be your behaviors create your thoughts, and it's just this kind of never ending

cycle. So when you have a, a, what Tony Robbins calls a disempowering belief, it creates a negative cycle, so you need to find a way to, to break it. But first, let's talk about what Tony Robbins says is a belief. His definition is pretty simple. He described a belief as a feeling of certainty, that's it. A belief is just something you are certain about. He doesn't say whether it's true or not, it's just something that we think is true, even if it might not be. So how does a belief

form then? It first starts with an idea, just a concept. Whether you read about it, whether you just imagine it whether somebody else tells you about it, it starts with an idea. And then we get what he calls references, things to support the idea. We see things that make it strong, and turn the idea from a concept into a belief. When we see enough thing supporting an idea, we will eventually believe it. These references that support our ideas might come from a lot

of different things. It might come from personal experience, it might come from your imagination or just new information. So I like how he described it in the book, he used the the analogy of a desk. So if here, the desk, is your idea, the legs are what support your idea then, that the legs are the reference that turn your idea into a belief. So for example, I have the belief whether it's technically true or not, that the Detroit Lions are the worst football team in the

NFL. Why do I have that? Why do I believe that? Because that idea has been supported for a long time. I can't remember the last time I've seen them have a season where they win at least 11 games, I can't remember the last time I've seen them make the playoffs. I've seen them have the lead, going into the fourth quarter up two or three scores and lose. I've seen them play great all game until the last few minutes. And below it.

I have so many examples why I believe the Detroit Lions are the worst team in the NFL. Here's a quote directly from the book, Tony Robbins said, "with enough emotional intensity and repetition, our nervous systems experience something as real as real, even if it hasn't occurred yet." So that's pretty nuts. Even if something isn't actually factual, If we believe it, our body will experience it as reality. That's nuts. So he goes, he goes way more in depth

with things like that. He talks about the patterns of beliefs, the different types of beliefs, but I want you to buy this book. It's been great so far, I'm not too far into it. Probably, I'm really in just like the mental health, thinking, behavior, thoughts aspect. But it's been great so far. So I'll put a link down in the show notes for this book for you to learn more about what he says. So now that I've explained what a belief is, let's talk about how we can change a

disempowering belief. Tony is pretty upfront and explicit about it. He says the way to change a belief is pain. I first read this, I was kind of like, that doesn't sound great. Like I want to feel good about my beliefs. I don't want to, you know, feel the pain to get rid of it. But it actually makes sense. His whole his whole argument is that every decision we make is based on seeking pleasure or avoiding pain, we make decisions for those reasons

whatever. Just running some errands, and I'll see Culver's, and I'll stop and go get a root beer, I'll just be in meijer going to pick up a couple of things, and I pick up something I don't need to pickup, whatever it is. Something that I just see and think "Oh, I could use that." And then I pay for it. So if you're trying to break that habit, we have to associate pain, we have to believe that impulse shopping is harmful. So how do you, how do you apply

this,? You need to convince yourself that, that it's actually more painful than pleasure-full, that's not really a word, but it brings more pain than pleasure. So, how would you do that? Well think about it. If you have goals in your life, that require some kind of capital, some kind of investment, then you would associate that impulse shopping harms those goals, because impulse shopping harms your personal finances, it's taking

away money from your goals. So because you're doing that, because you're impulse shopping, you will not be able to use that money towards your goals. So do things like that: associate pain in order to disrupt the belief disrupt, the behavior. But the problem is, it's just very hard to simply say, 'No, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm done. I'm not going to spend any more money impulse shopping. It's all over." It's very hard to just stop anything, any habit you have, it's hard to just

completely quit. So in order to be more effective in changing a belief or behavior, we need to replace an old habit with a new one. Let's talk about habits that because habits are actually kind of scary. I started, when I started reading a little bit more about habits and the process of developing, how they are triggered, I was kind of amazed. I mean, happiness are everywhere, literally

everywhere. I was working on this page back at Hillsdale while, back while I was at school, and I looked outside, and there's a basketball court in the back that we that we hang out and shoot hoops on. But I looked in the grass and I could see a path from the driveway, to the back yard, to the basketball hoop. And what's scary is the path was the exact same. We'd always, or at least I would always take the exact same route to play basketball. It's just

kind of nuts. I mean, it was like literally the exact same line. But here's the scarier thing about that. There's this little cement block in the backyard. I don't know if it's a drain pipe. I don't know what it is, but it's just a cement block in the middle of the grass. And every time I would jog to the backyard to, to go shoot hoops I dribble the ball one time on

this cement block. And I never thought about it until after reading some more things about habits, and doing it I was like, "Oh my gosh, I do this every single time." Habits literally govern pretty much most of our lives. There's three aspects to habits. So there's first the cue, which is the thing that triggers the the event or the action. Then there is the routine, which is again, the action. And finally, the reward is what you feel from, you know, doing the habit.

So to effectively chang a behavior, when we feel the cue, the thing that gets us to act, to do the routine, we need to replace it with something else. So let's take this back to the impulse shopping example. Every time you're walking through a store, just going for a drive and you get that urge to, to splurge, to just go blow your money on something you don't really need, let's do something

else. So when we get that cue, when you get that feeling, instead of spending the money on pop, on clothes, on som little game, change the routin . Change from spending that mon y to maybe putting that mon y towards your goal. Say "Ok y, instead of spending five bu ks on this, this fast food me l, I'm going to take that same $5 and put it towards my goals." And then I'll still feel the re ard the pleasure because I'm wor ing towards something. It's ust delayed gratification.

t's going to feel a whole lot be ter when you achieve your goal For the final of this discussion on beliefs, let's talk about what beliefs to adopt, what beliefs you should model. Tony Robbins goes into this pretty deep in the book, and I think it's pretty powerful stuff. So when you're trying to get rid of the behavior, how do you know what is the good behavior, the good belief to adopt? He says a

couple of things. So first of all, look for people who you want to be like, who are already succeeding and adopt the same beliefs they have. He talked about leaders, they have a couple of common beliefs. And I can't remember exactly what it was. But it was something along the lines that leaders always believed that they could make a change, and that no matter what they would be able to take care of a problem, they would be able

to, to solve the issue. So if you adopt that belief into your life, then you're going to start implementing it into your life, in your daily routine. I think we can take this one step further, and not just look for people, but create an entire environment of what you want your life to look like. So find people that you can model your beliefs after, but also just do things that create that pattern, create that those belief systems at all times. So implement that belief in every aspect of your

life. So what do I mean by this? Do things that make you think about the belief more often. So find good friends, right, that share similar beliefs that are pushing you, that have common interests, common goals, because when you're around them, you're going to be more motivated, you're going to adapt their beliefs, you're going to push yourself more, read, learn, listen to podcasts. However you get new information, you've got to get new information. Seriously, learning is the most

important thing. I mean, one of the things I love about this podcast is I have to keep learning in order to get more things to talk about. So because of that, because I'm wanting to do this, I've had to create an environment of learning. Because I've wanted to do the podcast, I've had to bring in new information, I've had to learn more about habits, I've had to learn more about behaviors, I've had to learn more about any

aspect of self improvement. And that environment has allowed me to take part in the environment, the new information has allowed me to act. And now, I'm forming a belief system. This is some seriously powerful stuff. I am all in on the belief that your beliefs, and my beliefs, everyone's beliefs are going to determine the trajectory and the outcome of our lives. If you guys haven't checked out his stuff before, make sure to get Tony Robbins book, "Awaken the Giant Within."

This picture of him is kind of funny because he doesn't really look like that now. He's, he's a lot older, um, he's not too old, but this is my dad's copy, so it's just kind of funny seeing him. I didn't even recognize that it was him on the front cover. But his, his information, even if you don't get the book, I highly recommend you check out his his videos on YouTube, his podcast, and he even has a documentary on Netflix called "I am Not Your Guru," and that that

is insane. He works through a process of helping people overcome their their beliefs in minutes, just breaking down those disempowering beliefs in minutes. I mean, some of the stuff is crazy. He helps people who are dealing with thoughts of suicide and he he helps these people, literally in probably 10 minutes. it's nuts! His, his psychology, the, the level of stuff he knows is just absurd. Great guy to check out. If you

haven't yet. Please make sure to like, review, and subscribe most importantly, so you get notified when these podcasts and videos first come out. I hope you have a great rest of your day. I hope you have a great rest of your week. Enjoy your holiday season with your friends and family. Until next time, remember the Ion Motive: Live a Charged Life!