Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 409 - Innercising with John Assaraf

Episode Date: July 14, 2020

John Assaraf is one of the leading brain and mindset experts in the world. He has previously built 5 different multi-million dollar companies, written 2 New York Times bestselling books, and been featured in 8 different films. He is currently the founder and CEO of NeuroGym, a company dedicated to using the most advanced technologies and evidence based brain training methods to help individuals unleash their fullest potential and maximize their results. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Support the show by visiting our sponsors! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Icon Meals: http://iconmeals.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to Mark Bell's Power Project podcast hosted by Mark Bell, co-hosted by Nseema Iyang and myself, Andrew Zaragoza. This episode was recorded on July 13th and it is with an amazing guest and I know you guys are going to be extremely motivated. We have the one and only John Aseroff. John is one of the leading brain and mindset experts in the entire planet. He is the author of several books, including Innercise, which we talked a lot about today. We talked a lot about breathing techniques, why they're so dang important. He asks the question, are you interested or are you committed to something? There's a very big difference between the two and depending on

which one you are will determine the outcome of how successful you are in trying to achieve that goal. He also explained how we can prime our brain for success by doing small things like writing stuff down, doing just a bunch of daily techniques, daily routines to help prime our brain for success. And we really did talk a lot about how or why it is very important to start writing down some of your hopes, dreams, and goals. And like I said, it's just an incredible podcast. You guys are going to find a ton of value in this episode. It's very motivating, very inspiring, but also very, very informational. And there's a lot of tangible things that you guys are going to take away from this episode. So I'm going to just shut up now

and get to this dang episode because I'm excited for you guys to listen to it. So ladies and gentlemen, please enjoy this episode with the one and only John Assaraf. Yo, my cousin, actually it's my, because like his parents would discipline us both. Like I'd get beat like I was one of their kids. So his mom had this punishment. It was the his dad. Actually, it was the what are those phone book punishment? So we'd have to be on our knees.

Oh, you did it, too. No. So go ahead. Continue. Sorry. Are we'd have to be on our knees. Oh, you did it too? Go ahead, continue. Are we on air? Yep. Make sure that I send no names. But there's this punishment where we'd be on

our knees and our hands would be above our head. And then he'd put a phone book in our hands. And if we like, wildered, he'd hit us on the back and then over like a time he'd stack a phone book in our hands, right? And if we like, wildered, he'd hit us on the back and then over like a time, he'd stack another phone book like this. And we'd have to keep the phone book overhead.

That's why you're jacked. And we'd all be crying in a circle. Yeah. So I remember my older brother and sister talking about it. You gotta really think about that one. Yeah, dude, check this one out.

It was kneeling, holding bricks like that not like above but just holding them like this oh my god but on like a concrete floor with like dirt on it so it just like hurt your knees now again i never experienced that it was just maybe like one of those like urban legends by time like i got old enough to understand what punishment was but i just remember thinking like oh shit i hope I don't ever have to do that. Yeah. I was legit scared.

Yeah. In some cultures, some religions, it's like, you know, it's kind of taught to not abuse your kids necessarily. But I guess the line for that could be interpreted differently for each person, right? Yeah. It's funny. Yeah. What would be abuse here in the U.S.?

Just, like, normal in the u.s just like normal in different cultures i think even uh tuesday this might sound like some funny wording but even like scaring your kid i think is enough like uh so like if they're little and they go to run out in the street and you you grab their arm quickly and like that's going to kind of scare them you know you you kind of yell you grab their arm you give them a little swat in the butt it you know they're they're i don't know one and a half two years old yeah they're they're scared and they're like hey i'm not they they recognize i'm not supposed to do that you know there's kind of yeah we we definitely overdid it with jasmine one day uh we were at party city so gave her left and right dude and the it was so bad. No, no, no.

As far as scaring her, you know, like we scared her straight. At this store, they have like these giant bowls of like stuff that you put in like a candy bag for like a birthday party or something. And she just like, we get in the car and just we hear a rapper. It's like, what?

What are you doing? And she's like, oh, just eating a candy. Like, where'd you get that? It's like from the store. It's like what what are you doing and she's like oh just eating the candy like where'd you get that it's like from the store it's like well how did what and she's like yeah i just you know put in my pocket and like you stole and then so like we made this whole thing where they're gonna have her picture like as soon as you walk in because they're gonna say that you stole and like we start laughing and then she just gets quiet, and she just starts bawling, crying. I'm like, oh, shit. I'm like, oh, fuck. She's like, I'm wanted dead or alive right now. Yes, yes.

And then she's like, why would you do that to me? I'm like, do you ever want to borrow candy again? She's like, no. I'm like, all right. That's why we did that. Last time she ever shopped. Yeah. Yeah, that was it.

We're rambling about this a little bit, because today's guest, John Assaraf, is a, I guess you'd call him like a mind coach. Oh, yeah. And he's had a lot of success with helping a lot of people, but he's also helped himself. He's gained a lot of success in his own life via business, personal life, and otherwise. And he was abused as a child, so that's how we got on that topic. But, you know, you got like someone like a C.T. Fletcher. I think that, you know, when we talk about like child abuse, that's kind of what comes to mind is the parents are, you know, terrified, or the, I'm sorry, the kid is terrified just even hearing the parent come home. And that would be a

really tough environment to live in when i was a football coach i remember a lot of the kids didn't want to go home they didn't all they weren't all abused necessarily but i think some of them uh may have been because they you know they wanted to just hang out in the uh in the gym most of the time and a couple kids kind of mentioned that they had that vibe at home so they just didn't even feel safe in their own house. And that's gotta be a terrible thing. You know, man, it's crazy in terms of the kind of manual you get in terms of kids,

because you don't get one. Right. And it's like, let's say you have a kid really young, you're 18 or 19 and you get out of the hospital and you're taking home a life that you don't know what to do with. Like you can find information on child rearing and all these things, you get out of the hospital and you're taking home a life that you don't know what to do with. Like you can find information on child rearing and all these things, but more times than not,

people don't, or we don't. And it's just like, you're entrusted with this life to raise for a lot of years until they potentially leave and go do their own thing. It's like, the good thing is the baby doesn't know anything in the beginning. So that's like, that's like your only hope.

Like if if the kid if the kid even had a mind that was like represented something of like a two year old, you'd be so screwed. They don't know anything. They can't move yet. Like, you know, you you get a while to catch up. But I remember with Jake, Jake was born in Ohio. And I'm trying to put the car seat in, which is like impossible because you got to put it like in the middle and it like kills your back being in that position for a while.

And I don't know how to put this thing in and I'm like trying to lock it in and trying to mess with it. It's snowing out. It's like, you know, 30 degrees and windy. I'm like freezing my ass off because I'm halfway in the car, halfway out of the car. And I mean, it took me, it took me like 45 minutes to figure that damn thing out. But I didn't want to be like, oh, it's okay. I wanted it to be clicked in the right way and I just couldn't figure the damn thing

out. But yeah, they don't come with any instruction book. They should. When are you supposed to put this thing to bed? How many times a day should it eat? How many times should I change this thing? Every hospital should have a booklet they should have a booklet but they wouldn't have a booklet on your kid right right yeah well there should be some general

yeah some yeah general general stuff they will give a kid a football but in ohio they're born with like a football really but then again imagine that booklet you know like this is the booklet for a mexican family beat the shit out of them if you want to and then you know what i mean oh man it'd be very specific oh god but i'm sorry yeah it's i feel like in the comments you know if you guys have a funny stories um i don't want to bring out any trauma in anybody in the podcast but if you guys have any funny stories of like spankings or whatever go ahead and put those i think a lot of crazy stuff happens when you have kids i had a relative that she was pregnant like eight or she's like eight months pregnant her two-year-old probably yeah probably about two years old uh

somebody left a ladder out and they were working on the roof. Her two-year-old was on the roof. She was home by herself. She had no choice but to go up there and get him herself. And she's like, you know, about ready to burst with a baby. From what I remember, I think at the time, I think her husband was a police officer. And he's like at work and he can't just he can't just leave that's just all kinds of crazy stuff crazy stuff happens when you have kids little curious

demons oh yeah demons is a good word oh we always talk when i talk about my kids with me and my wife like these little bastards we're always we're always talking trash about them. I hear it's like raising a puppy. It is, yeah. It's a lot like raising a puppy. I don't know. Puppies are pretty chill, in my opinion, like to hold and babies still terrify me. I'll get a dog as training wheels. That's actually a pretty good move.

Yeah, it's a good introduction. You know, I got to take care of the thing a lot. You got to feed it, you know. You got to walk it. Yeah, especially when they're like little, little puppies. Like they don't really sleep throughout the night. Like, you know, they'll cry. They'll want your attention.

What's weird, though, is babies and just kids in general, they're like little computers. So, they're going to remember everything you ever did or anything you ever said. Absolutely. They remember all of it. They remember everything. And even if they don't remember it, they still remember it. It's still like in their soul somewhere, you know. It's ingrained. Yeah. Yeah, it. They remember everything. And even if they don't remember it, they still remember it. It's still like in their soul somewhere. It's ingrained.

Yeah. Yeah, it's in there forever. My kids mention all kinds of stuff. I'm like, how about the time I was good? How about the time I bought you some fucking ice cream or something? You know what I mean? Remember the one time I remembered and I wasn't late? That's one thing.

I know some adults that remember stuff from when they were like 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. And I'm just like, I don't remember anything from back then i don't remember you guys no no i i still like i've said it on the podcast before like i still trip out when like people talk about like oh i remember mr so-and-so's class in like seventh grade i'm like i don't remember any of my teachers names i don't remember any of my classes i don't remember anything i was at a party and people were talking about the homecoming king and queen dancing and like and and like what song they were dancing to and stuff and i was just they just haven't moved on yeah they were in their prime i'm like i have no clue i'm like i don't think i went to the homecoming dance like i was like i'm gonna lift girls are dumb that's great oh man i'm gonna work on my biceps you guys will see this is gonna work great for me that's true thing bro i just remember so like again like i i you know met jasmine when she

was already four but like at that age i just remember realizing like shit dude a parent's job is just to do shit to keep the kid busy to where they get tired enough to go to bed. That's like really all like all our plans were to like okay let's go to the park. Let's have her run around. Let's do this. Like let's like for sure let her have fun. But the main goal was just so that way we could like. Yeah.

One great weapon against kids rather than just using your fists or having them wear you out is just to try to come from their side of it. So if you can try to be a little kid and try to encourage what they're doing more or figure out a way to encourage it without like, you know, let's say they write on the wall and they write on the wall like multiple days in a row. Then you can kind of think about okay well how do i get this art out of them how do i you know maybe i can buy them stuff where they can you know write somewhere else or you try to i remember uh bart his kid kept throwing his shoes in the pool and i was like get as much shit for that kid to throw in the pool as possible you know and just keep you gotta just you know you gotta not be lazy like Things that you like, don't have them anywhere near the pool. I learned that lesson.

People say you can't have nice things. You can't have anything when you've got kids. You can't have nothing. They take everything. I have just a few things that I kind of need. I'm like, I need a charger for my phone. It's always gone. It's always gone.

So I just gave up on all that. I'm like, I'm not allowed to have anything. It's fine. Don't worry about me. And how about your video games? Oh, yeah. Jake, he broke all of them. Every day, he'd take them out and he'd throw them behind his head.

I was like, all right, fuck it. I'm not playing video games. That's a good way to make yourself quit. I mean, yeah, he helped me. He saved my life. I was broke back then. All I could afford was a couple games yeah i remember my my cousin you know back in the cd days he had the uh like the five disc changer or whatever and then my little little cousin remember waiting for that thing to like switch so bad or not remembering which cd was a number

or whatever right but we'll get to that in a second in sema uh but he just loaded all his cds into the the like the little like you know thing it just kept going and going he's like dude he's like i have like 30 cds stuck inside my cd player right now but i remember it i was trying to remember what a five disc changer was that's why my face was so weird and i currently do remember i think i was like six yeah you just turned 19 right 22 22 do you remember I think I was like six. Yeah. You just turned 19, right? No, 22. 22. Do you remember like the cartridges though? Like you would put like all five discs inside like a square and then you would put that in the trunk of your car and then in the front you would select which CD you wanted.

How weird. That's so stupid. And you're just stuck with that music. That's all you got. Stuck with listening to the same shit. That was such a terrible design it's amazing now you got like millions of phones and are millions of songs in your pocket nothing to listen to well i do remember having a cd player my first ever cd was big willie style

oh wow that was my first ever rap cd and i'd be bumping that was like my only thing i was bumping that summertime yeah summer summer summertime yeah man that's a legit song yeah that but no that was a different that was a different album oh yeah i have to correct you on that one because that was when you know that was during the fresh prince days and then what was the name of the album uh that one i don't know it was like the year 2001 so that would have been big will style. Yes, I just said Big Willie style. But I'm telling you that Summertime was way older than that. I'm going to bet you five bucks.

I'm going to bet you five bucks right now if Summertime was on that album. Then you must have had like a compilation album. Nah. I'll pull up the track list. Look at the track list, bro. I think you're right. I'm going to bet you five. Actually, you know what?

Yeah, I'll bet you five bucks. I don't want to take too much money out of your pocket. And if I'm wrong, I'm going to cry five. Actually, you know what? Yeah, I'll bet you five bucks. I don't want to take too much money out of your pocket. And if I'm wrong, I'm gonna cry on this podcast for real. Okay. Getting jiggy with it. So I promise you right now, that's all I need to know, that that's not the same album. He's right. I remember the video for Summertime.

It was when he was way younger. How much did you guys bet? 500 bucks? It was like 5,000, 500,000. 000 dang it so which album was summertime on uh it's it's gonna be like old school dude like so early oh girls ain't nothing but trouble that hurts parents just don't understand uh some people have any idea how talented will smith is no do they get it? He's ridiculous. He's ridiculous. He is. He was so, I mean, he still is awesome, but he was, now he saves the world.

Yeah, he does. Hancock? How great a movie that is. It's a good movie. I'm drunk, bitch. That's my favorite part of the movie. Why did you do that? He's like, I'm drunk, bitch.

Oh, man. Yo, did you, I don't know when John is about to to come on but did you guys see that will thing this weekend that will and jada thing that happened recently no what did he do now what happened it was on the album home base which was in 1991 you're welcome home base thank you thank you okay i owe you five bucks that's the name of the album no one knows that i don't think anybody would know that no i would remember the name, but I haven't listened to all his albums. There was this one album where I was listening to it. I was like, oh wow, I forgot. It's like the 80s. You can say that.

He said something about certain people to a crowd. In a song, I was like, oh, Will? Okay, well don't get cancelled for that one. I was even watching Nutty Professor with my kids the other day. I was like, oh, wow. We watched well, don't get canceled for that one. Yeah, I was even watching Nutty Professor with my kids the other day and I was like, oh, wow.

We watched Norbit the other day. There was some language in there. I was like, I don't think they'd say a lot of these words. Even in The Office, the show The Office, there were so many jokes

in that show where I'm just like, I wish TV would go back to this. Yeah, yeah. But, no, we can't have that in 2020. If you haven't watched norbit in a long time that's it's hilarious you're not wearing any bottoms he lifts up his gut or whatever

i don't remember i got to rewatch it it's been a long time eddie murphy kidding me so good he's amazing yeah if he's unreal when he comes out that next stand-up because he said he will it's good he's gonna kill he's the donkey in shrek because my kids were like well they're like his voice sounds really familiar i'm like he's the donkey and shit sounds yeah what were you gonna say about will smith though oh bruh okay so have you guys seen the entanglement meme that's been going around all right i'm gonna make this real short maybe we'll talk about this later but uh will and jada are in like in this life partnership thing that's their whole vibe we're life partners no matter what we're life partners but recently i don't know it was a few years ago will and jada said that they got separated they had a little interview where they talked about with each other

uh on her podcast red table talk and uh jada apparently in this time they were in the same house but they befriended this guy named August Alsina. Oh, no. And he's like a rapper or whatever. And he's going through some stuff. But Jada had like, you know, she did a thing with them. Right. She did some stuff.

And it's funny because in the interview where Will and Jada were talking about this past week and Jada was talking about it. And she was like, yeah, you know, August and me, you know, we built a deep friendship, a deep love. We got into an entanglement. Oh. And Will's like, an entanglement? You mean a relationship? She's like, no, entanglement. So the entanglement thing, this whole meme has been going around because Jada didn't explicitly say it.

And that's why you got the crying face, Will. Because after she said entanglement, I think that's what his face looked like. face will because after she said entanglement i think that's what his face looked like okay you know you should watch it because it's only 12 minutes so it won't take time out of the self-development but it's a 12 minute talk between them two and it is so funny i like it how she's like just like really carefully wading these waters you know it's professional it's super professional so is that when that was that like the first time that she like told him like how does he knew but the thing is the media found out because that august dude did an interview where he was saying you know oh yeah i did this stuff with jada and will

gave me his blessing and it's just a bunch of funny stuff but um all right cool and and entanglement. Here we go. Hello. Here we go. How are you doing? Good, guys. How are you doing? Fantastic. So good to have you on the show.

Listen to a lot of your stuff over the years, and I really appreciate your time a lot. One thing just I was listening to kind of more recently that you were talking about was, you know, you're constantly talking about this, the mindset and how we can, you know, we can have control over, have some control over our feelings and things like that. What I found really interesting was you developed a lot of different techniques that are practical for people to use, such as certain types of breathing and so forth. But it also sounds to me like you are on to something that's, I think, is really amazing, because you might be able to knock this stuff out before you ever get to the breathing phase. You might be able to knock some of these things out

by your interpretation. So if you can maybe kind of start off by mentioning a little bit of that, I think that'd be a good place to start. Sure. The whole premise is built upon our, you know, what I call the trillion dollar brain, and that we don't have any user's manual for it. And we know that our brain's working, you know, almost like a computer system works with networks and circuits that turn on or off. And for example, when we're in a state of uncertainty or fear or doubt, because we don't have, you know, the knowledge or the skill that we need to achieve something, we know that part of our nervous system that activates is our fight or flight response or reactive system.

And in that particular state, we're not using our higher cortical functions, our thinking brain, which can actually help us analyze the situation and override maybe a childhood trauma or something that we read that caused us to trigger this fear. And so whenever we're looking at human performance and behavior, getting ourselves to do the things that we want to do, that we know we should do, it has to start with self-regulation. And one of the easiest things to do is to learn, for example, the two different systems that our brain operates on, which is the sympathetic and the parasympathetic nervous system.

And one is a great system for us to be calm so we could respond intelligently. And the other one is great if there's a saber-toothed tiger that's at our door wanting to eat us or kill us. There's a saber tooth tiger, you know, that's at our door wanting to eat us or kill us. And so most people have never been trained to first and foremost recognize what state are they in and then use some simple techniques to be able to be a master of their own domain or their thoughts and emotions and behaviors. What do you think are some good strategies to be able to train these things? Maybe get into a physical training environment where you're maybe lifting weights or running, maybe a cold shower or something. Are these things that you advocate or do you have kind of different ways of practicing these techniques? Absolutely. There's a variety of different, what I call our inner

sizes, right? We have exercise to develop our cardiovascular system. We could run, we could jog, we could, you know, do stairmaster, Pilates, yoga, hike, bike, etc. We could do biceps, triceps, legs, squats, whatever we want to build our physical muscles, endurance, etc. Well, what about the greatest muscle that we have? If I was going to frame it as a muscle, what about your brain and the neuromuscles? What about your muscle of focus? What about your muscle of awareness? What about your muscle of tenacity? What about your muscle of resistance, you know, or your muscle of persistence?

And so these are all things that we can train. Now, if you think about, you know, a Navy SEAL, how does a Navy SEAL get to be as good as he gets or she gets? It's not because they were just genetically born with the predisposition. They train their asses off spiritually, emotionally, mentally, and physically, right? That's how they get to the top of the game. Well, what about us average people? Why not learn that everything starts with the breath?

So when we, for example, simple, simple example, let's say we're in a state of uncertainty, fear, we're procrastinating, we're not taking action on the things we know we want to do. Well, not taking action is actually a behavior. But the question is, why am I not taking action? Like, why do I not feel like going to the gym when I know I want to get in great shape? You know, why do I not do that extra rep or two when I know that's what builds the muscle? Why do I not do what I need to do? And all of it starts and stops with the internal dialogue and the emotional state that we're in. So what if, for example, we learned whenever we're in this state of uncertainty, doubt, fear, etc.

whenever we're in this state of uncertainty, doubt, fear, etc., what if we just said, okay, let me take six deep breaths in through my nose as slowly as I can, like I'm doing a slow rep on the bench, as slowly as I can, not as fast as I can, as slowly as I can. And then when I breathe out, why not breathe out like I'm breathing out through a straw, whereby I'm focusing all my energy and tension on the airflow coming out of my lips. Now, if I just did six breaths, simple breaths, I can actually see blood flow changing in my brain from my fight, flight or reactive state to my common response state. Now, if I did that in that state, and then I did what I call inner size number two,

the first one I call is take six, calm the circuits. Inner size number two is called AIA, A-I-A, which stands for awareness, intention, action. So one of the greatest gifts we have as human beings is the ability to be aware. And it's an awareness that we gain choice, and it's in choice that we gain our freedom. So what if in an aware state, I said, what are my thoughts, feelings, sensations and behaviors right now, just without any judgment or blame or shame or guilt, just pure awareness. And what if in that state of awareness, I could then set an intention based on my goals or my vision? I said, okay, my intention is to do one more set.

My intention is to get in better shape. My intention is to take action, to write that book, to leave that job, to be happier, healthier, whatever the case might be. That's my intention. We reduced the resistance to action, which is the second A. And we said, what is one small little action step that I could take towards what I want? Now I'm in a state of awareness. Now I've set an intention. And now I'm being deliberate with one small action step.

Now guess who's back in control? I am because I'm operating from a place of desire, vision, goal, and outcome that I want instead of my old patterns and habits. So those are two simple, very, very easy inner sizes that anybody can practice. And when we practice just those two, there's a few more, of course, but we practice just those two, now we're being deliberate. Now we're moving slowly towards what it is that we want. And as many people know, you know, in the military, especially in the SEALs, they say, you know, slow is smooth and smooth is fast, right? So why not slow down so we can

pick up speed for what we want to achieve? You know what, sir, you've mentioned breathing like three times now. And I mean, we've talked about a lot of it on this podcast. Uh, we've had a lot of guys come in and talk about breathing. Like I myself, like I've noticed that I do jujitsu and there, in the beginning, there'd be a lot of times where I'd hold my breath or I'd be in a bad situation where someone was on top of me, hold my breath. I'd get stressed out and push them off. And I, you know, then I'd be able to calm down. But as I started learning to nose breathe from some of the people that we've had on the podcast, it's like, it's totally different. The mind is super clear. And then applying that into daily life, it's really, really crazy. So my question to you is when was it that you realized that the breath could help

control so many other aspects and how can somebody tell that potentially they have disordered breathing in their day-to-day life great question i started meditating 40 years ago and it was in the meditation and just trying to understand i heard a lot of people talk about there's a spiritual side to us right we're not these physical beings i was was like, what the F is that? Here's what I am, right? And so I just did some meditation. I went to some courses, you know, when I was like 19, 20, 21 years old. And it was in that awareness, in that state,

that there's other layers of consciousness and there's other parts of me. I didn't know it was the brain at that time, that were able to manipulate calmness, responsiveness, reactiveness. And it's only been in the last 20 years, you know, that we really are able that sympathetic nervous system is activated, we can actually see blood flow moving from that thinking part of our brain, the higher cortical function, which is what I call the Einstein part of our brain. So when the sympathetic nervous system is activated, we know that I call it the Frankenstein brain's active. It's that survival part of us that's trying to resist, to attack, to react as quickly as possible. And so I wanted to understand what are the mechanisms by which we can activate

or deactivate different parts of our own physiology. And so we know that breathing is one of the ways you can do that. You can also change your physiology with motion, with movement. And so you can get up, you can stretch, believe it or not, yawning, yawning. If you just open your mouth and yawn, doing that six, seven, eight, 10 times, that does the exact same thing, actually even more than breathing. But most people don't want to go around going to calm themselves down. But yawning is one of the techniques that deactivates that sympathetic nervous system and allows you to have much more clarity focus control awareness and thereby giving you what more control what about somebody that listens to uh some of the stuff that you have to say like somebody that you may work with in person, who's really resistant to it, who's like bullshit, you know, I'm going through a divorce.

You don't understand. Or I just lost, you know, a ton of money in a business and, and now I'm broke. You don't, you don't get it. You know, what, what do you kind of, how do you encourage somebody like that to kind of open up their ears? Cause I've heard even on a podcast where you mentioned where in the beginning, when you were learning this stuff, you were like, this is a bunch of crap like this is uh this is weird you thought it was strange right sure um if i could just back up for one second to to a technique

that i use to practice on my mobile phone i have uh at 7 55 past the hour 6 55 7, 755, 855, 955, 1055, I set up my mobile phone to give me a little bell. That bell reminds me to take six deep breaths and to recalibrate my own physiology. So what I'm doing is I'm developing a habit that at first I practice consciously. but then with practice, our brain says, hey, since you're doing this so frequently, let me make this conscious effort unconscious. And so that's just a way to practice. Now, to somebody who doesn't believe this stuff works, I always, when I got into the personal development arena, and specifically the brain science and psychology arenas, I learned one thing about people, and that is to get out of the convincing business. So I don't try to convince anybody. However, when somebody is open to seeing a different way, learning something different,

experiencing and practicing something different, experiencing and practicing something different, that's when your moment of opportunity is there to help them. But you cannot help somebody who doesn't want the help because you're going to meet resistance. And so since, you know, you guys are obviously fit, you know, in Aikido, you use the opponent's energy to move them out of the way. Well, the more we try to convince somebody of something, the more they're going to resist. And so the question that really has to come up is one of my greatest lessons in my life was from one of my mentors when I was 19 years old. And he asked me what I wanted to achieve in my life. And I told him I wanted to achieve a nice lifestyle, you know, nice cars, homes, charity, family, etc. And he asked me one question that changed my life. It was one question,

one answer changed my life. He said to me, are you interested in achieving those things? Or are you committed? And at 19, I didn't know the difference. And so I asked him, I said, what's the difference? And he said to me, he says, if you're interested, you'll do what's easy and convenient. You'll resist what is needed in order to achieve what you want. But if you're committed, you'll do whatever it takes. You'll set aside, even if it's temporarily, your ideas, your thoughts, your beliefs, your habits, and you'll try something different so that you can achieve these results. And so I said, well, I'm committed. And in that one question and one answer, he said, in that case, I'll be your mentor. So I could have easily taken a different path. But he opened up my mind by asking me a question that challenged me to move into one of two possibilities.

So whoever is stuck, I'll ask them, are you committed to staying stuck or are you committed to finding a solution that may be better for you? You choose the path and I'll guide you according to your answer, not according to what I want you to learn. You know, I'm curious about that that actually because right now i think that especially i don't know if it would be my generation actually my generation and younger we've come up with obviously phones smartphones social media all that type of stuff is part of what we do on a day-to-day basis and i know a lot of people um that number one when it comes to social media they see all these other people, they see

all these people doing amazing things at a young age, and that makes them feel behind and stuck, and they can't keep going. But then also, there's the ability that social media has to grab you and take you out of, you've mentioned it earlier, focus, right? So how does somebody get a grip, move forward to kind of regain focus in this era that has so many things, YouTube, Instagram, all these things that are pulling you in different, different directions and taking your, your ability to focus and try to move forward away. Sure. Um, I have two sons, 25 and 23. So I, I get, I get the game. Um, and they're constantly on their phones. I mean, constantly on their phones and on their phones, they're, you know, they. And they're constantly on their phones. I mean, constantly on their phones and on their phones.

They're sitting on the sofas with eight of their friends texting each other next to the sofa. So I get the error. Whenever we're looking at distractions, we're looking at our brain being hijacked to somebody else's agenda. So when I put a post on, right, what am I hoping? I'm hoping somebody sees that, likes what I say or likes the video, follows my work, and I'm trying to distract them. And, you know, all of our social media channels are distractions galore. Now, we also know that in order to win, we have to be focused. We have to minimize the distractions.

So what if we said, okay, focus is a muscle. How strong do I want to get with my focus muscle? Part one. Part two is we also know that habits drive behavior. There's constructive ones, destructive ones, empowering ones, disempowering ones. How committed are you to having the habits that will help you achieve the goals that you want versus the disempowering, destructive habits that will not? And so with my kids, I do this all the time. I get the distractions. And what are you more committed to the distraction or the goal you

choose? And if you want to let go of this habitual checking of emails, texts, television, whatever it is that's distracting you, then we know more about the science of habits today than we ever had since 108 billion humans have walked on earth and so why not use the science to break disempowering habits why not use the science to create empowering ones and i'm not saying don't use your phone uh or don't go on Facebook or don't connect with your friends. I'm saying do that, but learn how to develop a habit that empowers you versus a habit that disempowers you and creates destruction in your lives. And our brain, by its very nature, is looking for things to release that dopamine all the

time. And because of these technologies that we have today, we're not only releasing the dopamine and serotonin and the oxytocin when we share with each other, we are reinforcing the pattern that deplete us of our willpower, our persistence, and our ability to focus on the things that we want to focus on versus the things that some other people who are brilliant at the neuroscience of addiction get us caught up in. Our beliefs are really at the center of a lot of this, right? Where you believe something to be true about yourself. And so therefore, you kind of fall into these maybe negative and maybe even positive habits. But I do believe that the beliefs are a strong part of it.

Absolutely. When we talk about beliefs, the first question I always ask is, were you born with any? And the answer was no, we weren't born with any beliefs, any habits, any perspectives.

We were born with a genetic predisposition to certain things, but zero beliefs, zero self image, zero fears, except for loud noises. That's the only one. And so everything else we learn. And so then we ask ourselves then, where did I develop my beliefs?

That's my experiences, my parents, my teachers, et cetera. What are beliefs and nothing more than reinforced patterns in our brain? Well, what are reinforced patterns in our brain? Cells that have connected, that have created a bond between them, an association between them. And then the next question is, well, can I get rid of the ones that don't serve me and create new ones that do? If I wasn't born with any, can I create my own? And the answer is absolutely.

And that's another reason I've created, you know, InnerSize, is if you think about how do I deactivate a pattern in my brain? I want to draw the analogy of what if you had software on your computer that just needed upgrading? Do we know how to upgrade software on a computer? Of course we do. Well, what if we considered that our beliefs and our habits and our paradigms of how we see the world operate is nothing more than reinforced software in our brain. Do we know how to deactivate the either corrupt or the weak

software? Yes. Do we know how to create new empowering software? Yes. So now we can be back in control. So now instead of having disempowering beliefs like I'm too young, I'm too old, I'm too white, I'm too black, I'm too this or not enough of that, which is nothing more than a reinforced pattern. Now let's go to a place of awareness first, then deliberate evolution of ourselves. You know, you mentioned beliefs and habits and you mentioned like being like having corrupted software. So when someone's paying attention to that corrupted software, I know that there's probably so many things and you've probably outlined so many things, your inner sizes and ways that people can get rid of that software or change that software. But for the people listening, what are some things that they can do now? For the people listening, what are some things that they can do now? If they're looking at their life and they're like, I just have this habit of waking up and just not doing anything or waking up and scrolling through this, they can outline all

of the habits that they have that are bad, yet they continue doing and they have been able to change. How can they, what are some ways that they can change them or get rid of them? Great. So, great analogy. So, in the observation that I keep repeating this habit that I know is a disempowering habit, that's part one, that's awareness. Next part is to understand that habits are there to conserve energy, right? It's part of what we call is the habit loop. For every habit, there is a cue that triggers that habit.

There's a behavior, and then there is the reward of that behavior. That is the habit loop in our brain. So let's say we become aware of a disempowering habit. Now we are able to understand here's what triggered it. Now, all of the research on habits says all you need to do is modify the behavior ever so slightly to interrupt the pattern. So let's say you wake up every morning and the first thing you do is check your cell phone. You wake up, grab your phone, check it. So if you could become aware that that's what you do, and then tomorrow morning, you look at your phone and say,

you know what, before I check it, I'm just going to go and get some water. Interrupt the pattern. Anytime we interrupt any pattern, we interrupt the neural network of that pattern. And so I'm going to relate it back to, you know, you and jujitsu. Let's say your coach sees that you consistently do something, okay, in one of the matches that you're in. You consistently repeat a pattern. First, they're going to make you aware of what you do, and then they're going to say, hey, do this instead. They're interrupting that pattern and replacing that pattern with something better. So the first part is the awareness. The

second part is to interrupt the pattern. Then the third part is to start replacing the behavior with something more empowering. And so we want to be focused on what's the cue, what's the behavior, let's change the behavior ever so slightly, and then we still end up getting the reward from a neurological perspective. And so anytime we interrupt a thought pattern, so let's go to beliefs for just a moment. Give me any negative belief that somebody might have or a disempowering, destructive belief. I can't build a business. Great. Love it. So when we use the words, I can't build a business from a purely biomechanical perspective, as soon as you say, I can't build a

profitable business, our brain says, okay, this is what you believe. And it doesn't care whether it's real or imagined, true or false. As soon as we say, I can't, and we reinforce that with our emotions and not taking action, we keep reinforcing this pattern, which then recreates itself. What if we simply took a sheet of paper out, wrote that out, I can't build a profitable business. And we just shifted the language pattern to say, in the past, I used to believe that I can't build a profitable business. And now I'm learning everything I need to be able to do it. I'm learning everything I need to be able to do it. That shift just in our language pattern, as simple as that may seem, interrupts that pattern.

Now, what if every day I took that new sentence and I read it? What if every day I closed my eyes and I actually felt that I'm doing the things necessary to achieve a profitable business. Then what if every day I actually did something called mental contrasting where I saw myself as my old self not being able to build a profitable business? And what if I just tried to visualize what would it be like? What would it feel like? Who would I help? How much would I make? How would I serve other people? And then what if every day I took one small action step,

read one chapter of a book on building a profitable business, watch one video on YouTube on building a profitable business, read anything that I could just to level up my knowledge and skills, which will give me more confidence, more certainty, and more personal power that I'm now learning how to. Just doing those few things changes the entire neurological and physiological components of I can't. And that's the way you do it. I love this quote that you shared from one of your mentors where you said, what would you have to believe about yourself to achieve your goals? And I think there's a lot of things that people currently aren't believing about themselves that they could go in and, and audit and reassess and look at them. And also, I think, if you're being honest with yourself, you can recognize that there's probably not a lot of truth to whatever the statement is, I can't lose weight, you know, I'm, I'm always going to be fat,

I'm always going to be this, I'm always going to be that. If you're being logical, I think you could look at it and say, well, that doesn't really, that's not a great way to talk to myself, first of all. But secondly, if I'm being honest, I can probably make some changes to head in a better direction. Absolutely. One of my, again, one of my beliefs is in 2020, all of the how-to that we want is already here. Unless you're trying to figure out how to colonize Mars, you really don't need to be innovative. So how to have a great relationship, we know how. How to lose weight and keep it off, we know how. How to get better at jiu-jitsu, we know how.

How to build a podcast, a business. How to get healthier, happier, wealthier, we know all the how. The how is not the problem. There's only three other things that will step in our way from the how. So let's assume that knowledge and skills is an impediment or impediment to us achieving our success. We don't know the how. We know we can find that out. The first reason people will not take action is they have limiting beliefs. The second is self-image. They actually don't see themselves actually achieving that goal.

And then the third is fear. And there's 50 different types of fears that will hold people back. Those are the only four things holding people back. One of those four things, all of which we know exactly how to overcome. Can you talk to us about some of your techniques, unless this is all part of it, about priming your brain for success? Sure. When I wake up every morning, When I wake up every morning after my meditation, I do something called priming my brain. When I go into my bathroom, on my mirror are my goals.

Not just my goals, you know, for the year, but my goals for my life. So I have it laminated right on my mirror, and I do something called brush and prime. Why? Well, I know that when my brain sees those words, when I repeat those words, as I'm brushing my brain, I'm brushing my teeth, I'm getting my brain to focus on what I have chosen I want to trade my life for, for health, wealth, relationships, career, business, fun experiences, my vision, my goals, et cetera. And then if I sit down for a few moments and I prime my brain every single day, does that not give my brain an instruction that this is important to me?

Yes. Now, our brain works on a hierarchy of four things. Number one is survival. Number two is avoidance of pain or discomfort. Number three, which is the important one here, is conservation of energy. So anytime I repeat something over and over and over again, it doesn't make a difference if it's a physical move or a mental move. Anytime I repeat something positive, negative, constructive, destructive, empowering, disempowering, brain doesn't care. Our brain says, okay, you keep doing this every day, every week, every month. Our brain says, I'm just going to make this automatic. I'm going to create a pattern that actually

focuses on this automatically so you don't have to spend so much time doing it. But I do it anyway. I reinforce it. So I review it. If you were to look on my cell phone, if you were to go to my audio section of my cell phone, let me, I'll show you. You'll see a library, and on my library on my playlist is my ELB, my Exceptional Life Blueprint. blueprint. Not only do I take the goals and vision that I have and the beliefs required to achieve them, I record them and listen to them every single day. So I have visuals, I have auditory, I have kinesthetic materials to imprint language patterns onto my subconscious mind. So priming your brain is being deliberate about your software. Priming your brain is being deliberate about your software. Priming your brain is being deliberate about your focus, your attention, and then your behaviors. So if I can get my mental and emotional and physical aligned and working in synchronicity, I'm priming

my brain on all levels to be able to get this thing I call my body into action every single day. And how far out should those goals actually be though? Like how safe is it for me to write on the goals? I want to be a billionaire or whatever it may be, but instead, would it be safer to say, I want to make $100,000 a year in the next five years or by five years from now? I guess I don't want to say like, is it safer to hold yourself back? But like, how legit do these goals have to be? Or should they be? It depends on your knowledge, your skills, your awareness, and your ability to manage your emotions. So let's understand that when you set a goal that is a billion-dollar goal, and you don't have the

knowledge, you don't have the skills, you don't have the ability to manage your emotions, you don't have the ability to focus, you don't know the strategies, the tactics, a part of your brain is going to activate and go, bullshit. You're never going to achieve that. Now, if you don't understand that it's the Einstein part of your brain that chooses the vision and the goals, but it's your Frankenstein brain that's responsible to check what's going on at the deeper recesses of your mind and find any discrepancies between the goal and the vision and your knowledge, your skills, your beliefs, etc. If you don't understand what's happening

in your own mind, don't set that goal. Because if you recall, the number one priority is safe is survival. Number two priority of the brain is to avoid any pain or discomfort, which means any mental, emotional or physical or financial pain or discomfort, which means any mental, emotional, or physical or financial pain or discomfort. So when our brain feels and sees this discrepancy, it's going to trigger self-talk that is negative. It's going to trigger emotions that most people don't know how to manage. So for the untrained person, I say, don't set a goal that scares you so much that you're going to freeze. Set a goal maybe just outside your comfort zone where you say, okay, let me take a little bit of action. So it all depends.

Now, let me give you a simple example of somebody who sets a goal that they absolutely don't know how to achieve, but would change in two seconds. Let's say you set a goal for becoming a billionaire, and it's a far-fetched goal. You have no idea how to achieve it. You don't have the knowledge, you don't have the skills, you don't have the beliefs, you don't have the habits.

Zero. And what if a friend of yours says, wow, I really love that vision. My friend can get you on the phone with Richard Branson tomorrow, and he might be interested in being your partner. Do you all of a sudden have hope again? And the answer is yeah. In a nanosecond, you have hope again because all of a sudden somebody else has the knowledge, the skills and the money to maybe make it happen. So in a second, you can change somebody's physiology and you can change somebody's perspective and their emotions.

But for the untrained person, no, don't set a billion dollar goal unless you also know how to manage your state and what's going on within your ears and within your heart. We can end up beating ourselves up when we have some conflict, some internal conflict. We set a goal. We got the stuff written on the mirror. We're all fired up. We're excited. We're trying to do the best we can every single day. But what happens, you know, when you fall short? How do you personally, how do you work your way out of that? How do you work your way through that without, you know, having a lot of negative self-talk about yourself?

Practice. First and foremost, I try to operate as much as I can in a space of no blame, no shame, no guilt, no justification. Just operate from a space of I set a goal. I separate myself and who I am from the goal. So I surrender to that happening the way it does. Now, I always look at what could I have done differently in my approach? What can I have done differently in my behavior? So I'm always looking for the process instead of me as an individual. And even, you know, when my kids were young, I used to tell them, hey, listen, that behavior is not acceptable. You, I love. not acceptable, you I love. And so whenever we're looking at achieving a goal, if it's an achievable goal, and I didn't achieve it, I look to understand what caused me not to achieve it. If I took action, then something must have not been accurate in the actions that I took, because if my intention is pure in wanting to achieve it and my commitment is there, then what happened in the approach and in the behavior that I need to modify? Did I not act fast enough? Too fast? Was the strategy wrong? Were the tactics wrong? Did I not put enough time or energy? What happened? I try to analyze what happened. Whenever there's an effect, I never, ever, ever focus on the effect.

I focus on cause. So whenever we're looking at effect, everything in our physical world, everything is an effect. So the question is, effect of what? And the answer is the effect of my beliefs. Yes. Effect of my emotions. Yes. Effect of my habits. Yes. Effect of my behaviors. Yes. Yes. So I'm trying to look at what caused the effect that I didn't want. And I tweak there as opposed to focusing on the effect. Have you got caught up in it before? Have you gotten caught up in the stuff that you do being you? Of course. This is a, hold on a sec. I want to make sure that I'm a work in progress all the time, hence the practice, right? I've created some really good daily disciplines

to practice and to practice and to practice and to practice. You know what the martial art world says? I don't fear the man who's done, you know, 10,000 moves one time. I fear the man who's done one move 10,000 times. So everyday practice, everyday practice, everyday tweak and adjust and adjust and tweak. And it's just a never ending, it's a never ending game. We've been talking a lot about visualizing, focusing on the goals that you want to have, putting those things into action, a bunch of positives. Do you feel that

there's any type of strength in putting your mind to where you don't want to be or things that aren't going so well. And maybe framing that. I don't know. How would you go about that? Because some people talk about taking time to negatively visualize. Do you think there's any type of merit to anything like that? Without question. I think you can use fear as fuel. You can use something you do not want. So I'll give you an example. Many years ago, I don't remember when it was, I was talking with a friend of mine, Michael, and he was talking about all the regrets he had with his life. He was extremely successful financially, at the cost of his marriage, at the cost of relationship with his kids, at the cost of his health. Everything, you know, other than money was working well in his life.

And he was crying out of regret. And I remember saying, you know what? I won't sacrifice my children, my family, and my own health just to make more money. And at the time I was in my 20s, I was highly focused on making money. And I remember saying to myself that I'm not going to get into my 60s or 70s and not have the other important things in my life in place. And so I have used that for 35, 40 years as a negative. No fucking way am I prepared to have that and have a pile of cash. No way.

And so I've been challenged a few times in my life around, you know, working so hard to make money. 10 years ago, actually 12 years ago, I was 238 pounds, 33% body fat, hypertensive, borderline diabetic. I'm 198 now, you know, 12% body fat, in the best shape of my adult life, coming to my 60th birthday, feeling better than ever before. feeling better than ever before. I've got a killer wife, two great kids, really good harmony in my life because there's no way that I'm willing to sacrifice all the other stuff. So I use that, that negative possibility as a motivator for what I need to do, want to do, and I'm doing. So absolutely. And as far as these, I was also curious about this because you've, you've given us a lot here and I'm assuming that all of it's also an inner size too, but I look at this from, from the point of view of someone who's wanting to start, well, you've

talked about breathing, you've talked about all these different techniques you've talked, there's a lot that people can do. So let me ask you this. I'm just curious, how long do these practices, I know at this point, are they automatic for you? Do they still take you a while to go through these things each day? And for someone who's starting out, kind of where do they want to focus their attention initially? Sure. So the first place, before we get into the daily practices, one of the things that, career, business, fun, experiences, charity, spirituality, whatever it is. If you could design it any way so that you would feel alive, you would feel a sense of purpose, you'd feel a sense of meaning.

Do you have a clear picture of that in your head first? Most people don't. And so I said, well, why don't we start off with a vision that you don't yet know how to achieve? So let's dare to dream first. And let's say that's out three years or five years or 10 years or 20 years. It doesn't matter. But let's start off with a picture of what that is. No differently than if I asked people right now, you know, could you run 100 miles right now or jog 100 miles? The average person would say, no way. But what if I said, hey, let's start off with a vision that sometime, let's say three years from now, you're going to jog 100 miles.

Even though you may be out of shape, even though you may not be able to do it, you don't know what to eat, how much to rest, et cetera. not be able to do it. You don't know what to eat, how much to rest, etc. If we set the vision for three years from now, could we start today with creating a plan to get to that point? And the answer is yes. So let's start off with a vision. Then let's start off with some goals that get us towards that vision. We don't have to worry about the vision once we create it. We set a goal for that. And then we ask ourselves, what do I need to believe in order to make that vision and these goals a reality? What do I need to learn in order to make that

vision and these goals a reality? What habits do I need to create? Whose help do I need? See, if we reverse engineer the outcome, we could create whatever internal and external circumstances that we need in order to achieve the vision and the goals. And so once we have that, then we say, okay, great. Where do we start today? How do we get started? Let's forget about the complexity of the vision and the goals. Let's get into the simplicity of what can we do today to get going. Too many people are focusing on, well, I don't

have the knowledge, I don't have the skills, I don't have the money, I don't have the tools, I don't have the resources. I get that. But what do we have that we can start with? And so let's reduce, I call reducing it to the ridiculous, right? So what can I do today? What can I do tomorrow? What can I do the next day? Most people don't take enough time to think, which is the highest function of a human being. We need to sit, stop, imagine, think, and then plan and then execute. That's a process. Most people are just applying the wrong process. And we already know, as I mentioned before, we know how to achieve everything that

anybody who's listening or watching this, you know, wants right now. We already know the how to, that's the easiest part of the equation. So the key is stop, dream, imagine, get excited again, and then let's build the infrastructure starting off with your foundation. And then let's build up from there. A lot of what you're saying reminds me of the book, Think and Grow Rich, which, you know, that book was written a long time ago, has a lot of great ideas in it. But one of the ideas in there is about like planting a seed, you know, and it sounds like a lot of what you're mentioning is planting a seed. But what I liked about what you said, I think it was on Tom Bilyeu's podcast, is you mentioned something in the interview, and I think it was on Tom Bilyeu's podcast, is you mentioned something in the

interview, and I thought it was really interesting, when you told your dad that you loved him at the end of every conversation. So you can also plant a seed in someone else's head with ideas. It could be a loved one. It could be another relative. It could be an employee or something like that. Can you expand upon that a little bit? Absolutely.

And the story you're referring to is, you know, for most of my, you know, childhood, all my childhood up until, you know, I think it was 90 or 20 years old, my father never told me or my sister or my brother that he loved us. And I went to an event and at the event event I was angry that he never said that. And the instructor at the event said, well, have you ever told him you love him? And I said, fuck no. Why would I want to tell him I love him? He's never said that.

And I was defensive and angry and resentful and all the other stuff. He says, well, here's an experiment for you. Why don't you just share with him on one of your phone calls? I was living in Toronto. He was in Montreal. On one of your phone calls, just start telling him you love him. See what happens. So I mustered up the courage after weeks of pondering this, you know, to start telling him I love him. And then it was probably about a year.

I used to talk to him every week to him and my mom. And it was probably about a year, maybe it was two years before he blurted out of his mouth, you know, I love you. And then he started telling my brother and my sister, he loved them as well. And, and, you know, 40 years later, every phone call that I have with my dad, which is every day now he's still alive, you know, is he's the first to say, I love you. And so planted the seed, reinforce the seed, right? I tilled the soil of my own weeds in my own mind and my emotions i didn't expect any change from him i worked on me and my expectations and my behavior and changing the frames around um you know what happened what was interesting whoops what was interesting is when i asked him

you know um how come first of all he used to eat to beat the shit out of me. Go ahead and take your breaths. Let's see how you do it. There you go, 855, right there. Yeah, go ahead and do it for us. Give us an example. Great. So right now what I would do is I would just stop whatever it is I'm doing. I close my eyes, breathe in as slowly as I can in through my nose. We could do three right now. I focus on breathing into my diaphragm. So a lot of times when I'm teaching, I put my hand on my belly and one on my chest and I'll expand the airflow, okay, on my diaphragm first. And then my lungs. I'll hold it for one or two seconds.

And then I'll breathe it out as slowly as I can through my mouth, focusing all my attention on my lips. I'll do it again. One more time. and just even those three breaths i could just feel everything just decompressing that's inner size number one take six calm the calm the circuits first. Then I'll just shift. And a lot of times I'll have a piece of paper next to me. I'll write down, over the last half hour, where was my thought? Where were my thoughts? What was I feeling? You know, was I in a state where I was creative, productive, unorganized, distracted?

Which state was I in? What was I doing for the last 30 minutes? Because a lot of times we're just automatically behaving. And so state was I in? What was I doing for the last 30 minutes? Because a lot of times we're just automatically behaving. And so what was I doing? Was I being focused on the outcome that I want to achieve for the day? Or was I distracted doing something else? And that just gives me a chance to answer without judgment, blame, shame, guilt, or justification. Just awareness.

And it's in the awareness I can adjust. Now I adjust what's the next hour going to look like. I make the decision and then I get back to what I was doing. Do you feel bad if you ever miss one of those alarms? Like if you're in the middle of an exercise or something, because I'm just thinking like, dang, do you hit every single one? Like, you know, like what's your, what's your shooting percentage, you know, with your accuracy? What's your shooting percentage with your accuracy? It's probably 70%. However, just remember Pavlov's dog.

He trained the dog. He rang the bell, fed the dog, dog salivated. Rang the bell, fed the dog, dog salivated. Rang the bell, fed the dog, dog salivated. Hit the bell, the dog salivated. Every time that goes off, it's a trigger within my own brain to recalibrate. Nice. So I'm teaching myself to be unconsciously and consciously in a state of focus and awareness

and behavior. You know, you've mentioned also, obviously being aware, like, you know, 755, 855, you're bring yourself to be aware of what you just did in the last hour, right? When we talk a lot about like different things that high performing people do each day, a lot of people talk about meditation, etc. And you even mentioned that you got into that maybe 20 or so years ago. But a lot of these practices that you're talking to us about right now, like at 755, taking six deep breaths, bring your awareness to how you're feeling. That's an aspect of like meditation. So I'm curious, when looking at these actions,

do you think that still somebody meditating 20 or whatever minutes at the beginning of the day, along with doing these things, do you think that people need to worry about stuff like that? Because it seems like you're just doing it all day long, rather than some people, they just meditate in the morning and go about their day. Yeah. So there's a difference between meditation and mindfulness. So what I'm doing every hour is just being mindful, right? I'm bringing that state of awareness into each hour so that I can observe, I can direct each hour since I value time as one of the most biggest assets I have. Meditation is slightly different. It's a totally different state of consciousness. So we can mindfully meditate. But meditation is more for me around tapping

into the universal intelligence. And I have some frameworks in my own brain that involve, you know, my brain being electromagnetic switching station that I can tune into different frequencies like a radio can tune into 95.5 is rock and roll, and 95.6 is classical music, and 95.7 is punk rock, I could tune my brain into this universal intelligence and frequency through meditation. And so it also allows me to be hyper-focused where I can eliminate all thoughts and my body just disappears. And so I use meditation for one thing, I use mindfulness for another thing. And so whenever I think about this, again, I'm going to go to frameworks. And I asked people to answer this question,

where do you believe the most power is in a nuclear reaction or a physical reaction? In a nuclear reaction or a physical reaction? Nuclear. Nuclear. Chemical or nuclear? Nuclear. Great. So when I'm in a meditative state, I'm activating the nuclear potentiality within me.

So at a meditative state, I am the universe. The universe is me, and I am in this field and totally aware that everything and everyone is connected. Everything I need, everything I want is already here right now. That takes the boundary off of my physical body, takes the boundary off my mental, my emotional state. So I look at physical as one thing, mental and emotional as chemical, and then nuclear is when I'm in this meditative state. Okay. Now we're all excited about nuclear. Can you talk to us, in your book, Innercise, did you go into building a meditation practice? Because I would say that one of the most difficult habits that I myself have, like, I meditate every now and then, like multiple times a week, but I do find it difficult. And a lot of people find it difficult to build a daily practice because sometimes your

day just runs away from you. Like you wake up, you're like, ah, I gotta go. Then you just lose it for a little bit. So in terms of building that practice, is there a certain way that you have people go about it? Is there a certain type of meditation that you have people try to pay attention to? Is it something you do every day or is it most days of the week? Every day. So can you talk to us about, yeah. Every day, like breathing. Yeah.

Okay. So, so let's go back to how does our brain operate? And I would make you a bet that if you and I agreed that every morning when you wake up, if I could just get you to lay in your bed, and before you get up, before you go pee, before you do anything, all you do is give me one minute of focused attention on you being awake, eyes closed, and you're just breathing in and out. And after you did that, all you need to do is text me and say, John, I did my morning one minute meditation. Could you do that for one week? Yeah. Great. Let's start tomorrow. Let's you and I do a test. I'll give you my text so you can do this tomorrow morning. You give me one minute or better yet. We'll start today. I want you to do one minute. And if you don't want to do one minute, give me 30 seconds. If

you don't do 30 seconds, give me 15 seconds. Can you commit to that? Of course. Great. Next seven days, you and I are going to be texting and you're going to give me just a tech. John did my one minute meditation. Let's just focus on the next seven days. You can do that, right? You can be disciplined enough for one minute. Yeah. Good. And at the end of the week, if we did one more week, could you do that? Yes. At the end of that week, we said, let's try for two weeks. Could you do that? I could. Good.

So that means we could get 30 days under our belt if you just committed to one day. Now, here's what we know from the neuroscience. Give me 66 days, not 21, not 15. Give me 66 days on the minimum, 365 days on the maximum, and you will develop a habit that will then develop you so all of my students all of them commit to me for 100 days not for one week not for 30 100 days you commit to me for 100 days i'll change your life don't commit to me for 100 days do whatever you want because i can't help you so So if I could reduce it to the ridiculous, here's one of my beliefs. Okay? Here's one of my beliefs, gentlemen.

You are 100% disciplined to your current habits. Every human being is 100% disciplined. There's no human being that is not disciplined. It's bullshit. You're 100% disciplined to your current habits. Now, what we do know about developing new habits is that it takes 66 days to 365 days. So why set up an expectation that doesn't take into account how our brain works? Now, if you can give me one minute a day for the next hundred days, we can focus on the consistency first, the intensity and duration next. Give me a framework that I could win with and I will win.

If you say to me, do 30 minutes a day, like, who the fuck has 30 minutes a day? Right? 30 minutes a day on top of what I'm already doing? Are you out of your mind? No, give me one minute. And let's start replacing disempowering, destructive habits with empowering, constructive ones. Let's utilize what we know about our brain, what we know about our focus and our emotions to empower us versus disempower us. We have to set up frameworks that help us win versus help us lose. In all of your studies, have you come across, has somebody had a superpower over us that uh was famous or well known for their intellectual capacity uh or are we more the same than we are different like an albert einstein and

so forth yeah we're more the same than we are different every brain works the same there are anomalies of course but the structure of our brains work the same. And so when we become conditioned, they have done a lot of research on athletic abilities. And if they take, you know, children to say, okay, you're going to practice soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, soccer, the kids get really good at soccer. If you take a kid and say, you're going to practice chess, practice, practice, practice, practice, the kids get good at chess. So we have the capacity. I keep talking to people about the most powerful computer in the entire universe is our trillion-dollar bio computer. But we haven't been given the user's manual to have it work for us instead of against us.

And so when I wrote Innercise, it was the beginning to help people understand you already own the machinery. You have the hardware and the software. Use it just a little bit better and you'll be able to achieve your goals and dreams faster and easier than ever before. How is this machinery going to be optimized in the future? I've heard you talk a little bit about like virtual reality, maybe AI and some other things that will help us just process stuff a lot faster than we currently do? Well, the brain-computer interface is already here. So it's not a matter of, you know, is our brain and machine going to integrate? It's already happened, right?

And so we're going to be able to utilize not only our brain, but we're going to be able to tap into this universal intelligence and brain through prosthetics, you know, through the interface. If you think about 40 years ago, you know, we had phones in our homes with wires. You know, then we got cell phones that, you know, were in three pound boxes. And now we have mobile phones that are wireless. And now we've got 5G and now we have little mobile phones that are wireless, and now we've got 5G, and now we've got AI coming in, and artificial intelligence, and virtual reality, augmented reality, mixed reality. All of that gets integrated into this mind-boggling experience of humanity,

which brings people to a lot of different questions. Well, will it hurt us or harm us and it's going to have the ability to do both just like you can use your car to drive across the country and enjoy the ride you can use your car to kill somebody you can use a knife to cut a great steak or you can use a knife to kill somebody so with with all of the new technologies uh will come uh some great possibilities just like nuclear, and also some great challenges. You know, oh, go ahead. As I say, just going back really quick to the meditation.

And I know humans aren't great at multitasking, but if somebody wanted to dip their toes in, would they, I mean, could they be successful in practicing some mindfulness by, you know, doing your exercises and going for a walk? And that way, like, you know, like our short, you know, what's it called? Attention span. See, mine already disappeared. With all these screens, at least we can do something to keep ourselves busy enough to where we can focus on the mindfulness. Absolutely. So you could bring mindfulness into every moment. So just as I'm standing here, you know, and I moved my hands like this, I was aware that I moved my hands like this. As I'm standing here, I could be aware,

am I going at a fast pace or a slow pace? How are my feet situated right now? Am I balanced or am I leaning to one side or the next? Any time we practice awareness, whether it's our breath, our cadence, our physiology, we practice what's around me. How many different things do I have around me? Any time we practice awareness and we're aware that we're practicing, we are being deliberate. And so we reduce it to the ridiculous. You could walk in a mindful way by looking at the trees, by listening to the birds or even the cars. There's so many different ways that you can practice it. One of the things that's really important when we're practicing mindfulness is just to remember not to judge yourself or blame yourself or being

embarrassed or ashamed of what's going on. We have 50,000 thoughts a day, you know, that are percolating up from, you know, these recesses of our memory bank. And those thoughts are based on a lifetime of memories and cues. And so if we we're just aware and we let them go instead of judging them, and if we have automatic negative ones, we can much more present and in control of where we're heading versus being these rote robots that are just doing the things automatically based on our past and our brain wanting to just conserve energy and repeat patterns. You mentioned universal intelligence twice. The first time when you're talking about meditation, and then secondly, when you're talking about the prosthetics, I know a lot of people, including myself, are wondering exactly what you mean when it comes to universal intelligence and how

it applies to us. So, so can you explain that to us a bit? Sure. Um, so I was walking with my son in the morning yesterday, and we were walking on the beach, and he says, Hey, Papa, look over there. And I looked up over there, and there was the moon. It was daylight, and the moon was out. We were walking on planet Earth, on the western part of planet Earth in the United States, and the sun was on the other side of us. So the moon there, we're on planet Earth, the sun there. on the other side of us. So the moon there, we're on planet Earth, the sun there.

And the reason he pointed out to me because of all of sugar said, aren't you just blown away that here we are walking on planet Earth, and we got the sun 93 million miles away from us, the moon, you know, quarter of a million miles away from us. And there's this orderly perfection of all of it. And we're not spinning off of this planet Earth, even though we're spinning at dizzying speeds going through the galaxy at a million and a half miles per hour of the universe. And I asked him, I said, what, you know, what is making all of this happen? Like, what is the complexity and unimaginable intelligence that's allowing all of this to happen? What's allowing me, you know, 100 trillion cells with my DNA not unraveling apart? What is this intelligence that is making all of this happen and possible, right?

That the seasons are happening, the ebb and flow of the ocean. This intelligence is what we are. It's within us. It's what created everything. It's what makes everything happen. And so I want to consistently remember that everything that was ever created on this little blue planet that we happen to live on, humans, for the most part, let's forget the creator, whatever you believe to be true about that, whether it's Big Bang, God, whatever you call it, let's set that aside for now. But you have to agree that the intelligence that's all around us and within us is unbelievable.

us is unbelievable. So is it possible that whatever it is that created me is within me? Whatever it is that's keeping me alive, that's breathing me right now, okay, is within me. Every invention, every creation, every car, every electric car, self-driving car every human that we put on the moon or or rovers that we put on mars somebody used their brain to tap into the possibilities and created it from that intelligence have you ever been in the shower and you have this idea and oh my god it's a great idea and you don't take action on it but somebody somebody else takes action on it. And oh my God, they just became a multimillionaire. Where did that idea come from? I agree that there's some ideas that percolate up from our own consciousness, but we're also using this mental faculty called imagination. We tap into

the imagination, right? And we pull these different ideas to create cures for different diseases, right? So is it possible that this brain of ours that's been evolving for at least 1.2 billion years since we've walked on earth in from Homo erectus to now, is it possible that I can use this brain, this electromagnetic switching station, and tune in to the stations, the frequencies, the energy in formation, or I can take energy in its unadulterated state, and I can actually coalesce it into an idea, and then test and hypothesize that idea, you know, from the energy that's already here. If we are all energy and we're in this quantum soup and field of energy, we're not, it's

not like the energy field is out there and there's something else in here. We are in the soup. I love it. That's fantastic. Can you walk us through a little bit how you were able to lose weight and walk away from sugar? I heard on other podcasts, you talked about how you're not a one-cookie kind of guy. You're going to eat like 10 of them.

Oh, yeah. I have an addictive personality. So I gave up drinking alcohol 12 years ago also because I drank a bottle of wine a night and a couple of cocktails. So the first premise is I didn't lose the weight, I released it. So I have a passion for language patterns around what I say to myself. So if we think about weight, I was 238 pounds, which means I had in my particular case, 40 pounds extra calories or energy on me. And for whatever reason, you know, I looked at it as they served me, okay, those caloric kilojoules served me and protected me in whatever ways it needed to

and gave me whatever I needed to up until then. And then I said, okay, my vision is that I'm able to ski and have fun with my children, but also at one point, my grandchildren. So I was looking at what's going to happen in my 60s and 70s. And so I first set a goal to get into the best shape of my adult life for my 50th birthday. And I knew that that would be around 195, 198, which is my sweet spot between the way I want to look and feel. And so I cut out a picture of a guy's body in Men's Fitness Magazine. I took a picture of myself, stuck my face on his body. And I took somebody about my height, which is about six

foot two. And I put that up on my vision board in my gym. I also wrote out a little statement, I'm so happy and grateful for the fact that I am now 195 to 198 pounds, less than 12% body fat. And every day, I would look at that I would visualize it, I would see it. But then I also said, Okay, what is my routine going to be like? So in addition to having the picture and the visual, I said, okay, I'm hiring a personal trainer five days a week to get me started. And this personal trainer is going to come to my home. And in that case, back then it was a guy, he's going to just, he's going to put my plan together. I hired a nutritionist to put my meal plan together for myself just so I made sure that I had the right combinations of fat and complex carbs, etc.

And I got started with that process. And I just committed to them showing up in my house. At the time, I had severe sleep apnea as well. So I wouldn't sleep really well at night. And I would wake up some mornings and getting out of bed was work. I would be exhausted because I didn't sleep well. And so being overweight, hypertensive, sleep apnea, etc. was affecting my leptin levels. I got a process and an environment around me. And I started to get into better shape. I got stronger, I got, you know, greater ability for mobility, flexibility, stability, and I started to release weight. And in my mind,

I understood calories in calories out, I understood quality of food. And so I kept track of everything that I was doing, I was measuring what I was doing. So I could adjust every day, every week, every month. And for the first time in my life, I wasn't looking at going on a diet. That was the other really important piece. I was looking to change my lifestyle so that I could be healthier and feel better with more energy. And so instead of saying I'm going to be on a diet to lose weight, I said I was going to change my lifestyle to release the fat on my diet to lose weight. I said I was going to change my lifestyle to release the fat on my body, not weight, the fat on my body so that I can have the lifestyle

that I want. So the shift in my mind from what I tried before, because I had lost 250 pounds before. It was just 10, 15, 20 pounds at a time. I'd lose it, gain it, lose it, gain it, lose it, gain it, lose it, gain it. So it wasn't like diets didn't work, but diets don't work. I had to actually change my mindset around, I'm going to release the weight and keep it off. So the frame changed. And then I put the infrastructure in place to make the framework. I love, I love it. I appreciate that you sharing that story with us. Great. When you mentioning that story, it makes me so curious because when you talk about, I think you said it was 10 or 12 years ago, um, you were still wildly successful at that

point. I mean, I think you had like multiple, you've built multiple businesses. You were already wealthy. Um, so I'm, I'm curious. It's like what, before you got there, um, we, you were doing, were you doing a lot of the things you're talking about now or like what, what shifted or what did you learn that we got you to, okay, make the, uh, you know, make the change to, okay, I need to lose this weight. I need to keep it off and then transform to who you are now. Because even then,

even though you were out of shape, you were still wildly successful. Yeah. Something to keep in mind is energy flows where attention goes. So for a lot of my life, I focused on financial success and business success, and I just let my physical side go. And then, as I mentioned, I was drinking way too much alcohol. I was retired a couple of times. I was single. I've been married twice. Been married now for 15 years, together for 21 with my wife. So there's been times where different parts of my life

weren't getting the attention that they needed. So I was highly focused on business for many, many years and making money for many, many years. And I let my relationships go. I let my health go and developed some destructive habits, especially around alcohol. I was drinking for probably six, seven, eight, ten years after a very challenging time in business,

a business partnership breakup with a very challenging time in business, a business partnership breakup with a very dear friend of mine. I started drinking way too much and started, like I said, consuming a bottle of wine a night. You're not going to lose weight or release weight drinking a bottle of wine a night. No way. Especially if you start off with a couple of cocktails before that and then having dessert right after that. And so I had to realize that my drinking was an effect of suppressing some emotions that I had around my business partnership. The sugar addiction was totally different. But I was eating sugar. But then when I gave up alcohol, I ate more sugar, my brain was just craving the sugar. And for people like me who happen to have

a personality where it's all or nothing, otherwise known as addictive behaviors, there's actually only one antidote to that. And that is 100% abstinence. You mentioned previously being abused as a kid. And did you have to, um, did you have to go through any other process to tell your dad that you love him? Or were you able to just take that advice and just to say that at the end of a phone call? Um, the awareness that I came to, I didn't have to go through any other process other than, um, in some of the, uh, trainings or events that I went to in my 20s, we did a lot of mental work and reframing work and reframing stuff. But then also, you know, I learned how to communicate with my dad. Like, I remember asking, like, why did you used to beat me so hard?

And he says, what do you mean? I said, Dad, you used to kick me. You used to strap me with a belt. You used to punch me so hard. And he says, what do you mean? I said, Dad, you used to kick me, you used to strap me with a belt, you used to punch me. Like, why did you? I was a kid. He goes, because I wanted you to be a good boy. I said, but why didn't you talk to me? He goes, what do you mean talk to you? Talking to you wouldn't have helped you. And I realized that's what his father did to him to comply. So his belief system and what he learned from his father was that when a child was bad, you hit the child to comply. And I don't know if I shared this on one of the sessions we did, but I remember I was about 10, 11, 12 years old.

One day, I went to pet my dog, Caesar, German Shepherd, and my dog was just flinching like this, like, oh, my God, he was afraid of me. And I realized I would hit my dog to get my dog to comply. If my dog did something wrong, I would spank him, okay, really hard until I realized, oh, my God, my best friend was afraid of me. And I stopped that day. But I realized, I don't know where the awareness came from, but I realized, you know, at a very, very young age that I was doing to my dog what my father did to me. And my father, you know, he said to me, he never apologized. He said, I just wanted you to be a good boy. Because at the time, I was getting into so much trouble as a kid. I mean, nonstop trouble, which got worse and worse and worse and worse

until I was 17 years old. And I was either going to jail or the morgue at that time. And but he was just doing his best to try to get me to comply so that I would be a good kid. And that I would have the best chances. I would have the best chances to succeed. Thank you so much for your time. Where can people find out more information about you? Where can they find some of these amazing books? I know you have the Neuro Gym as well, where people can really build up and strengthen their mind. achieve goals is called having it all. If anybody wants to build a successful business, my New York times bestseller,

the answer is a great book for that. I'm on Instagram. I've got a Facebook fan page. I'm on Twitter and johnassref.com or my neuro gym.com. Yeah. Thank you so much. That was a great, that was some really awesome, fantastic information.

Thanks again. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you. Thank you so much. And you better great, that was some really awesome, fantastic information. Thanks again. Have a great rest of your day. Thank you so much. And you better text me tomorrow morning. You are doing your one minute training and being serious. Oh, seven days get you on a roll. Oh, okay. I'll get your number from these guys. I'll give you my number. You're on for seven.

You're not getting out of this. Are you interested or are you committed? I'm committed you email me today i'll give you my phone number and starting today or tomorrow morning we're starting seven days you watch what happens got it we'll do thank you sir all right bye guys incredible that was that was amazing wow dude that's so good really really good information and just uh you know he hit he hit so many different things it was uh i know we were ping-ponging all over the place there but uh i just wanted to make sure we got as much in as we could we'll have to have him on again because

i think there's still you know still a lot more to a lot more to cover he went over the basics went over the basics he went over a lot of the basics of how you can deal with it. But again, what I admire about someone like that is he's somebody who has to utilize these strategies himself. I also like the fact that I heard in previous interviews

that somebody asked him if he felt he was missing anything at the moment, and he said no. And I don't see enough of that out there. I feel like people are walking around feeling very incomplete. And it's not like that's not a good feeling. It's not a good way to. And I know people that are successful, not successful. And they're both kind of both feel the same way. And, you know, part of this podcast and part of my goal is to help people not feel that way because that's a shitty way to feel that you don't have everything within you as he already explained to us. It's all right there.

Yeah. No, it's great how much direct applicable information that we got from him, especially something as basic as breathing, which we've talked about a lot on previous podcasts. We had Patrick McEwen on and it's, you know, at a certain point when enough guests voice the same type of thing, you start to realize how important is Phil DeRue was talking about the importance of it. Huberman was talking about the importance of it. So, you know, if you're a listener and you haven't really paid attention to your breath on a daily basis as far as exercising daily. We at this point know that that's a basic thing that you got to get a handle of. Yeah, I think breathing is important because I think it can literally lower your blood pressure and it can literally calm you down. But I think what it really does, it just gets you to stop.

It just gets you to stop and to slow down. I heard a really good definition for mindfulness the other day that I thought was really cool. And you're just going to keep hearing that word. I mean, it's become more popular in the last few years. But he mentioned something in his own conversation or in this interview, he mentioned detaching himself from his goals. Like the goal is just the thing. You know, the goal is the thing and it's not him. It's his pursuit of the goal. So there's no reason to really feel bad about not getting there.

And there's no reason to feel great about getting there. It's just all you did is follow a map, you know. And the way that he navigates the map is interesting because he has a lot of strategies and like that one with the physique part that was like, this kind of reminded me of like when you're a little kid and you try to go through a maze with your pen and you're like, oh shit. And you went the wrong way already. And then you start on the other side of it.

Right. And you start at the end. And so that's kind of what he did. He had the end result in front of him. But mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment on purpose with an attitude of non-judgment. And that's the hardest part is to kind of be in the present moment and not particularly judge yourself one way or the other. Let's just say you feel like enjoying the day and drinking and having some food that you like, it's kind of hard, even if it's your birthday,

if you're into fitness and you're trying to get a better body, where you're like, you know, I know these foods are quote-unquote bad, so then therefore you feel bad about it. And I know in more recent times people are like, hey, let's just not look at it as good or bad. And that's a that's a great that's a great, great way to do it. But it is difficult to get yourself there to where you're not looking at it as good or bad as just is. But it does take a lot of practice.

It takes a lot of practice to to do all that. And then even with abuse, you know, his childhood abuse, he kind of learned that, you know, that was his dad's way of communicating. At least that was his interpretation of what his dad was doing. Maybe there was something else at play or something as well, but that was the way he interpreted it. And he was able to move on from there. Yeah. Yeah. You've mentioned that you would write like your, your lifting goals on, your lifting goals on the mirror all the time. Was there ever a time where you yourself were like, ah, this is stupid? And then all of a sudden one day it clicked and you started believing in it?

Or did you always just kind of like, yep, this is the goal and I'm going to write it down and I'm going to make this shit come true? No, I never thought it was stupid, really. I was always interested in it. And that was interesting to hear him say interested or committed because I would kind of argue on some of that point. But I don't want to argue with somebody that's giving us all this great information. But I would argue that your commitment level is high because you're interested enough. Because ultimately, I think there's something about a human being that is super selfish and super self-centered. And you always are going to gravitate towards whatever that thing that you think it is that's going to make you badass. I think that you're going to really gravitate hard towards it.

And it's just, you know, these are just words. So who really cares on how he says it versus how I say it. But I always felt like, you know, if I was able to see the goal, if I was able to write it down, that I was able to do it because it was I was usually, it wasn't, it wasn't far off. You know, I don't, I don't remember like, you know, squatting 800 pounds and then writing out that I was going to squat 1100 pounds. You know, I, when I did 800, I was like, wow, I can see how that's definitely possible that I could squat 850 or 900, you know, and then 900 maybe became the goal once I did like nine or 825 or something like that. And then 900 maybe became the goal once I did like 825 or something like that. So usually it was like I had some things that would happen that would get me a little closer to those goals.

And I proved to myself over and over again that I was able to, if I was able to increase strength that way and it was going up, like why couldn't I keep going? So I would usually write stuff down that I was a little closer to. When it comes to money, I didn't write stuff out like that on a mirror, but I've written it out before. I've talked about the $27.50, you know, trying to make that amount of money per day or whatever. But again, I was close to it. You know, I was close to it before, you know, before, before it, um, it wasn't like I didn't have anything, you know, I had the slingshot at the, at that time. So I knew I was going to be able to get there basically. You know, what you just said about, um, if you're interested enough, you're going to be committed. I think that kind of hit the

nail on the head because I think of direct times where this like kind of idea has happened. For example, there was a time that I was committed to deadlifting 800 and then I started jujitsu and then that interest level just started kind of getting higher than my commitment to deadlifting 800. And then the, the, the commitment switched to me now being interested. I mean, being interested in deadlifting 800 but committed to certain goals that i had in jujitsu which led me more down that way you know there's a lot of things that i do that i'm interested in that i that i do but there's a lot of things also that i do that i'm committed to right i mean because i just have a way higher interest level than that

at the point i would say that the problem with commitment is uh is uh forcing yourself that's the problem with commitment like i'd rather be uh tony robbins talks about being like pulled rather than pushed you know you're pulled towards something you were pulled towards jujitsu which you're just like ah i don't mind letting go of this other this other thing you're you're 800 at that time was something that you would have to push towards. And you're like, ah, 755, I ripped it up pretty nice. That's pretty cool. I'll get back to that 800 some other time. Which you will do at some point.

At some point. You'll do that. Yeah. Might have to gain a couple LBs, though. That'd be interesting. I'd like to stay where I am. Come on, bro. I think I could stay where I am. Come on, bro. I think I could do where I am.

Come on, man. Let's go to 260. Come on. Let's get you a little fluffy. Yes. I don't need that face back. You could do it. You could do it at this body weight, but it would be easier to fluff up.

It would be easier. It would be much easier. Oh, man. But, hey, the way he talked about meditation there that was um that was a much more different way than i've heard other individuals talk about how deep and how important meditation is it's like he when we we always think we got to take so much time with everything yeah you can't do it until you have tons and tons of time for i was i have a book that i've been reading it's kind of one of those books that you don't need to you don't you don't need to read every page of it.

You can kind of just open it up. And it was a book, actually weird. It got sent here to whoever previously was in here. But I found the book to be super useful. And then that makes me want to read it even more. Because I'm like, this thing fell into my hands in some weird way. What's it called? Yeah, that's cool. I'd have to think about it for a moment about what the

hell it's called. He hasn't read the cover yet. Yeah. I haven't gotten to the cover of it yet. The book is about just like really like forward thinking and the book is like half the book is written one way and then you get to the other half of it, and it's flipped over the other way just because the guy is just different. He thinks differently. He's got – anyway, I was looking at it the other day. I was like, I don't really read. I was like, well, you don't have to read the whole book right now. There's no law that's preventing me from reading it. And

there's no law that says I have to read five pages or 10 pages. I could just read half a page or one page if I want. So I just was like, fucking don't be an idiot. Just goddamn read the book for a little bit. You know, you're interested in the information that's in there. So I started reading it and I, I didn't read that much, but I read like five or six pages, which for me is kind of a lot. So I was like, cool. And now the book's just kind of sitting there and I'll poke at it here and there. But, you know, why do we do that? Why do we always think that we need to have this major time commitment to stuff, you know, and rather than, you know, we talk about like intermittent fasting, right?

Why not intermittently fucking do everything so you can get to everything in a day? Just the 10 minute walk is a great example. Like just freaking go. And it's, it's just an arbitrary number. It could be a three minute walk, but just go, go move around a little bit as the message and do it frequently. Yeah. Yeah. One thing, like I'm the same way. Like I, I've been saying, like, I can't read, like people are like, Oh, you can't read. Like, no, I can read. Like I'm literate, but like I can't like read and like retain information and stuff. So one of my like goals is just to get better at it.

And what I've noticed, and I've said this in the past, like I'll read a line or whatever. My mind is somewhere else. I'm reading the entire thing, but my mind is gone. else. I'm reading the entire thing, but my mind is gone. What has helped me a ton, and I mean, like, total game changer to where, like, I can read now is I just like, like a podcast, just like whatever it may be that something that you're studying, I will have my book and then the notepad right next to it because my mind will focus on one line and then I'll start thinking about something else. Wherever my mind goes, I write one line and then i'll start thinking about something else whatever wherever my mind goes i write that down and then i'm like cool i can stop thinking about

that and focus back focus back on the book it's i mean i don't know if this is a practice that's been known but like i just discovered it and it's it's a huge game changer some people go old school with a highlighter i know stan efferting he still has a highlighter when he reads his books and then you kind of draw over it and you see it again and you read it again you're like oh that's a fucking good one you know you kind of sometimes you might write it down even yeah so like i was trying the highlighter thing or method but i would it would just i would highlight it and it would disappear like i would never go back to it i would never have an idea what that thought was but now with an actual book like i have a notebook where like I actually have like each page kind of like how Tim Ferriss has like a table of contents. Yeah.

You know, so like for right now, page one is jab, jab, jab, right hook. Like that's what I'm reading right now. And, you know, page two, I'm like titling stuff and I'm keeping things as organized as I can so I can try to retain all the information. So that way I have a reference book to go back to, to what I was, you know, thinking or what I thought was important with a highlighter. I would just kind of do it just to like, okay, fuck, that's cool. And never go back to it. Now I actually have something that I can actually Google search inside of my brain and find it. Huge help.

I just wanted to let that technique be out there because I know it's helping me a ton. And I know there's other people that are just like me because they've told me on social media that they don't like to read either. And, you know, asking about Scribd and other audio books and stuff. So I know that's going to help. Sorry. I hope it helps a lot of people. No, it will. Because that's going to help uh sorry i hope it helps a lot of people no it will because that's super smart like even when i'm reading like i'll be sitting down reading and like my mind will wander

you know my mind will wander to something else that i like literally that has nothing to do with the book and if i had something right by me to write that down and just like get it out of my head i could come back to it later but because i'm like because the mind is just like so freaking you know and it likes to go everywhere yeah i'm thinking about that while reading and it slows like first off it takes away my attention and then it slows down my reading because that's that makes so much sense dude i'm gonna start doing that too it's cool dude and then um like for yourself or maybe even some of your clients do you practice a lot of like writing goals down because i don't think i've heard you mention it uh i wouldn't be surprised if you did but like i know mark for sure definitely has done that i mean i've literally seen his like

his uh composition books full of like goals and shit like like insane stuff like he used to write meathead millionaire on the cover and then one day i noticed it was scratched out and it's a meathead billionaire yeah i know that was i, Ooh, that got me fired up. Oops. And so I was curious. I don't know. Do you ever do any of those practices? I like, I journal a lot.

I encourage people to journal. It's something that it's, uh, it just like when you're reading and you're writing things down, it's kind of like that because it gets things out of your head because during the day, everyone will notice that you just have things that you're thinking about that come to mind and then you forget it or it's something that you're stressing about. But if you write it down and you put it down somewhere so you can come back to it, then it's just it's less stress. So it's it's it's so it's so helpful to build that practice. And that's why I'm going to grab this dude's book literally once we get off. I'm going to Amazon and I'm going to grab that book just because like, like I just like the practices he has in there.

And then also he mentioned something that I think it's kind of obvious, but it's something that just, you know, we should pay attention to. He was like, I think Mark asked how much, how he got good at it, or I don't know what you asked, but you just said practice. Like with anything else, with anything that like the answer is so simple, you just got to do it consistently. Yeah. I kind of asked him if he ever gets like kind of screwed up and like off track and doesn't

hit some of it. And he's like, he laughed, you know, he's like, yeah, of course. Like I screw up all the time. Yeah. I like that. He, he made it a point to say like, there's no judgment, You know, don't overjudge yourself and don't be so critical. Like, you know, he did one of his hourly practices and he missed the next one because he was still on with us. And, you know, he didn't, like, get frustrated

or anything. Yeah, it makes sense, you know, when you're already trying to be better, you know, so the goals that you wrote out, the things that you, if you fall a little shy of them, you can just, um, you can just analyze them like a game plan. And you can also just look at it and say, you know, I probably just wasn't that like the 800 pound deadlifts is a great example. There's things that you're just going to leave behind. There's things that you're just not going to, for whatever reason, you're just not going to ever get to them.

And, you know, maybe there's too many other distractions or maybe there could be a lot of reasons for it. But, you know, I tried for a 600-pound bench. It just didn't happen. The frustrating part for me is I think at one point I was strong enough to hit a 600-pound bench. I just never actually did it. But there's just things.

I strived for it. I ended up with a 578 bench. I don't feel too bad about that. I feel pretty good about that. That seemed pretty strong for me at the time. And it was all about progress. It's just about making progress, and making that progress was fun. And missing 600 pounds doesn't make any of the things that happened any less impactful.

It was still great. I fucking love powerlifting. I'll always love it. I'll still bench squat and deadlift, you know, until my body won't allow me to do it again. And so I think that for some reason we kind of think like, oh, man, if I, you know, set these goals and I fail, you know, you think all these bad things are going to happen. And then I know a lot of people that set some goals and they fall shy of them and they feel horrible. And it's like, well, don't feel bad. Just try to figure out a way to get back on your horse.

You know, we see it so much. I mean, nutrition just always comes to mind because there's just so many people that struggle with it. There's just so many people that struggle with it. I was just thinking about it more recently, and I've said on this show many times about the convenience. You know, we have so much convenient junk food, but we have so much convenient good food, too. There's so many meal prep companies. There's so many personal trainers. There's so many.

If you're looking for things that are more on the side of being free, there's more influencers now. You can just follow people. There's famous people that talk often about Kevin Hart talks about fitness quite a bit. I mean, there's a lot of people that you can just follow. He was out of shape a couple years ago. Now he got in great shape. He seems to be pretty busy. You know, he seems like a guy who's got a lot of work ahead of him every day. So and then maybe, you know, maybe that's not your flavor.

Maybe you want to follow somebody else. But there's a lot of access. You know, there's a lot of there are convenient foods that are bad for you, but there's convenient foods that are good for you. Now you're starting to see more and more of that. And so I just see too many people just beating the crap out of themselves and feeling crappy. And again, feeling crappy is a choice that you make. You wallow in that. You sit in that.

It doesn't matter how tragic or how crazy a situation is. It does make more sense to cry over somebody dying than it does crying because you spilled your protein shake in the morning. You know, it like we can, we can all understand that. But still, it's always a choice. And it has to do with what your value assignment is to that thing. If your value assignment is the same to your protein shake as it is to your loved one that died, then you're probably going to cry about the protein shake spilling every single time as well. What if it's a Keto pro mixed with heavy cream though that's you know it's the worst when you

get it all set up and you have like all the right mixture of everything and then it just explodes everywhere for some reason i remember making a protein shake like to drink on my like commute and stuff and then i get in the car halfway down you know on the freeway and like ah i forgot it son oh that's the worst dude this happened last week it wasn't a protein shake though it was a steak i made it i took it off i put it in a plate let the plate on the counter picked up the plate stepped tripped steak falls to the ground i look at it i pick it up dust it off and i eat it okay i ate it yeah but i felt so sad the instant that i just saw it hit the ground and all the juices splashed everywhere i just looked at it for a little bit and i was like okay let's do this did you see the uh i'm not even i don't know who posted it where i even saw it but it was but it was like a security camera, like a ring security camera or whatever,

showing a guy walking with a full tray of McDonald's sodas, like two bags full of McDonald's food or whatever. He trips on the stairs. The food goes everywhere. He kind of saves one or two of the drinks, but he's so frustrated, he just grabs them, throws them, and leaves everything on the ground and walks in the house. Yep. It's like, oh, that's probably the worst day ever. I haven't seen that, but

that sounds good. It's so good. Because you can just feel the frustration. I saw another guy, so there's those cameras, right? I saw another guy he got shot at. It was like a drive-by shooting. Holy shit. And the guy's like,

I don't know, like DoorDash or something, right? The guy's with like DoorDash and he's like, he's at the front door. He hears these gunshots, like six or eight of them. You hear him. And he kind of like crouches down

and he hears a couple more and he like gets all the way down on the ground. And then he stands back up and he looks and the car's not there anymore. And then he takes his phone and puts his phone out in front of him and like touches a couple of buttons on there and then puts the food down. And then he took off. And they asked the guy, they were like, oh, he rang the doorbell.

And the guy's like, I'm just trying to deliver your food. Because the guy on the side of the house obviously heard the gunshots as well. And then they caught up with this guy, and they asked him, and they're like, why did you still deliver the food? He's like, I was right in front of their house. Hey, that's a doordash guy you want. Yeah, he's like, well, I'm supposed to take the food myself. Here we go.

Oh, is this the guy tripping? Yeah. Oh, God. Man, I hate these son of a... There we go. Oh, God. Man, I hate these. Son of a... There we go. Oh. Oh. Is that his own...

It looks like his own place, yeah. Yo, that sucks. That's the worst part. You're so excited. You're like, ooh ooh I'm about to eat about to eat about to eat and everything just

you know he went back out too and like you know got it all together and stuff probably he was like I can still eat all this he only spilled the drink that's what I was gonna say

like everything was still in the bag like yeah it might be a little messy now like you know but he fucking booted it too he straight punted it cause he was so upset

it's worse when you cook a good meal like when you you spend time making a good meal and then it all just falls out of the ball bowl and you just can't eat it that's that's the worst that's the absolute worst how did we get here from this i don't know but that's a great podcast it's still a great podcast but it's just funny where we go what's funny when we start and the guest you know that joins the uh zoom call why are you talking about dicks only every time it's oh shit we got to be serious yeah we end up talking about dicks a lot well because of the hot dog thing hey yo i gotta find you that video i'm gonna find it right after

this podcast did you hear the thing yeah you know what hey yo yeah all right chris you know i'll find it for you man it's so good i i couldn't stop laughing at that oh i'll find it what's wrong with us i don't know i don't know children just yet you'll never catch me eating a hot dog here man ever. Ever. You know what I'm going to do? One day I'm going to bring hot dogs to the team. Just watch. Just watch, everybody. Have a mouth camera.

Yep. We can do that. I got in my piece on your tongue. There we go. Hot dogs and mayo. Or ranch. We should bring hot dogs to the team. Trap them.

Not ranch. All right, Andrew. Take us on out of here, buddy. All right. Apologies, everybody. I know that just took a nice little downturn. But thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode. Please make sure you're following the podcast at Mark Bell's Power Project on Instagram, at MB Power Project on Twitter.

My Instagram is at IamAndrewZ. And Seema, where are you at? I am Seema Inyang on Instagram and YouTube. I am Seema Inyang on TikTok and Twitter, Mark. At Mark Smelly Bell. Strength is never weak. This weakness is never strength. Catch y'all later.

Power Project Crew, I told you you guys are going to love this one. If you guys do like this one, please reach out to us. Let us know what practices you are going to start utilizing every single day. Breathing, meditation, whatever it is, just hit us up. Right now, we want to give a huge shout out to The Great Gassy. The Great Gassy on iTunes says the truth, quote, great guests, great points of view, a hub of fitness and nutrition education. Thanks a lot, dude. I'm assuming you're a dude because I can't imagine a chick wanting to name herself that. But we sincerely appreciate that,

man. Thank you so much for that huge compliment. And just really leaving ratings and reviews on iTunes is a huge help. So thank you so much for that. If you're listening right now, if you'd like to hear your name right on air, please head over to iTunes, drop us a rating and a review, and you could hear your name on air, just like our friend, the great Gassy. We'll catch you guys on the next one. Peace.