Break Free from Self-Sabotage & Find Lasting Love TODAY | Marisa Peer

Friends, welcome back to The School of Greatness. Today’s guest is Marisa Peer. She is the creator of Rapid Transformational Therapy® (RTT®), which is a neuroscience-based pioneering therapy that potentially offers quick and effective results by combining the most beneficial principles of Psychotherapy, Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT), Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and Hypnotherapy. In this episode, we discuss the biggest lies we tell ourselves in relationships, what keeps most of us from finding lasting love, what needs to be aligned in our lives for a relationship to work, and so much more. This is going to be powerful for so many of you whether you’re in a relationship or not, and I’m sure you all are going to love this. So sit back, relax, and let the class begin. Buy her book Tell Yourself a Better Lie: Use the power of Rapid Transformational Therapy to edit your story and rewrite your life. In this episode you will learnThe impact of NOT showing your authentic self upfront in a relationship and how it can negatively shape the course of your connection with others. Learn effective strategies to reconnect when you're feeling disconnected in your relationships, fostering deeper connections with the people who matter most. Gain insights into the thoughts and emotions you should embrace while dating someone new, along with the key indicators that will guide you in making decisions about the future of your relationship. The biggest lies we tell ourselves in relationships. The #1 thing keeping most of us from finding lasting love. For more information go to www.lewishowes.com/1563For more Greatness text PODCAST to +1 (614) 350-3960More SOG episodes we think you’ll love:Eckhart Tolle – https://link.chtbl.com/1463-podRhonda Byrne – https://link.chtbl.com/1525-podJohn Maxwell – https://link.chtbl.com/1501-pod Get more from Lewis! Get my New York Times Bestselling book, Make Money Easy! Get The Greatness Mindset audiobook on SpotifyText Lewis AIYouTubeInstagramWebsiteTiktokFacebookX

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

• 0:00Marisa Peer?

  Whatever thought you are thinking, your body is very busy making it real. And if you tell yourself a better lie, your body will work very hard to make that thought real.

• 0:12Lewis Howes?

  Welcome to the School of Greatness. My name is Lewis Howes, a former pro athlete turned lifestyle entrepreneur. And each week, we bring you an inspiring person or message to help you discover how to unlock your inner greatness. Thanks for spending some time with me today. Now let the class begin. Welcome to today's special episode. Over the last 1,300-plus episodes, there have been so many impactful interviews that I've been lucky enough to have, and I always like to reflect on some of the most powerful. And this episode was one that resonated with most of you guys in the past, and I'm excited for the value it's going to bring you today as well. So I hope you enjoy today's episode.

• 0:55Lewis Howes?

  We talked about this before on the show about the lies we tell ourselves and the stories we tell ourselves. And a lot of us tell ourselves really bad lies. And you said we need to start telling ourselves better lies. I'm curious, why do we need to do that? And how can that help us start manifesting things in a different way in our lives?

• 1:13Marisa Peer?

  Well, you know, our greatest pain is from the lies we tell ourselves. If you said to someone you're breaking up with, "I don't love you anymore. You're boring," or "You're not sexy," or "I found someone else," that's very hurtful. But we can go, "Well, they've got an agenda." We can almost account, "My boss said I was terrible, but he's having a bad day." But the lies we tell ourselves, the mind doesn't go, "Well, you're having a bad day. You have an agenda." It believes they must be true. And the simplicity is if you are prepared to lie to yourself, which you clearly are when you go, "I'm the size of a house. If I look at a cake, I gain a pound. My kid is making me want to jump out of a window. This freeway would be the death of me."

• 1:58Marisa Peer?

  See, none of those things are true. "I'm...I could eat a horse." We know that can't possibly be true. But if you're prepared to lie to yourself... Why not tell yourself a better lie because your mind doesn't know? And it really doesn't care if what you tell it is good or bad, true or false. So a simple thing, I got a memory like a sieve. I have an excellent memory. I'm falling apart. I got great coping skills. If I look at a cake, I gain weight. I have a phenomenal metabolic rate. You see, every thought you think you make real. And if you doubt that, think of this. If you think of something embarrassing, you will blush. If you think of something sad, your eyes will fill up with tears.

• 2:42Marisa Peer?

  If you think of food, your stomach rumbles. If you think of something sexy, you can get physically aroused to a thought. So the body makes thoughts real. Whatever thought you are thinking, your body is very busy making it real. And if you tell yourself a better lie, your body will work very hard to make that thought real.

• 3:04Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, it's like I can imagine I'm having a pumpkin pie right now.

• 3:08Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 3:09Lewis Howes?

  I can imagine like the smell of pumpkin, the taste, and I'll start to salivate. My body will start to salivate, thinking there's a pumpkin pie in front of me.

• 3:17Marisa Peer?

  Of course.

• 3:18Lewis Howes?

  Imagining chewing into the crust of the pumpkin pie, the sweetness. And I'll start to feel it in my body, although there's a lie. There's nothing in front of me right now. Just like there could be, you know, my girlfriend could walk in front of me, but she's not in front of me. And I can feel something I can imagine and think about it.

• 3:35Marisa Peer?

  Yeah, that's why when you read letters, you get tears in your eyes. You look at pictures, you go, oh, I'm remembering that. So every thought you think causes both a physical reaction and an emotional response. So if you think better thoughts, you have to get better emotional reactions and better responses.

• 3:55Lewis Howes?

  What about memories then? What if we have memories that were real in our lives? That was like, okay, I used to be overweight or someone did dump me and there was this pain. There was this thing. How do we tell ourselves a better lie or story around memories of the past? So that it'll keep hurting us today?

• 4:14Marisa Peer?

  Well, you know, that's a great question because. An event will affect you. You know what really affects you about an event? The meaning you attach to it.

• 4:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 4:24Marisa Peer?

  So I could say I wasn't the favorite kid. My sister was the favorite. My brother was a smart kid. My sister was a pretty kid. And I felt like this thing in the middle, this kind of thing.

• 4:35Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 4:36Marisa Peer?

  And I can go back and go.

• 4:37Lewis Howes?

  Lost in the middle or something.

• 4:38Marisa Peer?

  Yeah, so what does that mean? It means what I've decided to make it mean. I've decided, I'm really glad, because it gave me, I'll show you. You wanna write me off, but I'll show you. So we can all look back at our past and go, I should have been a girl, should have been a boy, should have been academic. My parents wanted that. But you know, don't make someone else's story your story. My mother's story, I should have been someone else's baby was always her story. It traumatized her entire life, but it wasn't my story. It was her story. And when people say, my mother said, oh, you can't trust your own shadow. Don't trust men, don't trust people.

• 5:21Marisa Peer?

  It's very important to go, well, that's your story. You wanted a boy and I was the third girl. You wanted a girl and I was the fourth boy. But it's insane, but that's your story. My story is, I'm meant to be here. I'm meant to be me. I got something to offer the world, even if I don't know what it is. So the significance of an event is linked to what you make of it. I was given up for adoption. That means I wasn't loved. But it could mean my parents loved me so much. They sacrificed the joy of having me to let someone else raise me. They'd give me a better life. It's always

• 6:00Marisa Peer?

  the meaning that you attach in an event. And the very good news is, you know what? You can change the meaning like that anytime you like.

• 6:10Lewis Howes?

  So even if we've held on to a meaning for twenty, thirty years about something, it's still possible to change it later in life?

• 6:16Marisa Peer?

  Yeah, and when you go back and meet these people, they go, "Oh, no, I didn't mean that. I always told you you were rubbish because I thought it would make you smarter. I always told you you were stupid because I hoped it would make you intelligent. I told you I didn't love you because I felt inadequate." And the amount of fathers I meet go, "I never see my kids because I'm useless. I would just damage them. I thought the best thing I could do is to remove myself from their life so their mom would find a better dad. And they really have no concept of how that damages a child. They say, "The best thing I could do was be away from you. I was a crazy alcoholic. I didn't want to pass that on, so I left you to benefit you."

• 7:01Marisa Peer?

  But the child doesn't hear. The child thinks, "You left me because I wasn't worth being with." That's the problem. The minute a child feels abandoned, they never blame the abandoner. "My dad left because he's crazy, because he's a drunk."

• 7:14Lewis Howes?

  They blame themselves.

• 7:16Marisa Peer?

  A child never stops loving, but they immediately stop loving themselves. And that's why you're going back and go, "Okay, so I've been telling myself a lie. My dad left because he didn't love me. My mom brought different boyfriends home every six months because I didn't make her happy." And then you go back and go, "Oh, but that's not true. My mother loved me very much, but she couldn't cope. She gave me to my grandmother because she thought I'd be better off." So when you go back and revisit the lie and update it, you realize, "Oh, so what's true is what I decide to be true. Some guy dumped me."

• 7:58Marisa Peer?

  You know, I worked with somebody recently who said that her first experience with her first boyfriend was him saying to her, "You're rubbish in bed." And the second boyfriend dumped her because he came from a different country and she could speak his language, he couldn't speak hers. And he later told her, "I felt so stupid in front of you. So I sent you a note saying, 'Don't ever call me again.'" And those two men traumatized her so much that she couldn't have a relationship with her husband who loved her. But then she went back and said, "Well, the first guy was an idiot because, by the way, his job was to seduce me. And he did a terrible job. And the second one felt so inadequate around me." You know, I've worked with supermodels who say,

• 8:39Marisa Peer?

  "Men put me down. They're so intimidated by our looks. They go, 'Well, you're not very bright. You've got enormous feet. You know, you're not all that.'" And they let it in. And I worked with a famous model who said, "Every man I'm with, they start to diminish me because they're intimidated by me. So they start to pick holes in me, and I let them." And it's so important to go back and look at the past and change it. You can change it at any time.

• 9:08Lewis Howes?

  Why do we think we let other people and ourselves speak so negatively to us? We allow other people's words to come in and then we reaffirm those words to ourselves internally. Why do you think we do that so often?

• 9:22Marisa Peer?

  You know, it very much depends on what happens in your childhood. Here's the thing about the mind, and it's really vexing. Your mind is hardwired to go back to what it knows. It always wants to return to what's familiar. While resisting what is unfamiliar. If you grew up in a house with a lot of praise and parents who say, "You know, you're a great kid, you've got so much to offer the world," you're going to find someone who adores you because you've got so much to offer. You will expect that. Unfortunately, that isn't the norm. The norm is criticism. And if criticism is familiar, and only do we reject praise, we actually begin to criticize ourselves. We pick up what we know. You know, if you grew up in a house with fast food and vegetables, you don't go, "Hey, I need vegetables."

• 10:06Marisa Peer?

  The mind will always go back to what it recognizes because that's what once kept us alive. What we know. Like, if you have a two-year-old kid, they go, "I don't want either. It's got lumps in it. It's the wrong color. I only like pink yogurt in a blue bowl." But what they're really saying is, "I don't know that yogurt with lumps in it. And my brain wants what I know because it keeps us alive." And that's a fact, the mind likes what's familiar, but here's another fact, you can make anything you like familiar, and one of the biggest things to change your life is to make praise familiar. And it can be very simple praise, I'm a good person. I've got a good heart, I think good thoughts.

• 10:48Marisa Peer?

  You know, I find that one of the most powerful things to do in therapy, and it teaches that a lot in the book, is to think of the words you've always wanted to hear. And to start saying them yourself, so.

• 11:00Lewis Howes?

  The words you've always wanted to hear from your parents.

• 11:01Marisa Peer?

  Yeah, from anybody, so you could say, okay, if I had a great partner, what would they say to me? If I had great parents, what would they say? If I had a great boss or amazing friends, and it's not really rocket science, what would a great parent say? They'd go, you're a great kid. Gosh, how lucky am I to be your parent? What a joy it is to raise you. And many parents don't. What would a great friend say? I love being your friend. If there was a template for a great friend, you would be it. What would a great partner say? You're the one. I just love your voice. I love everything about you. You're so smart. What would a great boss say? You are indispensable to this company. So what we do is you go, well, I haven't got that.

• 11:43Marisa Peer?

  So we either give it up. No one's ever gonna give me those words. I'm gonna accept, I'll never hear them. And we say things, I never asked for anything, me. Well, what do you then get? Nothing. But I never asked for anything, so I don't expect anything. I'm in my apartment with my pets. I don't ask for anything. So we give the need up, or we give it away. I've got to find someone out there to tell me these things. And that works until there's someone out there gets sick or ill or has their own issues, or they move on. But when you decide, hey, I can do that, I can think of what I most want to hear. Say it myself, it may sound silly, but it's no sillier than saying I'm an idiot. I've got rocks for brains.

• 12:28Marisa Peer?

  Everything I touch falls apart. That's also silly and deeply harmful.

• 12:33Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 12:33Marisa Peer?

  So if you decide what you most want to hear and start to go, I matter.

• 12:38Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:39Marisa Peer?

  I'm here for a reason. I'm a good person. I'm lovable. I'm someone's fantasy dream come true because you are. Someone, someone in the world will look and go, oh, my God, you're my fantasy dream come true. Not everybody, but someone.

• 12:53Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 12:54Marisa Peer?

  Someone go, you know your problem? That kid keeping you up all night, the partner leaving their dirty pants. I love that problem. So silly as it sounds.

• 13:04Lewis Howes?

  It's so interesting you say that because my girlfriend. The more we date, I'll, I'll bring stuff up and I'll say, we might have like a, a sensitive conversation. And I'll say, I'm about to tell you something you're not gonna like. Cause I'm used to in the past.

• 13:21Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 13:21Lewis Howes?

  Saying things that has this terrible reaction in relationships. Or someone can't handle the truth about.

• 13:27Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 13:28Lewis Howes?

  Who I am or things I do or whatever. And I, so I set it up with her. I go, I'm about to say something you're really not gonna like. And, uh, yeah, so I'm just letting you know, you're not gonna like this. But, but I'm gonna be true and authentic to me and not walk on eggshells and not be afraid to communicate who I am. And I'll say the thing and she goes, that's it? She goes, I thought it was gonna be something horrible, but I love that thing about you.

• 13:54Marisa Peer?

  Isn't that nice?

• 13:54Lewis Howes?

  It's so, and you're like, really?

• 13:56Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 13:56Lewis Howes?

  So there's always someone who likes that thing about you.

• 14:00Marisa Peer?

  Yeah, there's someone who loves your little, little fatty tummy, who loves your triple thigh. I remember one of my friends saying, I saw my wife and he said her thighs are rubbing together. It was the sexiest thing I'd ever seen. He said, in my life, he said, I was walking behind her in a store and I had to get, no, because he said, that was just so sexy. You think, really? I thought we wanted a thigh gap that. We're all different.

• 14:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 14:23Marisa Peer?

  And it, but it really helps to think that you've got something to offer somebody. But the minute you start to say, I matter, I'm a good person, I'm smart. I can contribute something amazing to my company if you keep saying it. You see, when you give it up, you accept it's never gonna happen. And that's such a shame, because it could. But when you give it away, you've given someone else the job of meeting your needs. When you say, hey, what do I need? I need to feel loved. So silly as it sounds, going, well, I am lovable. Someone's gonna love me. I've got all the qualities that somebody will find deeply lovable. When you say it, it makes such an impact on your sense of self

• 15:07Marisa Peer?

  that people do pick that up. You know, we all know that annoying thing, you can't find a date. And then suddenly you find someone and then you get hit on. You think, wow, well, how did that happen? Because you're now resonating. When someone says, I rang just to hear your voice. I just, I just look at your picture. I call your phone just to listen to your message. You think, oh, someone loves me, I must be lovable. But if you can put that into yourself, it lasts forever.

• 15:36Lewis Howes?

  How do we put that in ourselves? When we've never been familiar with those thoughts and those, that routine of loving ourselves?

• 15:44Marisa Peer?

  One of the things I put in the book, which was so important, was something called installing your own cheerleader. You see, a cheerleader only knows how to bang cymbals. Even when you're losing, when a team loses their cheerleaders and go, oh, you were rubbish. Oh, my God, you stank. But they say, hey, you tried really hard and you were amazing. And you'll win next time. You know, we just did something in England where we put this into schools. We had 500 schools sign up. And each class actually created the cheerleader. They sent, we actually made little toys of the cheerleader they designed. And we were showing them how to go from I can't to I can in just five days by having a cheerleader that says, you've got this. Your name is all over this.

• 16:28Marisa Peer?

  No one can do this better than you. And so the cheerleader is your voice saying, you can do this. And you know what? It doesn't matter if you win. It matters that you loved competing. You did great. You did amazing. And the cheerleader will cheer you on academically. But it cheer, it cheerleads who you are. And we have a critical voice going, oh, you're that's gonna, you're gonna mess that up. That's never going to work. Why would you even think that could happen? No one from our family's ever had their own business. You haven't got anything to offer here. And the cheerleader flips on its head and says, you can do it, you can do it.

• 17:09Marisa Peer?

  And we've had such a great response from those five hundred schools who've said that bullying stopped. Children are getting better, they're getting better with each other too. And so we should all have a cheerleader. So it's very important, I put the download in that book where all you have to do is download it and play it. And it makes you feel good because you know, when you're a kid at school and you're running a race and someone is cheering you on, going, you can do it, you've got this. It may be your friend, it may be a parent. When you're going for a job and your friends go, hey, I know you can do this. But when you can say it, you don't think, oh, who can I call now to be my cheerleader?

• 17:52Marisa Peer?

  Being your own cheerleader is amazing because if you look at people who make it, someone like Tony Robbins, they definitely have a cheerleader going, hey, you can do this. Going for a big interview, go, well, you can do it, thinking a big thought, they go, well, why not? Of course I can do it.

• 18:08Lewis Howes?

  There's gonna be a lot of people that are gonna criticize you externally. A lot of people aren't gonna be your cheerleader. Hopefully some will, and hopefully at different times of life, people will be cheering you on. But there will be definitely seasons where people will criticize and try to pull you down in negative ways. Whether it's negative reviews online or to your face, or if you're an athlete, you go into the opposing arena. They're all booing you. You've got to have some type of cheerleader in your mind.

• 18:32Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 18:33Lewis Howes?

  In order to take that on.

• 18:35Marisa Peer?

  Yeah, because the most important words you will ever hear in your entire life are the words you say to yourself. And when you have a cheerleader, you understand the truth. There is nothing that would change your life more than letting in praise, but not letting in destructive criticism. Constructive criticism is okay. Hey, I just wanna tell you, always late. And if only you could be here on time, it would make our life so much better. You could say to your partner, look, I love you dearly, but every time I come downstairs and there's like coffee all over the counter and could you just rinse out the sink? That's okay. But if you can get into the habit of Letting in your own praise and other people's while deflecting criticism.

• 19:19Marisa Peer?

  It's such a game changer. In my years of being a therapist, I've seen over and over and I just get people to let in praise and not let in criticism. It changes their entire life.

• 19:30Lewis Howes?

  Why is it challenging for people to let in praise and to receive it? Especially in today, I feel like when someone acknowledges someone else, they kind of deflect it. They say, "Well, you know..."

• 19:40Marisa Peer?

  Don't mention it. "Nanada."

• 19:43Lewis Howes?

  "I wasn't that good."

• 19:44Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 19:45Lewis Howes?

  Why is it so challenging for us to receive acknowledgement and praise? And do it in a humble way and not a, "I know I'm the best and look the best and the prettiest and, you know, in the world" type of way?

• 19:57Marisa Peer?

  You know, it isn't normal. If you say to a little kid, "You look so cute," they smile and they, and if you say to a little child, "Wow, you're a smart kid," they don't go, "No, I'm actually really stupid. You should see the other kids in my class, they're way better than me." They let it in. We teach people that it's not okay. Don't get ahead of yourself. Don't be big headed. Don't show off. Who do you think you are? People won't like you if you're better than them. Don't ever tell anyone what you've got. And so we learn, "Oh, it's not okay." And if we get criticized a lot, it becomes so familiar that we actually let that in. And the praise is so unfamiliar that we reject it. So we find ourselves saying, "Oh, it wasn't, I wasn't really any good.

• 20:42Marisa Peer?

  I just was winging it." It's like even in that Spanish expression, "Nanada, don't mention it." I go, "No, you should really mention it." When you do a great job and people say, "Well done," you should go, "Thank you so much. I'm so glad you love my book. I love writing. I wrote it for someone like you." Don't go, "Oh, it's terrible. Didn't you notice all the spelling mistakes and it's not formatted very well?" It's like if someone gave you a gift and you go, "Oh, I hate that gift." And if I gave you that cup as a gift, you go, "I hate it. It's a horrible color. I don't like the writing." So see praise as a gift. You wouldn't go, "I hate this gift. Why did you think I'd even like it?" And just learn to say, "Thank you."

• 21:23Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 21:24Marisa Peer?

  I've had so many clients, just getting them to accept praise and saying, "Look..." You can make it familiar. In fact, I was teaching a course in London and this girl came up and she was very sad. And so we did a session and it was really interesting what had happened to her. And at the end, I said, you know, I'm gonna get the whole audience to come up and give you a hug. She went, oh, no, no, that's very hard. I said, you know, it's not hard. It's unfamiliar, but you can make it familiar. Halfway through, she said, Marissa, the cameraman's not in the line. I said, get in line. He was very good looking. I said, do you see how quickly you made that familiar? Being praised, being held, believing you are worthy of love. You have a choice. You know, you always have a choice.

• 22:08Marisa Peer?

  Rationalize why you can't have it or talk yourself into having it and always make the second choice. I can make this familiar. When I dated my husband, I had a choice. I'm gonna make a different kind of person familiar. Cause I knew he was such a good person and a kind person and a funny person.

• 22:27Lewis Howes?

  And what were you familiar with before that?

• 22:29Marisa Peer?

  Well, you know, I was very, I was a head teacher's daughter. You might call it a principal's daughter. So my dad was very interested in other people's children. He was paid to be interested in other people's children. He would give them all his time. He was at a hanky ready. He was, he was a really good guy, but he wasn't really interested in us. Cause it was much harder work with us. And so my thing was you gotta work really hard to get someone's attention. And that's very common with people. I've gotta earn love, chase love, work so hard for love. And that's not true. Love isn't to be earned or chased or run after or paid for. It's just there.

• 23:12Marisa Peer?

  So I had to give up that belief that I gotta earn love. So of course I liked men who made me work. They always had jobs or existing families and some terrible breakup and traumatized children. And because of that, I couldn't possibly the top of the list. You can't expect a father with three little babies to put you first. But then I realized, oh, this, I'm just making. And then actually it was when I was dating someone who said to me, I won't allow you to eat that. I'm like, when did you become a head teacher? And that was a penny drop. Wow. My dad is a teacher. Here am I with this person who, well, I can't eat. And, and I stopped dating him overnight. It was very confusing for him, but not for me, because I thought, oh,

• 23:55Marisa Peer?

  I'm dating my dad. And of course, I could never have sex in the gay when I had that realization, because it's like, wow, that's not, that's not very healthy. But I was so glad he did that, told me what I couldn't eat. And he wasn't, he wasn't trying to control me. He's, we're going out for dinner. He said, you, you don't need to eat that. We're going out in two hours to this big, he was a big foodie. I won't allow it. And that was, for me, the penny drop. Oh.

• 24:21Lewis Howes?

  I won't allow it, yeah.

• 24:22Marisa Peer?

  Dating people like my dad and trying to make them give me all their attention. And life is way too short to find someone like your parent and change the ending. You've got to find the person who changed the beginning. So I realized what I was doing is recreating what I knew. Someone absent, very preoccupied with their career. And I was trying to change the ending. And when I got that realization, I thought, well, I just changed the beginning. I find someone warm and available who'll put me first. It doesn't happen like that. You have to pay attention to the old habit of going back to what you know. So I could say, if I was

• 25:05Marisa Peer?

  a woman who had a cold, absent, critical father. I'm in a bar, meet a cold, absent groom. I think, oh, just clicked like that. I felt like I'd known them my whole life. It's because their behavior is so familiar. You want to run towards it when really you need to run away from it and go cold, absent, critical. How about warm, kind, friendly, loving, putting you first, decide? And it's a choice. I'm going to make that familiar, a good guy, a kind guy, someone who will put me first. And once you make the decision and you remind yourself of it, it becomes familiar, because while our mind likes what is familiar, that is a fact. We can choose what to make familiar.

• 25:50Marisa Peer?

  And indeed choose to go, well, no. So when people say, he was too good for me, what they're really saying is, his behavior was so unfamiliar, I didn't recognize it. I ran back to what I knew. But you have to run away from what you know. It's also like saying, well, this is comfortable. Why don't I make it uncomfortable? And I make what's uncomfortable, comfortable, sitting with it until it's familiar.

• 26:14Lewis Howes?

  It's familiar. I want to get to that more a little later about the relationship stuff, because I have a lot to share on that, things I've learned this year. But I'm curious on the thoughts and the lies and manifesting. I'm curious if you think we're able to manifest anything we want, a good relationship, the career, or a new business, or financial abundance, if we're stuck in a negative thought routine? Is it possible to manifest and accomplish what we want in a negative thought routine?

• 26:46Marisa Peer?

  No, you can't manifest when you are negative. I want money, but when you have money, you never know who your friends are. I want to be really sexy, but I don't want all that unwanted attention. I want a great job, but I'll never see my kids. I'll be a terrible parent. The mind is going to get into one lane. Here's one lane that says, I want to be a great parent. But another is, I want to have a great career. And I can't go into both lanes. Well, but after you can put that lane to one, I could have a great career and be a great, and it takes work, it takes balance, but it's very, very possible. The problem is, the mind is like a missile. It wants to go there, but it keeps going there.

• 27:30Marisa Peer?

  If it doesn't really know what you want, I want love, but it would kill me to be rejected. I want success, but am I really going to give up all the things I love to be successful? So you've got to really identify what you want to manifest, anything, you have to want it. And I think people have got very confused. They go, I'll sit on the chair and manifest a great guy. Well, unless that's the Amazon delivery guy, that's just not going to work.

• 27:58Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 27:58Marisa Peer?

  I want a great body, but I'm not going to do anything. So to be a manifest, you have to do three things, and you have to do all three. The first is the easy one, or maybe not easy. You have to decide you are worth it. I'm worthy of love. I'm worthy of a phenomenal relationship. I'm worthy of success. Even I'm worthy of wealth or health. I'm worth it. And that probably is at least eighty percent of manifesting. And many people manifest with a thought, not really worthy.

• 28:30Lewis Howes?

  Really?

• 28:31Marisa Peer?

  I'm gonna be, I'm gonna find love, but they're gonna leave me. I'm gonna find wealth, but I don't know how I'm gonna keep it. I'm gonna have a great job, but it's gonna kill me working those hours. So your first thought must be, I'm worth it. But then there's a second part, which is, what does it look like? And maybe it's, I'm gonna be a millionaire. For what? I don't know. I'm gonna be, I want a great person. What are they like? I don't know. They got a nice six-pack and drive a nice car. So the second part is, you must really know, what does it look like? If you don't know what it looks like, how are you gonna go after it? The mind will go after something it is clear about. So you might say, I want a really flat stomach. What does that look like?

• 29:14Marisa Peer?

  Well, it looks like not eating so many carbs, not eating late at night, going to the gym. If you know what it looks like, and you believe you're worth it, you'll have it. But then the third part is, after you've decided you're worth it, and you know what it looks like, what are you gonna do? Because if you really want a six-pack, you might have to do three hundred sit-ups a day. And if you're not prepared to do that, you don't want it enough. So I could say, I wanted to write a book. Did I feel I was worth it? Yeah, I had to work on myself. You know, I got a message and I think I can. People tell me I really help them. They tell me I changed their lives. So I'm worth putting that in a book. What does it look like?

• 29:56Marisa Peer?

  Well, it looks like, gonna have to, what is this book, what's it gonna be about? What's the storyline? What am I gonna call it? Who is my audience? Am I gonna write what I wanna write, or what people want to hear? So I had to know who is my market. And then here's the third part. I gotta sit down and write that book. And it takes a long time to write a book. And when you've written it, it takes even longer, as you know, to do all the press, all the pieces for magazines. So you can't have one of the two, or two of the two. And let's say, I want love. I gotta believe I'm really worthy of love. I gotta really nail it, and I am worthy of love. I deserve to love someone who loves me back.

• 30:40Marisa Peer?

  What does that look like? I I better get a clear idea of the kind of person I want in my life.

• 30:48Marisa Peer?

  And then when I do look at where am I gonna find it? I'm not gonna find it watching Netflix. A lot of us say, yeah, I go to yoga, but there's no men in yoga. I go to women's reading groups. Where's the guy? You know, you have to go to the weight room.

• 31:00Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 31:01Marisa Peer?

  And the same thing with guys, you know, you're not gonna find someone in a bar. But you might find them dog walking. You might find them in an IT class. So you have to be very clear about I'm worth it. I know what it looks like. And what am I going to do to get it? Because I think so many people think manifesting is thinking about what you want and sitting on the couch and it's gonna turn up. But you have to get out of the house. If you believe you are lovable and know the kind of person you want and put yourself in front of them, you'll probably go home with them for good. But you can't just do one of the two, two of the two. You've got to do all three.

• 31:40Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, and one of the things I love to do with the action steps. It can seem like if you're trying to lose fifty or a hundred pounds, it can seem like, man, I have to work this hard for a year in order to accomplish this. And you just did a hard workout for the first week and you're exhausted. You're like, I don't know how I'm gonna be able to do this.

• 31:56Marisa Peer?

  Sure.

• 31:57Lewis Howes?

  And I think if you just really think, I just have to do this one day.

• 32:00Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 32:00Lewis Howes?

  I just gotta show up today and I'm gonna do this seven days in a row and celebrate the week.

• 32:05Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 32:06Lewis Howes?

  Do another week. And over time, that's gonna really start paying off. What do you think about? I I love the idea of deciding you're worth it and having what you're worth having what you want and that you're worthy of what you want. If you haven't learned to heal whatever is a past trauma in your life, are you gonna be able to fully manifest without healing as well? Or is deciding you're worth it, start the healing process?

• 32:31Marisa Peer?

  See, if you think you're not worth it, you'll get rid of it. I mean, I I've worked, you probably know that seventy lottery, seventy percent of lottery winners are bankrupt in three years. Why? Because they don't feel they're worth it. They didn't work for it. They didn't have, I'm worth this money. What does it look like to have all this money? What could I do with it that's so good? They just think, wow, I've got all this money. And what's familiar, if you just have a job that doesn't pay a lot, is spending the money until it runs out and then next week you get more. And so if you don't feel you're worth it, self sabotage, procrastination, and nothing more than a fear of not being enough. And so you stop yourself getting there.

• 33:15Marisa Peer?

  So if you believe you're not worth it, and you find love, you find money, you find wealth, you'll get rid of it. And we see that with Amy Winehouse, with Whitney Houston. We see it over and over again. We saw it with George Michael. I always think of him every Christmas because he had so much, except the belief, I'm worth it. And so if you don't do step one first, which is just decide every day, I'm worth love. I deserve love, I'm worthy of love. Because after all, how could you not be worthy of love? Everyone is worthy of love. So if you don't do that bit, and you just do the other two, what does it look like? I'll go and get it.

• 33:56Lewis Howes?

  It's never gonna feel enough.

• 33:57Marisa Peer?

  But you'll get rid of it. And we see people all the time who say, I know what's wrong with me. I remember Sandra Bullock's husband saying, what did I do? I had this beautiful girl and I messed it up. Well, of course you messed it up because you never felt you were worthy of it in the first place. So everything else you're going to do to get what you want, if you don't do the first step first, wiring that you're worthy, you'll spend a lot of time getting rid of it, ruining it, destroying it, acting out, sabotaging yourself.

• 34:30Lewis Howes?

  Are we able to believe we're worthy if we haven't started to heal though? Is it, you know, can we just say, okay, I'm worthy even though my parents abandoned me and I've, you know, lost every relationship I've been in? You know, how do we bridge the gap from starting to tell ourselves a better lie, knowing we're worthy and healing?

• 34:48Marisa Peer?

  You know, that's such a great question because you have, and often in the book, I invite you to go back to imagine any little baby that's just been born. They never go, don't look at me. I've got milk spots. I've got these triple thighs. I've got a huge tummy. Haven't got any clothes on. You know, when I had a baby and I take her out in the street, we would come and look at her. And she'd smile, her big gummy smile, and kick her little legs with her triple knees. And it never occurred to her, she wasn't the most gorgeous thing in the world. You know, when you got, I remember that picture of you with your cat. You just got it, it was on your chest going, oh, Lewis, you just wanna love me.

• 35:22Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 35:23Marisa Peer?

  Cause I'm lovable. So the good news is, every person is born believing they're lovable.

• 35:28Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 35:28Marisa Peer?

  We know we're lovable as a child, cause we demand attention, we demand feeding. You know, you can take in a random pet, but it will come up and wrap its legs around you when it wants to be fed. It doesn't run behind the fridge and never comes out because it believes it's worthy. So, the good news is you are born certain that you are lovable, convinced you're lovable. And then it gets chipped away, and then you begin to buy, I'm not worthy. I don't have a great education.

• 35:58Lewis Howes?

  Hmm.

• 35:58Marisa Peer?

  I don't have a six pack, I'm not a ten. I come from a, I never had a dad, my mom was always drinking. And now you're justifying why you're not lovable. But the thing is, you need to go right back to the beginning. You were born certain that you were lovable. So you have to reactivate what's in you, that's become buried. But you do have to heal it, and I think we think, oh, healing is so long. What does that involve? I've got to play this meditation tape every day and spend hours massaging my own body or looking in the mirror. And actually, healing is actually making a decision to think better thoughts.

• 36:39Marisa Peer?

  You know, no matter where you are in your life, thought comes first. Your thoughts create your feelings, which create your actions, which create your behaviours. And even your belief is nothing more than a thought you think a lot. And I think we think it's, oh, I've got to change all this.

• 36:57Lewis Howes?

  Can you say it one more time, thoughts?

• 36:59Marisa Peer?

  Thoughts always come first. Your thoughts create your feelings. Your feelings create your behaviours and your actions, which you justify by going, it's like a loop. I think I'm not worthy of love. And that makes me feel very sad and defeated and probably angry and resentful. And if I think that thought and feel that feeling now, I act out, I'm difficult. Or maybe I'm very needy or very pleasing, but I justify it because I've gone back to the thought. I'm not lovable. But if I change the thought, I'm lovable. Of course, I'm lovable, even if I don't believe it. If I keep thinking the thought, well, I feel very different. I feel optimistic, I feel reassured, feel quite confident. I feel certain someone's gonna love me.

• 37:44Marisa Peer?

  And now I behave differently. I take risks, I talk, I look people in the eye, I speak to them. My actions are different and I justify them by going back to the thought. I'm lovable. So we're so busy changing the behaviors and the actions and the feelings when all you have to change is the thought. You know, it's hard to heal what you don't understand. But healing is just saying, I came from a crazy family. I came from a place with no money. I didn't get a great college degree. However, I am worthy of everything I want. I can have everything I want with vows on. So if you just change the thought which always comes first,

• 38:27Marisa Peer?

  everything else will take care of itself. And you know, you, you own your thoughts. You have every right to change. And we think a thought and then we start to make that thought. Then we have this confirmation bias. If I think dogs are horrible, yappy creatures that attack you. If I think that thought, I feel anxious around dogs. And you can believe the dog is gonna pick up my anxiety. And it's gonna be yappy, yeah. And it doesn't like me. And I'm now, now I've got confirmation. You see, I told you dogs are yappy, snappy, bitey things. Look what just happened. Babies don't like me. If I hold them, they go rigid. I always get dumped. Everything goes wrong. I can never keep a job for more than six months.

• 39:12Marisa Peer?

  When you think that thought and you believe that thought, you begin to look for a confirmation bias of how that thought is real. But confirmation bias can be very good. I think I'm lovable.

• 39:27Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 39:27Marisa Peer?

  And I'm gonna look for, yeah, well, my grandmother loved me. My first boyfriend said I was amazing. My teacher said something good, so you have to make confirmation buzz work. Think a better thought. Start looking for examples of how it's true, because whatever you look for, you will find, whatever you look for. You you get, you move towards what you already believe, you get more of what you already believe. So you gotta think a thought and then start looking for proof, and even if you can find hardly any, it doesn't matter. Still do it, and then it becomes true.

• 40:03Lewis Howes?

  What about people that say, well, how do I know my thoughts come from me? How do I know they're not coming from somewhere else?

• 40:09Marisa Peer?

  But it doesn't matter where they come from. It's that's not important. What's important is let's change them. So if you, if your thoughts are coming at you or coming from you, and they were negative, it doesn't matter where they come from, it only matters you think, I I'm not gonna think this thought. You know, you can choose to be negative or positive, but you can't choose what it does to your body when you think negative thoughts.

• 40:33Lewis Howes?

  What does it do to your body when you think negative?

• 40:34Marisa Peer?

  Well, when it creates a lot of cortisol, which creates inflammation, which is a precursor to many diseases. It makes you anxious. It makes you suffer with things like insomnia. It affects your digestion, it affects, can even affect your metabolism. It affects your ability to have joy and happiness on the planet, so your thoughts are yours to change, and yes, you can pick up other people's thoughts. You know, I I've often gone back to London, got in a cab, they go, oh, this country's a write-off. Look at the weather. And I just, so I gotta make, take a call, and I just shut the intercom, because I think, I don't want to let that in. I can't let in negative thoughts. I mean, they're around me.

• 41:19Marisa Peer?

  And sometimes I'll be in a position where I'm hearing really negative, I can't hear that. I can't let that in.

• 41:26Lewis Howes?

  It's fascinating because my dad used to, you know, one of our first episode we ever did, I think the title was, Your Thoughts Will Heal You or Kill You?

• 41:33Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 41:33Lewis Howes?

  And it was one of our most popular episodes. I recommend people go listen to it or watch it. And I think I might have told you then that my dad would always turn the commercials off when there would be some type of drug campaign or sick, if you're feeling sick, you need to buy this, you know, he would always mute or turn the channel, constantly turning the channel because he was like, I don't want your mind to be consumed with

• 41:56Marisa Peer?

  Yeah, I don't want to hear this.

• 41:57Lewis Howes?

  these negative thoughts. And it's something I've practiced most of my life. I mean, I'm not perfect, but I don't watch the news still today.

• 42:06Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 42:07Lewis Howes?

  Like even in the beginning, in the beginning of the pandemic, I remember watching it for like a month because just like everything was happening. And I just said, why am I consuming this? I can get information and be educated on what's actually happening in the world and be aware and be cautious of what I need to be cautious of. But the constant rumination of these negative thoughts are not supporting my mind, they're not supporting my body, and they're not supporting my actions if I'm going to be living in a fear, uh, fear-based state of mind and behavior. So I said, okay, I want to be educated and informed, so I'll get the updated information, but I'm not going to get it in this hysterical storytelling, you know,

• 42:49Lewis Howes?

  mass media of the worst of the worst. I'm going to get it written down of here's the data, here's the facts, be aware, be cautious, but not allow these thoughts to be consumed inside of me. And I think that's really helped me over these last two years. Just stay focused on how can I take care of myself? How can I show up in a loving way? You know, how can I continue to serve my, my team, my community, my, my audience? And not be crippled by these thoughts.

• 43:14Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 43:15Lewis Howes?

  And it's, it's been a, you know, a great practice that I had as a child that's helped me now as an adult. But I see so many people consumed by these, the media in the negative way or taking it in too much and then holding on to that fear.

• 43:31Marisa Peer?

  Yeah. And it's funny because when COVID hit, I was in England just moving to America. And I remember thinking, oh, I don't have any medicine in America. And I thought, And I went to buy some and everything had sold out. And I thought, well, what am I doing if I buy all this medicine? Am I planning to get ill? And I had a real dilemma. Shall I buy all this stuff and ship it out to America? If I'm buying all this stuff, all these cold remedies, am I planning to get a cold? Eventually, I thought, you know, I'm gonna buy them for other people. I'm gonna buy them for when I have visitors in my house. They need a bit of Lemsip, but I don't need it. And sometimes you have to really stop and think, you know, what am I doing? I'm buying antacids. I'm buying anti-sickness stuff to go on the plane.

• 44:13Marisa Peer?

  I'm carrying pepper spray or bear spray on my keyring. What am I doing here? Am I planning to get attacked? And I think it's okay to have that on your keyring. Right, be prepared. But don't expect, oh, I need this. That something terrible is gonna happen. You know, I lock my door and I put on an alarm, but I don't stress about it too much. So, but you are right. We sometimes think the most, I'm gonna get sick. It's flu season. It's allergy season. It's hay fever season. It's headache season. I know when I have a kid, it will scream all night. I know when I have a kid, I'll get really fat and you never get rid of the weight. I know when I meet someone, it's not going to work.

• 44:58Marisa Peer?

  We really have to remember, you have the power to make that thought real. But guess what? You also have the power to reverse it. This relationship is gonna last forever. I'm gonna be a great mom. I've got a great immune system. My body deals with germs every single day. So it really is a choice to just look at your thoughts, update them the way you update your software. Upgrade them. But so many of us don't even know what we're thinking. I need coffee to cope. I need caffeine to get to get up in the morning. I need pills to go to sleep at night. Well, actually, you don't.

• 45:39Marisa Peer?

  But if you think that thought, you're gonna confirm it and make it real sleep. It will come to you wherever you are. Your body will cope very well without caffeine. You're not gonna gain a pound looking at pizza. And you do know what full is, and you can stop eating, but so many of us have been so influenced by the media, you know, in America, every third advert is for drugs, for medicine. Cause it's saying you need this, and the same thing for Happy Meals, you need this. No, you don't need any of that. You need to think better thoughts.

• 46:14Lewis Howes?

  Well, what about people with low self-esteem or low confidence? Where do you think that the root of that comes from? And how can we start to overcome that self-doubt, low self-esteem, low confidence?

• 46:26Marisa Peer?

  Yeah, well, again, I've never met a baby that was born with low self-esteem. No baby says, I'm just not gonna try to crawl. It's too difficult. I can't get that food in my mouth. I'll give up. I can't quite hit the toilet. I just stop bothering. So the good thing about that is you were not born with it. Even if you had a horrible beginning and your parents gave you up for adoption and didn't want you. You know, one of my friends went to Russia to get a little boy and he said, it was so funny. So I walked in the office, he ran up and he clung to my legs. So, and, and he said, when we left, I said, say goodbye. And he just looked, I'm not, I'm not looking back. Even as a baby, he knew. And he, when I picked him up to leave, when I got the adoption, he wouldn't look back. He wouldn't wave. He's like, I'm going that way with you.

• 47:11Marisa Peer?

  And that's all behind me now. And he's an amazing kid, the boy he adopted, because he had a sense of, you know, where he is. And he said, one day, I said, I'm, I'm so glad I found you. He said, yeah, I'm glad we found each other. So he's already got that sense of we found each other. I found you, but you also found me. And we helped each other. So with self-esteem, there is nothing on the planet that will build that faster than your own praise. We often think, well, I need to lose 10 pounds, get a six pack, update my wardrobe. It's like that Bruce Springsteen, I wanna change my face, my thoughts, my job. Do you remember that song by Bruce?

• 47:51Marisa Peer?

  You wanna change your thoughts. That's all you ever need to change. And the thing that will raise and build your self-esteem is praise. There is nothing, no shoes, no cookies, no candy, no sex, no drugs, no alcohol, nothing that will build your self-esteem.

• 48:11Marisa Peer?

  Like praise, and if you knew that to be true, and it is true, then all you have to do is practice saying, I like myself.

• 48:19Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 48:19Marisa Peer?

  I'm a good person. I've got something to offer the world. I'm kind, I'm nice, I'm fatting, I'm interesting, I'm compelling. You can make it as dramatic as you like. I'm magnetically lovable, or just, I've got a good heart. I'm an interesting person. People like me. So, if you knew that the one thing that could build your praise was free, was immediate, and was in you, why wouldn't you use it? And I talk a lot in the book about exactly how to do that.

• 48:51Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 48:51Marisa Peer?

  Again, the cheerleader, the self-confidence. People get very confused. I, I don't even know, what is self-love? Is that rubbing cream on myself, having a little sex aid? What is self-love? No, it's not that. It's looking in the mirror and saying, I'm nice. And the way to know if you love yourself is really three things. And the big one is, how do you talk to you? Do you say, I'm an idiot? I've got rocks for brains. Look at the state of me. I knew I'd mess that up. Self-love is being kind. So the way you talk to yourself, the way you dialogue with you is the big key to self-love.

• 49:31Lewis Howes?

  Okay.

• 49:31Marisa Peer?

  So if someone said to me, oh my god, you messed that up, you idiot. I go, no, I made a mistake, but I learnt from it. If someone said to me, oh, yeah, I hate that book. I say, well, let me give you your money back. I'm sorry you didn't like it. I think it's a great book, but I'm happy to refund you because I'm not gonna let them make me believe. Someone said, I hate your book. I go, oh my god, they hated my book. I go, well, they didn't like it. I like it.

• 49:55Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 49:56Marisa Peer?

  So I will always talk to myself well, almost all the time. You don't have to do it a hundred percent. Ninety percent is as good. The second way of knowing how you love yourself is, how do you treat yourself? Do you eat well? Do you hydrate?

• 50:12Lewis Howes?

  Uh huh.

• 50:13Marisa Peer?

  Do you get some people, do you lie on the sofa eating potato chips, staying up all night watching Netflix? And knowing you're gonna get up at eight and you're still watching something at four AM, because that's not love. People say to me, I, I love food. I'm like, no. Loving pizza and beer is not love, it's abuse. Punishing workouts, that's not love, that's abuse. Starving yourself and eating celery juice or drinking Diet Coke, that's not love, it's abuse. And the only way to have a body you love is to actually start by loving the one you have. So love is, do I really wanna eat donuts and Pop-Tarts and soda first thing in the morning? Would I give that to a baby? Would I give that to my pet?

• 50:55Marisa Peer?

  So how do you talk to yourself first? How do you treat yourself second? And once you get into, oh, I'm gonna love myself, you won't eat donuts for breakfast. And lots and lots of takeouts for dinner, cause you'll think, that's not love. It's abuse. The whole dieting industry is based on abuse. Hate your body so much that you starve it. Make it do the plank when you're not in the mood. Force it to go running in the rain, and then go, I hate my legs, I hate my stomach. And then the third part is, how do you let other people treat you?

• 51:31Lewis Howes?

  Ooh, that's a big one.

• 51:32Marisa Peer?

  Do you let them put you down? Do you lend them money when you can't afford it? Do you go out of your way to give them a lift? Are you a real people pleaser? If you get the first one right, the other two will click into place anyway. But try, you're again, you're back into that, I'm trying to buy your love. I'm trying to earn your affection, I'm trying to make you like me. And people like you when you like you enough to say, oh, this doesn't suit me. No, I, I don't really, I can't have your kids all weekend while you go to Burning Man. It's just, isn't convenient. You don't, and, and the other thing about it is, don't keep saying, sorry. Sorry, I'm late. Sorry, I'm sick. Say, thank you, thank you for waiting for me.

• 52:16Marisa Peer?

  Thanks for being such a great friend, thanks for helping me out. Sorry, I'm such a burden, I'm sorry, I know I'm a pain. So, when you get to understand what self-love looks like. And I, I dialogue with myself very nicely. I treat myself on the whole, I can have pizza and ice cream, but I don't need to have four tubs. Cause I'm practicing self-love. I love a bit of cake, but I don't need the whole cake. And now that I love myself, when you say something mean, I can go, oh, I'm not gonna let that in.

• 52:46Lewis Howes?

  Wow.

• 52:46Marisa Peer?

  That's not very loving. And it all sounds hard, it's actually incredibly easy.

• 52:52Lewis Howes?

  When we are people pleasers, and we let other people do things that necessarily we don't wanna do.

• 52:58Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 52:59Lewis Howes?

  We end up doing it because we don't wanna let someone down, or we don't wanna upset at us. And then we resent that we did the thing.

• 53:05Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 53:06Lewis Howes?

  What is that saying about us, when we are people pleasing all the time?

• 53:09Marisa Peer?

  You're putting yourself last and everyone else first. And it doesn't mean you should put yourself first, but you should not put yourself last. I mean, it's fine if you want to drive to the airport and pick someone up at 4:00 AM because you love them. That's perfectly okay. It's fine to lend someone money, to lend someone your car, but if you're doing it to make them like you, you don't really want to do it, you put them first and you last. And it really helps to go, okay, is this love or abuse? I'm lending people my stuff when I can't afford to. I'm giving people my things. I'm giving them my time, my money, my energy, when I haven't got it to give. So that's not love. It's abuse. And if you can look at things, is that love or abuse?

• 53:54Marisa Peer?

  And always come at love, it becomes much, much easier to get it right.

• 53:59Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. In the book, there's a chapter in here where you're talking about

• 54:04Lewis Howes?

  how some people will trade one negative addiction for a more socially acceptable positive addiction.

• 54:10Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 54:11Lewis Howes?

  They'll stop drinking alcohol, but then they're having, you know, ten cokes a day or something. They'll stop doing something else unhealthy, but then they'll be working out three hours in the gym you talk about a day. And they trade one negative addiction for a different addiction, which seems to be more positive, but is also abusive in its own way. Why do, why do certain people trade one addiction for another? And how could they actually sit with the time and the energy and the conversations, the thoughts of the anxiety or the stress that they're having? And just not be addicted anymore?

• 54:51Marisa Peer?

  Well, again, you've got to go back to that ladder of looping thoughts. What's the thought that runs an addiction? It's always the same. I'm not enough. I'm not enough is going to be behind every addiction. Because if you're not enough, guess what you need? More. I need more food, more alcohol, more drugs, more sex, more shopping, more Netflix. And many, many addicts try to change the behavior. I'm not going to go to the bar. I'm not going to go to the ice cream shop. I'm going to avoid that situation. So I'm trying to change the behavior, but you have to go back and change the thought. And there's someone called Ryan in the book. I think it's the second chapter.

• 55:34Marisa Peer?

  And that is a classic story of alcoholism. Ryan, bless his heart, because he's a lovely person, was an addict, alcohol and drugs. Was also addicted to people that hurt him in relationships. And he'd been to rehab over and over again to change the behavior. And by the way, in rehab, they have cupboards full of candy. Don't drink. Eat chocolate. Eat more chocolate. Eat more stuff, because they're just switching one addiction for another. And many ex-addicts, I'm addicted to food. I'm addicted to shopping. I'm addicted to praise. And because you're still treating the behavior, the thought creates the feeling that behaves, that creates the behavior. I've worked with thousands and thousands of addicts.

• 56:18Marisa Peer?

  I've never met one ever who ever felt they're enough. And when you go back to that, whenever you think you're not enough, you will need more of something. When you know you are enough, you don't need cake. After all. One donut might be okay, why would you want six? Why would you need three pizzas followed by a beer? Why would you need a whole bottle of wine if one could make you feel good? If one purse or pair of shoes could make you feel good, why have you got a closet full of them? Clearly, it isn't working, but with addiction, if you try to treat the behavior and only the behavior, you just swap behaviors.

• 56:58Lewis Howes?

  So we have to go back to the thought first?

• 56:59Marisa Peer?

  You have to go back to the thought. Thought comes before behaviors. Thought causes actions. If you just change the thought, I've worked with many alcoholics who've stopped drinking, like Ryan, in one session. Cause he went back to look at the thought and said, well, let's change that. And many people say, no, it's amazing. I stopped drinking, stopped binging, stopped using. Cause I suddenly realized, oh, it was a thought I was thinking that caused me so much pain. And the thought wasn't even true.

• 57:34Lewis Howes?

  Is it possible to change the thought that quickly? If, let's say, you're, you know, forty years old, you've been addicted for twenty years and you've kind of had this emotional, I guess, trauma trapped in your body and in your mind on a repeat for decades. Is it possible to change it that quickly? Or does it usually take, you know, a few months? The more, I guess, embedded this is in your system, like?

• 58:00Marisa Peer?

  It just depends, you know, you can change a thought in twenty one seconds. Or is it twenty one days, twenty one hours? It can be twenty one seconds. It depends on you. Some people change thoughts instantly. They, they learn something new. It's like suddenly you realize that Father Christmas isn't real. And everything changes and it's not hard work. Or you realize that there is no tooth fairy. There is no scary monster. Maybe you even realize there isn't hell. So it can be instant, but it doesn't matter if it isn't, you know. You can change three ways, immediate change, oh, I changed my thinking. You know, it's a bit like someone saying, I thought that person loved me, and then someone woke me up and said, you know, that's not love. That's abuse.

• 58:45Marisa Peer?

  It's like saying, oh, I thought, you know, I was doing the right thing by hating my body and it's not changing. But then I realized everything I thought was love is abuse. So I'm gonna do yoga, not running. I'm not gonna eat diet food. I'm gonna love my body with proper food. It can be an instant thought, you know, like for instance, my, um. My friends went into an abattoir, came out and said, that's it. I could never eat meat again. In that instant, everything changed. If you ate, I don't know, oysters were violently sick. That change, you can never eat them again because you've linked pain to it. Anything you're over the toilet bringing, I would think, oh, no.

• 59:23Lewis Howes?

  Never again.

• 59:24Marisa Peer?

  Never again, never again.

• 59:26Lewis Howes?

  Yeah, if you're throwing up from alcohol the night before.

• 59:28Marisa Peer?

  It's not even work, you just go, no, I can't do that again. So you can change instantly and that's always the best kind. But there's also a second change, which is cumulative, it means bit by bit. You think, oh, when did I last scream at my kids? When did I last have that tension headache? I'm noticing it's getting better. And then the third change is called retroactive, when you don't even know you've changed. And someone says, wow, look at you. Or your partner says, gosh, you're so much calmer. Someone says, wow, Lewis, you're looking great. So instant change, cumulative change, retroactive change. But it doesn't matter which change you get because you are changing in the same way that some people have ten driving lessons, pass their test, that's it.

• 1:00:12Marisa Peer?

  Other people have a hundred lessons and finally pass their test. But you're equal on the road, so. And with the changes, you're thinking, well, my friend did that diet and lost fifty pounds and I didn't, I guess I'm a failure. My friend did that workout and got a six pack. I didn't. My friend did that and it changed a lot. It didn't work for me. And the saddest thing is we don't blame the program. We blame ourselves. I guess I'm just a failure. So don't compare your change to other people. Some people change really fast and other people don't. Some people pick up a language really fast. Other people don't.

• 1:00:52Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:00:52Marisa Peer?

  That's not important.

• 1:00:55Lewis Howes?

  Don't shame yourself either.

• 1:00:56Marisa Peer?

  No, don't blame yourself. Don't shame yourself. Again, that's abuse, isn't it? Everything you're doing that's abusive, turn it around to being more loving. I made a mistake. I forgot something. I was mean to my kids today. I lost it. I ended up eating three Kit Kats because I didn't go out for lunch, but I could remember next time to have some nuts in my bag or to take something with me.

• 1:01:20Lewis Howes?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:21Marisa Peer?

  I shouted at my kids because I hadn't eaten and I was so stressed and I realized I could have taken a deep breath. So don't, you know, you can only learn by making a mistake. But it doesn't matter how long it takes. It's like saying, how long does it take to climb a mountain? I don't know, but when you get to the top, the view is the same for everyone, whether you sprinted up there or went a very slow crawl, everyone has the same view.

• 1:01:45Lewis Howes?

  Yeah. You said there were a couple of points to addiction. The first one being, I'm not enough. Was there a couple more points to kind of the root of addiction?

• 1:01:52Marisa Peer?

  Well, any addiction is classified as something that moves you away from a bad behavior to a good one. People can be addicted to exercise. They can be addicted to orgasms, but it's anything that moves you away from something bad to something good that you can't stop that starts to run you. And people think addicts are really cold and And mean, but addicts are often very fragile, deeply sensitive. So if we look at the Jimi Hendrix and David Bowie and Prince and Michael Jackson, people who are addicted to pain pills, they often are very fragile. Amy Winehouse, even Whitney, very sensitive, fragile creatures that the world is very hard on.

• 1:02:35Marisa Peer?

  And if you're an addict in any way, you have to realize that addicts are very creative. If you say to Anthony Hopkins, hey, Anthony, can you play a psychopath? He can see that and play it and terrify everyone. If you say to Amy, hey, Amy, could you write about pain? She could knock out Back to Black in five minutes because they're so creative. And if you're creative, you are receptive to suggestions, which is your biggest gift and your biggest downfall. Because you go, I don't think that was very good. I thought someone else wrote much better. So addicts are very sensitive, often highly creative. They find the real world very hard and they need support.

• 1:03:19Marisa Peer?

  Kindness, that's not easy when you have an eighteen year old kid who's stealing from you to buy drugs. But sending them to rehab where they're told you're trying to kill yourself is often not the case. They're often trying to stay alive and it's hard to be kind.

• 1:03:34Lewis Howes?

  Right.

• 1:03:34Marisa Peer?

  But it's the only thing that works with addicts, going back and saying, look, not what's wrong with you, but what happened to you? When did you decide you don't matter? When did you decide you were worthless? What happened to make you believe you're not enough? And I've looked at many seventeen year addicts and say, well, I didn't have a dad. My dad left when I was one. He never saw me. He's got another kid he loves more than me and I'm nothing. I go, but that's not true. Your dad is an idiot. I'm sorry you have an idiot for a dad, but your dad not seeing you has nothing to do with your greatness and your gifts. But it's hard for children because they're worthless. Who loves me? Am I lovable? And if no one loves you, how can you believe you're lovable?

• 1:04:18Marisa Peer?

  As you get older, you think, well, I gotta stop. If nobody loves me and I'm allowing myself to believe I'm not lovable, maybe I could reverse that and go, I am lovable. I am, I am, I am, even if I think it's silly. Because you're changing the thought. And we know that our thoughts radiate from us like a magnet, people that pick our thinking. You know, if you, I was at a ranch last week and working with horses and if the horse thinks you like it, you know, you go, you have to lie on it. So you touch where all its organs are, its stomach. And first, the horse will tune into your breathing, actually tunes into your smell. And if it goes, oh, you like me and I'm safe, it will let you hold it. But if you're nervous and anxious, the horse will pull away.

• 1:05:03Marisa Peer?

  But people are no different. We tune into someone else's thoughts. We tune into other people's beliefs much more than we tune into their actions. So change your thoughts because it won't just change how you feel about you or change how everyone else feels about you.

• 1:05:21Lewis Howes?

  Right, because if your thoughts are going to create feelings and emotions within you, your body language is going to change based on your thoughts.

• 1:05:27Marisa Peer?

  Of course.

• 1:05:28Lewis Howes?

  And people are going to pick up that energy around you.

• 1:05:30Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:30Lewis Howes?

  And what I'm hearing you say, people who are addicted, their number one thought is, I'm not enough.

• 1:05:35Marisa Peer?

  Yeah.

• 1:05:36Lewis Howes?

  And so they need to go back to the beginning of reversing that lie, changing that thought.

• 1:05:42Marisa Peer?

  Yeah, and like with Ryan, it doesn't take forever. It can take an hour, it can take half an hour, it takes you. Because I remember saying to Ryan, you know, you think you're a broken person, but you're not. You're a person who has some broken experiences. You think you're flawed. The truth is, you had flawed parenting, but you're not flawed. You're not, you're not a machine that's broken. You're a person who's had some broken events, but it doesn't mean you're broken.

• 1:06:09Lewis Howes?

  You would go a lot into I'm Enough as well, your other book, which I really loved as well. I want to get into relationships here in a moment. But if you're watching this, listening to this right now, make sure you guys check out this book, Tell Yourself a Better Lie. I'll have it all linked up below on the YouTube video and on the podcast as well. Make sure you get this and I Am Enough, if you feel like you're not enough. I hope today's episode inspired you on your journey towards greatness. Make sure to check out the show notes in the description for a rundown of today's show with all the important links. And if you want weekly exclusive bonus episodes with me as well as ad-free listening experience, make sure to subscribe to our Greatness Plus channel on Apple Podcast.

• 1:06:52Lewis Howes?

  If you enjoyed this, please share it with a friend over on social media or text a friend. Leave us a review over on Apple Podcast and let me know what you learned over on our social media channels at Lewis Howes. I really love hearing the feedback from you and it helps us continue to make the show better. And if you want more inspiration from our world-class guests and content to learn how to improve the quality of your life, then make sure to sign up for the Greatness Newsletter and get it delivered right to your inbox over at greatness.com/newsletter. And if no one has told you today, I want to remind you that you are loved, you are worthy, and you matter. And now it's time to go out there and do something great.