The Dangerous Power of Old Stories You Keep Replaying

Have you ever caught yourself thinking, “I thought I’d be further along by now”? That one thought can quietly rob you of your peace, your joy, and your progress. In this episode, I’m sharing a message that hit me hard—and I know it’s going to resonate with you. We’re talking about the weight of yesterday—how comparison to your past or to where you thought you'd be can keep you stuck in a loop that doesn’t serve you. But here's the truth: your past isn’t a life sentence. It’s a lesson. And most of the time, we’re not even remembering it right. I walk you through why your brain is constantly editing your memories and how those stories you keep replaying may not be 100% true. More importantly, I give you a roadmap for breaking the cycle—because if you don’t challenge the story, you’ll keep living it. I also share how I reframed my own story with my dad and what I learned by choosing the meaning I gave to my past instead of letting it define me. You’ll get four specific tools you can start using right now—like “future-focused journaling” and “mental rehearsal”—to shift your state and take control of your story. Because the second you align your thoughts and your actions, you start creating real momentum. And momentum? It beats memory every time. Let’s make a decision together—to stop asking “Why did I do that?” and start asking “What’s next?” You don’t owe your past an apology. But you do owe your future a shot. So grab the pen. It's time to write a new chapter. Key Takeaways: Why comparison to your past or expectations keeps you stuck The truth about memory and how it’s often inaccurate How to use “mental rehearsal” to rewrite your inner narrative Four practices to shift from rumination to creation The mindset that unlocks real momentum and growth Your story isn't over. But the next chapter? That’s yours to write. Max out. 👉 SUBSCRIBE TO ED'S YOUTUBE CHANNEL NOW 👈 → → → CONNECT WITH ED MYLETT ON SOCIAL MEDIA: ← ← ← ➡️ INSTAGRAM ➡️FACEBOOK ➡️ LINKEDIN ➡️ X ➡️ WEBSITE Get my exclusive Monday Motivation training in GrowthDay, the world’s #1 app for advanced mindset and personal development. Visit https://growthday.com/ed. This show is sponsored by GrowthDay. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Ed Mylett?

  So hey guys, listen, we're all trying to get more productive and the question is, how do you find a way to get an edge? I'm a big believer that if you're getting mentoring or you're in an environment that causes growth, a growth-based environment, that you're much more likely to grow and you're going to grow faster. And that's why I love Growth Day. Growth Day is an app that my friend Brendan Burchard has created that I'm a big fan of. Write this down, growthday.com/ed. So if you want to be more productive, by the way, he's asked me, I post videos in there every single Monday that gets your day off to the right start. He's got about $5,000, $10,000 worth of courses that are in there that come with the app. Also, some of the top influencers in the world are all posting content in there on a regular basis, like having the Avengers of personal development and business in one app. And I'm honored that he asked me to be a part of it as well and contribute on a weekly basis, and I do.

• 0:45Ed Mylett?

  So go over there and get signed up. You're going to get a free, tuition-free voucher to go to an event with Brendan and myself and a bunch of other influencers as well. So you get a free event out of it also. So go to growthday.com/ed. That's growthday.com/ed. I hear so many small business owners say the exact same thing. They just never have enough time in the day. Well, I measure time differently. I've compressed, condensed, heck, I've bent time. My first day is 6:00 a.m. to noon. My second day starts at noon and goes till 6:00 p.m. And my third day, 6:00 p.m. to midnight. I now get 21 days a week. Stack that up over a month, over a year, over five years, and my life's completely different than it would have been otherwise. And if you want to win as an entrepreneur, you have to compress your time too.

• 1:30Ed Mylett?

  And you definitely can't afford to waste it waiting weeks on a big bank for capital. Your best bet's to work with my friends at Cardiff. They know how to compress time for entrepreneurs. They get your business approved in minutes and funded the very same day. They're America's favorite small business lender, and for good reason. Over 20 years in business, over 12 billion deployed to small business across America. Stop letting bank delays slow down your momentum. Head to cardiff.co/ed. That's cardiff.co/ed. Cardiff.co. Real growth, fast funding. Cardiff, borrow better.

• 2:08Speaker 01

  This is the Ed Meyer Show.

• 2:11Ed Mylett?

  All right, welcome back to the show, everybody. So this week's show is very important to me. I really want you to lean in and consider some of the things I'm going to talk about there. I'm going to challenge some of your conventional thinking as well. But if you buy into what we're talking about here today, I think it can really impact your life in a positive way. So let me ask you a question. Have you ever had the thought? You know, I thought I'd be further along by now. Did you hear that thought? Like you just kind of think, I thought I'd be further along. I thought I'd be more successful. I thought I'd be happier. I thought I'd be richer. I thought I'd have a better relationship. No matter how old you are, you could be 18, listening to this, or you could be 78. You ever had that thought? Because I have. In fact, a few weeks ago, I was really ruminating on, I thought I would have helped more people by now.

• 2:54Ed Mylett?

  And it's a really debilitating thought. Because comparison is the thief of joy. Maybe you've heard that before. And we compare to other people. We compare to, you know, certain situations. But two of the most insidious types of comparison that are never talked about is comparing to your past.

• 3:14Ed Mylett?

  Or comparing to what you think is possible. And so today, we're going to talk about the weight of yesterday. And that's really what I'm calling the podcast, the weight of yesterday, meaning the weight of comparing to a previous time in your life, a previous relationship, a previous career, a previous level of bliss or happiness in your life. You could be in a relationship with somebody and you're comparing it to a previous time in your relationship, like when you first started dating. And that will steal your joy. And one of the biggest weights is comparing it to the ideas you had in your life in the past of where you would be by this point. I've never heard anybody talk about that before, and I want to talk about it with you today.

• 3:55Ed Mylett?

  Because it's a debilitating thought, and it can be one of the things that's holding you back. If you have this unconscious thought, I thought I'd be further along, you're really not present. It certainly isn't good for your self-confidence. It's not good for your identity, but just the very thought of, I thought I'd be further along by now, takes you to the past of thoughts you had about this time. And takes you out of the current moment, and it certainly takes you out of the future. And so let me hit you with something really wild. You ready for this? This is the part that's going to challenge your thinking. Most of the memories we hold on to, the ones that keep us up at night or shape how we see ourselves. They're not even accurate. And I know that sounds dramatic, but it's actually true. Our brains, they really don't work like videos. Our brains work more like kind of an editor of a video.

• 4:41Ed Mylett?

  And so what they do when we have a memory is they sort of create a video or a thought in our mind that's not even accurate. So it kind of remixes a little bit. It rewrites things, it cuts it because it's also comparing that video to previous times in your life. So this may sound crazy, but many of your memories aren't accurate. They're within a ratio of accuracy, but they're not completely accurate. And so if those aren't accurate, neither were these delusions or dreams you had at one point of where you'd be by now. What if the truth of the matter is you're exactly where you're supposed to be in this moment right now? And that really the things that you remember about your past, although I know you're sure it happened exactly the way that you think it did.

• 5:22Ed Mylett?

  I can tell you that all of the data psychologists, neuroscientists, et cetera, will tell you that our memories are not completely accurate. And I know that's crazy, especially when you argue with somebody about something that happened. You're like, you're completely sure. But I'm telling you, it gets edited, it gets remixed. And so if that's not accurate, neither is the idea that you'd be further along by now. You're right where you're supposed to be. The question isn't that you'd be further along by now in your happiness or your relationships or your finances. The question is truly, can you learn from the past and make it more accurate? And can you create a compelling future from here? But if you ruminate all the time, I thought I'd be further along. I thought I'd be happier, or you're holding on to these memories and replaying these videos of this happened to me,

• 6:07Ed Mylett?

  this situation of the past. It creates an impossible situation to create abundance in your life going forward. And so I think one of the invisible things that's holding many people back is exactly this. It's holding on to a comparison of a previous time in your life or comparing to where you thought you'd be by now. There's a psychologist named Elizabeth Lofis, and she's very interesting. She spent decades proving memory is reconstructive. She showed that with just a little bit of suggestion, people can be convinced that they remember things that really never happened or didn't happen exactly the way. They think they did. I was talking with my sisters not too long ago about a couple of situations that had happened in our home.

• 6:48Ed Mylett?

  And I have three sisters, there's four of us total, but three of us are around the same age. And then I have a younger sister and the three of us are around the same age. We have completely different memory of the exact same scenario and the details of them as well. Yet somewhere in between what the three of us think happened, we're all 100% sure our version of it's were true. And this happened in multiple different scenarios that we went through. It was fascinating. And so it is true that you've edited the video a little bit. And the fact of the matter is it's irrelevant because it's in the past. And if you keep ruminating on it, you're going to end up five years from now going, I thought it'd be further along by now.

• 7:27Ed Mylett?

  And so she showed that with a little bit of suggestion, people edit the video. In one study, over 70% of participants believed a totally different made up memory about being lost in a mall as a kid. Can you imagine this? And it's not just dramatic stuff, even emotionally charged memories, like where you were during a big event, change over time. I literally the other day said, I know where I was during nine 11. I was sitting in front of my TV and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I know what the TV looked like. And then a little while later, I actually realized, actually that was where I was watching the OJ chase. I conflated two totally different events, one of the most dramatic tragic event in the history of our country and the other just a crazy scenario with a guy who probably killed somebody. Right? I literally was sure it was that TV in that room.

• 8:13Ed Mylett?

  And it wasn't. And people will swear, remember every detail of where they were during something like nine 11. But when researchers checked out a year later, the stories behind it had shifted. The confidence stays high, but the facts totally off. Now, I know this is hard to accept and I'm not saying all of your memories are inaccurate. That's not what I'm saying at all. In fact, I think the majority of them are accurate. But I believe there's been editing. And I believe there's remixing and I believe that there is nuance that's missing and context. And sometimes they get bigger and worse and worse and worse. And sometimes we manipulate details on them to soften the blow. But basically, here's what we do. All the data says this, and I'm going to give you more data. Basically, we rewrite our past to make it match who we are now.

• 8:57Ed Mylett?

  So if we look at right now, this is what's profound. I thought I'd be further along by now. Then what we do is we look back at a story and the story is edited to justify why we're where we are. And that's why the editing and remixing takes place. You go, no way, Ed. I'm telling you it happened the way it is, and that's why I'm where I'm at. The fact of the matter is you are where you're at because of the decisions and choices you've made in your life. You were responsible for it. And if you end up alleviating yourself of the responsibility of where you are in your life, you now have lost total control over your life. If you buy into the idea that because this situation, it's probably not even accurate in my memory, happened, that's explains why I'm where I am. That means you are out of control, that you have no sense of control over your life,

• 9:42Ed Mylett?

  and that you are basically left to the whims of other people's choices and behaviors for your happiness, wealth, success, and progress. You couldn't be telling yourself a bigger lie. And so as a friend, I'm telling you, stop the crap. First off, the story you're telling yourself isn't completely accurate. I'm going to give you more data to prove it. I say this out of love because I want you to be happy. I want you to be more successful. And even if it were true, so what? So what? Win anyway. But the confidence stays high in these stories and they can be completely off. And I say this to you with compassion because I'm talking to myself. The fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter. You're where you are and I'm where I am because of the choices I've made.

• 10:27Ed Mylett?

  And I'm not going to compare any longer in my life where I thought I'd be and then create a story or use a story and manipulate it just a little bit, without even knowing I'm doing it, by the way, to justify where I am. And so I'm not saying you've made the story up, not at all. What I'm saying is some of the alterations have been made to justify your current existence. And I'm challenging you to stop the comparison anyway. If you don't believe anything I'm saying, then I would just say surrender that story. And let's take some responsibility for where we are. And let's make some new choices and decisions and get out of this pattern and this loop. Because you ruminating on this story or you ruminating on, I thought I'd be further along. It's creating a pattern and a loop in your thinking.

• 11:10Ed Mylett?

  And what's creating it inside of you is basically a neuro biochemistry that's replicating the same situation, same feelings, same emotions, same general outcomes over and over again. So I can just tell you, if you're confident today, you'll probably remember yourself being more confident in the past than you really were. Or if you feel stuck today, you might overplay the mistakes or the losses from your past, even if they weren't actually that bad at the time. So here's the big takeaway. If your past is weighing you down and you should really evaluate whether it is even a little bit. Just know there's a good chance you're not even remembering it right. And if it's true, maybe you don't need to keep carrying that around anymore. The past can be a reference point, absolutely. But it shouldn't be a prison.

• 11:53Ed Mylett?

  You shouldn't be living in this cage you created around you of justifications and explanations and excuses any longer.

• 12:02Ed Mylett?

  Challenge with this is that a lot of the research says that almost 40 to 60% of the story we tell ourselves is not accurate. That you're actually reliving a story from the past that isn't true. But you believe it's accurate. So by believing and allowing something that didn't even happen the way you think it happened to completely dictate the terms of your life is crazy.

• 12:23Ed Mylett?

  Think about this. You're allowing something that didn't probably really even happen exactly the way you think it happened. That's what all the data tells us. To totally dictate the terms of your current life? And I know you're saying, no, look, I know exactly what happened the way it did. I know how I felt. I get all that. I'm saying that there's a reference point to now.

• 12:42Ed Mylett?

  And you're really missing the nuance. Therefore, you've missed the entire lesson. So even if it's 90% true, God didn't intend you to live this way. He intended you to live in bliss and peace and contribution. Most people can really tell you a lot of details about a story and it's not even really there. We don't replay memories like a video. We reconstruct them each time we recall them. So Loftus actually famously showed that memories can be easily manipulated and implanted with false details. If you want to know this, you can look up lost in the mall. It's an experiment, Google it. Memory is not like a recording device, he said, it's malleable. Then we replay this recording over and over and it becomes familiar.

• 13:24Ed Mylett?

  And then we try to stay consistent with it because we're always trying to stay consistent with who we believe we are and what we believe has happened to us. So now what happens is we begin to condition ourselves to be exactly like the story we're telling ourselves. And over time, your mind complies, your unconscious mind complies. And so you begin to evaluate circumstances based on your previous memories. You begin to respond or reply in certain ways based on patterns you've created based on this memory you have that may not even be accurate. And so if you're trying to change yourself, but you're still replaying a story, it's very difficult to change. People are stories and those, with those stories become familiar, we create patterns

• 14:07Ed Mylett?

  and we repetitively come back to this same exact location in our life. It's much like the thermostat analogy that I teach all the time. Once you've got these memories, you lock in your temperature at 75 degrees. When you start heating your life up, oh my gosh, I'm so happy. I'm at 85, 90, 100. You subconsciously and unconsciously turn the air conditioner on of your life and cool it back down with a wrong conversation or a mistake and wealth. You know, you're comfortable at 75 degrees and all of a sudden, oh my gosh, business is good. I'm at 80, I've saved money, 90. And then you turn the air conditioners on and make a purchase you shouldn't or make an investment that doesn't go the right way. And you get your life cooled back down. You turn the air conditioners on unconsciously and you get your back, life right back to what you believe you deserve. You do it in your relationships, in love, you do it in happiness, you do it at work, you do it in bliss, you do it in your body.

• 14:53Ed Mylett?

  You ever seen somebody who thinks, ah, I'm like 75 degrees of fitness, maybe they're 15 pounds overweight. You see them six months later and they've lost all the weight. They look amazing. You go, my gosh, what are you doing? Oh, I'm on this, I'm on that, I'm doing, they look amazing. Then you run into them in a year and they put it all back on again. Why'd they put the weight back on? Because they don't really believe they're that fit person. So they turn the air conditioners on, start, stop eating. Maybe they manifested injury. Maybe they stopped training and bam, back to 75 degrees. Happens in every area of our lives. We think it's circumstantial. We think it's coincidental. We think it's because of this, but here's what it is. It's previous stories you're telling yourself or comparing that you thought you'd be further along. And you creating patterns and thoughts to stay consistent with that story.

• 15:37Ed Mylett?

  So if the story you're telling yourself isn't a hundred percent true, then maybe you're not even bound to it like you think you are. Maybe you're not stuck to the story. Maybe you are not stuck to the story anymore. Maybe just knowing perhaps some of the details are murky or inaccurate or wrong can allow you to loosen the grip it has on you. And so at any time, you can rewrite this story, rewrite the narrative, not, you don't like let go of what happened. Or ignore it altogether. But you do get to choose what it means. How it impacts you. My dad's drinking is a perfect example. I grew up with an alcoholic father. I could have chosen, and by the way, there's alcoholics and drug addicts all over my family. I could have chosen to believe that that's what I come from.

• 16:22Ed Mylett?

  I, I wasn't paid attention to by my dad. I didn't have a lot of self-confidence as a little boy. I could have decided to tell a story that I'm not worth it. And I did do that for a while. I watched my dad operate out of anger. And so I thought that's how a man acts. He operates out of anger. So these observations we make, and I know even in the stories I hold true to be about my dad, I've accepted probably 20, 30% of it. I've edited. And I've lost some of this nuance and it's not even accurate. But about 70, 80% of it's accurate. But because I know it's not all accurate, it's lost its grip on me. And what I did is I changed what it meant. I learned a lot of things from my dad of what I want to be and I learned some things in

• 17:04Ed Mylett?

  life and lessons from watching him that were hard on him and have made my life easier because I took the right meaning from watching the mistakes he made. And then I watched him change into this incredible man who became my hero and the lessons of how someone can change. I am literally in the business of helping you change your life because I don't think you can. I know you can. And the reason I know you can is I watched my father do it. Because I watched my father change from somebody who was aggressive and I was afraid of and was an intimidating person and very self-centered and not always honest to the most honest, gentle, kind, strong, giving, beautiful man who helped thousands of other people with their sobriety. Because what I

• 17:45Ed Mylett?

  learned from my dad is I know you can change your life. And I saw the steps he did and it was hard work. And I also know that the reason he could help so many people with their sobriety is because you're most qualified to help those in life that you used to be. And so that change you make about that story you tell isn't for you only. It's for all the people you're going to be able to help who are telling themselves a similar story or went through something similar to what you did. So you can recondition yourself. We don't always get to choose what happened to us. But we do get to choose the weight we will give it moving forward.

• 18:20Ed Mylett?

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• 19:00Ed Mylett?

  I use products by Ro and you should too. Go to ro.co/mylet to see if you qualify. That's

• 19:10Ed Mylett?

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• 19:52Ed Mylett?

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• 20:24Ed Mylett?

  Here are a few things that might help. What I call mindful awareness. Start noticing when your mind drifts into the past. This is number one. Ask yourself, is this useful? Is this helping me grow? If the answer is no, interrupt that pattern and gently bring your focus back to the now. So just being aware when you're slipping into these thoughts, and I do it often. I have this pattern of thousands of thoughts of I thought I'd be further along by now. I am aware of it. Is this really helping me grow? Is this serving me right now? Is this putting me in a productive state? If it's not, pattern interrupt the awareness. If the answer is no, I gently refocus myself onto a dream, onto my present state, onto something beautiful or something I'm grateful for in the moment. Number two, future focused journaling. I've never been a writer.

• 21:09Ed Mylett?

  I've never been a journaler. If you've read any of my two books, you know, I'm not a great writer.

• 21:14Ed Mylett?

  But I've started a future focused journal. So instead of asking, why did I do that? Try asking, what kind of person do I want to be now? Write your future self like you're rooting for them, not dragging them down. So I write about my future me, who I'm gonna be, how I'm gonna give, what I'm gonna be look like, and I actually write it as a fan of me. So not to drag myself down. Every time I replay these memories of past or where I thought I'd be, I'm not being my own biggest advocate. Can you imagine if you're a Christian like myself and Jesus is your Savior or whatever your God is? You imagine God saying to you, I think you should keep replaying this past, even though we both know this past is only 70% accurate. And you know what?

• 21:59Ed Mylett?

  I'm really disappointed. I thought you'd be further along by now. None of those thoughts are from God. That's all the enemy. Whatever your belief is, none of that is high frequency. It's low frequency thinking. You can't create something great from low frequency vibration. You have to have high frequency vibration. For me, all of the great things I've created are when the Holy Spirit is present. And the Holy Spirit's not going to be present if I'm letting the enemy infiltrate my mind constantly. Future folks focus journaling. Number three, small wins are greater than perfect pasts. Your past doesn't define your trajectory. Your next step does. Focus on something you can do today that moves you forward, even if it's small. Momentum beats memory. How good is that?

• 22:44Ed Mylett?

  Small wins are greater than perfect pasts. Okay, your past does not define you. Momentum is created by creating small steps, small successes, momentum beats memory. It's what beats it. You gotta generate momentum. It's a small win. It's I said I was gonna get up at a certain time. I did it. I said I was gonna do 10 reps in the gym. I did. I said I was gonna make 10 contacts. I did it. I said I was gonna do XYZ. I did it. One of the reasons I think things are going, you know, really well in my life right now is I took control of my body about 60 days ago, and I made commitments about what I was gonna eat, what I was gonna drink, what I wasn't going to eat, what I wasn't going to drink, when I was gonna train and how I was gonna train. And I've delivered on those things because they're within my control. And now I'm watching that momentum

• 23:27Ed Mylett?

  affect every other area of my life positively. Momentum beats memory. Number four, talk it out.

• 23:36Ed Mylett?

  But don't loop it. It's okay to process the past, especially with a friend like I did with my sisters, therapist or a coach. But there's a difference between processing and replaying. You'll feel it when you're just reliving old pain instead of learning from it. Processing means where's the lesson in here? Is any of this my responsibility? In some cases, none of it is. And then what can I learn from this? How can I prevent it from happening again? What forgiveness is required of me? And here's a mantra you can keep in your back pocket. You ready? I honor the past, but I don't live there. You're not your mistakes. You're not your old story. You are who you choose to be now. Every moment from here on out is a blank page.

• 24:22Ed Mylett?

  And here's how I start writing those new pages, what I call mental rehearsal or mental imagery. I'm a dreamer. And so I've trained myself to daydream. Dreaming is free. Might as well dream big. You can do anytime you want. But when you begin to mentally rehearse your future, or mental preparation, mental imagery over and over again, of what it's going to look like and how you're going to be there. Pretty soon over time, and when you repeat that enough times, it's kind of like that old story you were repeating. Now you're repeating this new story. Your mind, your body, your subconscious, your thermostat setting, goes to work on confirming that story, not the old one. See, all you're doing when you're reliving that old story is mental rehearsal of that story, even though it may not be completely accurate.

• 25:05Ed Mylett?

  So you have to replace it with a new one, which is your vision and your dream and where you're going. And you mentally rehearse that one. All of the same components go to work for you. So you're already good at this, right? We already know we're mentally rehearsing this old story and we're confirming it over and over again. If we mentally rehearse a new one with new pictures, new sounds, new beauty to it, right? What ends up happening is our mind goes to work on confirming that story and being accurate. So my weight loss was a great example of that. What I did is I got my visual imagery of what I wanted to look like and feel like. And I did it very detailed over and over and over and over again. Then I took the requisite actions and my mind and my body began to.

• 25:48Ed Mylett?

  Coordinate with one another to create that picture. So had I just done all the working out and all the eating right, would I have had as dramatic a change in my physical body as I've had? Probably not. But because I was also mentally rehearsing what it was going to look like and feel like when I got there. My mind went to work, my conscious and subconscious mind went to work together. My mind was training my body, my body was training my mind. And when you get those two guys working together. It can happen faster than you think. The neocortex, by the way, in your brain is where these new experiences take place. It enriches the brain when you have these visions. Because when you're in the midst of a new experience, everything we're seeing and smelling and tasting and feeling. All of our five senses are gathering this information from around us.

• 26:33Ed Mylett?

  So the same thing can be true. When you are mentally rehearsing. Try to give yourself as many senses you can sight, smell. Touch for me, I'm very visual. So a lot of mine is visual. But what ends up happening is you're flooding the brain with these different senses. You build what I call sensory acuity. And your mind starts to want to go to work on making this happen for you. And so. What ends up happening is you're causing a whole bunch of these neurons to organize themselves. To reflect that event in your brain and the moment we begin to modify our behavior. In our lives and we create an actual real experience that confirms the video we've been playing. Now we are basically teaching ourselves.

• 27:14Ed Mylett?

  What it's like, we understand it now physically, what it's like to be this person. And once you have your, the physical part understood and the mind part understood. Well, now you're unstoppable. And so it's not good enough just to do the physical work. If you don't get the mind right, it's not good just to sit around thinking about if you don't take the physical action. And so when you do that, when you get the mind and the body working together, when your vision and your actions are congruent. What ends up happening is it becomes the state you're in. It becomes who you're being. You're a human being. When you're a human being, your thinking and doing is congruent. But when you're ruminating on the past, ruminating, I thought I'd be further along. No matter what you're doing, that's not congruent.

• 28:00Ed Mylett?

  But when you put the two together in some congruency, look out. And when you're in that state, when your thoughts and your, your emotions and your feelings are aligned, we activate a part of the brain called the cerebellum. And the memory center in which we've practiced it so many times, no longer has to think about it. It ends up requiring us to think bigger and our, basically our habituated behaviors, our memorized emotions, determine, determine who we are until we do is rethink our existence and who we want to be. So if we say that every time we do or learn something new is forwarding a new connection in your brain, we could say that remembering is then maintaining and sustaining the same thing.

• 28:44Ed Mylett?

  So the key with memory, the key with visualization is repetition. The more you do it over and over and over and over again, you're reinforcing these circuits. And I really believe, as I said many times, and Wayne, Wayne Dyer, one of my mentors, about the power of intent. I write about it in the power of one more. Once you've got that down and your intention is, how can my behavior begin to line up with what my intentions are? How can I get my actions to be congruent with what I'm thinking? You become pretty powerful when you do that. So really what you're doing is it's the process of creating a new you.

• 29:21Ed Mylett?

  And I believe if you do that over and over and over again, you're installing inside of you the program to achieve it.

• 29:34Ed Mylett?

  So you know those pieces in your closet that you find yourself wearing like on repeat all the time? That sweater that kind of just goes with everything or these perfect pair of pants? Those are the pieces that make getting dressed easy and that's what Quince does best. Quince focuses on high quality wardrobe staples with premium materials like a hundred percent Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton. The styles are timeless, versatile and designed to become the dependable pieces you reach for every day. It's what I'm wearing right now. They give you the softness and quality you'd expect from a luxury brand without the price tag. Quince also makes premium pants. Tees and polos and breathable activewear. Quality basics designed to work with your wardrobe and hold up to everyday wear. I love their cotton tees. I'm wearing one now and I get a ton of compliments when I wear them on the podcast and when I speak.

• 30:17Ed Mylett?

  So find your next fall favorites at Quince, download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com/ed for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q U I N C E dot com slash ed. And once you become conscious of, you know, kind of things you do reflexively, how you respond to certain stimulus, you can go, I'm doing it and that awareness leaves you. And so all of a sudden, you know, I can tell you this from personal experience. I'm very different than I was 20 years ago.

• 30:51Ed Mylett?

  My patterns of responses to stress, my patterns of responses to setbacks, victories, the way I view myself. You know, when I was younger, I thought I was this great leader. And as I've gotten older, I realized I'm not that great. I used to think I had everything figured out. Now I know I have almost nothing figured out.

• 31:13Ed Mylett?

  But what I have learned is has a lot to do with mentally rehearsing my future, who I am and who I want to be, and then getting my actions to align with that vision that I have. And I think what I'm doing is I'm changing myself neurologically. And to where at some point you don't have to think about it, it becomes habitual. And the reason that your mind wants to create these habits is your brain wants to conserve energy. So it loves habits because it doesn't have to think, it doesn't have to burn energy. And so your brain wants you to do this. It just takes a little bit of work. It's not that big of a deal. I only gave you four things to do. It's not like there were that many, right? But if you do these things, you can change your life, but I could tell you what you can't do. Can't ruminate on a story that's only 70% true.

• 31:59Ed Mylett?

  I could tell you what you can't do. You can't be going, I thought I'd be further along by now and comparing yourself to some vision you used to have. And so here's what's going to happen. It's going to be uncomfortable for a little while. Discomfort level will bring a piece in, but here's what I really want you to work on.

• 32:16Ed Mylett?

  There's two states. There's a sympathetic state and the parasympathetic state. And I've done a lot of, I've done a lot of content on that. I'm not going to cover a lot of it today. But when you're in this stressed state of replaying this event from your past, you're in a sympathetic state. You cannot create from there. Whether you have a traumatic memory, or a letdown, or a hurt, or a failure in your mind, and you repeat that over, you're in a sympathetic state, you cannot create a compelling future from a sympathetic state. But when you are blissful, when you're at peace, when you're in future vision, and you are vision casting, and you are illuminating a new future, and you are visualizing and projecting the future, then you're shifting yourself into a parasympathetic state, which is a state of creation, which is a state where you're open to changing and learning and growing.

• 33:01Ed Mylett?

  And this mental rehearsal could put you right into that place. Parasympathetic is creation. You're in a new experience because you changed your behavior. In other words, in parasympathetic state, the body is learning to operate itself from a biochemistry standpoint in a way that serves you. And when you're comparing, I thought I'd be further along, or you're comparing to the past, or you're ruminating on a story, you're, you're not doing anything from a biochemistry perspective that is out of creation. I know maybe this sounds deep because I told you I was going to push you on your thoughts today, but remember this, the repetition of this over time, neurologically, has a chemical change in you. Literally, you'll remake yourself. If your memory is just a story you keep telling yourself, then you get to decide how that story ends.

• 33:46Ed Mylett?

  Or you can keep, stop telling it at all, or keep telling it. But you get to decide how that story ends. And it's a time in your life where you go, all this stuff, he just said, great, here's what I gotta do. I gotta grab the pen of my life, and I gotta start to become the author again. Me and God need to start writing some new chapters. I'm sick of reliving these old chapters. I'm not even sure after what Mylett told me on the podcast, everything I remember is true that's written in this book I keep repeating over and over again. But even if it is 100% true, I would prefer to start writing a new chapter. Well, you cannot write that new chapter in a sympathetic state. You cannot write that new chapter if you're constantly turning the pages backwards.

• 34:26Ed Mylett?

  You can't, you can't write a new chapter when you're flipping back to chapter four. Okay, the good news is God's given you, you're still here, more chapters to write. Do you want to keep writing the same chapter and repeating the same story? Can you imagine picking up a book and every chapter's the same story?

• 34:47Ed Mylett?

  Over and over and over, maybe the cast of characters change, but it's like this happened, this happened, this happened, and then you replicate it over and over and over again in your life. So you have to start to write the new chapter. The only way to do that is turn the page. Turn the page. And I say this to you as a friend today, you're capable of this. This isn't that difficult. Awareness is what matters. You're exactly where you're supposed to be. And you know what? I think you can create a great future from here. We just need to get some momentum going. Here's what I want to leave you with.

• 35:19Ed Mylett?

  What if you stopped asking, why did I do that? And started asking, what's next?

• 35:28Ed Mylett?

  Not in a rushed, forget everything kind of way at all, but in a real intentional, projecting forward thinking way. Here's a small challenge for you this week. Write a letter to you of the version of the person that's stuck in the past.

• 35:43Ed Mylett?

  Thank them for getting you here. Acknowledge what they went through. And then let them know it's okay to rest now. That you've got it from here. You don't owe your past an apology. You owe your future a chance. We're headed to a new life, everybody. We're headed to a new reality. You owe your future a chance. That future is within your hands right now. And I can tell you, you're right where you're supposed to be, but you're not supposed to stay there. There's bigger and better ahead for you. Hope today helped you. God bless you. Share it. Max out.