92: John Assaraf: CEO of NeuroGym, New York Times bestselling author, and one of the leading authorities on unlocking human potential

Speaker A: You're listening to Cannonball Mindset, a podcast dedicated to helping people achieve the most out of their personal and professional lives. The Cannonball Mindset challenges you to step out of your comfort zone and lean into the possibility of having a life of abundance. Disruptors, innovators, and groundbreakers are all welcome. Let's get into the show.

Speaker B: Welcome back to the Cannonball Mindset. I am Chad Santroen, your host, and I cannot even believe where I am and who I am with. Uh, I could give you a 30 minute, a 30 minute dissertation on all the things this guy has done, but then I would only have 30 minutes to actually learn from him. So all I'm going to say is I'm with John Assarov. He is the world renowned. He is the best in the best of the best when it comes to all things neuroscience, changing your beliefs. He's also, by the way, written a bunch of New York Times bestsellers, uh, grown $50 million businesses. He skis. I think he probably does gardening. He probably knows how to play volley. He was a basketball player. I'm saying this guy has done it all. And for the next hour, I hope you have your notebook ready, I hope you have your pen ready, because this guy is going to unleash a ton of wisdom. I'm going to ask questions, and then I'm going to take notes and let him talk. So thanks for coming, John. I've got to spend some time with you in the past, and this is a, uh, this is a Cannonball moment for me. So I appreciate it.

Speaker A: Thank you. Great, great to have you here at, uh, my home. And no, I don't do any gardening. Now we can continue everything else.

Speaker B: Yes, but no, but no gardening. So, John, let me ask you a question. So you, you started out, you didn't, you did not come out of the womb as this unbelievable neuroscience, all things mindset master that you are now. It was a, it was a journey.

Speaker A: Oh, my goodness, what a journey. Yeah, the journey stemmed from, from a, ah, very, very messy teen life, um, and some health issues that caused me to look deeper at what was the root of my problems. And I wanted to have a good life, a healthy life, a successful life. Um, and I learned that I could actually have an extraordinary life if I used my, my mindset and my brain better. And I was fortunate. I had, I had like, mentors, people who were philanthropic, they were kind, they were loving, they were smart. They knew how to help me see what I didn't see or understand at a very, very young age. 19. Right. So it's 44 years ago. I'm 63 now. Right. So they pointed me in the right direction because I was heading in the wrong direction on the wrong train, picking up speed, and I was either heading to the jail or to the morgue. M. And, uh, one man, one question, one answer changed the entire trajectory of my life. And, um, so I'm standing on the shoulders of many, many, many wonderful men and women who cared enough to explain to me, uh, what to do, why to do it, how to do it, how to shift from the inside out, and how to create an environment, um, that has helped me achieve a little bit of success in life, in every area of my life, not just, you know, in business or financial.

Speaker B: So, so, so there is a moment. I know the story, but I want to, I want our audience to really understand this, because the power of that moment. Yeah, the power of that question. I believe that the quality of your life is predicated on the questions you ask yourself. If you ask yourself great questions, you'll have a pretty amazing life. Um, but that moment, you got a question and I would love for you to share it, but I want to know how these moments happen for everybody. But what happened in your life for you to actually accept that moment, to see that moment as a shift, to see how I find truth moment, to say I'm going to change exactly the trajectory of my life.

Speaker A: So give some perspective to the story. Um, between the ages of 13 and 18, I was selling drugs. I was doing breaking and entries in people's homes and businesses. I was getting in trouble with the police, uh, street fights all the time. I was involved in a little group gang, you know, that fought with other gangs. Um, failed English, failed math. Left high school, grade 11. I, um, started working in the shipping department of Phillips Electronics, the Billy electronics store. Making $1.65 an hour, taking the bus from home to work, work to home, every day. I hated my life. And on the side, I was selling drugs to make more money. So put into perspective doing immoral, illegal things that, you know, I've repented and made up for it since then. Um, but at the time, I had low self esteem, low self worth. I didn't think that I was good enough. I didn't think I was smart enough. And other than, like playing basketball and hockey, I wasn't good at anything else. And so I had enough evidence that my life wasn't going to amount to much, especially back then. Um, I heard from my parents, I heard from my teachers. If you don't go to college, you'll never amount to much and you'll end up, you know, maybe surviving, but chances are you won't have a great life. Um, and my brother and sister who were concerned for my welfare, you know, kept saying to me, come on, you got to get your act together. You're going to die, you're going to go to jail, you're going to hurt somebody. And I was like, yeah, yeah, you know, like f off. Leave me alone. I was a brash, young, cocky kid. Um, and then one day m. My brother who um, was playing the professional tennis circuit when he was in his late teens, early 20s, uh, moved from Europe where he was playing the circuit back to, uh, Toronto to, to be the head coach of a tennis club. And he was teaching a lot of very successful people because this was a very popular country club in Toronto. And he said to me, hey bro, why don't you come to Toronto? I was living in Montreal at the time. Why don't you come to Toronto, you know, spend the weekend with me. And there's this one guy I want to introduce you to. His name is Alan Brown. He, he builds homes and he builds commercial buildings and he has seven real estate offices. And if he likes you, maybe he'll give you a job. And so I'm like, oh my God, that would be amazing because I hated what I was doing in the shipping department. And so I take the train, my brother picks me up, we go to lunch with this man. He's um, just a nice, soft spoken, well dressed, in shape man, probably 50s, early 60s back then. And um, he asked me a bunch of questions just to get to know each other and it's like building some rapport. And then he asked me like, what are your goals and dreams? And again, remember I was 19 at the time and my goals and dreams were a move out of my parents house because I, you know, I couldn't bring girls there, I couldn't bring friends there, didn't want a noisy house. It wasn't a big house, a three bedroom, little apartment. Um, I want to buy my own car. Um, and um, I'd like to get a job where I make more than $1.65 an hour. And he says that's great, that's a good place to start. But what are some of your bigger goals and dreams? And I said, I don't know, I don't know. And he said, do you mind, uh, filling out the answers to some questions? And I said sure. So he hands me this paper or uh, sheets uh, of paper. And it was the 1980. 1980 goal setting guide. Think about 1980. Okay? I was like 19 years old. And I go, sure, I'll answer any question you want. So I open up the first page and the first question is, I'm 19. At what age do you want to retire? And I look at the paper, uh, I look at my brother, I look at him, I look at the paper and I go, excuse me, Mr. Brown, what am I supposed to write over here? And he says, pick a number. What do you mean, pick a number? Pick a number, set a goal. Is 45 okay? And he says, yeah, it's 26 years from now. Write it down. So I wrote, you know, retire, age 45. And like, my father didn't retire. Nobody in my family had retired until they died. Second question. I look at it, um, I'm scratching my head because upon retirement, how much net worth do you want to have? As I look at the paper, I look at him, I look at my brother, I look at Mr. Brown again. Excuse me, sir, what does net worth mean? So he explains to me what net worth means. I said, okay, what am I supposed to put there? He says, pick a number. Like, like I'm pulling numbers out of my ass.

Speaker B: Like, no clue. Like, no clue. I'm making a dollar 65 an hour.

Speaker A: What am I supposed to put? He says, well, if you want to retire at 45 and you live to 70, 75, you're gonna need a few million dollars. And I said, okay, like, is three enough? And he goes, yeah, put down three million. And that I. I could have put down 100 million. And so I write down $3 million. So retired 45, $3 million. What kind of home do you want? Oh, this one was easy. Four bedroom, two car garage. What kind of car do you want? Mercedes Benz convertible. Where do you want to travel? All over the world. How do you want to travel? First class. Who do you want to help in the world? My mother and father want to retire them. So I started writing out all of this stuff that was just. Just nonsense.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And he looks at these pages and he goes, this would be an extraordinary life if you could achieve it, right? Oh, my God. There's the only people we know that live this kind of lifestyle are the people on Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with this guy, Robin Leach, who we used to watch. And he goes, yeah, that's right. So write it down. He says, how would it feel if you could achieve all of these goals? Oh, my God. I mean, I would have like died and gone to heaven. He says, great, so I'm going to ask you one question and the answer to this question will determine whether you achieve every one of these things that you wrote out on this document. And I could tell you in the back of my head I'm thinking to myself, right 19, cocky, brash, ignorant, borderline stupid. One question. Yeah, sure. And um, he leans in and he says, um, are you interested in achieving these goals or are you committed to achieving them? And so here I am in my head, I'm going, am I interested or am I committed? Am I committed or am I interested? I, I'm trying to figure out what's the difference? And I felt stupid again as I said, excuse me sir, what's the difference? M and he leans in again. He says, son, when you're interested, you do what's easy and convenient. He says, you allow your present circumstances and your past conditioning to control your thinking and your feeling and your day to day behaviors. He says you allow everything that is to repeat itself and control the destiny. Says, but when somebody is committed, they upgrade their identity and their beliefs and their knowledge and skills to match the level of success and results they want to achieve. So now that you know the difference, which are you, are you interested in that awesome lifestyle, you know, that debt free life, that life of travel, that life of charity, the life of giving, the life of purpose and meaning, like which are you? And um, I said in that case sir, I'm committed. And he reach out his hand across the table, he goes in that case, I will be your mentor. Like wow, uh, uh, thank you Mr. Brown. Uh, what's a mentor? 19. Ignorant. No, I hadn't read a book since like grade six. And he explained to me what a mentor is. Long story short, I moved to Toronto from Montreal. Five weeks, uh, three weeks later I enrolled in real estate school. Borrowed $500 from my sister, my mother and my brother. My father couldn't afford it. He was a cab driver, alcoholic gambler. So I rounded up money from my sister, brother and mother, enrolled in real estate school. I went to humber college, graduated five weeks later, got my real estate certificate on June 20, 1980. And the reason I remember these dates so well, I cried on that day because I passed the test without cheating to pass the test. Because every other test in high school, grade 8, 9, 10, I used answers from somebody else or I stole the answers from the cabinet, wherever I could get into a cabinet of the teachers. So I didn't have any self esteem and self, uh, Trust. I didn't think I was smart.

Speaker B: No pride.

Speaker A: And then he started to teach me. Every day I looked at the goals that I had. Every day I looked at them and I put my fingers on them. Right finger, left finger. He told me, when you look at it, you're sending a signal to your brain when you repeat, you know, a few affirmations that he had me right. I'm so happy and grateful that I'm now earning. At the time it was $10,000 a month. Uh, I'm now living the life of my dream. I'm now driving my dream car. I'm living in my dream home. I've retired my parents. I'm traveling around the world. I'm, um, making money, I'm giving money. And I had, I wrote a new story. And every day, every day when I came in, the first thing he had me do, look at the goals, read the goals, close your eyes, feel as if it's real and happening right now. And I could tell you, Brad, uh, the first 30 days, every day I did that, I heard this little voice in my head that goes, bullshit, you're not achieving this goal. You're not making this amount of money. You're not good enough, you're not smart enough, you're not this, you're not that. You, you failed English, you failed math, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I heard the story, the story, the old story. And after probably about three weeks, it started to quiet down because I really didn't have a choice because it was part of the agreement as I had to do this every day. But he had me. What I call today is prime my brain with what I want. Instead of focusing and repeating and reinforcing what I had achieved or what I didn't want, which is what I would do. And so I started with learning some, you know, self talk principles. How I talk to myself mattered. I started, um, uh, learning about emotional regulation and mental regulation. Mentally focusing on what I wanted versus what I didn't want. But then in addition to that, in addition to the dream and the affirmations and the visualization and the focusing on the goal and priming this hundred billion dollar brain of mine. He said, okay, you want to earn $10,000 a month doable? He said, um, how many sales do you need to make? I said, well, um, I don't know. He said, well, the average sale price in this area, right, is about $50,000. And that's where you're going to start. And if you sell one house, you're going to make about $1,500. So, so you're gonna need about seven sales a month. If you sell higher priced properties, you'll need less. But you have to make seven sales a month. In order to make seven sales a month, you're probably gonna need, you know, 20 buyers. You're probably gonna need to speak to, you know, a lot of people, a hundred people. So every day I had a sheet in front of me and he taught me a script. So now we're talking about skillset. So we had the mindset, right? We had regulating the emotions and the focus, right? And they said, great. Now every day you're making 100 phone calls. Now he didn't just say make 100 phone calls. He gave me this one sheet. And on this one sheet it had a hundred boxes on it. Box number one said $15. Box number two was 30. Box three was 45, 60, 70, 60, 75, 90, 105, 120, 135, 100, all the way to 1500. 100 boxes, $15 each box, $1,500 by 100 calls. I said, here's your goal. Uh, you're going to start off with cold calling. We're going to call all the neighborhoods, okay. In this area. And here's your script. Now remember, it's 44 years later. Are you ready? Hi. This John Asraf with Allen Brown Real Estate Company. We have somebody who's looking to buy a home in the neighborhood. Have you thought about making a move? Script? I learned it verbatim. If they said yes, said thank you. Can my broker, Allen Brown and I come over today at 3 o' clock or would 5 o' clock be better so we can see your home and tell our property prospect about it intelligently? Alternative clothes. I was taught that's what that was. If they said yes, we pick a time. I said, great, we'll see you there. If they said no, I said, oh, thank you. Oh, by the way, have any of the neighbors said anything about moving? If they said yes, I went this way because I had scripts. Uh, if they said no, I said thank you. Oh, one final question. Have you considered when you might think of making a move? So I had a script. I had the equivalent of what New York, um, play, uh, would give their actors. I had the equivalent of a play for basketball or baseball. Everybody has plays, everybody has scripts, right? And so he taught me not just to dream, uh, and to believe and uh, to feel, but he taught me, here are the skills that are required to achieve this. First six months I made $62,000 gross. He made 31, I made 31. My father made $25,000 in 1980. That year I made more in six months than my father made in the whole year. My father and mother thought I was still selling drugs because I was flush with cash.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, uh, so that was first six months. The next six months, by following just that principle and learning one more skill. One more skill, not 100, one more skill. I made 300 selling 50 to $100,000 homes. I made $150,000. He made 150 or so thousand dollars. I thought I died and went to heaven. So that was kind of like the question, the yes, and then go and do the work. So it wasn't like magic, airy fairy, uh, lotion and potion. So I learned the form formula, uh, that is the mindset plus the skill set plus the actions equals predictable results. And we're living in an era where we know how to get the right mindset, we know how to regulate emotions, we know what the strategies of what do we need to do are, and we know how to build a habit to take actions every day. And so I've just become really fascinated with how to do that for 44 years now and how to do it for myself, for my companies, my employees. Um, and now I write about it and teach about it and have fun with it.

Speaker B: There's like 90 questions I want to ask right now based on what you just said, because my brain is still catching up on how incredible of an answer that was in that moment. In that moment, you go meet with this guy because you think you're going to get a job. You think the possibility of a job, not a life change, uh, a job.

Speaker A: And by the way, he did give me a job. And I actually went backwards. I went from $1.65 an hour to on commission, only I went to zero.

Speaker B: And I never sold anything either at that point, except for drugs. Zero. And so, and so what was it? What was it that. Because I think this is the rub. Maybe not the rub. I think this is the challenge that people have. Because I believe, I don't believe that people, somebody will be listening to this and say, well, he just got lucky. He was in the right place at the right time, met the right person. But I'm a believer. I have a very deep faith. But I also believe. I believe that we have these moments all the time. I know I had them as a kid, but my story, this negative story, this victimhood story, this I'm not enough story, was Always more powerful, was always so powerful that I couldn't see the opportunity in front of me. What was it in that moment? Because I think this relates to a lot of people because they want different, but they either say they don't have the moment or if they have the moments, they're not courageous enough to follow them. What do you think is that. That. That thing that makes people go, all right, enough, enough. Yeah, Um, M. I'm doing it.

Speaker A: It was a combination. So a combination of I knew what I was doing was wrong. I knew that now that I was 19, if I got caught, I'm going to jail. Like, there's no, you know, no other alternative. I'm going to jail because I've been in detention centers before. And so I knew that the risk, right, was great, that if I continued on the path I was on, jail was very serious possibility. And I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. So I think everybody knows that there's something they could do, there's something that can change, but they. They don't know how to break free from that pattern. That is. Is what I call habit, hell. So we develop these habits, good ones or bad ones, and then it's so hard to break free. So at that moment, when my brother brought me to Toronto, um, there was the hope that maybe I'll get a better start somewhere, right? There was a hope maybe I'll get a better job and I can get out of this situation. So it was part escape and then part hope. And so I had realized in that moment, looking outside at his Mercedes and looking at him being. Looking like a very successful guy, that maybe this is an opportunity. And based on what my brother told me about this guy, he was very, very, very successful. And so here is somebody for the real first time in my life that said they're willing to help me. And so, uh, I just. It came out of me as jump. Like jump on this opportunity. And, um, the first thing that has to happen is you have to look for that small little sliver of light in the closed window or the closed door. And what happens with our self talk? This is why I do so much work around inner size. What happens with our self talk? And this is so profound when you understand it is everything I say to myself is an instruction for my brain to make it my reality. So a lot of times, I know this is hard sometimes is we say, well, there's reality out there. But our brain, if you understand a little bit about the brain, is not, um, an organism that sees everything There is to see. Our brain sees what it's conditioned to see. Our, uh, brain deletes and distorts everything else that doesn't match with what we say to ourselves. That doesn't match with what we believe is true. But we weren't born with any beliefs. We weren't born with a self image or self worth or self confidence or self trust. We weren't born with one flipping fear. We learned all of that. And from a neuroscience perspective, it just means that our brains, neurons, brain cells fired when we were experiencing it, hearing it, listening to it. And then the neurons, that. There's a saying, it's called Hebb's rule. So the neurons, brain cells that fire together, wire together. So if we hear in school, you know, you'll never amount to much. You're not very smart, which is what I heard right over and over and over and over again. I started to believe it. And then I made what I believed my reality. And so, in this particular moment, because my brother just invited me to come see him and maybe I can get this job with this guy, I saw an opening of, uh, possibility. Even though I didn't believe in me, when I saw him and I heard him, I believed him. M. And when I believed him, I had to put some faith and trust that he could help me more than I was able to help myself.

Speaker B: Yeah. So good. Okay. Okay. So your truth creates your reality, but your truth isn't always correct. Just because it's true to you doesn't actually, in fact, make it true.

Speaker A: Yeah, listen, beliefs are nothing more than reinforced patterns of evidence that we have in our brain. Reinforced patterns of evidence. Right. So if you go back in time and you think about, you know, what did the Native Americans think, you know, when it rained or when the sun came out or. Or when it blossomed early or blossomed later, we started to. We start to create these associations and beliefs, and those beliefs get passed down generation after generation after generation. In my home, you know, my. My father, not my mother, believed that anybody who was wealthy was a thief, a liar and a robber. And all the while he was screwing people because he believed everybody else was. Uh, so our beliefs are the lens, but by which our brain sees the world. We see the world. We think it's. We see the world. But who's this we? We have this brain, right? And, uh, light comes in through our eyes to our brain and it activates cells. The cells that are in residence match with what we believe we acknowledge. And so we can have a multi million dollar opportunity Right in front of us. And we'll keep going like this. Um, because our brain deletes and distorts things that don't line up with its software, its pattern. So if you think about it like if you think of a computer or your cell phone, it cannot do more than the software allows it to do. So somebody had to program the software. Good software, good output, terrible software, uh, terrible output. Well, our brain's beliefs is the software. Uh, so ask yourself this question. Do you have evidence for what you believe? And most people say, well of course I have evidence for what I believe. Great. Is there counter evidence to that? How many times have you heard anybody says well let me find the counter evidence to my belief?

Speaker B: Yeah. Never, never, never. Nobody facts checks themselves, right?

Speaker A: Nobody facts checks themselves. And what we have is what's known as cognitive biases, right? So we have these biases, a bias towards what we believe. We have confirmation biases, we have positivity biases, we have negativity biases. There's like 30, 40 different biases. And we operate automatically, it's called automaticity, without any thought or thinking. And we just repeat and reinforce patterns because it saves the brain energy and it's easy for us. And so he, Mr. Brown and I want to emphasize something. Everybody has their Mr. Brown right now. And right now in the world of AI, you can have your Mr. Brown, Mrs. Brown and their entire genius family as your coach in five seconds for free if you are willing to be open minded enough to upgrade your mindset and skill set. But there are books today, uh, there are podcast today like this one, there are YouTube videos. There's so much free stuff that anybody who is committed versus interested can find a path to greater health, happiness, wealth, contribution, impact, influence, an extraordinary life. But you have to just, you have to give yourself permission to be, to be wrong with your beliefs or to just have disempowering beliefs without judging or blaming yourself or minimizing yourself. And one of the things that we all do is we protect our identity. We protect our story and we protect our story and our identity because it keeps us safe. So we could be really feeling safe and dead.

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker A: Wrong in a lot of stuff.

Speaker B: And miserable.

Speaker A: And miserable.

Speaker B: And miserable, right.

Speaker A: Yeah. Safe, miserable. And we're comfortable in that misery. And there's something that I, that I teach all uh, of my students called some, it's called the law of secondary gain. And here's what the law of secondary gain says. When I stay safe, when I don't get out of my comfort zone, When I don't challenge my myself, when I keep believing what I believe, keep valuing what I value, and keep doing the same thing over and over again, even though I might listen to a podcast like this and go, whoa, that was good, or it was shitty. Whatever you said doesn't make it. But let's say you hear something that was really good, um, and you find a spark of motivation. Why don't you take action? And because the law of secondary gain, all right, says that by not taking the action, I reward myself for staying in my familiar, comfortable, habitual zone. M. So I'm actually releasing dopamine, the feel good neurochemical, just to feel better. Because now I'm safe. Now if you think about it, let's say I try what Brad says or John says, and let's say it doesn't work for me. Isn't there a chance that I might feel dumber? Isn't there a chance I would feel like a fish? Isn't there a chance I would feel inadequate? Is there a chance I might be embarrassed, ashamed, ridiculed, judged, rejected, abandoned, uh, disappointed? Whenever there's a chance of any one of those things, the motivational circuit in our brain that wants us to take action shuts off and we go into protective mode. So there's these neuro mechanics going on in people's brains that they don't understand because nobody's ever taught us. And we know more about the human brain today than we have known since the beginning of humankind. But when was the last time somebody said, okay, um, how do I change my beliefs to more empowering beliefs? How do I deliberately and consciously evolve myself? How do I, um, upgrade my self image so I'm more confident, more certain? How do I lower my need for approval from him or her or them? How do I let go of my fear of being rejected in sales or with a guy or with a girl? How do I let go of my worry of being embarrassed or ashamed or ridiculed or just. I know we have these emotions, but how do I not allow them to control me? Well, you learn, you upgrade your knowledge and skills on how you can. And we've never had, uh, a better time in the history of mankind to know how to do it. So most people are living this, this life of quiet desperation and ignorance, not knowing, not stupid, ignorance. And then our brain, just by the very nature of what it is, it just repeats patterns to conserve energy 95% of the time. So some of the new research is the Average American has 6,200 thoughts a day. Not 50,000, not 25,000, not 75,000. New research, 6,200 thoughts a day. Do you know how many of the thoughts are negative for the average person?

Speaker B: A, uh, lot. 85%.

Speaker A: 80%. That's 5,000 negative thoughts. Destructive, disempowering thoughts a day. For the average person, some might have 90, some might have 30. But the average is 80% negative thought, that's 5,000. And the average person repeats those thoughts 90% of the time, week after week after week. So you think about, you got brain cells that fired with this negative self talk. Wired right? Soft wiring. But imagine doing that for one year, two years, three years, four years. You got a highway of negativity, super

Speaker B: highway of negativity, right?

Speaker A: And so we have to deliberately and consciously start to notice it, release it, replace it. And most people don't know, well, what should I do? How do I not pay attention to my negative thoughts? And they don't have frameworks for saying you're not your thoughts, you have thoughts, you're not your emotions, you have emotions, you're not your feelings, you have feelings. Feelings.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker A: So stop self identifying with your thoughts. Just understand that thoughts are like, uh, the visual I like to have people have. Imagine you're walking by an aquarium. And from the bottom of the aquarium, there's bubbles, okay? To give the fish the oxygen they need. So there's bubbles. And imagine if 80% of the bubbles are red and they're bad for the fish. And 20% of the bubbles are good for the fish.

Speaker B: Fish.

Speaker A: The fish would stay away from the red ones and they would just focus on the blue ones, right? And here's what happens in the brain. If you just observe a thought that's negative. I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. I'm worried about this. I'm scared about this. What if he does that? What if she does that? What if I'm embarrassed, ashamed? What if I fail? What if that's negative thought? If you can just pay attention to it and either do one or two things, just let it go, because it's a thought coming up from your subconscious mind.

Speaker B: Mind.

Speaker A: Or take that thought, grab onto it and go, great. Hey, negative thought. Um, let me replace you with three positive ones. I'm more than good enough, more than smart enough, more than willing enough, more than capable enough to blank, blank and blank, and I'm happy with it. And then let it go. Replace it with a blue one. Replace it with a blue one. Replace it with a blue and replace it with a blue and replace it with blue and replace it. Replace, replace, replace. Now you go from 80 negative and 20 positive to over, let's say 90 days, 100 days to 70 negative, 30 positive. That's a big swing. It's not a 10% swing, right? It's an exponential swing. What if you go to 60, 40, 50, 50 right. Then 60, 40 positive, 40 negative. Now who are you? Now, when you're speaking to yourself with, uh, any word, Let me give you all a great example. I can give you three words, see what pops up in your head. I'll give you a sentence. How's this? 10 foot python in the room you're in or wherever you're at right now, A million dollar lottery that you just won. Awesome sex, terrible sex. Now, I'm here in San Diego using words to activate electrical activity in your brain, right? And those electrical activity is releasing neurochemicals based on what you believe about great sex, bad sex, money, winning money, right? What about losing a million dollars? How does that make you feel? And then what about, you know, a snake? Some people said, oh, snake, oh my God. They're already feeling like, oh my God, no, other people, it's like, I'll take, uh, take a selfie with it. Every word releases a neurochemical associated with that word or that sentence. So when you are allowing your negative, disempowering, destructive self talk to go on with 5000 thoughts a day, or 4000 or 3000 or 2000, you are a victim of negativity and the feeling that comes with it. And behavior follows feeling.

Speaker B: Your emotions will drop that behavior and

Speaker A: that behavior, Emotions are triggered in the subconscious mind. They release neurochemicals that cause a feeling. And feeling causes us to take action or retreat, right? If we feel motivated and safe and uh, we're willing to take a little bit of risk, we go forward. But if we feel unsafe, we retreat and we fight. Flight, freeze. And some people faint. So we have these insanely powerful tools, right? And our brain is like an orchestra, right? Members of the orchestra playing different, different instruments. And we have a fear center. It's one of your best friends. It's an early warning detection mechanism that is more powerful than anything else, okay, in the universe. For protection and safety and survival of the species. You, me, you. So it's highly sensitive. It's been evolving and being, being tweaked for 150, 200,000 years, if not longer. All this to say we have to start paying attention, be aware of our self, talk uh, and how do you do that? Well, why don't you just sit quietly for 5 minutes M A day quietly. Just be aware. No judgment, no blame, no shame, no guilt, no, no justification. Just be aware first with your inner thoughts. You do something called interoception. I'm going to be inside of me. I'm going to get comfortable paying attention, being aware of my thoughts without grabbing onto them and feeling. I'm going to do it in a calm state, quiet, calm. Just breathe quietly, sit still. Three minutes a day, five minutes a day to start. Then what do you want to think about? Or uh, what do you want your thoughts to be? Powerful, empowering. Set an intention. My intention for the next hour is to be positive, to be motivated to achieve. Blank. Blank or blank, that's my intention. Great. Now I'm deliberate. 3. What's one action step I could take right now? Not in an hour, not in two hours, not in five hours. I teach myself to be deliberate in my awareness, deliberate in my intention and deliberate in my action. And I always want to move forward and teach myself to give myself a command and follow through. And if you hear this little voice again going, do it later. I, uh, don't feel like it. I'm tired. Whatever your story or excuse is, listen to it and override it and start small. Because until you can override the I don't feel like it muscle, until you can override the I'm lazy, I'll do it later muscle, that is your rationalizations, your rational lies for keeping you stuck. You will never break free and achieve your Neville, your next level success. So we reduce it to the ridiculously small start. It's like white belt in karate, right? It's like we're going to learn a few white belt moves. And the first white belt move is awareness. Second white belt move is self talk. Third white belt move is regulate your own emotions that then will cause you to take the actions that you want to take. And until you can do that, like stop reading, stop listen to podcasts, stop watching all this stuff because you haven't gotten out of white belt. And then you're gonna get more frustrated, you don't take action and what that means to you, you're not gonna believe yourself. You're gonna have lower self trust, lower self esteem, lower self worth, lower self image. And you develop an identity of a starter, not a finisher, and of somebody who has a lot of potential and possibility. But you can't give yourself a command and finish, uh, consistently. And the key is consistency compounds consistency of excuses compounds. Consistency of empowering behaviors compounds. Consistency, compounds. Uh, so what are you compounding? Negativity, Negativity or positivity? Being empowered or disempowered? Feeling strong and resourceful and have grit and determination and resilience or all the other stuff, like you're reinforcing something. Are you reinforcing the stuff that's going to help you be healthier, happier, wealthier? Uh, feeling extraordinary? See, it's. Everybody sees extraordinary life, but it's these little extra things repeated that builds the extraordinary life. Like when I go back literally 44 years ago, I didn't want to learn the script. I didn't want to come in every day and read my goals. I didn't want to visualize. His visualization is a simulation. I could hear that in my head, right? But everybody else was doing it. So I sat there like, you know, feeling like, oh, fuck me, right? It's like, like, okay, I'm gonna visualize one eye open initially, one other eye open, looking left, looking right. Um, but. But I started to feel different. It's like, okay. And I couldn't really, like, visualize well. Um, but I remember when I played basketball, the coach, you know, said, well, you know, take a few free throws, then visualize making it, then take it and like, oh, this works. So, so I started to self talk through affirmations. Um, and then I started to add a bit, little emotion to it. Like a Hollywood actor, you know, would add emotion to a role. I was told if you were practicing a Hollywood role, would you just be lackluster in your performance or would you add emotion to it? Okay, so now we add a little emotion. Now we increase the amplitude of the energy molecular structure that we are. Energy in motion. Right. Uh, energy in motion is emotion. And so when you increase the amplitude of your vibration and you align it with your vision and your goals, now you're in resonant match. Now if you're vibrating at that level, you're committed to achieving those goals. You're speaking in those ways. What do you think other people feel?

Speaker B: Yeah. Uh, they feel it.

Speaker A: They feel you. Yeah.

Speaker B: They feel your energy.

Speaker A: They feel you. So this is how I learned to start off small. Focus on the little things first, and then you focus on the next steps and the next steps and the next steps. And we have tools today that blow your mind compared to what, you know, I had back then. You know, cassette, cassette tape and, you know, um, uh, pads of paper. We didn't have computers back then. The cell phone just came out you know, the five pound cell phone, Motorola, uh, with the box you carry like a suitcase. So there's the fundamentals, and you cannot move past the fundamentals. Like, you cannot build the first and second and third story of a home unless you have a foundation. And people are fast food lazy.

Speaker B: Tell me more about that.

Speaker A: I want a, uh, fast food, uh, fast. I want to fast. I want to fast. I want to fast, fast. And you know, slow is where you have to start because before you can go fast, which your brain will do, you have to go slow.

Speaker B: Oh, it's I, I run a ton of marathons and I. People tell me, um, they're like, oh, I want to get faster. I said, well, you better learn how to run slower because they go out, they run fast every day. They fast every day. I'm like, you're, you're, you're never gonna get fast. It's like, no, I want to get fast. I said, well, then you have to run slow 85, 90% of the time, I have to be super slow. And they, just. Because we want. I think people are looking for the quick, quick fix and the quick, the quick return. That's, uh, what they want. They want immediate gratification, instant gratification. And this isn't an instant gratification game.

Speaker A: It's not an instant gratification game. For about two to three weeks. All of my students, I have them like, verbally give me a, ah, commitment. And I also tell them, if you're not prepared to give me this commitment, don't even start meeting with my stuff. Give me a hundred days. Give me 100 days. Where we start you off slow. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast, right?

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: Um, so if we can get you to inner size a little bit each day for a hundred days as we're teaching you some skills from the level you're at to the next level, not advanced level if you're a beginner, and not beginner level if you're advanced. So if you start and be comfortable being a clumsy beginner at first, you'll be clumsy mentally, clumsy emotionally, and you'll be clumsy physically doing something maybe you're not used to because it's new and that's normal. It's like if I gave somebody a, uh, script, you know, from, from, um, Steven Spielberg, right? Or one of their favorite actors or actresses, I said, I'll give you a million dollars if you become this role you're not performing today for that million dollars because you have to learn the script, uh, and the way you learn the script is you read it a hundred times, you record it, you practice it, and you practice what you practice becomes permanent. Right now we can practice multiple times and we can accelerate stuff, but the way that our brain works is the patterns that we deliberately create, or not, by the way, and reinforce over a period of time. About 66 days is like the sweet spot, according to the latest research, where the old patterns kind of like step aside. The old habits, the old way of thinking, the old negativity, the old disempowering emotions, the old victim, you know, start to step aside, you start to see this new path. And it's, it's almost like you've taken the lens of the old off and you put a new lens of possibility on because you have rewired your brain. So you re fire neurons to rewire, then you reinforce. And if you're reinforcing the positive, empowering, constructive beliefs and self image and story, behavior has to follow.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: Behavior has to follow because we will never outperform, uh, our hidden self image and identity ever.

Speaker B: So that's how important self image is.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Think about, um, if, um, if I took your company away from you right now, took whatever investments you have, all of them gone, and all you were left with were your beliefs and the skills and the identity you have right now, how long would it take you to rebuild?

Speaker B: Not long. A lot longer. A lot less time than it took me to build in the first place. Yeah.

Speaker A: Now, let's say I take somebody who, um, may not have the beliefs. Let's say they're homeless, like they won the lottery. Let's say we said we're going to give them everything you have.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: They would lose it within a year, quickly. Yeah. 85% of lottery winners lose the money, uh, within three years because their self identity, self identity change. You take homeless people, and I don't have anything against homeless people, all right, there's some very smart people who are homeless. So you take homeless people, the majority of them, if you gave them a brand new home or a brand new apartment to live in, they would all be back on the street, 85% of them, within a year to two, because the environment doesn't match their identity. And we are insanely good at making sure that our outside environment of results matches our internal identity and map of our reality. So the beautiful part that we have today is we know how to do it. Yeah, like, uh, we know how to do it. And now with A.I. oh my God. Faster, easier, better Cheaper in every way.

Speaker B: That's right.

Speaker A: In every way. So the only thing that holds anybody back right now is choice.

Speaker B: Choice how they view themselves.

Speaker A: You're choosing. I don't want to do it. I'm gonna stay stuck. I'm going to use my stories, my reasons, my excuses, and I'm going to rationalize. I'm going to say, well, that may be good for him, but not for her. Because I'm different. I'm too old. I'm too young. I live here. I live there. The government is this my mother that my brother? This my husband? This will come up with the stories and reasons and not even know it. That, uh, we are holding ourselves hostage because our brain wants to keep us in our comfort zone.

Speaker B: So can I. So can I get somebody? I love you. I love this person. I love my son. I love my daughter. I love this, my employee. I want them to change. I want them to change. I want them to change. They need to change. They're underperforming their life. They're miserable. Can I get you to make a choice? Or is that. Or is that something you have to do internally? There's nothing I can do externally.

Speaker A: Yeah, you can. Uh, what kind of gun do you have?

Speaker B: None. Yeah.

Speaker A: Do this. Uh, no. No. Um, the only thing you can do that will work is be the example, without judgment or blame, of them and love them and keep showing them what you're doing so they can see. Yeah. And it's the only thing you can do.

Speaker B: Um, one of the things I believe, and I say this to all of our leaders, is that I think most people have it wrong. I think parenting. And when I say have it wrong, I think. I don't think they're aware. Um, I think we try to motivate people when we should be facilitating. Stop motivating. Facilitating. Asking questions to get them to trip over the truth that says, hey, my image isn't equaling what I wanted to build. My outcome is wrong. My image is wrong. And getting them to see differently.

Speaker A: Yeah, um, one of the big rules, you know, that I have, that I learned from one of my mentors is get out of the convincing business. I'm not in the convincing business anymore. I'm in the storytelling, um, business. Um, I'm in the, uh, show and tell business. As an example, um, I used to weigh 250, 43 pounds, 30, body fat, borderline diabetic, fatty liver. Drank bottle or bottle and a half of wine a night, including a couple cocktails. I was a sugar addict. Uh, I gave up alcohol 15 or 18 years ago, then drank for a year and a half after 18 months and haven't had a drink in 15 years. By retraining my brain using inner size, I got into the best shape of my life from 48 to 50, because I could hardly see ski with my kids. Um, uh, I was divorced twice because of my self image and lack of communication skills. And I, and I started to use, you know, my self image and learning my skills for being in a great relationship with my wife Maria for 25 years now. So I like to be the example of what's possible so that anybody who wants to know, hey, how did you do that? Um, I can show them the steps. And anybody who's not interested or not ready, I could still love them and just be me. Um, people will not change. They say that, um, the people who change, in many cases, the discomfort of change or the pain of change has to be, um. The pain of remaining the same has to be greater than the discomfort of change. So if somebody isn't in pain, if they're not in discomfort, if they're not. You know, I, uh, was an alcoholic for a long time, and I was a functioning alcoholic. And I wasn't in any pain, except one day I was on the chairlift with my son and I was hungover. It was ten o'clock in the morning. All right? I drank in the evenings. And then I didn't sleep well, uh, because I had severe sleep apnea. My one son, Noah, you know, is, I think 12 years old at the time. He's 28 today. Uh, at 10 o', clock, I said, you know, hey, hey, sweetheart, I'm going in after this run. And he looks at me. He was sitting like I was sitting there. He was sitting here. My other son was sitting there. He goes, papa, you're always tired. You say you want to go on vacation with us, but we hardly do any skiing or boarding together, you know, Then you go, go home and you nap. And I said, no. Like, come on, man, I'm tired. I lashed at him and I caught myself because he was right. As I said, hold on, Noah. I sat there and I just thought. And I was like, my kid's right. Like, on this trip alone, I've told him like three times, I'm tired. I'm going back into the house and we're on vacation. I want to spend time with my kids. I love them. And I said to him, I said, you know what, sir? Hard. You're right, I'm sorry. So make you a promise. You're 12 years old now. Make you a promise. I'm 48. I was 230, 243 pounds, 33% body fat, borderline diabetic, hyper, hypertensive. And I had sleep, severe sleep apnea. So not sleeping.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: I said to him, I'll make you a promise. I said, number one promise I'm going to get to the best shape of my adult life in the next two years so this never happens again. Promise one. I said, give me a second. I want to calculate something. Make you a second promise. You're 12 years old now. I'm going to make you a promise that I will teach your children how to ski or snowboard when you have children. And I had done the calculation. I was 48. I had done the calculation that I would probably be around 70 before he had kids. M. To put into perspective, my son is 28 now, all right? He's just been in a serious relationship and he probably will get married in the next two years and might have kids in, let's say, two or three years after that. My calculation was almost dead on.

Speaker B: Almost right on.

Speaker A: I had to think out 22 years. I made him the promise. I got off the chairlift, called a friend of mine here who is my trainer. I said, we're doing five days a week. I need you to help me with my diet. Uh, I went to AA to get help with my drinking. Stopped drinking, got the best shape of my Life. Had a six pack at 50, six pack at 60, I'll have an eight pack at 64. All because of a promise. Again, one moment of enough is enough. So I don't know what your enough is enough moment is for whoever is listening or watching, but if it's not now, you're just going to reinforce what's almost not enough until it's not enough. But you can make a deliberate decision now to say, let's go, let's change, let's make the shift.

Speaker B: So let me, uh. Uh, we got a couple minutes left. Let me just ask you a question. Allen Brown, if Alan Brown was sitting here today, what would that conversation look like?

Speaker A: Well, you want to hear a really funny story?

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker A: So I met him in 1980. I worked with him for a couple of years when traveled around the world. Then I came back from my world travels. Um, and then I started my own real estate company and I opened up 85 offices, 1200 sales people, and we were doing four and a half billion a year in sales. I kept the company for 20 years. Built it for 10, kept it for 10 more, then went off and did another company. First part of the story, second part of the story. Literally, during COVID okay, I was doing a lot of podcasts because I wasn't traveling. And, um, our office gets a call, and we get a call from this kid in New York somewhere. And the kid says to Chris, uh, Kristen, my head of customer care, says, um, hey, I was just hearing John Asraf on a podcast, and my father's name is Alan Brown. He used to have a real estate company in Toronto. He's retired now he's in Florida. I'd like to talk to John. So Kristen tells me this is literally Covid days, right? Like 30 years later. And then she says to me, this guy called, thinks you're, you know, your mentor. Was. Was his father. I said, yeah, yeah, sure. Okay, great. Two weeks later, he called back and he speaks to Kristen again. He says, hey, um, did you tell John I want to talk to him? And she says, yeah, I did. Well, I really want to talk to him. Fine. I called this kid up. He's in medical school in New York. His mother and father are Alan and Lori. And I go, no way. I said, do you know your father changed my life? He said, well, I heard what you said on the podcast that you were on. And he said, can you put me in touch with him? And he goes, yeah, I'll call them up. Two days later, I'm on a zoom call during COVID with Alan Brown and Lori. They had moved to Florida. And I told him this story, you know, alan, you changed my life. He starts to cry, I start to cry, Laurie starts to cry. I says, do you know how many times I've told this story to help other people? Um, I've written New York Times best selling books. I've built companies because of what you've told me. I've helped over a million people. Okay, with the work that I do because of you. And he's like, wow, I had no idea. Like, I had lost track of him from basically 1982 all the way to 2022. And here I am talking to him, thanking him, and I sent him my books and he sent me a note back. And, um, I just told him he didn't know that he had that much of an impact on me. He didn't know. He probably saved my life.

Speaker B: You said earlier that everybody has an Allen Brown.

Speaker A: Everybody has an Allen Brown.

Speaker B: Can everybody be an Alan Brown?

Speaker A: No. No. Just like everybody can't be a pitcher, you know, in the pros not everybody could be a hockey player. Not everybody could be a writer. Not everybody could be, you know, good at math. Not. No, no. Not everybody could be like, not everybody. Let me, let me actually walk that back. Everybody has something to give another person. Okay? So everybody has something to give another person. So, um, Allen Brown had a profound impact on me. So when you ask that, you know, can everybody be in Alan Brown? I think everybody has something to give. Um, within. Uh, let me, let me backtrack some, uh, for something I think is important for everybody to really understand. Most people don't know this, but, but this is, this is like a, was a wow freaking moment for me. Would you agree every car functionally works the same.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, electric car functionally works the same. Gas car functionally works the same. Snowmobile functionally works the same. Bicycle functionally works the same. Tricycle functionally works the same. Every brain functionally works the same. Which means your brain can be trained. Like every bicep muscle functionally works the same. So you can strengthen a bicep muscle. Every quadricep, every pec, every tuchus or butt functionally works the same. And you can strengthen it. We can strengthen our brain because functionally it works the same. So can everybody be an Allen Brown? Yeah. First be an Alan Brown teacher. You, uh, be your own Allen Brown first and ask yourself, how can I do this, achieve this, have this, become. How can I? You talked earlier about the power of questions. If I say to my brain, I can't because our brain says, okay, let me just make that your reality and reinforce that. But what if we said in the past I couldn't and now I want to learn how to? We've just opened up our brain's ability to find how to.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker A: Uh, so by shifting self talk and questions, we shift perspective. In shifting perspective, we shift emotions. And shifting emotions we shift whether we take action or don't. So if we said, what would have to happen in order for me to stop this, get rid of this, end this, change that, uh, what would have to happen? What would I need to learn? What would I need to know? Who would I need to ask? Where can I research? Become resourceful in the absence of current resources. Right? Become resourceful. So we become resourceful with our self talk first. How can I let this go? How can I understand more? How can I, how can I become this? How can I learn this? How can I have this? What would have to happen for me in order to let it go? What would have to happen in order for. For me? To blame. So if we ask these better questions, our brain will search for the answer. Let's say we say, I don't know. You say, okay, I know you don't know, but if you did know, what could an answer be? I don't know. Great. So you don't know, and you don't know what could be. Where could you go? Could you go to Google? Could you go to ChatGPT? Could you go to Gemini? Could you go to Grok? Could you go to one of the large language models and say, hey, I want you to help me with blank? Uh, and have the most intelligent software we have ever created in the history of our species be your coach. And there's ways to actually take all of the intelligence of the best mentors, teachers, coaches in the world and have them coach you via the AI.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's crazy.

Speaker A: Like, in my Inner Size app, I have an AI coach. I've been trained with a thousand hours of my content. You can ask it any question you

Speaker B: want and say, come back as a John Ashrath.

Speaker A: Come back as John Asraf. Answer. That's like a hundred bucks for the year.

Speaker B: Insane. Yeah, I know. We got to go. I got two final questions for you. Um, I have a very deep faith, and, um, having met you in Vegas and now being here at your house and having this amazing conversation, I'm gonna go home and I'm gonna pray for you tonight.

Speaker A: Thank you.

Speaker B: What should I pray for?

Speaker A: Um, more wisdom. Uh, more love, more kindness, more awareness, more understanding. Um, just more of everything good that'll help me be a great steward of the gifts God gave me so I can help more people.

Speaker B: M. 50 years, 60 years from now, when you leave this Earth, what do you want your legacy to be? What you. Or do you want your contribution to

Speaker A: have been on my tombstone? He lived, he loved, he laughed. He made a difference. That's it. If I can just be a spark for somebody of possibility where they can see that, uh, no matter what has happened to you or happening to you, a. If you have faith and you wait long enough, you'll realize. Realize it's happening for you, um, and it's the stepping stone for yourself. If you're willing to be, you know, honest with yourself and you're willing to learn, um, if I could just. If I could just shine just a little bit of light, you know, Uh, I have this visual, so maybe this. This lands. I have this visual in my life, and here's the visual. Uh, we're all in this together, and I visualize. I Have like a hard hat on. And on the hard hat, I have a light in front of me that lights my path. Light to the left, light to the right, and a light behind me. So those that are walking alongside me, those that are walking behind me always have a light as I do. And if everybody just has a light on for everybody else, then we're loving each other and caring.

Speaker B: Okay, where do people get more? You're everywhere. I'm saying you can literally just go anywhere, but people are gonna, uh, this was a one hour masterclass, but it's an appetizer in the world of what you have contributed, what you have created. Where should somebody go right now? We talked a lot about action right now? People's brains are firing, firing. They're wiring right now. There needs to be a bias towards action. What should somebody do right at this very moment?

Speaker A: Uh, listen, um, anybody wants to pick up my books on Amazon, there's, uh, having it all the answer. Um, there's Inner Size, my newest book on how to unlock your brain's hidden power. There's also an Inner Size app in the app store. Um, go to YouTube if you want free videos. I'm on Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, um, and I'm producing content all the time. I have the John Asraf website with my blog and I post, um, really deep good stuff that everybody can use every day. Um, so I'm all over social. Um, but if you want to take action, pick up one of my books. I highly recommend. May I?

Speaker B: Yeah, please.

Speaker A: I highly recommend Inner Size. If you want the latest information on how to use your brain better, um, and how to like fulfill your potential versus have potential. And then get the app. The app has got over 600 brain training inner sizes for health, wealth, relationships, career, business, leadership, sales with, uh, world renowned videos and experts and Inner size to train your brain.

Speaker B: Listen, I have done hundreds of episodes on this podcast, interviewed amazing, amazing Vines. I'm gonna watch this one 10, 15 times to go back and take all the notes. You gotta follow this guy. You gotta learn from this guy. Um, you got a two billion dollar brain. Two billion dollar.

Speaker A: 100 billion dollar brain.

Speaker B: 100 billion dollar brain, man. That's. Let's get some return with it. Let's get this thing out for a test drive and see what it can do.

Speaker A: And no mortgage, no payment plans. You own it.

Speaker B: You own it outright. You own it outright, outright. I love that, John as off. I'm a blessed man for having to spend this time. I appreciate you, brother.

Speaker A: Thank you, brother. Appreciate you God bless you, too.