JOHN ASSARAF | Understand Your Emotions & Take Control Of Your Life | Modern Wisdom Podcast 143

John Assaraf is an author, entrepreneur and mindset expert. Our brains are the most complex organisms in the known universe, but they don't come with an instruction manual. Today John takes us through some of the key principles to harness our brains to work for us, not against us. Expect to learn... What are the primary emotions which affect us every day? How can we overcome anxiety and fear? Why is precision with our speech so important? Which habit has had the most positive impact on John's life? What is John's issue with The Secret? And much more. Get Surfshark VPN - https://surfshark.deals/MODERNWISDOM (Enter Promo Code MODERNWISDOM for 83% off & One Extra Month Free) Extra Stuff: Follow John on Twitter - https://twitter.com/johnassaraf Buy Innercise - https://amzn.to/2uFqdxf Check out John's Website - https://www.myneurogym.com/ Take a break from alcohol and upgrade your life - https://6monthssober.com/podcast Check out everything I recommend from books to products - https://www.amazon.co.uk/shop/modernwisdom - Listen to all episodes online. Search "Modern Wisdom" on any Podcast App or click here: iTunes: https://apple.co/2MNqIgw Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2LSimPn Stitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/modern-wisdom - Get in touch in the comments below or head to... Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chriswillx Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/chriswillx Email: [email protected]

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

• 0:00Speaker 00

  There are fifty different types of fears that hold most people back, but there's a common seven or so. So fear of failure, fear of succeeding and failing, fear of trying my best and disappointing myself or others, fear of being embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, or judged. All of these fears have to do with our self-image, self-esteem, and self-worth. And what will I think of me, or what will others think of me if I don't succeed, or if I do and fail? So fears are naturally occurring phenomenons in our subconscious mind as a safety and protective mechanism to keep us away from any danger or real or imagined pain or suffering. And so it's just an automatic trigger in the subconscious mind. Now, the problem is not fear.

• 0:45Speaker 00

  The problem is that most people don't understand that fear, it's just a signal. It's a highly sensitive signal and mechanism in the brain, but the ramifications of not understanding what fear does is the problem.

• 1:04Chris Williamson?

  John Assaraf in the building, how are you, man?

• 1:07Speaker 00

  In the building, here I am, doing great. We're separated by sea, but we're all connected, right?

• 1:14Chris Williamson?

  That's absolutely true. I'm super, super excited to speak to you today.

• 1:19Speaker 00

  Thank you.

• 1:20Chris Williamson?

  People might have seen you on The Secret, or know you as bestselling author, or endlessly successful entrepreneur with multiple projects and stuff like that. Do you think that you were naturally gifted to be successful in this many domains? Is this kind of what you thought you were going to end up doing when you were younger?

• 1:39Speaker 00

  No, I was voted most likely to fail in life by my grade eleven students and my basketball team, that I excelled in basketball when I was a kid. Everyone thought I was going to be a jock, an athlete of some sort. They used to say, "He's brilliant on the basketball court, but he's dumber than a doorknob in the classroom." And so I never thought I would be doing what I do today. I never believed that I could. I thought I was way too dumb. I was hungry, but I just felt like I wasn't as smart as the other kids.

• 2:21Speaker 00

  I grew up in a family with hardworking parents who wanted to put food on the table for their kids. We lived in moderate, moderate, moderate means. I had a bedroom with my brother, my sister had a bedroom. We had an apartment. There was always arguments and fights around the lack of money. My father was a gambler and an alcoholic. I believe he hasn't drank in probably 50 years. But so a lot of struggles. And then I didn't have the environment that really fostered me even thinking about achieving success

• 3:02Speaker 00

  until I had one chance encounter with one man when I was 19 years old, who asked me one question and the answer to that question changed my life. But up until the age of 19, I thought I was going to work in a factory, making minimum wage, living in an average place, was struggling for money, struggling to make a great life for myself. The only great life that I ever had in my imagination was from watching television.

• 3:33Chris Williamson?

  I suppose when you don't have that role model, there's a lot of people now who might not have that close to them. You know, especially I think the generational gap that has occurred within the last 50 years is really different, you know, when you think about the sort of opportunities that became available to you and are now available to the people that are listening at a young age.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  Unbelievable.

• 3:54Chris Williamson?

  Worlds apart, right? And sometimes we might get a little bit resentful of our parents. I know that you've mentioned in previous interviews that you had a little bit of resentment towards not being given the tools necessarily to do what you wanted to do. But from a much more compassionate side, it's a totally different operating system now, right? Like the rules that controlled the old world don't really... It's a lot harder for our parents to think about how to apply those to what's going on now.

• 4:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, you know, I remember, I used to live in this neighborhood. And in between the neighborhood that I lived in and the other affluent neighborhood, there was a community center. And so some of the kids in my neighborhood, you know, couldn't afford to be members of the community center, even though it wasn't very expensive. And then there were other kids on the other side of the street that their parents had a little bit more money, nicer cars, nicer homes. And I used to meet these kids at the community center and I used to go over to their house. And I remember, you know, it used to feel like I wish my, you know, specifically my father, because back in those days, moms were mostly stay at home, took care of the kids, and maybe they worked, which my mother did.

• 5:04Speaker 00

  But I used to remember feeling like I wish my father was as smart as his father or her father, and I wished that we were able to go on vacations and to, you know, buy nice clothes instead of, you know, the ratty jeans and the ratty coats, you know, that I always felt were less than the other kids. And what I realized as I got older was, you know, my parents just did the best they could. My father went to grade like three or four, you know, my mother also grade three or four. Then they went to work at fifteen, sixteen years old to try and make ends meet during the war, you know, so they didn't have an education, they didn't have a chance to do anything other than survive.

• 5:45Speaker 00

  And they didn't know that they could do more. They just believed they were born in this environment, that they were victims of that environment, that, you know, they had to make ends meet and struggle and, and there was scarcity and that the rich people, you know, they, you know, they either did it illegally or they had these belief systems, you know, that were just disempowering them and they didn't know that they were disempowered. You know, back then, you know, if you wanted to learn, you'd either go to school, read books, listen to the radio, you know, and today... The least of our concerns is knowing how do I do X? How do I achieve Y?

• 6:29Speaker 00

  If you want to be healthy, if you want to be happy, if you want to make more money, if you want to build a business, you want to write a book, you want to fill in the blank, I want to blank, you can Google it and in less than three minutes, you can have a step-by-step blueprint of exactly what to do. Today's problem isn't that the how-to doesn't exist. It's all of the internal bullshit that people are dealing with that holds them back. Their fears of failure, fears of what will people think of me on social media if I try and I fail or I disappoint them? You know, what will people feel if I'm not doing this or doing that? So there's a much bigger internal game going on right now around fears and self-image and limiting beliefs

• 7:13Speaker 00

  that most people are totally unaware is happening and that is really causing them to be stuck in this limited cycle and self-fulfilling prophecies that cause them to achieve way less than they're capable of achieving.

• 7:29Chris Williamson?

  Do you think that that's the primary issue that people are coming up against? Self-limiting beliefs? We've got the how. Is that the main roadblock people need to get over?

• 7:38Speaker 00

  There's only four. There's only four. So from a purely neuroscience neuropsychology perspective, what we know about the brain is there are 50 different types of fears that hold most people back, but there's a common seven or so. So fear of failure, fear of succeeding and failing, fear of trying my best and disappointing myself for others, fear of being embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, or judged. All of these fears have to do with our self-image, self-esteem, and self-worth. And what will I think of me or what will others think of me if I don't succeed or if I do and fail? That's number one.

• 8:20Speaker 00

  So fears are naturally occurring phenomenons in our subconscious mind as a safety and protective mechanism to keep us away from any danger or real or imagined pain or suffering. And so it's just an automatic trigger in the subconscious mind and fear happens to be one of our six core emotions. Now, the problem is not fear. The problem is that most people don't understand that fear is the equivalent of driving your car and a dash light popping up on your dash. It's just a signal.

• 9:00Speaker 00

  It's a highly sensitive signal and mechanism in the brain, but the ramifications of not understanding what fear does is the problem. So when fear activates in the brain, it releases cortisol or epinephrine or norepinephrine. It takes blood away from the thinking part of the brain into the motor cortex and the reactive part of the brain. And the untrained person will react over and over and over and over again to the highest level of training that they've had around emotional management. So what causes you or me to react as a result of fear may not cause the same reaction, let's

• 9:43Speaker 00

  say a Navy SEAL or an astronaut, you know, who is used to understanding that feeling and they know how to control it so they can respond instead of react. So fear is number one. Number two is limiting beliefs. I'm too young to do that. I'm too old to do that. I'm too Asian or too Caucasian. You know what? I only went to grade blank in school, therefore I'm not smart enough, not good enough, not worthy of this. So all of these limiting beliefs actually formulate the lens by which our brain sees the world, but more importantly than that, the limiting belief sets up what we will do or don't do. So it affects behaviors. So we had fears, number one, two, limiting beliefs.

• 10:25Speaker 00

  Then three, let's say somebody's watching, they have a vision or a goal, doesn't make a difference, you know, what kind of vision or a goal it is. But let's say that at the conscious level, I want that. I see me having that, being that, doing that. But if at the subconscious level, there is an opposing belief, an implicit belief or a self-image that says, but I'm not good enough, I'm not smart enough, I'm not worthy of that yet or now, then our subconscious self-image will recalibrate what we do or don't do. So that's the third thing. Then the fourth thing, which is a little bit more real,

• 11:08Speaker 00

  is when we don't have the knowledge or the skill currently to achieve the goal that we want, then we set off a circuit in the brain, which is the doubt circuit, the uncertainty circuit. It's triggers the self-image circuit and the fear circuit as well. So they're all interconnected. So if we don't have the knowledge or skill and we feel doubtful, then doubtful actually activates, you know, these other circuits of saying, hold on, if you're doubtful, if you're uncertain, put the brakes on, don't put your foot on the gas. So what I do and what my company does, we study the mechanisms by which all of these things are turned on or off. All these triggers

• 11:50Speaker 00

  are turned on or off that drives the behavior that causes the results. So I never focus on the results themselves. I always focus on what's driving the behaviors that caused me to take action or not take action. And that's really the work that I do and why I wrote, you know, my book Inner Size, which I know you're familiar with and some of my other stuff is let's get into the neuropsychology of what's happening in there. That's a framework.

• 12:15Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I mean, it's incredibly simple when you look at it like that, but it's so messy, right? We're living in our heads. We have all of these signals going on. We have all of these very, they're notions, you know, they're not, they're not inputs and outputs. The way that we consciously experience our own day to day life is real ephemeral, difficult to define stuff, right? So how can we break through that noise? What are some of the strategies that we can use to bring a little bit of order to that chaos?

• 12:45Speaker 00

  Well, I think first we have to understand that, you know, we are the most advanced, you know, biological, neurological, uh, you know, coalesced group of cells and atoms in the known universe. The only thing more advanced than we are is the actual universe itself and what it does. So if it's true that I have a brain, I'm not my brain, but I have a brain, then the, the next question is, is it possible for me to use my brain better if my brain is processing 400 billion bits of information per second without me being aware of it?

• 13:27Speaker 00

  ¿Es posible para mí poder dirigir mi cerebro a buscar cosas que estén más alineadas con lo que quiero lograr, hacer o convertir? Sí, es posible. ¿Es posible entender que no nací, y nadie que esté escuchando o viendo, con una creencia, una perspectiva, una costumbre, una imagen de sí mismo? Ninguna persona nació con ninguno de esos. Lo que significa que de alguna manera los constructos que tengo dentro de mi cerebro, los patrones dentro de mi cerebro, fueron creados

• 14:08Speaker 00

  ya sea por mis padres, mis maestros, mis experiencias, lo que leí, lo que escribí, lo que vi, lo que sentí. ¿Es posible que todo nuestro cerebro sea una red de patrones reforzados que podamos aprender cómo ser conscientes de una creencia limitante y dejarla ir y crear una nueva creencia poderosa? ¿Es posible que, ya sabes, las costumbres que son constructivas y me empoderan, podemos reforzar y las costumbres que no son más que patrones automáticos en mi cerebro que fueron creados, las que me desempoderan, es posible que pueda aprender

• 14:51Speaker 00

  la anatomía de una costumbre, que es un disparo, un comportamiento y una recompensa? Disparo, comportamiento, recompensa. Si pudiera aprender la anatomía de eso, entonces, ¿puedo dejar ir las costumbres desempoderantes y crear las poderosas? Sí. ¿Puedo crear costumbres constructivas que se conviertan en mis costumbres clave que me permiten crecer, ¿verdad?, y evolucionar de una manera que me empodere en mi vida versus una que me desempodere en mi vida? Y la respuesta es sí. Así que a todos los que están viendo, lo que realmente quiero que entiendan es que no eres víctima de tus circunstancias o tus condiciones.

• 15:35Speaker 00

  La única manera en que eres víctima de tus circunstancias o condiciones o el pasado es si tú...

• 15:43Speaker 00

  Take that role on and as part of your identity versus saying regardless of my current circumstances, my knowledge, my skills, my beliefs, I can change. And now I can learn how to use the most powerful tool that I already own called my brain.

• 16:03Chris Williamson?

  I love it. I want to pick up on some of the terminology you've used there. I know that you like to be very precise with your speech and you like to lead with terminology, which I think is something I've worked on very hard over the last few years. And I absolutely love the way that you do it too. You've chosen to use the term disempower and empower habits rather than good and bad. Why?

• 16:26Speaker 00

  It's not binary. It's not, you know, positive or negative. It's, it's, it's, it's a frame, you know, as soon as I say the word negative, everybody has a connotation that that word means something bad.

• 16:45Speaker 00

  And I just look at it as it just is. And the question is, can I frame things in a way that lifts me up as a human being instead of puts me down like something is wrong?

• 17:03Speaker 00

  And we, you know, we're used to this positive, negative, good, bad. What about it just is? Is this thought process going to help me achieve my goal or move me away from it? Is this habit move me towards what I want or away from what I want? Is this person, is this strategy, is this tactic, is this, you know, emotion, one that empowers me or disempowers me? Okay, if it disempowers you, if it's not to your taste, you are at choice. You see, the greatest gift we have as a species is awareness. We can have a thought and we can be aware and know that we have a thought.

• 17:49Speaker 00

  It's going a little bit deeper than the norm, right? So, we are not just self-aware, but we could be aware that we're self-aware. So, if I understand that I'm not my thoughts, I'm not my emotions, I'm not my feelings, I'm not my sensations, I'm not my behaviors, I'm not my results, I have those. Then, the question is, well, if I have them, can I choose ones that are better for me for what I want to achieve and become and do and have? And the answer is absolutely. That's your power. And so, as soon as you give away your power, you're a victim.

• 18:30Speaker 00

  And so, you know, if you study any human beings who have, you know, failed, they will all tell you that, yes, I failed. Yes, I was in a state of pain, panic, suffering, etc. And it was one of the best things in my life because I used it and I framed it in a way that empowered me instead of disempowered me. So, we have that ability to take things and give them meanings that lift us up versus tear us down. And so, what if we started that with ourselves? And then, what if we did that with each other?

• 19:10Chris Williamson?

  It would be a much better world.

• 19:12Speaker 00

  Then what, right? And so, but it starts with self, right? Because the more I could be aware of, you know, what's happening within me, the more I can have control, the more I can respond instead of react, the more I could be deliberate versus, you know, reacting automatically. And it all begins with awareness. It all begins with awareness of the gifts that you already possess. It's all, you already own the greatest gift in the known universe. But the lack of skill of how do I use it is really the biggest challenge people have. And so, the work that I do

• 19:56Speaker 00

  is all around re-empowering people to say, okay, I have the ability to do what I choose now. How do I do that?

• 20:08Chris Williamson?

  Is the reason that we err toward fear and negativity, is it purely fitness enhancing? Is it purely an evolutionary byproduct? That's it?

• 20:19Speaker 00

  Yeah. So, the number one responsibility of our brain, Homo erectus has been walking around this earth for about two and a half billion years, two and a half million, excuse me, two and a half million years. So, the evolution of our species is survival above all else, right? So, so every living organism's number one priority, it's biologically wired into us for survival. So, the mechanisms of evolution have created a brain that is nothing more than electromagnetic switching station, right? So, light comes in through our eyes, sound comes in through our ears, signals come in through our senses, whether it's olfactory, sense of smell, or hands tactile, and it is being processed in the brain.

• 21:04Speaker 00

  And the number one algorithm is, is there real danger here that could cause me to die? Number two, is there any potential danger here? You know, where I can get mentally, emotionally, physically, financially hurt? That's number two. Number three is energy conservation, so that number one and two can happen. So, the processing mechanism of our brain, I know, I know that, you know, you're looking at me through the camera, and I'm looking at you, and we see this physical body with eyes and a nose and a mouth and a ears. Strip that away, and what are you? You're this brain with the nervous system, okay? That is processing all of this information for survival, right?

• 21:48Speaker 00

  For avoidance of pain, for energy conservation. Oh, yeah, by the way, if we can get some pleasure via sex or food, or playing with our telephones or playing games, we'll do that once one, two, and three are met. So, we have been evolving for two and a half million years to make sure that that happens. Now... Throughout our lives, and maybe even at a cellular level, we have memories of things that have caused us, or our parents, or our teachers, or our brother or our sister, pain, suffering, death, or whatever the case is. And our brain is processing this information. So all of the incoming thoughts or ideas, you know, that we see in the outside world,

• 22:32Speaker 00

  or even our own thoughts of achieving X, Y, or Z, it's all processed through these algorithms to say, "Okay, in the memory bank of your life, and maybe even your DNA, is there anything in that loop, okay, that could potentially be affecting your survival or cause you pain or suffering?" So as soon as there's a match inside our brain through the neural networks, a signal is sent in a billionth of a second called fear. That's the signal. It's just, we call it fear, but just a signal of, "Pay attention, stop, put the brakes on, what's going on?" Right? And what most people don't understand is, fear is just a signal,

• 23:16Speaker 00

  and in many cases, it doesn't mean stop, it just means be aware, and then make a choice and a decision. But most people have never been taught how to be aware of this feeling and frame it in a way that there's nothing wrong, it's just a really sensitive signal. Now let me use my higher cortical functions, called the left prefrontal cortex, and say, "Is it real danger? Or is it imagined danger? Is it because of something that's happened in the past? Or is it something that's happening right in this moment that's really, really, you know, dangerous?" And in that nanosecond of awareness and choice, we could learn how to make better decisions, where fear can be turned into fuel,

• 24:00Speaker 00

  because that little anxiety or stress, that's the neurochemicals going through your bloodstream, can actually be used to propel you, you know, forward instead of cause you to retreat.

• 24:16Chris Williamson?

  What's a strategy that we can use to interject that process?

• 24:22Speaker 00

  So in my book Inner Size, there's a variety of Inner Siz, which are mental and emotional techniques to empower yourself. So number one is when we are in a state of stress, or fear, or anxiety, or panic, which is the highest state that that fear signal gets to, the first thing we could understand is when we're in that state of stress, or anxiety, or fear, or lack of confidence, or self doubt, our sympathetic nervous system has just been triggered. So we have the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous system. So first to understand is I have these two types of nervous

• 25:05Speaker 00

  systems in my body. One is for flight, flight or fight, flight, freeze, or faint. And the other one is to be able to be calm and respond. So in the sympathetic nervous system, when we're in a state of anxiety, or stress, or fear, we're not thinking properly. We're reacting based on our highest level of training. But what we can do very, very quickly is in a state of uncertainty, or doubt, or fear, we can just stop. Stop for just one second and do this simple Inner Size. It's called Take Six, Calm the Circuits. So Take Six, Calm the Circuits is six deep breaths into your nose, slowly, slowly, slowly, slowly. And then you breathe out through your mouth like

• 25:49Speaker 00

  you're breathing out through a straw, as slow as you can.

• 25:56Speaker 00

  That's one.

• 26:05Speaker 00

  When we do six of those... We can show in fMRI machines, blood flow changing. And moving back to that left prefrontal cortex, which is our thinking brain. When we do those six deep breaths, we actually move from a sympathetic nervous system activation to a parasympathetic system activation, which is a calm, so I can respond. So step one is take six calm, the circuits. Step two is called AIA, which is A-I-A. And step two stands for awareness. Awareness of my thoughts, feelings, emotions, sensations, and my behaviors. So stop. What am I thinking right now? What am I feeling right now? What am I sensing right now? What were my behaviors?

• 26:47Speaker 00

  Well, usually in a state of stress, you know, we're contracted. Usually in a state of stress, you know, we're breathing much more shallow. Usually in a state of stress, we have the foot on the brake, not the foot on the gas. So awareness. And whenever we're practicing awareness, what we want to do is practice it without judgment, blame, shame, guilt, or justification. Let me repeat. Without judgment, blame, shame, guilt, or justification. Now, why is that important? It's important because when you're starting to observe your own processes, you don't want to be in a state of labeling it anything. It's just pure awareness, because it's the awareness that now gives you the choice.

• 27:31Speaker 00

  So if I'm aware, then I can change. In an unaware state, I can't. So awareness of my thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations, behaviors. Then you say, okay, what's my intention right now? Is my intention to walk across that room and meet that guy? Or meet that girl? Or to ask for the order? You know, or to ask for a raise? Is that my intention? Yeah, that's my intention. And then the third, or the second A, is what's one little action step that I could take right now? And the action step has got to be small because you don't want to reactivate the stress or fear center. So if you take one little action step towards that, your brain feels safe.

• 28:14Speaker 00

  You feel safe because you are your brain, right? And so when we practice, take six, calm the circuits first, practice AIA, second, AIA, awareness, intention, action. Now we've just interrupted a pattern that may have been a destructive or disempowering pattern. Now I'm in control, I'm focused, I'm aware, and I create a positive pattern. Well, guess what happens? Do that for one day, do that for seven days, 30 days, six months, you all of a sudden are now in control of your thoughts, emotions, feelings, behaviors, sensations, and that is how you achieve your goals. If you're in control, you're directing. If you're out of control, you're reacting. And so which is going to give you a much more empowered state?

• 28:59Speaker 00

  And of course, we know, we both know the answer. So those are just two inner sizes, and there's many other inner sizes, you know, that I teach in my book and through my programs. But that is just the fundamental of a human being is awareness and choice.

• 29:17Chris Williamson?

  I love it. I've got a question here that I think might really help some people that are listening. So let's say someone who's listening is in a rut at the moment. They're really struggling to make a change in their life. How can someone get past that story that they tell themselves? What would you tell them to do? What's the first steps? How do they instantiate their life in a new way?

• 29:38Speaker 00

  Well, it depends, you know, how long they've been in a rut, right? So there's a lot of work around the power of story, right? And so, you know, the story that goes on in our, in our mind about who we are, why we are that way, what we believe, what we expect, what we think we can achieve, or have, or do, or be, that's a story. So the first thing that I share with, you know, my students, especially in our winning the game of money programs that we have around brain retraining is

• 30:18Speaker 00

  What would your new story, if you could write one out? Imagine you're a Hollywood actor, okay? And if you could write out a new script that's not even true right now, what would you write out for your life? So forget the story you have. If you had a blank sheet of paper and you could write out a story, what would you write out? And I share with all my students a process for doing this. And it always starts off like this. "I'm so happy and grateful for the fact that..." "I'm so happy and grateful for the fact that..." Now, why do I start off with that? Well, what's 2 plus 2?

• 30:59Chris Williamson?

  4.

• 31:01Speaker 00

  Is that a fact?

• 31:02Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 31:03Speaker 00

  What's 4 plus 4?

• 31:04Chris Williamson?

  8.

• 31:05Speaker 00

  Is that a fact?

• 31:06Chris Williamson?

  Yes.

• 31:07Speaker 00

  Right, so our brain tends to believe facts. So when I start to write a story out, "I'm so happy and grateful for the fact that I am now earning X, and now my physique is this, and my relationship is Y, and my ink and my net worth is this, and I'm traveling the world this, I'm driving this kind of car." Even though initially when you write it out, it's not true. It's not true. And there's a part of you going, "This is bullshit." Well, what happens, you know, when you repeat something 2 times, 10 times, 20 times, 100 times? What happens when you repeat it and emotionalize it? What happens when you repeat it and emotionalize and take small action steps towards making that happen? And to prove my point, I want to share something with everybody

• 31:51Speaker 00

  that'll show you how this works. Let's say somebody tapped you on the shoulder, you know, tomorrow or today at a cafe, or a restaurant, or a bar, or wherever you go to work. And they tapped you on the shoulder and said, "Hey, oh my God, I'm so-and-so in Hollywood, and we just finished writing a script, and you look like a person that is this script. Would you mind learning this script? And if you learn it, we'll pay you a million dollars to perform it. And if you do it really well and you win an Academy Award, you'll get $10 million plus a whole bunch of stuff." Now initially, you might be afraid to go, "Oh my God, I'm not an actor. I'm not an actress. I don't know how to do this." And what if the person who tapped on and says, "Oh, by the way,

• 32:34Speaker 00

  we'll give you an acting coach, we'll give you nutritionists, we'll give you an exercise coach, we'll teach you everything, and you would practice the role that we have on this sheet of paper, on this pad of paper. If you practice the role every day, every week, every month for the next year, we're gonna film in a year. Do you think you'd learn the script? Do you think you'd be able to memorize it? Do you think you'd be able to raise your voice or lower it based on the script? Do you think you might hunch down a little bit this way? If you learned how to do that, even though today you don't know how to act, you don't know how to remember lines, you don't know how to change your... Even if you don't know, could you get better at it in 12 months?

• 33:17Speaker 00

  And then have a camera in front of you with other actors that have practiced for 10 or 12 months, every day for 5, 6, 7, 8 hours a day? Could you remember that script and possibly act it? And the answer is, of course you could. Well, why not write your own script? Why not write the kind of body you want, the kind of energy you want, the amount of money you want, the way you want to travel, the way you want to be, behave? Why don't you write the script and then become the script over time?

• 33:49Speaker 00

  Because you became the script already that you believe right now. And fear was there, and fear is there now, and limiting beliefs are there, and limiting beliefs now. But when we take our most powerful precious tool, our brain, and we focus it on what we want and how we can versus what we don't want and why we can't,

• 34:14Speaker 00

  then we're not in control. So the key is to get in control, use the tool better, and prime your brain every single day with the beliefs that you want, with the self-image you want, with the use of fear so that it fuels you instead of it holds you back.

• 34:30Chris Williamson?

  I love it. Thinking about what we think about determining our actions and where we look determining where we go. I was stood outside of a nightclub, which is why I do, I fill nightclubs, that's my job. Stood outside on the front door and a cyclist came around, it's like 11 o'clock at night. I don't know why anyone's on a cycle at this time. Anyway, comes blaring around the corner and you can see there's this car in front of him that he really doesn't want to hit. And he could have easily missed it, but his eyes were just locked on this car, the back of this car. Sure enough, where your eyes go is where the bike goes. Straight into the, straight into the back of it. It was fine. When it was, the embarrassment wasn't fine, but he was, he walked away totally sweet.

• 35:09Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. And so it all comes back down to learning, right? How to, listen, at one point, right, when we were babies, you know, if, if anybody was watching, it's either had a brother or sister or had their baby of their own. At one point, you know, a baby will look up at his hand and realize, oh my God, that's my hand. And they realize that, you know, I'm moving, I'm moving my hand, you know? Initially, they look at you, maybe a ball or something in front of them, but then obviously, oh my God, that's mine. Well, I like to do that with people's brains. I want people to understand that, you know, you have this brain that maybe you haven't learned how to optimize yet. You haven't learned some of the hacking techniques to use the most powerful.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  It's the most powerful organism in the known, you know, not organ, it's an organism in the known universe. And the problem is we have operators that just are not trained.

• 36:09Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, there's no manual that comes with life, unfortunately.

• 36:12Speaker 00

  That's right. Well, well, now we're getting some of that manual, right? So now with the, you know, the advancements in technology and FMRI technology, spect scan technology, PET scan technology, where we can actually start to see the circuits, the salience network, the executive network, the default mode network in the brain, how they work, what triggers them, what turns them on, what turns them off. We're at a point in our evolution of our species, right? Where it's like, oh my God, this is, this is just such a powerful understanding, recognition that I can achieve a lot more than I thought I could. I could become more, I can have more, I can give more. And, and that's a really empowered state to be in.

• 36:57Chris Williamson?

  What habit would you say has had the most positive impact on your life over the last few years?

• 37:07Speaker 00

  Probably with, I mean, there's a couple of them, but probably without any hesitation, meditation, which I've been doing for 30 plus years, really is the one meditation and mindfulness are very integrated, but let's, you know, meditation allows you to recognize and know that there's different states of consciousness that, you know, I have a body, I have organs, I have, you know, hands and feet and eyes and ears, but I'm not them, that I'm really one with, in this energetic field that everybody else is in as well, that I could control

• 37:51Speaker 00

  my thoughts and my emotions and I could activate them or deactivate them at will and that life is not happening to me, right, it's happening for me when I could be aware of the perfection of all of it. And so meditation would have to rank right up there with oxygen for me.

• 38:16Chris Williamson?

  Yeah, I get that. Have you read Kamal Ravikant, Love Yourself Like Your Life Depends on It? He's got, he's got a wonderful bit in that where he talks about life happens to me, life happens for me, life happens through me. I absolutely love that.

• 38:30Speaker 00

  He's a good friend.

• 38:31Chris Williamson?

  He's a good guy. He was on not so long ago, him and James Altucher and we're swimming in, we're swimming in good waters. I want to talk about the, the difference between the law of attraction and the law of Goya, because for, for a while, The Secret, the movie, huge blockbuster, did real well, the book as well, and for me, there was something that felt like it was missing and it's absolutely been identified in the, the law of Goya. Would you be able to talk us through that?

• 39:04Speaker 00

  Yeah, when the movie The Secret came out, you know, the premise of the book was think, believe, and you'll achieve. And that's bullshit. It's not, that's not how it works. It's, you know, the law of Goya, I learned if you, if you spell out the word attraction, law of attraction, the last six letters of the word attraction is action. And nobody talked about that in the movie. The law of Goya is the get off your ass law. And, you know, Newton's second law of motion says an object in motion tends to stay in motion, object at rest tends to stay at rest. In the physical world, we live in this, you know, quantum field, but we also have this physical experience.

• 39:49Speaker 00

  And around health, wealth, relationships, career, business, finances, fun and experiences, etc., there are behaviors, right, that if, you know, if you take this behavior, then X, Y, or Z will happen. And it's pretty predictable. The physical laws are so predictable, we can, you know, send a rocket ship to the moon in time within a fraction of a second. And so, in the physical world, there is a behavior that you need to take if you want to lose weight or gain weight. We know that weight is calories, it's energy, right? So, you know, one pound is 3,500 calories, you know, one gram of carbohydrates or one

• 40:31Speaker 00

  gram of fat, you know, carbohydrates is four calories, fat is nine calories, that's energy. If you want to earn more money, money is a means of exchange between people, countries, etc. So if you want more money, you have to figure out how do I exchange what I have, product, knowledge, service, companionship, you know, for that exchange. It's not rocket science, but it is a science. And a lot of people misunderstand this law of attraction as some airy-fairy, you know, think about it, sit there, you know, meditate, and poof, you know, you're gonna have this wealth. It's just like, where'd you get that idea? The law of attraction should be renamed to the law of resonance.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  So if you study, you know, Tesla's work, if you study Nikola Tesla's work around energy, all the way to, you know, electricity and positrons and electrons, you understand that resonance, if you hit the A440 key on the piano, how is it that 10 feet away, the chandelier moves, right? That's resonance. So things that are in resonance are attracted to each other, not like a magnet, because if you take, you know, positive and neg- or positive and positive in a magnet, it repels. But if you understand that if you are in resonance with the people, the vision, the

• 41:59Speaker 00

  goals that you have, and you get your head, your heart, and your gut in alignment, in resonance, then you are basically doing with your brain the same thing that a radio dial does on a radio station. If you're at 90, let's say 5.5, that may be rock and roll. You're in resonance with that vibrational frequency. If you're at 95.6, that might be punk rock. 95.7 might be classical music. So the key for us humans is how do we get into resonance with the frequencies of what it is that we want to achieve? Health, wealth, relationships, career, business. Everything is energy in the universe.

• 42:43Speaker 00

  And that means that everything is amplified at a certain vibrational sequence. And if you get into alignment, into resonance, that's the law of attraction. It's not some magical airy fairy pixie dust, you know, of think, believe, and you'll achieve. Get your head, your heart, your gut, and your behaviors aligned, and then you will be in resonance, and all of a sudden, everything that you want is right there already.

• 43:10Chris Williamson?

  The action was the missing step for me. That was where, that was where I thought, I didn't, I didn't quite get it, but you're totally correct. And as well, by leading with that action, it feeds back in, all of these feed into each other, right? The way that you feel, the way that you, your gut and your passions are with regards to what you're doing in life, and then your actions feed back into that.

• 43:32Speaker 00

  So there's, there's one other piece to it, though. And this is, this is the piece that a lot of people just forget.

• 43:39Speaker 00

  There's nobody who's watching or listening to this right now. Okay, that I believe, there might be, but very, very rare, that somebody's trying to figure out how to colonize Mars right now. So for everything else, for getting in great shape, for making more money, for starting a business, for writing a book, for starting a podcast, for whatever you want, all the how to already exists.

• 44:02Speaker 00

  All the how to, all the blueprint of do this, do this, do this. So what I was gonna say is, when we're thinking about taking action, you have to take the right actions in the right order at the right time. So one of the things that everybody is responsible for is to say, okay, before I act, what should I be doing? When should I be doing it? How should I be doing it? And that is one of the other biggest mistakes most people make, to think that, well, I'm in action. Well, you could be in action, doing the wrong damn things. So stop doing the wrong damn things and find out what should I be doing? And here's the beautiful thing, there are experts in everything that you and I want.

• 44:41Speaker 00

  And all of the books, programs, CDs, courses, coaching, consulting is available, or YouTube video, or Google. So it's already available. So all you need to do is say, okay, what's my goal? What are, you know, what, what do I need to think? What do I need to feel? And then what do I need to do? Do that, and guess what? You'll be in resonance and you'll achieve your goals and dreams faster and easier than ever before.

• 45:04Chris Williamson?

  There's certainly a lot of people, I know that I'm one of them, I have to work very hard at planning. So naturally, I would just, just do something. I would just, I'll just, I'll just start, start doing and taking that moment to consider and to lay out the plan. I think it can make a huge difference. Perfect example, that's when I go on holiday. Like when you go on holiday and if you've ever done it and not planned where you're gonna be. On particular days and you can write it off as an excuse and that well, you know, I just want to, I just want to kind of feel my way around the town. I don't want to be stuck to a rigid schedule. I promise you, if you plan a holiday and you've got tour on day one and a beach trip on day two and this, that and the other, you get so much more out of your time.

• 45:48Chris Williamson?

  It's unbelievable. The holiday, holiday hacks 101 there for you. So I want to finish up and, and ask about what you think, or where you would direct people if they want to find out a little bit more, or if there are some books in a size, I can't recommend it more highly. Will be linked in the show notes below, of course. If there's, what else have you been struck by that you've consumed recently or over the last few years that you thought's really of value?

• 46:18Speaker 00

  Listen, I know you've had my friend James Clear on before. And so habits are really, you know, mastering habits. So whoever's watching this, you know, listen to that podcast as well. He does a great job of dissecting podcast or the habit loop and the stuff in there. I think the, the stuff that I'm really fascinated with right now is consciousness and just understanding, you know, the nature of consciousness, the nature of, you know, why and how we make decisions and, and really leveling up our awareness to the magic of being human, you know, and the gift that this is, it's just so, it's like mind boggling, complex and spectacular.

• 47:03Speaker 00

  And, and so, yeah, for anybody who likes, likes this kind of stuff and how do I become more and have more and give more, follow my work. I'm all over social media on Instagram and on Facebook fan page. I do trainings every week for free and I have a little Facebook fan page called Achieve Even More. That's a private community that I give free stuff away in as well. So read my books and follow some of my work.

• 47:25Chris Williamson?

  John, that's awesome, man. Thank you so much. I have to say, I really absolutely love what you're doing. I think that you're genuinely making a great change. It's been a total pleasure to get you on here. Like you said, all will be linked in the show notes below. If you want to follow John online, you know where to go. Show notes will have that in as well. Like, share and subscribe. But for now, thank you, John.

• 47:47Speaker 00

  Thank you so much.

• 48:02Speaker 02

  Mr. President, my company foreme of the explosion on our rig.

• 48:06Speaker 03

  On October 2nd.

• 48:07Speaker 02

  Causing massive water displacement and triggering a tsunami. If y'all heap the blame on me.

• 48:12Speaker 03

  Tom Cruise is. Digger got us into this mess, and Digger's gonna dig us up. From the director of Birdman and The Ravenette.

• 48:19Speaker 04

  What would happen if I stopped drilling? You stop, you freeze to death, that's what.

• 48:23Speaker 03

  With great power, comes great deniability.

• 48:26Speaker 04

  I'm not the first then.

• 48:28Speaker 03

  Digger. See the trailer online. Only in theaters October 2nd. Rated R. Under 17.9.0 without parent.