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- [00:00]
A
Welcome to the proven podcast where we don't care what you think, only care what you can prove. On this episode, you get the answer to what happens when you take two people who are absolute data dorks who love human behavior and set them free for about two hours. Now you're only going to get about an hour and change of the recorded time because some of it we had to edit out because it's intense. This goes into your belief systems. What's holding you back. And it's all based on science. Near is one of those people who just doesn't care about anything that based on opinion. Him and I are cut from the same cloth. If you can't prove it, if it's not backed in science, we just don't care. In fact, he disproves the illusion of willpower. That all is in this episode. The show starts now. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. Nir, I'm excited to have you on the show, man. Me too.
- [00:45]
B
Thanks for. Thanks for inviting me.
- [00:47]
A
Absolutely, absolutely. So for the two or three people in the world who don't know who you are, tell people more about who you are, what you've done. I mean, you've written so many books and your stuff's based off. I love what you do. Let's get the world caught up on who you are and what you do.
- [01:00]
B
Well, thanks, man. I appreciate that. So, yeah, so my first book was called Hooked how to Build Habit Forming Products. That book is all about how I stole the secrets of Silicon Valley to teach companies how to build habit forming products for good. So how can we get people hooked to an exercise app, to a language learning app, to healthcare products, financial services products, Anything that uses the psychology of Silicon Valley the same way that they get us hooked to Facebook and Twitter and Instagram? How can we use that psychology to get people hooked to good habits through. Through the products and services they. Then I looked at the other side of the story. I wrote Indistractable, which is all about how to control your attention and choose your life. So we want to get hooked to the healthy products and then we want to kind of disconnect and stop getting so distracted by the things that aren't so healthy, whether that's drinking too much or smoking too much or clicking too much or scrolling too much. How do we make sure that we live our life with intent and without regret? And so that's what Indistractable is all about. And then I have my third book just published, which is called Beyond Belief. And so that explores how beliefs shape our reality.
- [02:03]
A
So the first two books I've already gone through and I did the audiobook blast through both of those. And I love what you do because they're based on science. They go through and like, hey, this is what this research has shown. This is what it is. It's things that are purely based on proven techniques and tactics. And I love that you got through the two sides of it, which is, hey, this is. They're coded to hook us in. Now this is how you unhook from that environment. You get disconnected from that. Tell me more about the new book and what we're walking through and how we can implement it.
- [02:29]
B
Sure. So the genesis of Beyond Belief was that I do these office hours and every week any one of my readers can sign up to talk to me. I do four of them every week. So it's an hour, you get 15 minutes. And if you have a question about one of my books, I'd love to hear it. And after Indistractable was published, I started getting these calls. Not every call, but maybe like 1 out of 20 calls would sound something like this. They'd say, hey, Nir, I read Indistractable. I really enjoyed it, but it didn't work. And I'd say, oh, wow, it didn't work. You know, that's it. Like you said, I really researched back. There's 30 pages of citations to peer reviewed studies. It changed my life. It took me five years to write this thing. I'm so curious, tell me what didn't work? You know, how did step one go? And they'd say, oh yeah, Step one. So step one. I didn't do step one. I didn't do step one. Okay, no problem, no problem. Maybe you skip that one. Tell me about step two. How did step two go? You know, Nir, I read Step two. I totally read Step two. I just didn't. I didn't do it. And so I thought, oh my goodness, what's going on here? Like, what, what kind of mistake did I make here as an author? Like, what, are my readers just stupid? Then I realized, wait a minute, no, I'm stupid because I do this too. I have mountains of books filled of advice that I didn't follow. I've hired consultants and gurus to tell me what to do, and I didn't do it. Why is that an interesting question? Like, despite knowing what to do, why don't we do it? And I've met billionaires, I've met people who are broke. And everybody has an area of Their life, that they know what they need to do and somehow it just never gets done. It never, you know, they never get in shape, they never write that book they dreamed of writing, they never start the business, they never have that relationship, they never repair the relationship that's broken. They have that thing they haven't done, even when they know exactly what to do. And so that question fascinated me. Why is that? Especially in an age where, where if you don't know what to do, ask Google, ask ChatGPT, all the answers are out there, right? There's no more secrets like, we know what to do, why don't we do it? And so what I discovered was that there's a missing element that we tend to think of motivation as a straight line, that if you want the result, you do the behavior, right? So you have the behavior, here's what I need to do, and then you have the benefit. You just do the action and you get the results. That's kind of classical economics. So you show up at your job, you do your job description, we pay you a paycheck, okay, we give you incentives. But there's something missing. And the thing missing is that even when I know what to do, I know the behavior and I want the benefit. I don't do it unless I believe. If I don't believe that I will get the benefit, or, and much more likely that I don't believe in myself to continue to do the behavior doesn't happen. So motivation isn't a straight line, it's a triangle. You have to have the behavior, the benefit, but also the belief. The belief holds it all together. And so beyond belief explores what we call limiting beliefs. A lot of people are familiar with limiting beliefs. People aren't familiar with what I call liberating beliefs. Limiting beliefs SAP motivation. Liberating beliefs supply motivation. And it turns out that this, this body of research just absolutely blew my mind. Because like you, I'm not into the woo woo stuff. I'm very skeptical. But there's a whole lot of stuff out there that seems like magic, but it really isn't. You know, I'm talking about the placebo effect, the nocebo effect, the power of prayer, the power of entrepreneurial resilience, where you see opportunities. They used to say that Steve Jobs had this reality distortion field. And it's true that beliefs literally shape what you see, that two people can look at the exact same thing. We've done studies where people look at the exact same image and see completely different things. Why? Because our beliefs shape what we feel what we see and what we do. I call these the three powers of belief, agency, anticipation, and attention.
- [06:18]
A
So there's a wall of questions I have because.
- [06:20]
B
All right, bring it. So rude.
- [06:22]
A
Let's do it. So I wrote a book, and I'm not plugging my book. It's free. It's yours. I'm not doing that. But there's three lies we believe. The lies of what, the lies of how, and the lie of why. I don't know how to do it. Bs. You've got access to a phone. You know how to do everything. You could build a nuclear weapon. Please don't. But you could do it. You have access to that information. You know, do what you love, and you'll never work another day in your life. That's lie of what? Well, we already know that that isn't true. Because if you make me eat sushi every day for the next three months, I'm gonna throw wasabi at you at some point. It's not gon. And we know that. Why isn't powerful enough. Because we sit there and say, I know why. I want to make more money, get in better shape, do blah, blah, blah. But we don't do it. So I found that I had to shift to the identity because there's one version of me that shows up and has naughty naked time, and there's another version of me who gets on a podcast, and if I switch those versions, this becomes a very different podcast or very, very, very naked time. My question I have is in the research and everything that you've done, so as we talk about changing your beliefs from limiting beliefs to more of an empowered belief structure. And how does identity come into that play? Because when we want someone to stop smoking, we don't. We tell them, don't identify yourself as someone who hasn't smoked in 10 days or in 13 days, because all you're doing is counting the number of days till you quit. Instead, sit down and say, I'm a non smoker. I'm a healthy person. If you want to change your habits of, you know, how you are in your relationship with your child, you're like, I'm a good father. I identify. I'm a. I am a strong father. Okay, what does that mean? How would you show up in that? Because I believe the identity then influences the beliefs. How, from the research that you've shown, do the beliefs come into play versus the identity?
- [07:51]
B
So there's a lot of nuance here and a lot of misperceptions, a lot of myths out there, I think that the two most dangerous words in the English language are I am. Because whatever you put after I am, your brain begins to believe. Now it believes to a point. So when we think about affirmations, affirmations have been shown to be, to have positive results until, or I should say, unless they are not backed by evidence. So you're absolutely right that having that new identity can be a liberating belief. Much. It's a much more liberating belief than the limiting belief of I'm no good at it, right? So if you say I am not good at that or. Now today we hear a lot of people with labels that limit them, right? Like I am too old, I am too fat, am too skinny, I am too rich, I am too poor, I am too adhd, I am too whatever. And that becomes then a limiting belief. Because when you believe that, you don't even try, right? A limiting belief saps motivation. A liberating belief supplies motivation. So having that understanding of if I have, I am followed by whatever comes next, that becomes something the brain, it looks out for. And that demonstrates this first power of belief, the power of attention. Now why is that, that belief? If I can just back up into the neuroscience for a bit. Why is the power of attention so powerful? It turns out that the brain can't process all the information that's coming into it. So your brain right this second is processing about 11 million bits of information per second. That's like reading War and Peace twice every second. Okay? The light entering your retinas, the sound of my voice, the chair on your butt, all this information is actually entering your brain, but you're not conscious of it. Your conscious attention can only focus on about 50 bits of information. So 50 bits compared to 11 million bits, that's 0.000045% of the data that your brain is actually taking in are you conscious of. And so the brain has to constantly make a judgment around what it sees through a little keyhole of attention. It's constantly looking through a keyhole. Now that keyhole, what gets in and what doesn't get in is determined in large part by what you believe, by what's called priors, your prior experience, your prior understanding, your prior beliefs. And so when you have a history of telling yourself, I am this, I am this, I am this, I am this, that colors what you see in the future. So you attend to what you pay attention to. So if you expect things to be a certain way, especially if you expect yourself to be a certain Way a la your identity, you will then oftentimes conform to that belief. So. So number one, make sure you choose those labels very, very carefully. And I'm a big critic. There's a, there's a big section in the book that I'm sure I'm gonna get criticized for around why your labels are your limits and why I think we way over diagnosed, way over medicalize. I think the pendulum's really gonna swing. And I have adhd, or at least I've been diagnosed with adhd. And I've got a lot to say about that, about how that can become your cage. But having that empowering identity also needs to be followed up with action. If you don't have that action, you're going to say to yourself, this positive thinking stuff doesn't work, which it doesn't, unless you follow it with action that reinforces your agency. Yeah, absolutely.
- [11:11]
A
I couldn't agree more. When you simply say I am A. And you hear this all the time in New Age and I'll get grief on this in advance as you get grief on your book. People say I am an independent, strong, dynamic, beautiful, intelligent woman. And I'm like, okay, are you always independent? No. Are you always strong? No. And then all of a sudden it starts crumbling. I'm okay, so what's then the other answer? And they go, well then I am da da da da da da. And they keep adding in. I'm like, how about we just stop at the first two words? I am, period. Like there are times where I am joyful, excited, motivated, positive. And there's other times where I, you know, procrastination or depressed or sad or tired or ornery. Cause I've been on a plane for 11 hours, thank you, Swiss Air. And you're going through that process. So the idea that having going through that. But if I have these belief systems where I've been labeled properly or not properly, that I am a Penguin, whatever, that's the least label that I could have with people. If someone is identified, you might get
- [12:03]
B
letters from the Penguin Society.
- [12:05]
A
I probably get letters as it is. So it is what it is. So if we come through and say I identify as a Penguin, I've done that for 40 something years of my life. And I've identified in a certain pattern, be it given to me from my own insecurities or my parents or my school or my securities about myself or my self beliefs about it. And all of a sudden that doesn't serve me anymore. What does the science show? How do we pivot out of that, how do we start rewro writing these belief systems that regrettably are limiting us or are hampering us to get to the next level? How do we do that?
- [12:37]
B
Absolutely. So the first step is to recognize the power of these beliefs. I think that's where 99% of the population is right now. They don't realize that they even carry around these beliefs because even I, that spend the past six years working on this book, I'm telling you every day, just this morning with my wife, I could find myself slipping into these limiting beliefs. So we constantly have to remind ourselves of this default state that we tend to keep doing what we've always done. We want to have a stable identity. We want to believe we understand the world as it is, that we perceive reality accurately. You don't, you don't you see reality through this tiny blurry keyhole of attention based on your tiny life experience that you've then processed? Even our memories are fallible. You know, there's amazing research done by Elizabeth Loftus around how, you know, she showed adults doctored photographs of, of a hot air balloon ride and she, she managed to implant a memory in 30% of adults who not only then believed that they had been on that balloon ride, they elaborated the embal, they embellished the experience with how cold they were and how fun it was. And they described in vivid detail everything that happened that she completely incepted. It never happened. So even, even this whole idea of my prior experiences, that's not to be confused with what people think are memories, right? We've got these non conscious prior experiences that dictate our beliefs. We also have these conscious memories that by and large are way off base. That memory is not a tape recording. Memory is a reconstruction. Literally every time you say, oh, that thing that that person did to me, that trauma that I had, that horrible thing, blah, blah, blah, whatever it might be, you're reconstructing it every single time. Not that, you know, I'm not, I'm not anti understanding things that have happened to you in the past, but we have to be very, very careful with how that influences us in the future. I'll give you one quick story that blew my mind. I have a friend named Chris. And Chris, when I told him about the book I was writing, he told me about, wow, that's so interesting. You know, I used to believe that I couldn't cry and this would really hurt his relationships. Every time he'd enter a serious relationship with a girlfriend, they'd get to a point where they' get into some emotional situation. And he couldn't cry. And she would oftentimes complain, the girlfriend would complain. So, you know, you're not emotionally available, you can't cry. And he believed that he was dysfunctional, he was broke in some way. And he would explain as best he could that the reason he couldn't cry was that when he was 10 years old, he attended his cousin's funeral. And it really shocked him. It was his first encounter with death. And from that day he never wanted to feel that way ever again. And he decided at 10 years old that he would never cry again. And he had a bad breakup with a girlfriend. He told his sister that part of the reason was that he wasn't emotionally available. And all stemmed from the fact that when he was 10 years old, he went to this funeral and he couldn't cry. And his sister looked at him and said, chris, this is his older sister. He said, chris, I remember that funeral. You didn't go, you stayed home with the babysitter because mom and dad thought you were too young. It had never happened. And yet he built this entire emotional existence based on this belief of an event that never, ever happened. So the belief was false, it wasn't true, but the cage felt really true. And so the big revelation of beyond belief of my work over the past six years is that these beliefs should be seen as tools, not truths. We think of beliefs as true as facts. They're not facts, nor are they faith. When people say I believe, they say it as if it's faith. It's neither of those things. A fact is an objective reality, right? The world is more like a sphere than it is flat. It doesn't care what you think. That's an objective truth. That's a fact. Faith.
- [16:33]
A
You know that, right?
- [16:34]
B
Bring them. That's fine, I don't care. I'll take them on. Better than the penguins. The penguins? Those people are mean. The flat Earthers I can deal with. So faith, on the other hand, as opposed to the opposite of fact, faith is a conviction that does not require evidence. God rewards the righteous. No evidence is needed, no evidence is expected. That's faith, right?
- [17:00]
A
There's.
- [17:01]
B
You don't need evidence. A belief is somewhere in between. A belief is a strongly held conviction open to revision based on evidence. So that was the big revelation for me, is that I can choose these beliefs even if they're not true. Even if they're not true, I can still choose a belief. Doesn't matter if it's necessarily true. Now I need evidence, of course. But most of our decisions in life, if you think about it, are not based on fact. Should I marry this person? Should I go into business with that person? Should I buy this product? Should I take this job? These aren't based on facts, they're based on beliefs. And so we have to be very careful about which beliefs we adopt because they can drastically affect the decisions we make.
- [17:40]
A
How much of your research has shown of the beliefs that we have changed over the memories we have changed to block it from some sort of pain that, you know, ABC happened. You went to the zoo and monkey, a monkey threw poop at you and now you blocked that out. You're like, no, I never went to the zoo or something of that nature. Because there's one we make up to defend, to protect ourselves, and there's one we rewrite in our brains to defend ourselves. Our subconscious mind does that as well. How, when you have both of those, right? Because we, I think we agree that both of those exist. How do we go in and rewire this or have at least awareness of it? Because we're like, okay, this exists. I don't know if it's real or it's not. Do we go through and say, what is the value of this? Or what are the next steps for people going, okay, I believe that I'm a seven headed penguin in this case and we're going through that process. How do we sit down and go, okay, what is, how does this serve me? Or what is the process of dissecting that? And do we need other people to help us through that? Is this, you know, is this a therapy thing where we talk about, you know, therapy is a gift you give yourself. Is there a process? We could do it on our own? How do we start rewiring these limiting beliefs or these things conscious or sub or unconscious, Right?
- [18:43]
B
So it, it comes down to first recognizing the belief itself, then asking ourselves if it's serving us, and then choosing a new belief is a third step, and then acting on that new belief as if it were true. So those are the four essential steps. Now, what is not a good idea? And this is something we've seen a change recently in the psychology community. It turns out that just rehashing and digging back up, I mean, there's a. I remember my first research paper that I had to do for my master's program in neuroscience, which I never finished. I'll tell you for various reasons, the very first assignment, and I'm so glad this was my first assignment. My first assignment Was. Is talk therapy more effective than the placebo effect? I mean, all talk therapy, all talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy, acceptance equipment therapy, you know, the classic Freudian on the couch. Tell me about your mother and your dreams and all that. Is it any better than the placebo effect? And the answer is not really. It's a big controversy right now. Yeah, not really. And there's been extensive research. It's not conclusive. Right. There's. Science is never conclusive. There's no such thing as. One of the things that drives me crazy is when people say, science says. Right? There is no science says. That's not how science works. Right. But to the best of our knowledge today, it doesn't look like it does much better than a placebo effect. That being said, it doesn't mean it's not effective. It means that the placebo effect is hella effective.
- [20:14]
A
Gotcha.
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B
That the placebo effect is crazy powerful. That when you think that you should get better, expectation, the power of belief.
- [20:22]
A
Right?
- [20:23]
B
You do. And so the lesson here is that again, beliefs are tools, not truths. That. Does it serve me to believe that I'm a victim? Maybe sometimes. Could be. Does it not serve me to think that I'm a victim? Does it empower me to believe that I have post traumatic growth versus post traumatic stress? Now, the problem is, and I have to have a quick disclaimer here, is that there's a lot of bad therapy out there. Just because someone hangs up a shingle and says, hey, I offer therapy, you know, if they don't give you an off boarding plan, this kills me. You know, people go in to see a therapist and this therapist says, oh, this person is very consistent patient. And all they do is sit here and talk to me. And there's no threat of, you know, severe type of illness like schizophrenia or something that actually, you know, could require a lot of work. No, this is fun, you know, this is easy. I make a lot of money, especially with children. That's why therapists love working with children, because. Because they're easy patients. A lot of bad therapists just want you to come in and vent and talk about your problems. But without turning that into action, what are you learning? What's the off boarding plan?
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A
Right.
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B
If you come to a doctor and say, hey, I broke my arm, and they say, well, this could heal within a year or 20, we don't really know. Like, you should get a second opinion. Right? And so a lot of therapy, I think a lot of therapists, there's a lot of great therapists. Out there. There's a lot of therapists out there that kind of milk the hell out of their clients because they don't turn those, those beliefs into something that actually creates behavioral change.
- [21:50]
A
Also there's the idea of ChatGPT or AI becoming your therapist as well. And I've always told people about, I'm like, listen, I think therapy is, it's a gift. It's a gift you give yourself. Always check in with yourself. And to your point, is there an off boarding process? ChatGPT or AI might not be the best thing either in that situation, unless you have things that it's back to based on. And this is, we talk about AI does not mean artificial intelligence. It means always incorrect. So you have to be careful when you're, when you're playing with that ball game. So when you're doing this and you're labeling things and you're saying, okay, this is a tool, right? This is, this is not a truth. My beliefs are a tool. And it might be based on something that did not even happen in any way, shape or form. And you have that awareness. Can you recode new belief systems or new beliefs to get to the result you want? Because is the goal like we always talk about. There's a journey, journey's miss. It's important, but there's also your goal. And if I got a plane and I sat next to you, I said, near God, I'm so excited. I wonder where we're going. You'd be like, I'm sorry, what was that? You're like, what? Knowing where you're going is mission critical in everything that I've ever done. Can you recode beliefs or re implement and pick different tools and use them a different way to get to rock and roll? And the example I give on that is my grandfather was very, very handy and had a hammer and he sat there with a. I don't know what it is. Sorry, grandpa, I know you're no longer with us, but he carved in the top of a hammer a slot. And I never understood why he did that until I saw him put a nail down, then tap it in so he would hold a nail for him because he always had his hands. So he found a way to change the tool. Since we're calling beliefs tools in this situation, so we could influence a tool to create a better result, is there a way that we can do that?
- [23:32]
B
Absolutely. Absolutely. I love the hammer analogy, by the way, because it's not like you would say, you know, your grandpa never said, oh, this hammer, this is the one and only true tool forevermore. No. He sometimes used a hammer, sometimes he used a saw, sometimes he used a wrench. Whatever required the right tool, he would find the right tool for the job. So there's no reason to carry around this old broken hammer for 20 years. If it doesn't work anymore, you can set it down and find a new tool. And that's exactly what we can do. But with beliefs, the problem is for many people, I'll tell you, for me, I had this requirement of truth. I needed it to be true. And sometimes that can actually hurt us. It certainly hurt me because there's a lot of things that I couldn't see because I was so convinced about the importance of truth, because I thought that belief meant facts. And they don't, especially in interpersonal relationships. I'll illustrate here. So for my mom's 74th birthday, I was in Singapore, she was in Orlando. And for her 74th birthday I wanted to make sure that I got her some nice flowers. And that's not easy to do from Singapore. So I had to go on Google and find all these florists and look at the ratings and reviews and then I had to call them to be like, okay, yeah, but can you really get it there in the Florida heat, like we'll arrive on time and all that? And I stayed up till 1am I put in the order. I was so proud of myself. I went to sleep knowing, hey Nir, you're a good son, you did a great job. I call her the next morning for her birthday to check on, wish her a happy birthday and see if the flowers arrived. And she thanks me for the flowers and she says something like, hey, I got the flowers, thank you so much. Wanted you to know that. They arrived half dead. Don't order from them again. To which I, I kind of lost it. Like I reverted instantly from, you know, 48 year old or 47 year old, whatever I, I am into a 15 year old that I instantly reverted into, you know, this petulant teenager. And I blurted out, well, that's the last time I buy you flowers. And that went over about as well as you'd expect with my mom because why I was operating through this prior belief, the keyhole of attention that I was looking through was that the belief was my mother is judgmental and too hard to please, right? Because wouldn't a mother just say like, wow, thank you for the flowers and not complain about them? That's what a non judgmental mother would do, right? And by the way, she's always like this, right? This is the way she is. Like, she does shit like this all the time. She's so judgmental. And then I did the work. Now the work comes from this woman by the name of Byron, Katie, who I greatly admire her work. And she basically channeled thousands of years of this process all the way, starting from Aristotle, actually, where she gives us these four questions that I describe in the book as well. I modified them a bit. But basically the questions start like this. Number one. So the first thing you do, you write down your belief, my mother is too judgmental and hard to please. Then you ask a series of questions. So this gets to your question of how do you actually change these beliefs? So, number one, the first question is, is it true? Is it true my mother is judgmental and too hard to please? Is it true? You heard the story, obviously, right? Like, what a stupid question. My mother's judgmental and too hard to please. I just told you what happened. Now here's a second question. Is it absolutely true? Emphasis on the word absolutely. Is there any chance even a half a percent that that might not be true? Maybe. Okay, maybe, like, I guess, okay, maybe she wasn't like, she did say thank you, right? So maybe. Maybe there's a chance that she's not too judgmental. Okay, fine. Maybe there was another interpretation. Okay, third question. The third question is, who am I when I believe this? Who, when I.
- [27:25]
A
Who?
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B
How do I behave when I hold onto this belief? Well, when I believe my mother is judgmental and too hard to please, I think I don't act very nice to short with her. I say things I lay to regret, like, I'll never buy you anything ever again. And then the fourth question. Who would I be without this belief? And I know that if I didn't believe my mother was judgmental and too hard to please, that I'd be happier, I'd be more patient, I'd be more myself versus my teenage psyche. And then with those four things, you establish one, there's a chance that your thing that you thought was the truth, clear as day, black and white, might not be true. And that when you believe that thing, it doesn't serve you. And not believing it would make you much better off. And so now comes the most important part. Now comes the turnaround. And this is how you change your beliefs. The turnaround is when you experiment with believing the exact opposite. My mother is not too hard to please. Could that possibly be true? My mother is not too hard to please. Sure, yeah. She was just trying maybe she was just showing me care and affection, and she didn't want me to get scammed. Okay, yeah, I guess that might be true. Another turnaround. Turnaround to the self, as Byron Katie calls it. I am too judgmental and hard to please. Could that be true? I am too judgmental and hard to please. How could that possibly be true? Well, I did have a script of exactly how I expected her to behave. I had the exact words in my mind of how I wanted to be thanked. So who was being judgmental? Who was being hard to please? I was. Now, does that matter if it's true? Is she judgmental? Am I judgmental? Who cares? Right? That's where I was telling you earlier about how I struggle with fact. Does it really? And I was trying to prove, no, she was being judged, not maybe she was being judgmental. Was that serving me? Because that belief chained me, imprisoned me to require her to change for me to be happy. Impossible. Not gonna happen. Rather, by collecting a portfolio of perspectives, by forcing myself through this process, through this turnaround process, to see things from other points of view, whether they're true or not doesn't matter. Allowed me to say, you know what? This belief imprisons me, limits me. This belief, whether it's true or not. Now I can do something about it, right? If I choose to adopt the belief that I was being judgmental and too hard to please, I can do something about that. That's my control versus expecting her to change. So that's how we begin to change these beliefs. We do these turnarounds in various assets, facets of our life, and then prove to ourselves again and again through repetition, through repetition, through ritual, that those beliefs might also be true.
- [30:06]
A
So it's fascinating you would just sit down and we had this on our trip where there was a certain situation that happened with the car, and everyone was really upset with the car. Very nicely rented car, but it smelled really bad. Everybody was having this moment. I was like, come on, what's our goal? Okay, this is our goal. I said, is this conversation and what we're doing right now effective on getting us to set goal to what it is? And then. I know. I said, cool. Then how do we work as a unit, as a team, to fix that? Going in and having Is it true? Is it absolutely true? Is something you have to do on your own. So having those tools that you could do it as a it outside of a group and do it on. On yourself, exceptionally powerful. But having someone who's done the work as a whole, having that level of eq. When you're in a moment and you're spinning out and you are your 15 year old self again, you're like, because again we are, we are from the same tribe. So I get it. So going into that environment and having that conversation, what's a shortcut that you could do to reset your mind? When you're in the middle of it, when all of a sudden it onslaughts you and you're like, oh my God, mom, you know what, I'm never buying you flowers again and baba or I'm going to go hunt down that floor and burn down their building or raga and you're having that moment. How do you give yourself the ability to off gas and get through it? Through aggression or depression or joy or sadness or just overwhelm or anxiety or whatever, the laundry list of things that may be going on because you're a human being and you am so. I am. You just are at that moment. Are there ways that you can sit there and kind of shortcut the system? For lack of a better term. We talk about an IT control, delete it. When you lock the system and you get that reset, is there any way that you know, with what you found out to kind of as your beliefs are influencing your reality because they're not real. How do you, how do you reset from that?
- [31:57]
B
Yeah. So one of the, one of the things that really changed my life in the process of writing this book is that I did something completely out of character. That if you would have asked me before I wrote this book that this would be the result. I would say absolutely not. I started praying. Now I don't believe in the supernatural. I haven't prayed since I was like 6 years old. And I used to pray because when my parents first came to America, they got scammed. Within a year or two of living in America as new immigrants, they barely spoke the language. They got scammed of their entire life savings and they were like on the verge of divorce and they used to fight all the time. And that's when I started praying. And then when I grew up, I stopped talking to God or what I thought was God because who the heck was listening? Nobody was listening. So I stopped praying. And then I came across the power of placebos and tangentially the power of prayer. And there's an incredible literature around the power of these rituals, even if they're secular. So having it turns out like. So as part of the book project, I went to speak to five religious leaders. It sounds like a joke, right? A rabbi A priest, an imam, a swami and a monk walk into a bar. I talked to these five religious leaders and I asked them all the same question, can you pray even when you have doubts about God? And they all gave me their answers. Now the reason I mentioned this story is because the Imam gave me a very interesting answer, is that in Islam, and I'm not a Muslim, but I learned something from each one of these religions. He talked about how the power of prayer is forced repetition of these mantras, these prayers that center you so that in Islam you have to pray five times a day. And why do they do that? Because at five times a day you're constantly reminding yourself of principles you want to remember. So for me, I adopted that. Now, I didn't adopt it in the way he does, but I adopted that principle in a secular manner. So for me, I have certain mantras that whenever my blood is boiling, I try and remember, like last night actually I had a little tift with my daughter that's not going to escape. We're going to have disagreements. But I tell you what, within 20 minutes we solved it. Whereas I think a few years ago it would have been maybe a multi day affair. In this case we got through it very, very quickly. And I think the thing I constantly remind myself after doing this research is this mantra that I repeat to myself. Well, actually, let me ask you the question first that led me to the mantra. The question I asked myself was how do you measure love? How do you measure love? When someone says, I love you very much, what does the very part mean and why do I love this person more than that person? What is that more that measurement of love? And my assessment was that my answer, and this is my mantra. Love is measured by the benefit of the doubt. Love is measured by the benefit of the doubt. That's what I personally repeat to myself whenever I feel my. Yeah, absolutely, walk me through that.
- [35:02]
A
Love is. Love is. Okay, yeah, definitely walk me through that.
- [35:05]
B
Love is measured by the benefit of the doubt.
- [35:06]
A
Benefit of the doubt? What do you mean?
- [35:09]
B
So there's a thing called the fundamental attribution error. The fundamental attribution error says that we judge others by a different metric than we judge ourselves. So when someone cuts you off in traffic, that jerk, right? What an asshole, right? We don't think, oh, they might be rushing to the hospital because they have a sick parent. When we cut someone off in traffic, it's because, you know, you don't understand. I'm in a big rush, right? So we'll make up excuses and we'll say why. We need to be understood when we make a mistake. When other people make a mistake, we judge them differently. Now that changes based on how much we love somebody. So when my daughter was first born, you know, kids are a lot of work. They cry all the time. They poop, they pee, they throw up. They're a lot of work. And they don't give you anything. Right. They certainly don't buy you flowers like I did for my mom. They don't give you anything. And yet when my daughter was born. Yeah, exactly. But I remember the day my daughter was born and I held her in my arms. I loved her more than anything in the world. And that was because with babies, we give them all the benefit of the doubt. We know that when they cry, they don't cry to annoy us. Is it annoying? Yes. But that's not their intent. They cry because that's the only tool they have. So the lesson for me was that we're all big babies. We just got older. We are all operating under the tools we have. So when my mom acted the way she acted, or my daughter does things as she grows up, or my wife does something, or that guy in traffic, we're all just operating with the tools we have. Because love is measured by the benefit of the doubt. So how much I love somebody is determined by how much benefit the doubt I give them. And so with it could be a stranger, certainly with someone I love. You know, I can love someone as a human being, my fellow mankind, but certainly with my family, the people we tend to. When I observe different friends, it's interesting. They tend to be worst to the people that they're closest to. That's the people who we tend to be. Be mean to more than, you know, like when a stranger. Oh, you have to act respectable. But when it's somebody who's in your family, you can say horrible things to them. And it should be like that, right? That we should recognize that love is measured by the benefit of the doubt, which means we have to give them grace. And so to answer your original question of how do you center yourself? How do you get to that. Back to that place where you're. You're yourself? That's that. That regular mantra that I constantly repeat to myself. Love is measured by the benefit of the doubt.
- [37:27]
A
Yeah, it's. It's interesting because the different filters we use. George Carlin said, who's no longer with us? He said it really well. Anybody driving faster than me is an. And anybody just driving slower than me is an idiot.
- [37:39]
B
And fundamental attribution error right there.
- [37:44]
A
There it is. So we use it all the time. And then I like how you said how we give benefits of that to strangers, but we don't give it to our loved ones. I also think there's a possibility. I'd love to hear your feedback from that. We fail to do that for ourselves sometimes. Give ourselves the benefit of the doubt
- [38:00]
B
on both of you more than anybody. So true.
- [38:04]
A
You know, there are times where we'll get so mad at a waiter who takes, you know, an extra three minutes to get us our food. Like, oh my God, I just took just a sandwich. Why didn't you bring me to dad? And we're just internally just like exploding. But we'll let ourselves off the hook when we're forward to 10 minutes late getting out of the door.
- [38:22]
B
Door.
- [38:23]
A
So having that the grace on both sides and understanding, you know, we are perfectly imperfect in our beings and who we are and how we show up. So when we have these belief systems and we're, we're. There's a difference between people who are radically successful and there's people who difference who are not radically successful. Have you found this belief structure? Because, you know, as we know, there are patterns that get you hooked to things and there's patterns that get you unhooked to things. And those patterns and how you can weaponize and say, hey, you know what? I could sit there and I can play this game or TikTok or whatever it is all day long, or I could redesign that and I can recode that into healthy habits versus what we have deemed as unhealthy habits based on dopamine hits. There's ways to recode that. And if you haven't read Near's book, go read his other books, the new one that's coming out when you come into this. Have you found success for individuals who are ultra successful for be it health, wealth, relationships, their belief systems versus the ones who are not? Like, okay, we know that if you believe the earth is flat and that a six, three, orange baby is a good human being, you're going to result in X, Y, Z versus if you believe A, B, C, you're going to end up over here. Are there more beliefs that you have found that that are just. These are things that are core for success?
- [39:35]
B
Without a doubt. Without a doubt. There's one of those things is that people who are successful entrepreneurs have a different way to see the world. They literally, not just figuratively, they actually see the world differently. They see the hundred Dollar bills that are on the ground that other people don't see. I mean, if you think about it like starting a business is nuts. Basically what you're doing when you start a business, you're saying everybody else is an idiot because they don't see this opportunity that I see. Right? Because if they did, they would do the business. But clearly everybody else is an idiot. I'm smart and I think I'm going to succeed. So you have to see that opportunity. And they say about Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson put this in his biography of Steve Jobs. He said that people said about Jobs that he had a reality distortion field around him, that he would will things to exist. And that's actually the big lesson of beyond belief is that that people who believe in a reality that is different from what exists are the ones who make reality as they see it. And that's the change makers, that's the super successful people that they can see this different reality. And so one of those traits has to do with making your own luck. That people think that there are lucky people and unlucky people. And oh look, that guy, all this great stuff happens to him. What a lucky guy. Turns out that statistically lucky things don't happen to some people more than others. That over the course of a lifetime pretty much everything kind of averages out. It's just that lucky people take advantage of those opportunities differently. I'll illustrate the point. There was a study done where they took people who they asked, do you think you are a lucky person or do you think you are an unlucky person? And they asked these two groups of people to take like a pamphlet and circle all the e's in the pamphlet. Very boring task, kind of a mind numbing task. Just circle all the e's and if you did that, you got some kind of monetary prize at the end. Now the unlucky people did the task very diligently. The lucky people were the ones who noticed that inside this pamphlet, both groups got the same exact pamphlet that they had to circle. Inside the pamphlet there was a little ad that said the experiment is over. If you're reading this, collect your reward. The lucky people, the ones who were self identified lucky, saw that at a much higher rate than the people who self identified as unlucky. Like they literally saw opportunities that the unlucky people didn't see.
- [42:09]
A
Interesting.
- [42:10]
B
That's a fundamental difference, right? That these entrepreneurs are ones that see opportunities that other people just don't see. Another attribute of more successful people has to do with the locus of Control that there's a difference between what's called an external locus of control and an internal locus. Have you heard this? You probably heard a similar concept before. No. So this is a very, very powerful idea. The idea is that people put themselves into, tend to see the world one, one or of two ways. An external locus of control. A person who has an external locus of control, things that thinks that things happen to them. Okay, my life is a product of society and my parents and my past trauma and all the things that's happening. An external locus of control. The things that happen to me happen to me because of external circumstances. Then there are people who have what's called an internal locus of control. They believe that things happen to them because of what they do. Now, by the way, it isn't. Here's what we know. People with an internal locus of control do better in every conceivable metric. They make more money, they have more friends, they contribute more to society. They live longer, they're healthy. All the good things happen to people with internal locus of control. What's super interesting, that's kind of surprising or kind of interesting, what's really surprising is that even when people have objective reasons to be pissed off, they're low on the socioeconomic totem pole, they are past victims that terrible things have happened to them. Even when that's true, having that belief. Again, beliefs are tools, not truth. Having the belief that you have an internal of control still makes you more successful. For that, to me is amazing. That even when you have all the justification to say that life screwed me, you still benefit from thinking I have agency. I have an internal locus of control.
- [43:52]
A
Yeah, there's a, there's a Latin expression that I will absolutely destroy. So for those of you who speak Latin, I apologize. But it's, it's. Which is I either find a way or make a way. And this idea of I'm going to figure it out, and sure, there's life's happening to me versus life is happening for me and all of that. But every successful entrepreneur I know, every billionaire that I know, there is this steadfast outdid to him out fasting. I'm gonna figure it out. It doesn't matter how I get there. And when you look at someone's like, hey, we had this huge debate earlier on in one of the calls I was on this morning that one of my, one of my employees says, what's the difference between an employee and an entrepreneur? And I said, well, entrepreneurs. Employees will sacrifice ABC for security. Entrepreneurs will sacrifice Security for abcde, whatever that is. And she says, well, I can't. I could never get rid of my security. I need to know that I have a paycheck coming. And that's. I'm like, that's why you work for me and that's why you're not an entrepreneur. And she goes, well, I want to be an entrepreneur. I said, well, I want to be better than Michael Jordan, but I'm 6 foot 204 and I can't dunk. There's certain realities. There's certain. This is what you got, kid. What you're telling me in your book is that belief system outside of some physical things like I'm not going to beat Michael Phelps in the pool unless I'm in a speedboat or a jet ski. It just, it is what it is. There's certain limiting physical things that I can't do because I'm not seven feet tall.
- [45:15]
B
Right.
- [45:15]
A
It just. It is what it is. I think what you're telling us in your book that's come out is you can rewire these beliefs that if you have a internal locus control versus an external locus control, you can rewire that. So if I know that people who live longer lives are people who are fundamentally racist. In other words, if it's not. If it's white, they don't stick in your mouth. So no sugar, no carbs, stuff like that. Just. It just don't stick. White shit in your face. That's the nicest way I can say it. Eat organic stuff. So if I know that, but I'm coded, that I adore sugary sweets and bad for me food and fried food.
- [45:52]
B
And I know that.
- [45:52]
A
I just, I fundamentally know. I know the research is there. I know I should do intermittent fasting with a Mediterranean based diet. I should eat more protein. I get it. But I'm stuck with this belief system that, that we already know now will change my behavior. Just like in success, just like in business, just everything else. If we know that it's. I need to do this and I know I need to do this and I have this belief that's in my way. Again, how do we. Is it that same process? Do we sit there and we walk it through what is the truth? What is really true? Is that what we do to recode that or how do we get people to pivot?
- [46:25]
B
Yeah, we examined the source of the suffering. The source of the suffering is always the judgment.
- [46:32]
A
Okay.
- [46:33]
B
That's always the source of the suffering. You know, the sugar example about how much I can't lose weight because I have a sweet tooth truth. That's a, that's a belief.
- [46:44]
A
That's a belief.
- [46:45]
B
You've, you've, you've taken on that lens and of course you will prove it as true all the time. You know, that belief. But, but the belief that, that the discomfort is bad. Like there's a, there's some unbelievable research around, that I talked about in the book, around not only the placebo effect, but around hypnos sedation. Have you ever heard of hypnosidation? It's unbelievable. I thought it was complete woo woo nonsense. I've seen the tapes, I've seen the video. And I interviewed this guy, Daniel Gissler, who was this derivatives trader, and he was very buttoned up. Not like the opposite of anything. Woo woo. And this guy, he had a freak accident. He broke his tibia and his fibia and he had to have these metal screws put into his leg. And then a few years later, he has to have them removed. He decides to take a course on hypnosudation, kind of. He saw some YouTube videos and that led him to this course. And this guy went through a 55 minute operation where they were slicing his skin open, wrenching metal from bone without anesthesia of any kind. No general anesthesia, no local anesthesia. I didn't believe it unless I've seen the video and tens of thousands of people have done this. How, how is that possible? It's possible because of the power of beliefs that he managed to have incredible control over this keyhole of attention and then change his interpretations of the information coming into our brain. Remember, 11 million bits of information, only 50 bits are processed through conscious control. We can choose what we then pay attention to. So, so if, you know, I really can't lose weight because I have a sweet tooth. You're describing your pain, right? It hurts. I don't like that feeling of not getting the thing I want. I want to eat the cake, damn it. And I can't resist it. Why can't I resist it? I have a sweet tooth. So I've made up a belief in order to justify not feeling bad. Well, I totally get it. We all do it. I used to be clinically obese. I've been there. I'm still there. And I constantly have to fight that limiting belief. Because if Daniel Gissler can go under surgery without anesthesia for 55 minutes where they're yanking metal screws from his, from his bone without anesthesia, what does that say about. I'm not saying you should do that. But I'm saying what does that say about the power mind to resist all kinds of pain points? Like how many things in our life do we not do because it hurts? So many. Yeah.
- [49:14]
A
I also think there's this idea, you know, one of my friends, he's billionaire and him. And I sat down and I said, walk me through how you're not afraid of this. He goes, oh, I'm terrified. I'm like, I'm sorry, what was that? He goes, I accept that I'm going to be terrified. I'm just going to choose what I'm going to be terrified about. I'm not going to stop speed. That's a human behavior. It is what it is. I know I'm going to get upset, I'm going to be joyful, I'm going to be happy. I know that I am hard coded as a human being because I'm nothing more than a bald pink monkey that says who I am. He goes, I'm going to be terrified. And I know that I can't stop that I'm just going to change what I'm terrified of.
- [49:45]
B
But he does and he doesn't think that that discomfort is necessarily a bad thing. I think we are so conditioned in
- [49:52]
A
any way, shape or form.
- [49:53]
B
Exactly. Well I think that's a very counterintuitive notion because pain is there to get you to stop doing something. That's why we have physical pain, that's why we have emotional pain. To say, hey, pay attention, this is something you should avoid. But the people who are incredibly successful in every field are the ones who learn that pain is a signal. Pain isn't damage. I did extensive research on exactly, on chronic pain, on how people create this chronic pain. Not that it's fake, it's real. Chronic pain is real pain. But the way it's created in us is by constantly focusing on the fear of damage. Right? Like I used to have back pain. And the traditional advice is okay, you gotta ice it, you gotta lay down, you gotta heat it, you gotta do this, you gotta do this. Just, you know, you gotta, gotta stop the pain. Gotta stop the pain. And we used to have these charts, they don't do it anymore, but they used to have these charts say how about is your pain? And so what are we doing? We're constantly paying attention to how bad is our pain. Focusing, hyper focusing on pain. Pain, pain. Pain is, pain is bad. Pain is bad. Stop the pain. That's not true. That is not true. Because pain doesn't happen here, doesn't happen Here, pain happens here. Doesn't mean it's fake, it's real. But all where else could pain be? It's completely in our heads. So this, you know, billionaire entrepreneur doesn't surprise me. He still gets the same signals the rest of us gets. He still gets the terror. He still gets that same. But he interpret it differently. Differently. He's not judging it as bad. He's judging it as exciting, as exhilarating as opportunity. He's seeing it differently. He's experiencing it differently through the power of beliefs. Right. The power to change what we see, feel and do. That's exactly right.
- [51:31]
A
Meaning behind it. And, you know, I have friends of mine who are operators, especially force operators, and they always say that success is completely correlated to the amount of discomfort you can tolerate. That's it.
- [51:41]
B
And for how long? That's another trait, by the way, is persistence. So where we start our conversation was around motivation. And that's really at the core of this. I'll tell you one of my favorite experiments that I talk about in the book. Have you ever heard about the Kurt Richter rat experiment? It's one of my faves. So Kurt Richter, back in the 1950s, he takes some rats, he has wild rats. He has these domesticated lab rats, and he's doing experiments on how long rats can swim in water. So he takes wild rats. He takes these lab rats in water.
- [52:14]
A
Yeah.
- [52:15]
B
Okay.
- [52:17]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [52:18]
B
So the first. The first part of the experiment. So a lot. Some people have heard the experiment, they know the ending about how the rats swim for a long time. But there's another part of the experiment that a lot of people don't understand is the difference between the wild rats and the domesticated rats. The wild rats were natural swimmers. They're more ferocious, they're stronger, you know, higher muscle mass, they're grittier, they're more aggressive. All the tough aspects that you would think. And yet when he put these wild rats inside these cylinders, they swam far less. Far, far shorter. Less. Help me with the grammar here. For less time than the domesticated rats, than the nice, cushy lab rats, the nice, cute white ones, they swam the white. The lab rats swam way longer. Why? Why would that be? Well, it turns out that even though that the wild rats were grittier and stronger and meaner and tougher, they gave up faster. They gave up faster, especially when they were under stress, when they were handled by humans, that's when they really gave up. And the theory was that Richter concluded, was that the lab rats, the domesticated rats, had experience with Humans handling them. And they knew that salvation might be possible. They had this belief, it wasn't in their bodies, it was in their brains, that something might save me, that that human hand might scoop in from that cylinder of water and save me. Now here's where it gets really interesting. He saw that the wild rats could only last for about 15 minutes in that cylinder. They would swim, swim, swim, 15 minutes, they give up. But then Richter took those wild rats, he reached in, he scooped out the wild rat, he dried them off, let them catch their breath and then put them back in the cylinder. And he did this a few times. And these rats went from swimming for 15 minutes to how much longer? I'll give the listener a minute to guess how much longer. They didn't swim for twice as long, not for 30 minutes. They didn't even swim for an hour longer, not 60 minutes, which would be amazing, right? Think about all the things in your life that you give up on. Imagine if I could give you some kind of treatment that would quadruple how long you could last. Right? That would be incredible. But they didn't swim for 60 minutes. They swam for 60 hours. They went from 15 minutes to 60 hours because they knew that salvation was now possible.
- [54:33]
A
Correct.
- [54:33]
B
They had hope that something might come in and say, so to answer your question, successful people, they're not the smartest, they're not the best.
- [54:42]
A
Right.
- [54:42]
B
They're not the strongest, they're the most persistent. Yes, that's the critical difference. They don't freaking give up because they have different beliefs that get them to keep trying and trying and trying. You talk to anybody who's successful in business, they failed more than people who think they're losers. Right? You've seen it.
- [55:00]
A
Yeah, absolutely. Over and over and over again we talk about, you know, I'm thinking about the operators that I know. People will go into it. A buddy of mine, his name is Mark Divine Seal Commander. And people walk up to him all the time, even when we're out. They're like, oh my God, you're, you're this person, how do I get through hell week? And he goes, you're, you're not going to get through hell week. If you're, if your question is, how do I get through this very short process of this six month evolution, you're going to lose. The ones that get through it are the ones who have the beliefs, to your point, of everyone here, all these cadres, all the instructors are looking for the person who's going to help save them one day. That's their feeling. They're trying to figure out if my life's on the line. I need to. Is this person. Someone I would be willing to make sure that I got home to my kids. And then the second thing is, is this person willing to die? And most favorite. My favorite example about all this is this one guy was going through training, and he got to the swim portion, and he had to tie five knots underwater. And he had already failed this multiple times, and this was his last time, and he's down there, and he's already optioned and depleted, and he's tied for the knot, and he drowns. He absolutely blacks out and he drowns. And there's this whole concept in SEAL training, make you. Make you drown proof, which basically means we've drowned you before. You know what? It's like, it's okay, we'll pull you back out of the water, we'll resuscitate you. So this guy completely drowns. Pull him out of the water, they run CPR on him, they bring him back, and first thing out of his mouth is like, I didn't tie the last knot. Because he knew that if he didn't tie the last knot, he was out. That was it. Those were the rules. He goes, I didn't tie the knot. Did I pass? And the cadre goes, dude, the test isn't, can you tie knots underwater? The test is, are you willing to die to complete this, to execute whatever this is? So, yeah, you pass, dude. He's good. He's like, oh, okay. And the ones who are willing. Who got through it were the ones like, I'm just willing to die here because they knew two things, those two things. And I think redesigning your beliefs, it's not an easy thing to do. You know, as. As we go through this, what are the things that shocked you the most in your studies? And when you went through this process where you were like. Like, I can't believe this is a reality, because we know the. The rat story. You put them in, you take them out for five seconds, they put it back in, they swim for 60 hours. That's the. The thing I interrupted. But what are the other examples when you sat down and you're outside of prayer that you're like, I wish someone could do this right now. If anyone's listening to this podcast, you're like, whatever you're doing, just go do this. Whatever. That one.
- [57:19]
B
Yeah. Oh, there's so many. I mean, literally, the. Because beliefs shape your reality, they shape what you see, feel, and do. I mean, There's a, there's a, a section on relationships, how to repair relationships, how to have better relationships. There's a section on how to make money, how to see business opportunities, how to extend your lifespan. I'll tell you the thing that really blew my mind, that your beliefs, this is something you can do right now, like literally right now, I'll change your life. Studies have found that positive beliefs about aging are correlated with a lifespan increase of 7 and a half half years. That is more, that is more than changing your diet, than quitting smoking, than managing your cholesterol. Positive beliefs about aging. Now it is true that correlation is not causation. So, but, but that's not the point. The point is that when you have positive beliefs about aging, what happens? So a person who has a limiting beliefs about aging, how many times have you heard someone you know say, even at my age, I'm not that old. But I hear my friends who are younger than me even saying I'm having a senior moment, I'm having a midlife moment moment, right? When you say stupid like that, you are training the brain to notice those things. And over the years saying it day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, your body responds accordingly. Because I can't do that. I have a 40 year old back, a 45 year old back, so I can't do that. And if I can't do that, well, guess what, your body starts to decay. And if you start to decay, you can't go to do the things with your friends. And now your friends aren't involving you in the physical activities. And now wouldn't you know it, but 40, 50 years later, you do have a seven and a half year shorter lifespan. All starting from these beliefs about that started years and years ago, decades ago. So that's something you can flip. A switch right now is to have positive beliefs about aging that age, that you can get better, that you can improve at any age. That's a switch you can flip right now. And that's just the beginning. There's another, can I give you one more that we used to believe that the placebo effect was something that required deception, right? So that like, you know, in order to show that the placebo effect work, you had to have a double blind study. And you know, that meant that the, the patient was blind to the placebo, that the person doing the study was blind to who was getting a placebo. And there was a lot of deception around that. And then there was a researcher by the name of Ted Kaptchuk at Harvard who wanted to test this theory, and he studied IBS patients, and he gave IBS patients what's called an open label placebo. He called them in, he said, hello, Mr. And Mrs. So and so. I am going to give you a treatment for your ibs. Now, this treatment is a placebo. It is a completely inert substance. And here comes the important part that has been shown to be effective for some people wouldn't, you know, worked for some people, it was effective. Even though they were told it's a placebo, it still worked. In fact, Ted told me that even after this IBS study, several of the patients in the study came back to him and called him and said, hey, Dr. Kaptchuk, can I get some of more of those placebo pills? It gets better. If you go onto Amazon right now, search for placebo pills, you will find placebo pills for sale that are called placebo pills. And they work. They work. Now, they don't heal. They don't heal, but they absolutely will. They change the perception of your symptoms. Insomnia, adhd, depression, anxiety, all of these things have been shown to be highly responsive to placebo. So a lot of the things that I used to make fun of, you know, my wife's family is Chinese, and so, like, they're into traditional Chinese medicine, you know, the herbs and the feng shui and a bunch. I used to make fun of that stuff all the time. I don't make fun of that stuff anymore.
- [61:10]
A
Right.
- [61:10]
B
Because again, I release myself from this noose of everything having to be true all the time.
- [61:15]
A
Correct.
- [61:16]
B
But rather, if it works, who cares if it's placebo, as long as it's not costing you a ton of money, as long as it's not hurting you in some way because it's some kind of, you know, poisonous substance. Do it. So does the vitamin C actually, you know, cure your cold? No, but it actually definitely will change your perception of those symptoms. So that's, again, something you can do right away. You can start taking placebo pills and it probably will work.
- [61:39]
A
Work. I. I love that we're now selling placebo pills.
- [61:43]
B
Hey, at least. At least, though it's honest, you know what pisses me off? At least we're being honest, you know, like, you know, like, I don't know what you're selling on, on your show, but, you know, I hear a lot of podcasters that are selling awesome. I thank God because if I'm called to do one of these podcasts where they're selling, you know, these Stupid green drinks and all this. And they're, you know, and they act like it's, you know, that's going to make you healthy. Meanwhile, you know, you're, you're not going to the gym, you're eating like crap, you're drinking every night. Great. Like the AG one is not going to do for you. Okay. But nothing other than, other than the placebo effect.
- [62:14]
A
So now we're good.
- [62:15]
B
Yeah, that's okay. I'll take them.
- [62:18]
A
Have not seen any changes for ourselves. It's a great placebo or whatever it is.
- [62:25]
B
It's a great placebo. Exactly. So I don't have any problem with, with, with the honesty around it. I think that's what we need. Like, that makes me comfortable with saying, you know what, what? Do the ritual, do the prayers, do the, the, the potions. As long as it's not harming you. It will have. Here's another thing that blew my mind. Did you know that placebo effect is actually getting stronger? That drug companies. Check this out. Drug companies are having an increasing problem because, you know, when you, when you want to prove that a medication is efficacious, you have to show that it's more effective than a placebo. It's not good enough if a new drug is effective. It has to be better than a placebo, though. But pharmaceutical companies are having a big problem because the placebo effect is getting stronger and stronger and stronger. Why? Because more people are expecting placebos to work because they hear they're effective.
- [63:14]
A
That would be a nice thing. Because whenever you see the ads on tv, you're like, take this pill. It'll cure your headaches, side effects, anal leakage, your head will explode, you'll die, your dog will catch on fire. I'm like, oh, my God.
- [63:26]
B
Okay, so this brings up a very interesting question. I think that we should not tell. So when I go to the doctor and I have to get some kind of medication or something, I tell him, don't tell me the side effects. Do not tell me the side effects. Because of the opposite of the placebo effect is the nocebo effect. I'll tell you another amazing study. Patient a barges into a hospital, has a pill bottle in his hands, spills up to the floor, collapses the words out of his mouth says, I took all my pills. I took all my pills. Path out. They put him on a gurney, they measure his blood pressure. It's dangerously low. His heartbeat is rock bottom. This guy has clearly overdosed on something. They don't know what. They pick up the Pill bottle. It sells. Call this number. They call the number. They say, yes, this medication was part of a pill trial, that this guy took all these pills. It's part of a pill trial. And they say, well, what was it? What was in this pill? He said that was a placebo. They tell the patient that he took an inert substance. Fifteen minutes later, he's completely revived. His heart rate is normal, his blood pressure is normal. Everything's back to normal. So this is called the nocebo effect. This is actually even more dangerous. This is what I'm really worried about. In society, placebo effect would be nice. I think we are prescribing placebo or nocebos on a mass scale. Scale, on a massive scale. And we need to be very careful about that because it's kind of what we talked about in the very beginning about your great question around identity. Your labels are your limits, right? So if we tell people that you have XYZ diagnosis and we medicalize otherwise normal human behavior, that can have a very serious nocebo effect, because we will conform to those beliefs as well and
- [65:13]
A
we'll force other people to do this. I know someone I deeply care for. Self diagnosed. I'm gonna use a pronoun. Self diagnosed for add. Adhd.
- [65:23]
B
Yeah, that's the worst. That's the worst of all worlds self diagnosis. And there's so much bullshit about this self diagnosis going around that's at least you can say, okay, get a proper diagnosis. Even though today I've never actually met anyone who's gone for an ADHD diagnosis who doesn't get one. Everybody gets 100%.
- [65:37]
A
It's like when I want, like when I watch or a commercial on TV or read at WebMD, I'm like, oh my God, I breathe air.
- [65:42]
B
You've got all those things.
- [65:43]
A
Things. Of course I don't have a uterus, but okay. But this individual went through and hunted down therapists until this person found a therapist that said, you're right, you do have adhd. Here's the pill. And I was like, oh my gosh, it's heartbreaking. There's so much value here, near. You know, I could talk about this for days and days and days. I know you've just released a book. Where can people get it? Where can people get a hold of this? How do they get a hold of you to jump on the conversation and have these. Because I'm blessed. Because I get to talk to you. We get to have conversations with not recorded. Which are far more blunt than these are. Where can people jump on? How do they track you down? What's the best way to get a hold of you?
- [66:22]
B
Absolutely. So my website is near and far.com it's spelled like my first name, N I r&far.com and the book is called Beyond Belief and that's available wherever books are sold. And there's a special bonus. We have a 30 day belief transformation journal. It's 120 pages. It's absolutely free. If you buy the book at near anywhere you buy the book, you come and give us your little order number@nearandfar.com and you can get that Beyond Belief Belief Transformation journal absolutely free and near.
- [66:52]
A
I love it. Thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it.
- [66:55]
B
My pleasure. This is a lot of fun.
- [66:57]
A
That's a wrap on another episode of the Proven podcast. Your success isn't about willpower, it's about design. Stop blaming distraction. Start building discipline into your systems. While others scroll, you could be compounding focus. Remember, if your habits aren't intentional, your results were never proven.