The One Mindset That Will Change Your Life

What if the life you’re experiencing isn’t just a reflection of the world around you, but of the beliefs you hold about it? In this episode, I’ll show you how your mindset shapes your relationships, your success, and the way you handle life’s hardest challenges, and why choosing to see the world as a friendly place can change everything. I’ll teach you how to shift your perspective, build trust without abandoning your boundaries, and start asking yourself, “What is this here to teach me?” instead of “Why is this happening to me?” Freedom Live is a 3-day live experience in Austin designed to help you break through what’s keeping you from your next level. Get $100 off your ticket: https://robdial.short.gy/freedomlive The Mindset Mentor™ podcast is designed for anyone desiring motivation, direction, and focus in life. Past guests of The Mindset Mentor include Tony Robbins, Matthew McConaughey, Jay Shetty, Andrew Huberman, Lewis Howes, Gregg Braden, Rich Roll, and Dr. Steven Gundry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

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  Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you want to finish this year strong, join my free three-day challenge, October 27th to 29th, live with me. Here's why. Because most people check out around this time of year. They look at their goals that they've set, they see how far away they are, and then tell themselves that they'll start over again in January. Don't do that. There's still enough time for you to make real progress this year. You just have to use it. Over these three days, I'm going to teach you how to deprogram and reprogram your identity, how to start taking real action, and also how to start changing your brain to the new you. You're going to get a 60-day roadmap for the rest of 2026 and a workbook, so you know exactly what you need to focus on next.

• 2:32Speaker 01

  To join for free, go to finish2026strong.com. Once again, finish2026strong.com, and I'll see you live on the challenge. Today, I want to talk to you about one mindset that could absolutely change your life. Because if you think about it, what if the life that you're experiencing right now isn't actually a reflection of the world around you, but it's more so a reflection of what you believe about the world around you? The lens that you view the world through, and the lens that you view the world through is going to create the life that you get. And what if the lens that you view the world through is actually changing the people that are around you and the people that you attract? It changes the opportunities that you see, the risks that you're willing to take,

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  how much money you make, how much your nervous system feels good or bad every single day, and ultimately, ultimately, the entire life that you create. Because two people can walk through almost identical circumstances and somehow experience two completely different lives. You have to ask yourself why that is. And once you understand what I teach you today, you might never look at your life the same way again. So let's dive into it. One of my favorite quotes is a quote from Einstein, and he said, "The most important decision that you will ever make in your life is whether you believe that you live in a friendly universe or a hostile universe." A friendly universe or a hostile universe. And here's the thing.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  Most people have ever not really taken a step back, looked at their life, and made the decision, do I believe that I live in a friendly universe or I live in a hostile universe? Most people are just running programs, and that decision was made for them when they were younger. I have an acquaintance that I was talking to who truly believes, deep down inside, that people are bad and need to watch out for people, and that people are out to get him, and that if he lets his guard down, someone's going to take advantage of him. And so we had a conversation about it, because to be transparent, like, I was really, really curious, because I have an exact opposite worldview of him. And like, that belief doesn't even register in my mind as anything that could ever be true.

• 4:43Speaker 01

  And when we dug into it and tried to figure out where it came from, it wasn't something that he made up as an adult. It was a lens that he basically got from his parents. He heard stuff growing up, like, people are going to screw us over. You've got to watch out for people. You can't trust anybody. Don't let anybody take advantage of you. And so if you hear that over and over and over again as a child, what do you think you're going to grow up thinking the world is like? And it's not like he decided that people are bad. He was just handed a lens when he was five years old, and he's been looking through that lens and finding data to try to prove it since he was five years old. And to be fully honest, like, it is causing so much suffering in his life. Because if you really think about it, if you live your life with that perspective,

• 5:26Speaker 01

  that you live in a hostile universe, you got to watch out for people, and people are going to screw you over, and people are bad, you have to constantly watch your back. You have to constantly try not to get fucked over. Your nervous system never really gets a chance to settle, because it's always protecting itself and getting ready for fight or flight or freeze. Because if you think people are bad, it's going, you're going to be always on guard anytime that you're outside of your house. And he doesn't even think it's a lens, he just thinks that it's truth. And so you don't see the world as it is, you see the world through the lens that you were handed. Now, for me to be fully transparent with you, like I said just a minute ago, I believe the complete opposite of him.

• 6:09Speaker 01

  I believe, like, truly, that everything in my life is happening for me. The good stuff and the really, really hard and challenging stuff. Like, I believe that God, the universe, the creator of all of this, whatever you want to call it, wants me to have an amazing life, and wants you to have an amazing life, and wants me to create an even more amazing life. And I'm not like, being some bullshit, positive motivational speaker right now. Like, I'm telling you, I believe it with all 40 trillion of myself. Like, every part of me believes that. And when I look back in my past, like, I can see that this world, this life, is happening for me over and over again. I can see the proof of it. And I always tell people, like, like, for instance, the hardest thing that ever happened to me was the day my dad died.

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  That was the worst day of my life, but I also say it was also the best day of my life. It was the best day of my life because I woke up. I realized, oh my God, this is ending. Like, I realized I had a finite amount of time. And that, in that moment, my entire life changed. And so is it hard? Like, [BLEEP] yeah, it was hard. It's still hard to think about today sometimes, but I know that everything good in my life I would not have had that not happened to me. And so when something challenging shows up, I don't see it as an attack. I see it as something that was brought to me so that I could grow in some sort of way. And so my friend and I aren't living two different lives because different things happened to us. We're living two different lives because we look through two completely different lenses of the world.

• 7:39Speaker 01

  And here's what most people don't really realize with that. Your lens creates a chain reaction. Your lens decides what you see. What you see decides what you do, and what you do decides what you get. See, do, get. So let's walk through both sides of this situation. Like, here's where the lens really shows up. Number one, how you see people. This is a really important thing, because you're going to be around a lot of people in your lifetime. The person who lives in a hostile universe walks into a room and scans for threats. Somebody's quiet, oh, they must not like me, or they must have something wrong with them. I need to watch out for them. Somebody's friendly, oh, what's their angle? What are they trying to get from me? Are they trying to get something? What do they do? What are they doing? So they keep their guard up around people.

• 8:22Speaker 01

  Short answers, arms crossed, never fully opening up at all. And now here's the really important part to think about. If they act that way, and they're guarded, how do you think other people respond to somebody who's guarded? Yeah, exactly. They get guarded back. And we will be right back. I used to take a whole bunch of different supplements every day, and honestly, it was a lot to keep track of. Since starting IM8, I've simplified my routine so much. I just have one daily drink, and I'm done. The problem with supplements is you think you need a cabinet full of them to feel your best, but you don't. IM8 is the way to simplify your supplement routine once and for all. IM8's Daily Ultimate Essentials

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• 11:55Speaker 01

  And now, back to the show. And now the hostile person who's guarded goes, "See, I told you, people are cold. They can't be trusted. They must be trying to screw me over." The world is just a reflection of you. Whatever you see in the world is the world reflecting back to you what's happening inside of you. They created the exact thing that they were afraid of, and then they use it as proof as to how it's a hostile world. Now, think about somebody in the exact opposite position. Somebody who lives in a friendly universe walks into the same room, and now think about the exact opposite of that. The person who really, truly believes that they live in a friendly universe walks into the same room, and they assume that most people are decent.

• 12:36Speaker 01

  So they're warm, they're open, they ask questions, they give people the benefit of a doubt, and those same people would respond completely differently, and they would open up to them, and you have to understand, they're the same people. It's the same room, but completely different experience of life. Why? Because those people are reacting to this person and what they think of the world. That is just a perfect microcosm to show you how life is. There's a study that actually shows this perfectly. Back in 1977, a psychologist named Mark Snyder had men and women talk on the phone who had never met. Before the call, each man was shown a photo of a woman he was about

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  to talk to, except it wasn't even actually truly her. And so, some men were shown a photo of a really attractive woman, like supermodel beautiful. Some, they got normal women photos. Some, they got photos of ugly women. Some, just random photos. And they did this all completely at random. And then here's what's really interesting. They had other people listen to just the woman's side of the conversation. So a third person is listening to just the woman's side of the conversation. People had no idea about the photos that were listening in on the conversation. And the women, whose partners thought that they were attractive, the women

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  came across as warmer, they came across as friendlier, and they came across more likable. Why? Because the men expected that this woman was amazing. And so, what did they do? They treated her like she was someone who was amazing. And then guess what she did? She responded based off of how she was being treated. Do you understand what this means? It means that people tend to become what you expect them to be. Not every time, but more than you actually understand. People become what you expect them to be because of the way you react to them. You are getting a mirror from that person of what's going on inside of you. So if you expect

• 14:46Speaker 01

  someone to screw you over, what are you teaching them to do? Think about that. So that's the first way that this is going to show up in your life. The second place where it's really going to show up in your life is in your money and your business. Like, this is where this lens can get really expensive. If you believe that people are out to get you, and you run a business, how do you think you're going to run that business? You're probably not going to collaborate, because you don't want people to steal your idea, or screw you over. You don't want to delegate, because nobody ever does it right. You don't want to ask for help, because you can't trust anybody, so you do everything yourself in your business. How much do you think that you can scale your business if you do everything yourself? Not very much. Like, I've coached a lot of entrepreneurs,

• 15:28Speaker 01

  thousands of entrepreneurs, and I see this all the time. The ones who can't trust people almost always hit a ceiling way before anybody else. Why? Because the ceiling is truthfully them. The person who believes that they live in a friendly universe, they'll think to themselves, "Most people want to do a good job. Let me find the good people that are out there." So they build partnerships, they build a team, they let people help them, they train people, and then they trust people, and then they don't micromanage. Do they get burned once in a while? Of course. Like, there's no way around that, but they learn from it and they get better, instead of trying to look at it as proof as to people screwing them over. That's what you have

• 16:13Speaker 01

  to really start to think about. But then, when they do screw up, they grow faster than the person who's spending all of their energy protecting themselves from everybody. And this, like, FYI, this isn't just my opinion. There's a psychologist named Olga Stavrova, and she looked at data from thousands of people over decades. And what she found was that people who believe that humans are basically selfish and cannot be trusted earn less money than the people who believe that people can be trusted. And here's the part of that that really got me. This is what's crazy about it. The more trustworthy the people were, the more the cynics trusted them less, which is crazy. It

• 16:54Speaker 01

  means that the cynic isn't even being realistic. The people were more trustworthy, and the cynics believed them less. Like, they trusted them less when they were more trustworthy people. So basically, the cynic isn't even living in this world. They're paying for a belief that isn't even true. So if that's somebody's worldview, and they're a business owner, or they're successful in business, or they're COO, or they're a manager, how much do you think that's costing them over the course of their life? A lot of money. Okay, so that's number two where this is going to show up. Third place this is going to show up, how you handle hard stuff. Because hard stuff is coming for everybody at one point in our life. Like, nobody gets skipped. Everybody gets a couple punches in the face in life. When something bad happens to the person who lives in a hostile universe,

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  the first question in their head is, "Why is this happening to me?" And then they make themselves into a victim. And that question really only has one answer. "Why is this happening to me?" Well, because life is against me. The world is dangerous. People can't be trusted. So what do they do? They shut down. They stop trying. They brace themselves for the next hit. They disappear, so that they don't get punched again. And when the same thing happens to somebody who believes that they live in a friendly universe, they can look at it and they can ask themselves the question, "What is this here to teach me?" It's the exact same event, but it's a different question. And that question can completely change the lens that you look at the world through, and how your entire life is going to unfold from that moment. And so, like, let me make it real. Two people get

• 18:24Speaker 01

  laid off the same day. Person A goes, "Oh, boo hoo, of course this happened to me. This always happens to me. They screwed me over." And then they spend six months angry, and they send out resumes, and they go to a couple interviews, and somebody's like, "I don't like this person's energy," and they get rejected, and then they see every single rejection as a way that proves their point. Person B, on the other hand, goes, "Well, like, this sucks, but maybe this is the push that I needed. Maybe I was outgrowing that job anyways. Like, maybe this is the calling for me to do something better." And they call everybody they know, and they finally start the thing that they've been wanting to do for three years ago. And then if you look forward a year from now, where do you think

• 19:08Speaker 01

  person A is versus where do you think person B is? It's not luck. It's the lens that they view the world through. It's what they see. It's what they do. It's what they get. And so the real question isn't which lens is correct. I don't care to figure out which lens is correct. Neither one of them, truthfully, is probably correct. The question really is which one is creating the life that you actually want. Now, I need to say this because I know somebody's out there already thinking like, oh, well, you're being naive if you just think that everything's all unicorns and rainbows and all that. I get it. I understand. I'm not saying that. Living in a friendly universe does not mean that you're being naive. There are people out there that can screw you over. There are people who might not have the best intention.

• 19:50Speaker 01

  That is real. But the thing that you have to understand is you can trust people and not let them walk all over you. You can trust people and have boundaries. Both of those two things can live in one reality. But like, think about the math on this. If you go through life guarded against everybody to protect yourself from a few people who might hurt you, then you're protecting yourself from everyone. You're paying the price with everyone. Your spouse, you're not opening up fully to. Your kids, you're not going to open up fully to. Your friends, you're not going to open up fully to. Your business is not going to grow to a level that it could. You protect yourself from a handful of maybe bad people by closing

• 20:32Speaker 01

  yourself off to all of the good ones. And for one bad person, there's probably 100 good people. I don't know. I just think that that's a terrible trade. I don't know about you, but I'd rather get burned once in a while than live my entire life with my guard up. And so to bring it all back, I want to ask you one question. Do you believe that you live in a friendly or hostile universe? Because the lens that you view the world through is going to dictate the life that you get. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, once again, like I said, this is exactly what I may be diving into in a much, much, much deeper way over the course of three days at Freedom Live in Austin, Texas. It is going to be live in person, Austin, Texas, December 3rd, 4th,

• 21:17Speaker 01

  and 5th. If you want to learn more about it, you can go to freedomlive2026.com. Once again, freedomlive2026.com. And with that, I'm gonna leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.

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