Aaron Anastasi

or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.

Our guest on this episode is Aaron Anastasi. He's a southern California native who graduated with a master's degree from Princeton, where he studied philosophy and psychology. He's also a serial entrepreneur with online businesses such as Superior Songwriting Method, Singing Success, and the internationally recognized superior singing method and online singing program that grosses seven figures annually. Having a love for adventure,

he was a pro snowboarder in Vail, Colorado. He scaled Glacier Lake mountains in Bolivia and cut pathways through the jungles of Brazil. Along with being a Los Angeles based actor and filmmaker, Aaron is also a prominent success coach for clients in industry, leading roles ranging from film directors to marine biologists and even Tedex speakers. His new book, The Voice of Your Dreams was recently released. Here's the interview. Hi Aeron, Welcome to the show. Thank you, Eric, I

I appreciate you having me. I'm I'm honored. I love your podcast. Thanks so much. We're glad to have you. We will get into your forthcoming book, The Voice of Your Dreams here shortly. But let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One's a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which

represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. Then he looks up at his grandfather and he says, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in

the work that you do. Yeah, the work that I do centers and and the book that I wrote that you mentioned it centers a lot around these limiting voices that we have and the idea that we have, these recurring voices that go on in our mind, these tapes that repeat themselves over and over and over again. Common ones for me would be, you don't have what it takes, you're too far behind there, there's no reason to pursue

that you're not gonna be successful, You're dumb. I mean, any number of those kind of things are ones that that I've dealt with that so one time or another. So to me, the limiting voices, I would say, the limiting voices are the are the evil wolf, and the more true voices are the ones that would be the good wolf. I've got a chapter in my book called the truth about you. I have a list on my phone literally still, I went over it today. I go over it nearly every single day, and it's things that

people have said about me. People I respect in certain industries that have said things about me that I'm insecure about. Maybe it's my acting or my filmmaking or my coaching, whatever it is. And they've said things to the contrary, people I respect and would have no really reason to blow smoke up my butt. And I write these things down and I go over them almost every day to get recentered on what's more true about who I am. So we've got these limiting voices that are this in

my mind, the wolf, the evil wolf. And then here's what's more true about us, getting centered when we're not in that kind of insecure state, what's really true about us? And it helps me, helps me become in a better state of mind to be able to get the things that I want in life and be able to serve others better. You have that section in your book, and it at one point, you know, you you talk about these questions we have. You know, I don't have what

it takes, or do I have what it takes? And I think that's a that's a great example of a limiting, but extremely in my experience, both with myself and other people, very common question when we look at trying to do something that might be a bit beyond the ordinary. What's a good way to deal with that question? When we say to ourselves, I don't have what it takes or I don't think I have what it takes. I have seen that it's common with me and my clients as well,

and I think it asks the wrong question. It's not really question I don't have what it takes or do I have what it takes. I think there's a more resourceful question. And and I find that when I say do I have the resources? Do I have the capacity to find the resources necessary to be successful in this endeavor? And so it's never about what is in me right now to be successful in this one thing. It's do I have the capacity to find the resources? And do

I have the relationships? And do I have the knowledge? And if I don't, where can I go look for it? There's very little that is impossible for us or that we don't have what it takes to do. There just maybe some resources that we need to gather. Are people that we need to talk to in order to get

the ball rolling toward that thing. Yeah, the idea of the fixed versus the growth mindset comes up again and again on the show, and and this you know, I don't have what it takes, or the question version that assumes that there's a certain set thing inside you that won't grow, won't expand won't become better. It's like, I'm kind of I am what I am. I'm as good as I'm going to be, and I'm gonna stay that way. Yeah, Yeah,

which is which is that limiting voice? And the and the really insidious thing about limiting voices is they occur to us. We don't realize these limiting voices oftentimes are happening and are affecting our behavior and our automatic responses, and so we just they occur to us as reality. They they're the tapes that are going on our head. We just oftentimes occur to us as this is reality

and this is what's true. And then our actions follow what we think is real, and then of course our results become what they become, whether we believe those and follow through with them or we choose to have a different story. Right, They're usually presented very realistically. Yeah, yeah, come on, be realistic, you know, be realistic, you know, you know you, etcetera. As I started to read your book, one of the things that jumped out right away is very much a theme that that we talk about a

lot on the show. And I'm going to just read a couple of lines from your book to sort of set the stage and maybe you can elaborate for there. You say that inspiration and passion most often arise while we're in action, getting busy doing whatever it is that we insist we want to do so badly sitting and waiting for inspiration to strike reveals a misunderstanding of this truth. The inspiration we're waiting for before we start is on

the other side of starting. Yeah. I I just find that with the limiting voices and you know, the negative self talk, and there are a lot a lot of different um words for that. One of the primary ways, and I talked about a lot of different ways in the book, but one of the primary ways that I find to limit to limit, to uh, to quiet, to silence those limiting voices is just to get into action. What what can I start doing? Whether I feel like it or not. That will get me into action, because

that the hardest part is just before we start. So if we can get beyond that starting point, we begin to get some momentum and some excitement and some inspiration on the other side of that. And what I find is really helpful is to just come two very very small chunks of time at a time. So, Okay, I'll do this, but just for two minutes, five minutes, whatever, it's just a small not just to get me started. Once i'm in, i'll write or or whatever it is that I'm doing, I'll do it for hours because it

ends up silencing the voice. And I realized, oh, this isn't as scary as I thought. You know, the mind projects how fearful something's going to be, this kind of worst case scenario thing automatically naturally, But we can get over that through these small actions. Yeah. I mean, I think if I was going to name one thing that I learned that did more to change my ability to accomplish things in life, it was probably that it was learning to break down things that felt overwhelming into incredibly

small things and essentially trick myself into getting started. That's absolutely right. It just makes such a big difference. And I think the the other thing about that that you were just hinting at is that I had this conversation

with somebody today, a pretty long conversation. You kept bringing up all these different things in his head, all these various permutations on him thinking about something, and the answer every time was, well, why don't you just instead of thinking about what's going on your head or thinking about yourself what you get back to what you are working on.

Why don't you put your attention back into this moment right now what you're focusing on, Because any version of those things that are going on your head are all a distraction from what actually matters in this moment, which is the thing that's right in front of you. Right Once we get into action, that inspiration starts coming. And also it's a form of a declaration. I think declarations and commitments and visions um having a vision for a

life and a commitment of declaration. There's a goal that that thing that we're after that is a form of a declaration that creates a new reality for us to live into. So if we're if we're living into the reality, because I believe that we live into the future that we see coming toward us. So the future we see coming toward us is just a repackaged, bandaged version of the past failures or whatever, then that's oftentimes what we get.

Whereas if we make a commitment and a declaration like this is what I'm going after, I'm committed to going after this, rather than saying, oh, this is scarier, this is bad, or I'm not going to be able to do this. That's a form of a declaration, just like a declaration is I'm going to sit down tomorrow at two pm and write two pages on this book. Is a declaration. One gets us one result, one gets us

another result. Yeah. The thing about this stuff that's such a pain in the ass is that it's like we do it today, Like I did it, I got started, I was moving, and then you know, very often it's the same battle tomorrow, absolutely, which I know these lessons. I know that once I start, it's gonna be better. You know why this consistent resistance? Do you have any sense of of what? You know? Why that resistance just comes back over and over to a lot of us.

A couple of things come to mind. People, oftentimes my clients. I'll find that because I'm also a coach, like a life coach, success coach, and I find that a lot of my clients they will talk about I'm just not that kind of person or that's not my personality. And I'm a big proponent of using our personality, you know, to victimize ourselves into believing that we're only capable of certain things. It doesn't fly like. What we are is a compilation of habits, generally speaking, so I think that

it comes back over and overright. I call myself a recovering pessimist. I remember I was doing a lot of work. One of the chapters in my book is about optimism and pessimism, and I asked my wife, I said, would you consider me an optimist or a pessimist? She did not hesitate. She said a pessimist, which was, you know, terrible for me to hear. At the time. It was

good feedback. But but what I realized and why it wasn't devastating, is that I, Okay, if in that moment, or in the past days or weeks, I've rehearsed the habit of pessimism, I could rehearse the habit of optimism and and change my way of thinking, and change my way of being and therefore changed the results that I get. So to answer your question, I think part of it

is it's just habitual. It's habitual like this pessimistic attitude, and why these negative things come up are because it has a way of making us feel like, oh well, if I if I feel disappointed before I go in, and I have a pessimistic attitude about what might happen,

then I'll be less disappointed if it doesn't happen. So and it's actually true that does help a little bit like that, but the problem is we end up living a dark cloud life and not getting a lot of the results that we could otherwise get, just for that little benefit of slightly less disappointment if things don't work out. In the book, you talk about Hemingway, who was known for finishing while he still had one idea left, so that when he came in the morning he had something

to st art with. He knew where to start instead of staring at the blank page. And there's a lot of different tricks like that to sort of make sure that we can get started and get moving. I believe I read that in a Movable Feast. It became just part of my practice every day so my last I wouldn't write my last idea just right, the ideas that I had that last idea I jot down on paper

next day, I would. I would be excited because I've been looking forward to writing about this one thing, and that would lead to a dozen other things, but always stop with one idea, and it it made me a much more prolific writer and made me enjoy the process a lot more as well. I think it's the jotting down that's the key there, Like I will remember that for sure, and then I'm like, I have no idea.

It's amazing. Um. We talk a lot on the show also about setting really small goals, baby steps, and UM. One of the things that that I was thinking about as I was reading You've got a lot in the book about that. You're clearly a big proponent of that. One of the things that I was thinking about was this idea that sometimes we're shooting for a goal and success feels like accomplishment of that goal. So every step until we get to that goal feels like we're waiting

to be successful. And you really talk about letting success, you say, be defined as a completion of a small goal you set for yourself each day. These goals add up, eventually putting you on the path towards the future you were creating, which will become a future worth having and living into. But you're really focusing on celebrating or enjoying or appreciating the fact that you're doing the work today. You're doing that thing that you want to do, that

you care about that matters to you. You're doing it right now, regardless of what result might come three, six, nine months, years, whatever in the future. When I talk to my clients, I first try to find out what what is it that they love to do so because oftentimes the result that we want in our life. I want this result, but I don't enjoy the process toward that result. I would have to question how much you really love that result, and what the why do you

want that? Do you want that because you love doing that thing or because of fame or money or all these other things. To me, if you don't love the process, and you probably won't even love the result, because in the result, you'll have to still be doing this process exactly exactly. Yeah, yeah, I love the idea of celebrating

small victories. Like you said, I believe that celebration. Is is a discipline, even even a spiritual discipline of stopping and celebrating small victories and allowing success to be the accomplishment of small goals, like you said, over time. But it's this realization of the goals that is success. So today did I move my goal forward? Um? A little bit? Okay? Then today was a success And I'm a success yep,

I'm a recovering alcoholic. And you know, the one day at a time thing really is like if you went to bed today, if you went to bed at all, if you went to bed today sober, that's a big success, right, regardless of whether you stay sober the next month, week, etcetera. You say that, I'll quote you again here. The primary operative term is progressive. Success is staying on the path towards your goal a little by little. So if you're on the path, you're already achieving success. That's right. It's

it's this progressive realization. And in fact, I think it was Earl Nightingale that said success is progressively realizing a worthy ideal. And the thing that is so nice about that, I think is I think that there is when we say we're going to do something we want to do something and then we actually do it, there's a feeling internally that that generates a feeling of well being or internal harmony. I don't know what to call it, but

that very thing is very much often the reward. And alternatively that saying I'm going to do something and then not doing it gives a real sort of sense of internal disease disease, and so I find that just doing it is oftentimes, like I said, the reward is the fact that I did it because I feel good about myself and I feel like, to your point, I'm on the right path, and boy does it feel bad to

feel like you're consistently on the wrong. Absolutely, and that that reminds me of working out, Like I have a I have a schedule where I it's just been habitual over the past several years where I work out more, you know, about five days a week. In the morning,

I spent about an hour working out. It's nothing crazy, but it that to me is such a good analogy because every day I go and work out, I not only feel good that I worked out and that I accomplished one of my goals early on in the day, but working out actually you know, the serotoninally it like helps me feel better and think better, and so immediately this process. Let's say I'm trying to lose weight or I'm trying to gain muscle, whatever it is, that goal

is great. But if I don't let myself celebrate and and hold my happiness, hijack it, you know, hold it until I reached that final goal, it doesn't make any It doesn't make any sense. And we see that with working out, we get the benefit immediately from something like that if we love doing the thing and it makes us feel good along the way. Yep. And I would say even with working out, if you don't necessarily love

the thing that much. For me, I love the way it feels almost immediately and the fact of being on the right track. And it's even better when you can find exercise that you love. But I find myself sometimes sliding into a rut where it's the same sort of exercise. But I just know that every morning by you know, I try and do it first thing the morning. Every morning, by you know, an hour after being awake, I'm like, all right, I feel you know, I feel much better

about where I'm going and what I'm doing. And I love that you said that, because that that resonates with me, the idea of I don't always love working out, but I always love the way I feel when I've worked out, and if I can remember that, that's a good motivation to get in there. Yep, that's one of those back to that idea of like why the resistance because I think literally every time in my life I have worked out, afterwards, I say I'm glad I did that, like without fail

and yet why does it seem like why is that? Still? You would think thing that had that much positive result would just be easy to just be like, I'm doing it no matter what you know. It's just it cracks me up. So you talk a little bit about not focusing only on the goal or the outside piece, but on who you are, defining who you are. Um. You say that if you define who you are and what you're up to at the outset, whatever you do becomes an outworking of who you are, not an attempt to

define their identity. Can you tell us more about that. Yeah. When I first started my my singing program, it was back then it was called the Singing Guide. UM it's now called Superior Singing Method. But I created the Singing Guide for a lot of reasons that you know, I wanted to pass it income. I was I was a good singer, and I was a pretty good teacher, and so I thought this would be this would be a

good thing. So I I spent a couple of years doing it and we were excited, in my business partners and I. And when we launched it, it was an absolute flop. It was a it was a total fail or. And I came to a point with that. I was obviously, you know, so many years of work and I was just like, this thing is not going to take off. And I came to a point where I I re examined who am I Like, what is it about this that is it just about money and passive income? Like,

because that that's not enough to motivate me. I'm I'm partially motivated by money, but not really and so what is it? And I found that at the core of me, all the things that I do, whether it's coaching or writing, or or teaching singing or even acting and filmmaking, it's always for this purpose of I want to help people live a fuller and freer life. Um, I want their life to be bigger and I wanted to be freer, and I noticed that that the Singing program could do that.

So this was part of who I was and who I wanted to be. I wanted to help people all over the world be able to reach their dream of becoming a singer. I love the idea of that, and so that motivated me to put my head down for another year and develop, you know, a rebrand, refilm, re restudy, and and decide what to do with the singing program. And it, you know, eventually became a really big success.

But it was that was a pivotal moment for me to lock it into my values and who I was and see this as a legacy rather than just like a money maker or just whatever. Yeah. That always is helpful if you can find a deeper, underline reason for doing things. Yeah, and that also I think it happened again with the singing program. In two thousand eleven, Google released an algorithm called Panda. And I know nothing about algorithms. You just heard all the knowledge I have on algorithms.

But the algorithm, I know what the effect of it was. We had all these keywords fifteen keywords and main keywords singing tips, how to sing, how to improve your sing voice. The main ones that people searched. We had them all on top spots on Google, you know, Spot one, two or three and usually even um the top spot. And so we were buzzing for a while, even with superior singing method, and we were, you know, enjoying some of

the success of that. And then Google release Panda and what it did is it shot all of our number one keywords down to page fifteen and and not spot fifteen. Page fifteen that nobody's ever visited except probably me because I wanted to see what that was. It's a long slow click seven oh, no eighth. It was so painful. Um. But that was another time where I had to revisit,

is this important to me? What's going on? And you know, we had to get a new strategy and implement something else, and that's when we did our YouTube videos and those eventually blew up as well. But it was another point to where I could have not been to nation and just been like, oh, we had a good run. What else. But when it locked into what I was about and who I wanted to be it it made it more motivating.

You've got in your book chapter called my life isn't working, you know, you say that, it's usually not a circumstance or a person that's holding us back. It's our language. It's our words and our thoughts. Yeah, and this and this goes back to the idea of the limiting voices, so so our words as certainly as we talked about our words with the pessimistic language. Like for example, if I'm if if I wake up every day and I

have another list on my phone. I've got a lot of lists on my phone that helped me get recentered, and it's just called I'm thankful for and and when I go through that and I start saying the things that I'm thankful for, it creates a certain way of being for me in a certain way that I see my life, I see myself, I see others and my circumstances. That that gets me a much different result than if I wake up in the morning and allow those I think I mentioned when I wake up in the morning.

Oftentimes still today, which is probably why I wrote a book about limiting voices. My mind is feel filled with a lot of fearful thoughts as soon as I wake up in the morning and I have a routine that I go through, and part of it is these lists of this language in my head. So the language we speak, for sure, but the language in our head that has all these negative, kind of fearful thoughts ends up getting me a certain result. And so how do you keep

those lists, those uh mind activities you do? How do you keep those from becoming sort of a stale repetition that doesn't really engender much change Because I find that for myself sometimes like ideas like um, a gratitude list is a great idea. There are sometimes though that I feel like it's just going through the motions and it doesn't do me any good. Do you have any weight of keeping the those things fresh for yourself or getting

the emotional connection with them on a consistent basis. Yeah, I hear what you're saying, and I and I have the same struggle for for my list becoming stale and not having that you know that like a that EpiPen adrenaline pumped to my heart like like they originally did. What's been helpful for me is to make sure that

I'm continuing to add to the list. And so my thankful for list is that like fifty three, I think right now, and so I usually scrolled down to like the last five or ten that connect with me the most.

And if I actually sit there and I say, okay, what are two more things right now that are different, and I write those down that usually that usually has it has a way of helping, and then also is using different methods, I find that the idea of the daily morning ritual to me, after a couple of weeks or months of any ritual can become stale to me.

So as long as I switch it up, and sometimes I'll read books that inspire me in the morning, are different votes or or wisdom literature or different things that will help kind of spike me, and then I can go back to the to the gratitude list or these

other things maybe in a few weeks. Yeah, I have the same sort of situation of trying to to work to find a way to keep it fresh and to try and find a way to emotionally connect versus like I said, just kind of going through the motions and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And you know I talk on here and in so many episodes I've done about how sometimes like none of that stuff even seems to work with my negative voices, and I have to do something that like completely changes

the channel, Like concentration games help. Trying to start with the letter A and think of a song you like that starts with the letter A, and then hear the melody in my head. And that sort of thing actually engages me enough that if I stick with that for a little while, I sort of emerge from the morass um and then things like a gratitude list or something help me a little bit more. But sometimes when I'm deep in it, that other stuff isn't as effective as

I would like it to be. Yeah, that's great, I haven't heard that before. I may start using that. Another another thing that's been helpful for me is I have I have a closet. It's not like a huge walking closet, but it's like still kind of walking ish, and I keep a chair folded up in there that I can like pull out and sit on and I can close that door. And and when I when I just sit in there with you know, sit up straight and have my hand, it's meditation, but really it's not like any

formal meditation. If I just sit there and I do I just do some breathing and just sit quietly for five or ten minutes. A lot of times, my inner wisdom, whatever it is, you know, it could be if people are from a faith, tradition or whatever they believe. But my inner kind of wisdom starts to filter, filter through those thoughts and and write them and give me, give me fresh ideas. Yep, Chris has a really small closet that he likes to climb into and and sob like

a baby. That's his that's his morning routine. I like Chris. So you have another part that I love. I love the title. It's something I tend to say all the time, which is it's all made up anyway. You're you're basically saying, our current assumptions and perceptions tend to be a story of some sort anyway, So why not pick a good one. I think most of our entire lives are a story that we tell ourselves. So the story in back to the Limiting a Limiting Voice is kind of a story.

So the idea of like I don't have what it takes. Okay, that may or may not be true, but it is just a story you're telling yourself that you could probably find some evidence in some way that there is some truth to that story. Okay, great, What about the story that says I'm a resourceful person and I could find what it is that I need to to do this thing. That's just another story that's gonna that's gonna be more

resourceful for me. And so I love the idea. And even how you mentioned that, even overwhelmed overwhelmed is such a big one for my clients. I feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed itself is just a story. It's a story that we make up and then we believe, and then we begin to shut down. The story is I have too much to do. Another story could be I only have one thing to do right now. It's the thing that I'm doing, and I'm gonna do that, and then the next thing I'm gonna do if I have time for that. That's

a different story but creates a less panicky state. I'm just fascinated by the interplay between behavior, thoughts, and feelings and how all those things sort of can affect each other. It's it's not like a clean delineation between those. Like that feeling of overwhelmed part of me when you say that,

I'm like, yeah, but overwhelmed feels panic. But then I was like, but it feels panicky because of the story I'm telling myself about everything that has to happen, and I may not even be aware that I am telling myself that story. It just seems true. I'm overwhelmed. Yes, And I love that you bring that up, because that the things that we're telling ourselves we don't oftentimes most of the time really I they're there. It occurs to us as really as real as this is objective reality,

and then our actions follow them. Yeah, it rained this morning. I live in in Los Angeles, doesn't rain very often. It was pouring, pouring rain this morning. And just the idea of our our feelings and our thoughts, how they really dictate our feelings. I remember looking out the window and and thinking it's raining so hard, and my thought was, this is beautiful. California needs the rain. I love when it rains. It it's such a fun feeling. It felt like the rain gave me a feeling of calm, but

it wasn't the rain. Rain has nothing to do with it. I could have looked out the window and thought, oh man, well I've got to get to work, and now traffic is gonna be There's all these other thoughts that the rain. I could have thought the rain was making me feel anxious.

And that's I think why sometimes in the beginning, just starting to learn to consistently question our thoughts, not even like not even like they're wrong, they're just even starting to question the fact, like maybe that's just not true, maybe that's not you know, objective reality, and trying to really find out, like what is the fact? Like what you said there is the fact is it's raining. That's the really only fact. And everything you've described, everything else

is an interpretation. That's right. Well, Aaron, I think we are out of time, but thank you so much for coming on the show. I've really enjoyed the conversation. I enjoyed the book. Will have links in our show notes to where people can get the book, and uh, best of luck to you on the launch. Thank you so much. It was this was great, all right, take care bye. You can learn more about this podcast and Aaron Anastasi at one new feed dot net, slash errand