52. Action is the Antidote w/David Mykel (Founder of PSYFI Performance Psychology

Speaker A: Welcome back to the Driven Leadership podcast, everyone. I'm Connor. And today we are picking up right where our webinar from a few weeks ago left off. If you missed that, you can go check it out on our YouTube channel called Stop Waiting to Feel Ready.

Speaker B: And that's what this podcast is a continuation of.

Speaker A: Follow up of that episode.

Speaker B: It's all about why we wait, why

Speaker A: we tell ourselves that we'll start once we know enough, once it's the right time, once we feel ready, and we look into what that actually is costing us. So our guest on this episode, um, and we had him on the webinar, is David Michael. He's founder of Sci Fi. He's a psychologist with three decades and more than 10,101 sessions. And he works almost exclusively with high performers, people who look like they've got it all handled, who are doing a lot, but are quietly fighting their own head every single day. Plus, he's also Mary's coach. So this conversation, we jump right into it gets personal pretty fast. We go to the deep end.

Speaker B: So over the next hour, we'll get

Speaker A: into the difference between emotions and feelings.

Speaker B: Why David says that your feelings are

Speaker A: garbage, but emotions are actually worth listening to. And we get into what actually happens when you hit a wall that willpower alone can't move, which happens to all of us. Plus, David walks us through a lot of tools that he uses with clients. So name it and tain it. Own the pause power, the 1%, uh, to your feelings. All these are. We. We kind of go through all of them and it is well worth listen all the way up to the end because they can be used in so many different scenarios. So fair warning, David does not stay in the shallow.

Speaker B: Let's get into it.

Speaker C: I am super excited, David, that we, uh, get to do the podcast together. We just came off the webinar. Stop waiting until. And I'm just gonna ad lib until we feel ready. Right? Stop waiting until we feel ready. Because so many times what happens is we wait. We wait for the right opportunity. We wait till we know enough. We wait till whatever. We have these excuses. And when we were ping ponging back and forth about what kind of topic to talk about and we landed on this. Why is this important to you?

Speaker D: Um, all right, let's just go in the deep end. So for me, why is this important to me? Because the stuff that I have going on in my head, the voices that I have going on in my head every single day, do not want me doing most of the stuff That I do. Let's just beyond. They don't want me doing all the hard stuff. Right. We live in a day and age of creature comforts. Everything can be delivered to you within a, within an hour. You don't have to do anything anymore. You don't have to search out hard things. You can be comfortable 247 and our brains are built for that. Why? That's survival. The more comfortable you are, the more in control you are, the more likely you are to survive. But what has happened is that people have taken this so far that they've actually forgotten that, uh, the way we grow, the way we're impactful, the way that we connect with other people is actually doing these things that sometimes we don't want to do. Right. So that's the biggest thing for me is that I, it's, it's my own head. I mean, that's why I started sci fi, is that I found all these problems that I had and then was like, I can't be the only person suffering with these. And then found that like, there's a, there's a specific part of the population, high performers, that also, that are as crazy as I am in my brain. And I'm a psychologist, I'm trained to deal with this stuff for decades. Most people don't have the training. They just have the creature comforts. They have the program, the societal blueprint that we're given. And I think we're coming into now this bigger day and age where it's like, no, like, what are your feelings? How do you feel about this? Right? Like, what do you like, you know, you got to listen to your feelings. I'm like, no, you don't. Your feelings are garbage. You should listen to your emotions. And I have a distinction between those, between emotions and feelings. But if you listen to your feelings, you're going to accomplish nothing. You're going to be unhappy, you're going to be this dopamine deficient person. You're going to have no satisfaction in your life. You're not going to be able to pursue happiness. You're going to have, you're not going to have meaningful connections, you're not going to have purpose, you're not going to have impact. And then you're going to get to the end of your life. And the hospice studies unequivocally talk about this, of how miserable you are for choosing all the easy things that you were told to choose. So to, uh, bring this full circle, like, for the reason why it means so much to me is Because I deal with this, and then I see all my clients deal with this as well, on a higher level. And if someone like me, who's trained in this stuff, who lives, breathes, and eats this stuff every day for 30 years, is dealing with it this hard, the rest of the population has, uh, got to be struggling in ways that nobody wants to talk about, because nobody wants to raise their hand first and say, I have that problem too. And that makes me actually really sad because then we isolate and we know, all three of us know where that goes. Isolation is the worst thing.

Speaker C: It's interesting that you were saying it came from you, because when, um, I started the, uh, self sabotage class, it was the exact same thing. I'm like, I teach this stuff. Why can I not, uh, get off the couch? Why? I keep saying, I'm going to go after this goal. I say, I'm going to do this, and then I'm not doing anything. And then I would spiral, beat myself up, and then the next day reset. I'm like, all right, give myself a pep talk. And I started doing deeper work into the whys. And, and I know you can expand on this, but what blew me away is research shows that our brains are hardwired to protect ourselves. It is hardwired that when things get hard, it says, we're not safe right now. Fear, anxiety, stress, the brain goes, woo. We need comfort, we need control. We need to know that we're safe. And so for me, it became just freedom to recognize that if my brain is doing its job to protect me, and I could actually look at it go, okay, so I don't feel, feel ready. That's okay. What do I really want? And then how do I start to take the action to get there? Have you seen that as well? Have you came across that study?

Speaker D: Oh, my gosh. So if we look at this right, so I, I, I've studied anthropology. I'm not like a nerd in it, but I've studied it enough to know, because we gotta know where we came from. Like, you know, we, as, as Homo sapiens sapiens have been around for 200,000 years, right? Only the advent of technology has the last, like, couple of decades. So you're looking at a fraction of what this stuff does to us, of how our brains are supposed to behave. But, Mary, you said it perfectly. Our brain's number one operative is to keep us alive. That's all your brain cares about. Your brain doesn't care about if you're happy. Your brain doesn't care about if you're content. Your brain doesn't care about your, if you're connected or impactful, your brain cares about nothing about that. First, keep you alive. To keep you alive, it's got to keep you safe. To keep you safe, it's got to keep you in control. So this is why all of us are control freaks. Because it literally goes back to safety and keeping us alive. So if you're going to be in control, well, comfort. Because the biggest thing that we engage in all day in our, in our companies is that we go out in search for the unknown. We're pushing, we're entrepreneurs, we're doing all these new things. We have no idea what's on the other side of this. Most of the time, even if we've planned it out, we still have no idea. So that is the fear of the unknown. That means we have no control. So it goes against our brain's operative and our brain throws up all the red flags. And then it'll do the things like that. It'll be like, just go lay on the couch. Come m on, you don't need to do that today, you know, Come on, you don't need to go to the gym, you don't need to do that extra rep. You don't need to say that thing to your partner. You don't need to read that extra line today. You could just look at your phone a little bit more. Come on, just get some fast, cheap dopamine. You'll be fine. You'll be fine for a couple minutes. But we don't want that. We want serotonin, we want that oxytocin. We want those things that make us feel great for a long time. So yeah, it is a hundred percent built into our DNA, not into Mary Connor and David's DNA, into the human DNA. For hundreds of thousands of years it's been like that. And we're sitting here thinking that we can reprogram it in decades. Well, we've reprogrammed it in decades with advent of social media and all this other kind of stuff. But uh, like our brains have been like this. They're. Our brains are ancient essentially. So when we go after these principles, this is why they say like, like if we can blend ancient wisdom with modern technology, that's game stopping, that's game changing. And I think that's what we're up against.

Speaker B: I'd love to go back because this like piqued my, I don't know what that means part of my brain. Uh, whenever you talked about like emotions versus Feelings. And those are not the same. And I think it also leads into one of the questions that we had at the end of the webinar from Waseem is one of the best questions we had. You talked a lot about resistance and pushing through that. And he asked, well, how do you, how do you diagnose which one you're in between? Like actually needing, like genuinely needing rest and pushing through those uncomfortable things. Um, so emotions versus feelings, diagnosing when to push through, when not to push through. What does all that really practically look like?

Speaker C: That's a great question.

Speaker D: Yeah, it's a great question. You got me lit up, man.

Speaker B: M. So for the cardigan off. Yeah, that's.

Speaker D: That's what it was. I was like, all right, we're getting ready. Let's get those arms ready for the fight. Uh, so for me, the difference between emotions and feelings is something that I've created myself. I didn't learn this from anyone. I could be very wrong on this, but, you know, uh, 10,000 hours of one on one sessions, three decades of doing this. I think I can speak from a little bit of authority.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker D: So I look at this as one. So emotions, let's go with the. I call them the good one first, right? So emotions, they come up naturally, right? They typically come from the body. It's like a sensation that comes up and then our brain translates it and then they go away in about five minutes, right? Like we have a sci fi ism called five Minutes to Freak, where we're like, hey, if you're really pissed off about something, take five minutes and lose your shit. Literally. Scream, yell, throw safe stuff, punch pillows, whatever you got to do. Connor, I know you have children, Mary. You've raised two beautiful women. Kids will burn themselves out. They throw a little temper tantrum, right? That's natural. Like within minutes it'll be done. That's emotions. That's an emotion literally coming up and being processed out in real time. So the emotion is going to do that. It's gonna all. To me, all emotion signals. It's like a knock to say, hey, something needs to change. Like, I don't know what's going on here. Like, I feel this way, but something's off. Like, just take a look at this for me. And then the emotion goes away. Now the feeling is on the other side of this. The feelings are. I believe they're. They're fabricated. They're basically come from our experiences and our interpretation of what's going on in front of us, right? They come from the brain. And then they last for days, weeks, months, years. You can have feelings, right? So when we look at these two things and we distinguish the differences between them, I think this gives us more control going back to what our brain wants, of. Of what's actually going on inside of us. Am I feeling an emotion that I just need to process right now and let it fully go? Like, I need to fully be with it, which is really hard for a lot of us because those emotions can be really strong. Right. Sadness, anxiety, loneliness. Right. Those are. Those hurt, and those are.

Speaker B: So many people are taught to push them down, to not to feel that, just to, um, forge forward and ignore it.

Speaker C: And they erupt.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: I. I grew up in an immigrant Italian New York family. Like, we just, like, we're told to push our feelings down until it's. Until you start screaming at the other person because it erupted. Right. That's how I grew up. And, like, it took me decades to realize, like, that's not right.

Speaker B: That's not.

Speaker D: Even though it's normal, that's not right. So if you're letting these emotions come up in a natural way, if you're letting them process in a natural way, and if you have certain little tools that you can use, I don't think they ever become these feelings. And the feelings is what rules us. Like I mentioned, I was like, I don't feel like getting out of bed. So I don't get out of bed. I don't feel like having the conversation with my partner. I don't feel like I don't have the conversation with my partner. I don't feel like going to the gym. I don't feel like doing the extra rep. I don't feel like eating the good food. I don't feel like going to bed early. I feel like entertaining myself. And so we just go. We stay up late, we entertain ourselves. We don't have the conversation. We don't have the connection. We don't have the body. We don't have the brain. And next thing we know, we're like, why am I so unhappy? Because you've consistently chosen these little things based on your feelings, and your life looks exactly the way it does because of this. It's not some surprise. Why does my life look like this? I'm like, look at the choices you made.

Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker C: When you're talking, all I can picture is this. Well, so David's my coach, and we've gone through this, and I have a little villain voice, and it is temperament, uh, temper tantrum, toots. Like, it is, literally. And that's what's happening. It's like this little girl or this little boy is like, I don't want to do it. I don't want to do it. And it's like throwing a temper tantrum. And it is. I don't feel like. I don't feel like it. And when we go, okay, I understand you don't feel like it. What do you really want? What is. What's the outcome that you're looking for? Is your body exhausted and it's okay to take a nap? Are you overwhelmed and burned out? And so part of the feeling is it's the over that you have to calm yourself down so that you can start again? Or is it just that you're just throwing a temper tantrum and you don't want to be told what to do by your adult self?

Speaker D: Yeah, I love. I love that last one, because this is something I see with. With clients where most of us, as high performers do not like. Being told what to do is, like, an instant trigger. Right. But what I've found to be the funniest part is there's a lot of people that don't like being told to do, even by themselves.

Speaker C: Right, right.

Speaker B: That's. That's my favorite part of the conflict stuff that we teach the TK and all the modes you can go through, and we almost exclusively teach it, uh, externally, like, how you deal with conflict. But all of those modes, whether you're, like, collaborating or compromising, can be internal as well. And, like, Dr. Kilman talks about that, where you can compromise with yourself or you can avoid yourself or accommodate with yourself. So I think that that happens a lot, especially, yeah. With people who are, like, control freaks. And I had the conversation with my wife a couple weeks ago. Um, I'm like, I, like. I'm just tired of, like, compromising with myself, like, competing more for what I know I need and avoiding. And stop avoiding things or compromising.

Speaker C: Well, there you go. So he's in his feelings. So, David, how would you process him on that?

Speaker D: Well, so. So, like, one, I think, Mary, you talked about something that we use at, uh, Sci Fis, and there's Sci Fi ism called Name Entertainment. Right. So name is attainment based on cognitive behavioral therapy. It's like, what are you feeling? Right. So, like, the thing I would say to Connor is like, well, what are you. So, what are you feeling? And like, this is where I say, like, again, feelings and emotions. I use the word feeling here because people, like, would. It's more relatable. They understand it a lot easier. I wouldn't say, like, what emotions you have going on. People get confused because, like, feeling. You're like, I'm feeling this and this and this and this and this. So that'd be the first thing I would say, like, hunter, what are you feeling when you're getting tired of your excuses, you're tired of your compromises?

Speaker B: I mean, I feel, like, out of control, kind of like in that free fall. Um, because I'm just avoiding or compromising or. Or neglecting things, I guess. Yeah.

Speaker D: So I'm also hearing frustration. Yeah, right. You're frustrated. This is what you do. That. This is what you're programmed to do. But again, that's a neural. All that is a neural pathway. A neural pathway that you've run so many times that because this becomes the easy thing to do, your basal ganglia kicks on right away. You don't have to think about it anymore. So part of it is like, the interruption. That's what name entertainment can be so, so important. It's like instead of just going down this, you know, litany of laundry or laundry list of how I feel and frustrations and all the, uh, excuses, and I'm sick of this. And it's like, pause. We call this own the pause. Taken from Viktor Frankl. Right. Own the pause. Name it detainment. It gives you enough of a cognitive pattern interruption that allows your brain to go, oh, this is what I'm dealing with. And all of a sudden, the basil ganglia doesn't get to go online so fast. The prefrontal cortex comes on, and you start thinking about this in a different way. As soon as you start thinking about it in a different way, you all of a sudden have access to another choice, as opposed to previously. Without the. Without the interruption, without the name entertainment, without the own the pause, it's just a super highway of habit.

Speaker C: That's the stop method. That's stop. Take. Take a breath, take a pause, Optimize your nervous system. M. And then proceed with intention. And heard that.

Speaker D: Like that.

Speaker C: Yeah. And I also did some research, and they say that we have 90 seconds for our motions to peak. So at the top of 90 seconds, if we don't feed it another thought, it will start to come down. And I think about that because I've seen that in my own life. What keeps the story which gets us so trapped into our feelings is we feed that emotion.

Speaker D: Because the more you feed it, I mean, this is a Tony Robbins thing, right? The more you focus on something, the More, it grows, right? So if you're feeding something, it's going to grow, but if you start starving it with, with that interruption or with that even recognition, because a lot of this stuff, especially feelings, especially deep seated feelings that have been around in us for like a long, for decades, these things don't want to be brought to the light because if they're brought to, they, they love living in the darkness of the recesses of our minds because they can control us. Because all of a sudden you bring it to light, you're like, oh, uh, I'm just frustrated. Okay, well, why am I frustrated? Because I'm not doing that. I'm not taking the, you know, the steps that I want to take. Okay, what are those steps? Or this? Okay, can I take one now? Yes. All of a sudden that just dissipates. So I love that, that, uh, thought Mary, and your follow, um, up with that.

Speaker B: Well, I know that in, in the, in the webinar you talked about like, that, this whole thing of like, practicing, pushing through resistance. What have you seen with your clients as you've coached and trained people over the years? And I have my own assumption of what your answer will be. So I'm curious, but what happens after like six months of practicing it? Because in a normal scenario, you practice sports, you practice basketball. Innately you get better over time. And so does that same value apply here? Do you get better at pushing through the resistance after six months, a year of practicing this? Or, uh, what are the changes that you really see in people who dedicate themselves to, to actually pushing through and working on this resistance piece?

Speaker D: The answer that nobody wants to hear is that it depends.

Speaker B: Okay.

Speaker D: Because, uh, like we like when people sign up for Sci Fi, it's a six month commitment up front, right? Because what I've seen in doing this for years is that no sustainable behavior change can happen in less than six months. Like, I can give you the patches and tools and band aids, but like, those wounds are still there. We haven't cleaned the wound out. This is literally thinking of like wound care, right? You can just put a band aid on something and spit on it and like, it's probably, it may be okay or it's going to get infected, right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: So now I got to go inside there and like deeply clean it out and it's going to hurt and it's going to be painful and it's going to suck. That's what kind of happens in a lot of these because we start coming up against people's stories and their Meanings and the things they've carried for decades and their triggers and all this stuff that they were subconsciously ruled and controlled by that they had no clue about. And then, because what will happen, and this has happened in sci fi many times, is that, uh, I'll client will come in, they're on fire, they're ready to change. They listen to me, they're doing everything and they get to a point where something just, it's like a wall and they're trying to push. And in my, and in my professional opinion, I'm not supposed to come in with a sledgehammer and help them break that wall down. I'm supposed to sit there and go, okay, what's actually happening? Because you hit something, like, it's like stepping on a nerve, right?

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: Uh, you've hit something and you're like, like, I literally, like, shake.

Speaker B: I can't.

Speaker D: I don't know what the hell this is. I'm like, yeah, that's the deeply rooted subconscious stuff that's been there for decades, that's been ruling your life. And now we're pushing against it. And that. And no matter how hard you push, unless that going back to the little temper tantrum toots. Yeah, unless that child. And a lot of this is inner child work sometimes, like without going too woo woo. Because it does relate to that. That is the basis of a lot of psychological, um, methods.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: Unless that child feels safe, it ain't going to happen. Because the more you push them, the more they, it entrenches them or the more. And this is really horrible, sometimes they'll relive the trauma that got them there. And so you have to really create. This is why our first founding principle is we create a safe space for you physically, mentally and emotionally. If you don't feel safe, none of this work works. Um, I can give you the best playbooks, the best tools, the best framework stuff that's been scientifically proven. If you don't feel safe, you can push so hard. And trust me, I've lived that. I've pushed myself to the brink every, like, so many times. But what I realized through going through my suicidal depression was like, yeah, once you hit that wall, you can't push. It's not a discipline or motivation issue anymore. It's something more. It's something deeper than that, you know,

Speaker C: And I actually think too, it goes on once you're aware, once people are aware and they want to work on it, there's a different level of being able to push through. So you have to have awareness first. So the story of me on the couch going, I don't want to do this. Right. And then I do all this research. I'm like, oh my God, I'm sabotaging. And I was like, I'm okay. It gave me permission to not be okay in a moment. And then for myself is I had to go, what do I want? So it was clarity of vision. And I think with anyone, when we know what we want and we know why, it's important and we understand that our triggers are going to show up. Temper tantrum, tooth is going to show up. We're not going to feel like it, but we know what it is. The power of the pause and then the 1%. And you do that over and over and over. I've seen results, like massive results. Yes. And I've also seen, you know, firsthand me is I'll see, I'll do it and I'll get just. I'm in this rhythm and then something happens and it interrupts it and I want to go backwards. And I really believe that's the protection. But again, it's the getting back into why does it matter? Put that vision, put the why in front and then do the 1%, the little itty bitty thing, not the hundred percent.

Speaker D: Yeah. Mary, thank you for sharing that so vulnerably, because I'm the same way. Right. Like we're scaling sci fi right now. And so I'll get, you know, I. I just. We just finished our vision. 10, 10, 5, 3, 1 year vision. We got all the marketing funnels, everything's going AI integrations, all this stuff. And, um, then there'll be. Sometimes I need to sit down and do something and resistance is so hard and I have to sit there and do my own work and go, what? What is my brain telling me? My brain's telling me this isn't safe. My brain's telling me that if you do this, you're going to get big and everyone's going to see you and you're going to be vulnerable and you're going to. And people are going to know who you really are and they're going to see all the flaws and all the things that you have wrong with you and they're going to attack you. Because I've had this happen before. I've been attacked by numerous people throughout my life, physically, mentally, emotionally. So it's not for a lot of us, it's not made up. It's actual. It actually happened. It wasn't. And I'm speaking, I Want to be speaking to people who. Not people who have had like one thing happen and that like that ruled their whole life. I'm talking about one thing happened then. It happened repeatedly, over and over with different people at different times and different and different scenarios and it ingrains into us. And that's when Mary, you and I hit these walls of what is going on. It's like your central nervous system is overloaded because we don't feel safe.

Speaker C: Mhm.

Speaker D: And our body, that's. It's. It's an. It's a good thing that our emotions coming up to say hey, I need you to stop. Because if you go down this road, this could be really bad. Now is this a real threat or is it a perceived threat? And there's the big difference.

Speaker C: The in the self sabotage class, the abc. So A is the antecedent, which is the trigger. So what is happening when I am getting, you know, triggered. B is the behavior. So what is the action I take when that happens? And then see what is the consequence. And it's understanding this is the abc. But how do I reframe it? So um, I'm on the couch when I'm exhausted. That's my A.

Speaker B: B.

Speaker C: When I don't want to get on my peloton, see, because I'm exhausted. And my typical um, consequence is because it's. It's not. It's a payoff, right? It is. I go take my shower and I just start my day. So when I'm exhausted, I don't want to get my peloton. I just get up, take my shower and I go on with my day. Because there's always tomorrow. So the new one would be when I'm exhausted, when I don't want to get on my peloton, then I'm going to count to five, breathe and just get up. Because it now separates because I already see it, I know it, and I have a way out.

Speaker D: M. That's. I love that Marian. And that's one thing we didn't get to do in the webinar was talk about the power of breath work. The power of breath. Right. We're doing this 23, I uh, think 22, 22,000 times a day. Right. It is completely involuntary. But it does change when we put ourselves in these stressful situations. So you just taking that pause, giving yourself the breath, it's like literally resetting your central nervous system. It's telling your brain like, hey, I'm okay. Right? Because your brain, your amygdala gets that uh, you're breathing heavy. And then it's like, why is she breathing heavy? Why is her mouth open? Why is she shallow breathing? That's a signal to the brain that something must be wrong. The amygdala does what it does. It throws in the fight or flight system. So again, pattern. A lot of. A lot of what we're talking about is pattern interruption.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker D: Can you interrupt the pattern that we've conditioned ourselves for years or decades or even most of our lives to have a different outcome. I, uh, like how you have, like your. Your outcome can be different, that c can be different. And breath is such a strong component. It's. It's one of the number one thing. I mean, it's our B3 brain, body, breath that we teach. Because if someone can control their breath, something that is literally involuntary, that's happening all those times a day, I like to think. And the whole point of it is like, well, what else can you control that you don't think? You can. Can you control your thoughts? I'm a firm believer you can control your thoughts. Can you control your feelings? Absolutely. Can you control your emotions? You can, but you shouldn't, in my opinion, let those things come up, take control of this stuff as opposed to running the same pattern. Because the pattern's easy. The pattern is simple. The pattern's comfort.

Speaker C: I love what you just said. The pattern's comfort. Because as. So take the. The thing of the peloton. I'm thinking, why is it so hard for people to take action when we don't feel like it? And Tony Robbins talks about the pain and pleasure. Right? We go to the path of least resistance. And so if we want comfort and our brain is looking for comfort, then whatever the thing is that we're supposed to do is too painful. So how do we make it smaller? How do we make it in the times when we don't feel like it? Instead of going, oh, my God, I have to go to the gym and work out for an hour. No, I said I want to be healthy. So in those moments when I'm exhausted, I'm going to do the thing you did in the webinar. One minute. Stand up, do my calf raises, do my breathing. And we're doing something that still connects to moving our body.

Speaker D: Yeah, it's the, uh. I mean, we teach this at Sci Fi. The power of 1%. Another sci fi ism, which comes from the book that we're both talking about. It's a. It's that don't. You don't have to Dive in, right? Going to the gym for an hour. That's diving in the deep end. No, Doing one minute of a calisthenic exercise. A body weight calisthenic exercise. That's. That's the 1%. That's dipping your toe in the pool, right? Oh, I gotta have this, like, tough conversation with someone. Don't just call them. Maybe write out a little. Little agenda for it or something, right? I gotta sit down and do this. Do the work that I don't. That, uh, that I'm getting about right? Dude, uh, hey, man, just sit down for five minutes. That's all I'm asking you to do. Sit down for five minutes. Right? So if you give yourself those little. Those little very Easy wins the 1%. And use a state change so exercise, breathing, stuff like that, because the state means a big. Makes a big difference. This is. You know, Tony Robbins talks about this. It's, uh, what is it? State strategy story is his. His three ones. And he's talking about. Most of us get it backwards if we go strategy first. Well, just as I said before, you can have the best strategy, but if your state is one of fear and control and lack of safety, you're not going to do anything. That's your brain doing what it's supposed to do, protect you. You cannot. There's very. I forgot there's a name of a, uh, there's a. There's actually a clinical diagnosis for people that don't experience fear. What the m. The mechanism in their brain for that has not been developed. So they.

Speaker B: That's wild.

Speaker D: They don't have it. And I'm like, fear is a good thing. Emotions are a good thing. Now, uh, being ruled by these things is not a good thing. It's not a good thing all the time. But contextually speaking, yeah, face the fear like, right, like run. Run to the roar. As woman once said.

Speaker C: I wonder who that woman was.

Speaker B: For everybody listening, it was Mary. Just to clear it up. Okay, that's cool.

Speaker C: I actually have a question. Knowing okay, we. We can identify, we understand is our feelings and temper tantrum toots over there going, I don't want to do this. Don't tell me what to do. We start to separate. We start to take action. What pitfall should we be aware of that can hijack us?

Speaker D: Oh, uh, I'll go back to the, uh, the question that Wasim brought up. And Connor, you mentioned this earlier. It's not going to be perfect. It's not going to be perfect. I screw this up on a daily Basis. And I live, breathe and eat this and teach it and read about it all day. Like giving ourselves that permission that we're not going to get it right. Because, um, I'm what I call a recovering perfectionist. Right. I think most people are most, most high performers are perfectionists in our blood. It's part of the I'm not enough wound that we have to be perfect because to make sure we're enough. But that's the first thing that was the pitfall is you're not going to get this right. It's not going to work all the time. Sometimes it's gonna work, sometimes it's not gonna work at all. Sometimes it's gonna work a little bit. Sometimes you work a lot. If you're okay with it not being perfect, that is the greatest ally you can have to start.

Speaker C: It's like the. So what now? What?

Speaker D: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So. So, yeah, so that's one of the. We teach that too. It's like, so what? This happens.

Speaker B: So what?

Speaker D: Uh, who cares? Don't care. Like, okay, big deal. Like what meaning or story are you giving it?

Speaker B: Right?

Speaker D: That, that would probably be another one of the pitfalls is like be aware of the meaning and stories that you have. Because as you, you're pushing and you're getting, you're making all this progress and then you hit that wall and it's like, okay, I'm gonna. Harder. I'm gonna push harder. It's not working. Then the story starts coming up. Or, uh, the meaning. What's the meaning? Means I'm not enough. Look, I can't do this. I can't get through this. I'm not motivated. I'm not disciplined enough. I'm not motivated enough. I'm not big enough. I'm not bold enough. And the story is, well, this is how I've always been. This is. And this is. I know this is going to be just like this and this. You know, this happened last time I'm told me this. My dad said this when I was younger and that. And so I think that's one of the other big. The two big ones to worry about is that first it's not gonna be perfect. They're gonna screw this up. And it's okay. It's all about progress, not perfection. The second one is make. Is make sure you're checking your. Your meaning. Your meaning making machine. And the stories that you're telling yourself about what's happening because you could actually just be dealing with an emotion. So just name it. As opposed to letting it turn into a feeling and then the feeling runs off and next thing you know you haven't moved to the couch for two hours or you're death scrolling.

Speaker C: How do you. And I know we've talked around this, but I really look at. It has to be bigger than just I'm going to lose 10 pounds or I'm going to. It has to be bigger than that so that when the feelings show up, there's something that we can be connected to to go, okay, it is a story. I see what's happening. Here's a tool and it's not gonna be perfect.

Speaker D: Mhm. Yeah. And I think the other thing is, you said it really well, Mary is staying connected to your why and then also having accountability with someone in your life that can help. We're m not meant to do this work on our own.

Speaker C: No.

Speaker D: Right. Bible, Bible even says that a single braided strand can easily be broken. A triple braided cord cannot. So there's three of us here today. Right. Three of us have each other's back. We're going to be a lot stronger.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker D: We sit in like a back triangle. We can identify all the threats from every direction as opposed to just one of us. So I think that having accountability or having someone to help us is a big one. The other one's coming back to is the why. Like why are you doing this? Why do you want to lose weight? Well, because they want to look good. That's not going to do it. Well, you know, I want to set a why do you want to lose weight? Because I want to set a good example for my kid that you can do anything you set your mind to. I want to show what it looks like to be a healthy role model. M right. Like one of my whys is I don't want anyone to ever go through what I went through because statistics show that most people don't come out the other side of it. They, if they take the effort to go through, planning out, taking their lives, especially men, most of the time it goes, it goes that way. So that's me. And I'm like that's, that's. And, and also it's also my own mental health. Like I don't want to go back there. So that's why I do the things that I, I don't want to want a cold plunge in a 38 degree freaking Colorado glacier fed river. Like I know, but I know if I get in there I'm gonna feel better on the other side of it. That's the actions drive Feeling feelings that we talked about a little bit, right? Having those. I want to feel that. I want to, you know, a person losing weight. I want to feel good about myself. Okay, well, what do you got to do to feel good about yourself? Action is the antidote, period. You can't think your way through this stuff. You simply can. This is. I'm a psychologist. I'm paid to do this. Like, you cannot think your way through this. There has to be action. There has to be accountability. There has to be other things that are blended in with this, because each one of us is smart enough to think through this stuff. It's not a problem of not knowing what to do.

Speaker C: You said something so powerful. It's the support. And I really see that's where people fail, is when they don't have support. When I raised my hand, I'm like, david, I need a coach. Because I kept seeing some of the patterns start to show back up. I'd work at it for a while, and I'm like, ah. And I'm almost done at the place where now my book is ready to be, uh, given into someone to go through the manuscript. So. But that's because it's support, and that's when you hire a coach to get healthy in a gym, it is accountability. Uh, joining a mastermind group is accountability. And that's where. When we don't feel like it, but we know that we have someone in our corner, we are typically more apt to follow through when we have other people than to ourselves. We break trust with ourselves first.

Speaker D: Yeah, it's. It's 100%. Um, one of my clients, when we first started working together, you know, we do what's called the one thing every week. You know, the one thing you need to accomplish by the time I see you again. And in the beginning, he was like, I'm only doing this because I don't want to disappoint you. Uh, week after week, month after month. That's why. That's why he would do the things. Not because he wanted to. Not because his why was strong. Not because he knew he needed to do this. It was because he didn't want to disappoint me. And I was like, you know what? We can work with that. That's fine. So, yeah, it is. It's about having accountability. It's about having support. We're not supposed to do this life on our own. I have. I've had. I've had a coach. I've had a coach, therapist, psychologist, some kind of someone in my life for like 18 years. 17. 18 years. Um, and I'm a coach. Like, I can coach myself, but I also can't see my left eye, right? Like, I can't sit here.

Speaker C: And. Oh, he had me do this. He goes, okay,

Speaker D: so for all those that are listening too, let's do this. So, Connor, look away from the screen and make sure you're not looking at a reflection. Okay.

Speaker B: I was going to say that was going to be my go to.

Speaker D: Yeah. So. So you can't see your reflection, right?

Speaker B: No.

Speaker D: So kind of, you're a smart, intelligent, educated man. You know, you're part. You're part of driven. Like you. There's no doubt that you can do a lot of cool, hard stuff. But here's what I want you to do. I want you to look at your left eye.

Speaker C: He's moving.

Speaker B: Like, I get there, but I'd probably

Speaker D: break something in the process, so keep trying. Come on, dude, you're resourceful, you're tenacious, you persevere, you get. You get shit done. Come on, man. Look at your left eye, dude.

Speaker B: This is my current. For everybody maybe watching.

Speaker D: So, so here, here's the beauty of this, everyone. And for Connor too. You know, you could sit there and struggle for hours, days, weeks or months and not. You can't see your left eye. It's impossible as a human being, right. Without the aid of something else. But I can look at you, Connor, and within seconds, I can tell you the shape, the color, the context, the direction. I can tell you so much about that that you could take, still figure out. Uh, and even if you looked in the mirror, you're still biased because your eyes are literally your visual cortex connected directly to your brain. So your brain is affecting what you see through your experiences, through the things that you've lived through, through the stories, through the meaning. So even what you see in real life is actually not reality. This is mind blowing when we think about it, that none of us, not Mary, not me, not you, see reality. We see a version of reality through our own lens. Even more so why it's important to have someone in your life that cares about you. They can speak into your life and be like, hey, dummy, that's not what you're seeing here is what I'm seeing. Yeah, so that's my pitch for saying, everyone have a coach, have someone talk to someone. Professionally is better because there's the. There's the therapist. There's the therapist joke that, uh, you know, people want their therapist to give them answers and their friends to Listen. But it's the opposite. The therapist listens and the friends always give answers.

Speaker C: That's true.

Speaker B: That's so funny.

Speaker C: I love that exercise though. Uh, because it, that analogy of um, no, look at your left eye. Come on. And we can't. It's our blind spot. Yeah. And yet we want to do life alone. We don't. You know, it's the imposter syndrome. It's whatever. We don't want to fail.

Speaker D: Yeah, it's. Well, it's one of our other wounds too. Like I've identified these, these patterns of wounds that we all have and one for high performers, and we kind of touched on this a little bit earlier, was that we all believe in the back of our heads. Not all of us, a lot of us believe that every, every single person is going to disappoint, they're going to let us down, they're going to abandon us, they're going to. Something's going to happen. And so when that is the thought reoccurring thought pattern in our head, a reticular activating system, like we call it the AI hot dog at Sci Fi goes out and looks for it. So Mary says something that is like neutral at uh, best. And I'm like there. She set me up. She set me up. Disappoint me. Connor mentions one thing or does this one thing and I'm like, there he is, he's going to abandon me. And we look for it. And so as you teach Mary with the self sabotage, we try to, we get ahead of it, like, well screw it, I just cut that person off. Or I won't talk to them. I won't deal with this. I won't ask them for help, I won't ask them for support. I don't have to deal with the inevitable of the person hurting me, disappointing me or abandoning me. It's again, back to safety. Mhm. Keep us alive. Safety. It's the more that I've, the more that I do this, the deeper I get into my own work, the more that I realize all this comes down to safety. That's all it is. It's safety, safety, safety, safety.

Speaker B: Well, so what have you seen with the people who uh. And again, this isn't like you reach perfection or nirvana in that mindset, but for the people who do find the ability to be safe, what happens in their life, dude, they're thriving outcome.

Speaker D: They have everything they want. Right. They, they're not bothered by like we can just look at, not getting political at all, but our country's In a little bit of a show right now, let's just say that. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think that's a fair assessment.

Speaker D: I think that's. That's a. Yeah, fair assessment. Right. The people that are thriving, the people that are safe, they're not worried about. They're not turning on the news every day to see what the hell is going on across the world. By the way, going back to our anthropological brains, our brains are not supposed to take that much information in, by the way. We're not supposed to know everything that's going on in the world on a daily basis. Right. So these people that have figured out safety and it looks different for everyone. Right. Some people have different barometers of this stuff depending on what you had to go through, what your life has been like, how old you are. But once you figure it out, you go through life looking like. And this is something I'm working on. I'll be honest with you. This is one of my biggest hurdles that I'm working on is like, can I trust the universe and God that's going to have my back? M. Can I. That's what that. That's what safety looks like for me. Safety looks like that. I. I ha. I can pursue what I want to pursue. I can let things go when. Opportunity. I had an opportunity for a big speaking gig that just went away this morning. And I was like, that sucks. I can be emotion sad about it for us for a couple minutes. Cool. Something else is going to come up. Why? Because I believe that the universe and God has my back. That's safety. Right. Oh, I'm dealing with injuries right now. I'm going to be okay. These are the kind of people that don't get in their own way, so they just manifest things. And you're like, how? You're so lucky. And they're like, maybe. But like, they're. I think the biggest piece of it is that they also figured out this kind of safety place to be in or not fight or flight. So they also think differently. Because we also know this from the research of functional MRI technology. When you go into fight or flight mode, nervous system overload, your amygdala turns on. And when your amygdala is on, this has been proven through functional MRI technology, your prefrontal cortex is off, so you literally think differently. You see the world differently. When these two things are not one's on and one's off. So even the people that are safe and thriving, their amygdala turns on when it needs to. Right. If a Car is screaming down the sidewalk at them. I want them to have their amygdala reaction. Right? Don't be that person who has the no fear gene. But if you get an email from your boss, that's not something you start freaking out about. And if you stay in this part of your brain, you can figure things out in a whole different plane than you could if you're acting from fear and driven by feeling. That's really cool.

Speaker B: Have you seen the, um. For the last name is escaping me. Alex Honnold. Yeah, whenever he did the. The free climb of Taipei 101 and M. The. The big story at that time. And I'd seen it whenever he did Yosemite and all the other things that he does because he's just constantly out there just free falling. Well, hopefully not, but. But free climbing. And the big story is that, like, oh, Alex Honnold's amygdala is broken. He doesn't feel fear. He's like one of those people that, like, you were talking about. And. But I saw a clip of him on a podcast and he's like, that's objectively not true. He's like, I feel fear. I have just lived in this world and trained in a way and had experiences in a way that my amygdala, uh, doesn't fire in this very specific scenario. Just like when, if you get in a car and drive it down the road, you're not freaking out. Your amygdala is not in a flight or fight M mode. And so he's like, yeah, I feel fear in a very normal way, just not in this way. That is very abnormal to a lot of people. And I just love that because it relates a lot to what I think what you do, David, and what we even do at Bold, where we put people in these scenarios. And it's like, hey, we are triggering the amygdala. Like, we want to poke you a little bit and get that fear response. And then. But. But then it comes down to how do you, how do you coach out of it and how do you get out of it so that whenever it does happen at work or in your home, it's that, that transition that you're talking about. It's like, oh, I can rationalize and I can, like, process myself through this instead of just that kid coming out and, you know, sinking the teeth in. So I think that's. That was really cool application.

Speaker D: Yeah, that was really good. I want to comment on that quick in a few different ways. So one, I've attended The bold program for all of these listening. Just go. It is well worth your time and effort. Mary's incredible. Um, but, yeah, what you're doing is you're triggering the amygdala, and then you're showing them that they're still safe, because that's what. That. That's. That's the neural connection we've been talking about. That neural pathway is that when the amygdala is triggered, we're not safe? Well, it's like, no, maybe you're. It's triggered because of some conditioning, some feelings you have. Not emotions, some feelings. Honda is a great example. I've actually got to talk, um, with him a few different times when I was a coach at this New York City climbing gym. Um, he's on this. Like, everyone. This is not news, but I believe he's on the spectrum a little bit. I don't. So that also has. He has different relationship with fear and emotions. But, yes, he is scared. But the thing is, for him is that he has conditioned this response so far. And one thing people don't know about free. Free, uh, solo is I used be. I'm still a free solar. I love it to death. My favorite kind of climbing.

Speaker B: Well, hopefully not, but.

Speaker D: Yeah, not. Not to death.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker D: But, like, I. I love. It's my favorite style of climbing because you are so present, you are so connected. You. You are just in the zone. But one of the things that Hannel has done, and if you look at his story and see the things that he climbs, people think that he just walks up to this climb and just jumps on it. No, he's done this climb like Yosemite, when he did, um. When he did El Cap, he's done that thousands of times. He could literally close his eyes and recite the entire climb to you hand by foot. Like, so he know it's. Again, it's control. He's in full control of this stuff. And so there's the physical part of training it.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker D: And there's the mental part of, like, knowing that this is actually not that bad, because I've been in these situations before, and he. And even I loved it. I watched Taipei 101. Um, and he gets to the top, and he's literally standing on one of the tallest skyscrapers in the world, and he's taking a selfie with a big smile on his face. Yeah. And you're. I'm sitting there going, this guy, like, he. He is a next level. He is a one in a billion human.

Speaker C: Wow.

Speaker B: Oh, yeah.

Speaker D: Right.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: Um, but again, he. He tells that. I love how you saw that piece of his story, because most people don't see that. He's like, no, I have fear. It's healthy. Fear. Fear is healthy. Emotions are healthy. It's when we let them turn into feelings is when we get. We kind of screw ourselves.

Speaker C: Well, what you were just saying was everything that we were talking about, he takes action.

Speaker B: Yes.

Speaker C: The way we get through to the other side is you have to take action whether you feel like it or not. And the more we take action, the more we become it. And it becomes a part of who we are, our habits, our belief. And it no longer is hard, but we have to take action for first before we freaking feel like it.

Speaker D: Yeah. Repeatedly. And this is the. This is where actions drives feelings comes from. It's like, do you want that? Do you want that feeling? Take the action. And I'll give you another quick climbing quip here, because this hunled with this as well, is I was climbing into Rango this past weekend, and when you fall, you don't stop. Like, you fall. And this is with ropes, by the way.

Speaker A: You.

Speaker D: You fall and then you go, okay. Like, you go back up and you do it again because you need to show yourself that it's safe. This is the old adage of you get back on the horse, right? If. If something happens and you just shut down and that's it. Like, that's the fear response. Because then that isn't safe. One of the things that I'll do is I'll laugh when I fall. Why? I'm programming my brain that this is okay. Because why? Because when I laugh, it means, like, one. I'm loose. I'm releasing different neurochemicals. My brain goes, laughter. They must. David must. Like this. Okay, cool. Go do it again.

Speaker B: Right.

Speaker D: I'm gonna teach a class tonight, and I have people laugh during the class. It's a hit class. Hard hit class. I'm like, start laughing.

Speaker B: Why?

Speaker D: Because you're tricking your brain to think you like this. You like doing something hard. You like this pain. Yes, exactly. That's exactly it. Because our brains has a conditioned response. It has a neural pathway that laughter equals enjoyment, or laughter equals safety, or laughter equals let's keep going, as opposed to. And then we shut down.

Speaker C: I've seen the little kids when they're. When they're having fun doing something and they make mistakes and they just laugh and they giggle and they laugh and they giggle and it doesn't matter. I just want that in life More.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: You know, I actually, I know we have. Our time is getting close here and I want to bring something because you're talking about kids and I just, um, I follow someone, actually. Someone I know, and he was teaching a teen leadership class and he has. It, has a whole blog on it. But the kid did not want to stay. He felt uncomfortable. And the parent came and picked up the kid and said, um, my child doesn't feel like being here. They feel uncomfortable. And so we're going to pull them out and same thing differently, right. Everything we do, there's a ripple effect. And feelings, they don't equal fact. Yes. Sometimes we have to go. Okay, so what are you feeling right now? Usually it's the emotion and let that person know, hey, I see you, I understand you, I hear you, I love you, you're safe. And sometimes we get to do things so we can learn it whether we feel like it or not.

Speaker D: I love that, I love how you say get to do things too, because I hear that, that scenario and I go, that's tragic for the counselor, for the kid, for the parent, because what you're doing is conditioning your kid to say, whenever you don't feel like doing something, whenever you feel uncomfortable, you can just retreat.

Speaker B: What?

Speaker D: No, you're. No, no, no, no. And, and we have, we have a couple of sci fi as our own feelings, but one of them is fact check your feelings. What are you like, what's. Okay, I don't, I don't feel like I'm strong enough to do this. Dude, you lifted that weight last week, right? Oh, you know, I'm just, I'm just feeling lonely. But you're surrounded by people, like, fact check these feelings. Let, like. And then if they, if they match, like, okay, maybe that's an emotion. So maybe that's the way for people to distinguish between an emotion and a feeling. And another, another kind of, um, I would say protocol for them is like, fact check it. Is this actually true? Does your boss really hate you? Because they sent an email to you that says, we need to meet? Are they going to fire you? Right. Like, we need to talk about something. Fact check it. Right. The fact is that this is what's going on. So I think it's important to keep doing that because it's really like, fact

Speaker C: check the feeling and take action.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker D: And of course, on the other side of it. Yes. Yeah.

Speaker B: Well, I think as, uh, as everyone can tell, we could probably talk about this for another hour and we will on a follow up webinar where you can all be there in attendance and ask questions live. So any. Any final thoughts or tweets, tools or strategies to leave the people with in this episode until we see them in the the next webinar?

Speaker C: David?

Speaker D: Uh, yes. One action is the antidote, right? Everything that we want in life is on the other side of hard. That is not my phrase. That maybe Alex Hormozi phrase, or he probably got it from somebody else. Uh, but the other, the last thing of that is, like, actions drive feelings. Think about the feeling that you want. How do you want to feel in this situation? Because most of the time, it's not how we feel, right? Take the action that will get you the feeling. You will get the feeling it's waiting for you on the other side. And as Mary said, really well, it's like reminding ourselves we're safe. We're not. We're not so far out that we can't come back. Like, take little steps. 1 percenters, 1%. What's the 1 per. I don't need to go for an hour. Go for. Do a minute. I don't need to have that hard conversation. I just gotta write, you know, the, the outline down. Like, do one little thing and watch, because your comfort zone will grow on the other side of this. And as you become more comfortable, it comes easier to take these steps out because you have the proof. Because without proof, there is no confidence. The only way you build confidence in doing anything is having unequivocal proof that you've done this before, that you can look back. And most of the time, our brain is focusing on the negative stuff, because that's what it's supposed to do to keep us alive. But if it's only focusing on the negative things, it doesn't consider the positive things. And you can't have confidence. Take action if that's the case. So take small actions. Let them be calculated. And the last thing I'll say on this is, talk to someone. I don't care. It's your spouse. It's a good friend of yours. A, uh, professional is the best, obviously, depending on what you're dealing with. But don't do this alone. There's no reason to. I've gone down that road so far and so hard, it literally almost took my life. And there's no reason that we need to do that. Uh, there are so many people out there that are, that want to help you, that do care about you, that you don't even know. Um, just reach out. It's that simple. That's the action.

Speaker A: It's good.

Speaker C: Amazing. Thank you so much for being on here, David.

Speaker D: Thank you, Mary and Connor, for having me. It's been an honor to work with you guys and jive with you guys.

Speaker B: Yeah, that was fantastic.

Speaker C: More to come, too.