B (3:07)

Degrees, the answer is no. I used to have lots of discussions with my mother about it and I never enjoyed school. And she always told me it'll be in the next phase. So, as in, in school, she said, oh, middle school will be interesting. When I was in middle school, she said, high school will be interesting. I was in high school. The university was interested, will be interesting. And she was right. When I got the university thing became very, very interesting. And between high school and university, I got badly injured. So I was in hospital for almost three years. That's why I have this strange look. Most of my body is covered with scars, including my face. So I can't grow hair on the right side of my face. It's just scar tissue. But university was the first place where I discovered that I can ask questions about the way we live and I can use the experimental method to find out some answers and I could try to make things slightly better. So my approach always, I think kind of related to yours has been to try and study the human condition, try and see where we are sub performing compared to where we could be, and then try to figure out where we could do better.

A (4:34)

Yes. Tell me about the idea of mindset. When you were a child with your parents or your siblings or your friends around you, do you feel like there was a. I call it a miracle mentality? A miracle mentality to me is extraordinary thinking, uncommon thinking. Were there people in your surroundings that, that thought like that.

B (4:59)

So I want to, to explain a little bit about why I have these half a beard and. And we'll come back to mindset from there.

A (5:06)

Yes.

B (5:08)

So this, this half aid has three reasons. The first one is I said I. I have scars on this side of my face, so there's no hair. But of course I could shave. And for many years I shaved half my face. But I shaved half my face. And then about nine years ago, I went on the month long hike. And during that month long hike, I didn't shave. The month ended, I look in the mirror. I didn't like how I look. It's a very strange look. It was very strange to me. I looked, I said, I don't want to look like this, but I said I spent the whole month not growing, growing my beard. Let me keep it for a few more weeks because I'll never do it again. I'll shave and I'll never do it. So I kept it for a few more weeks. And then two unexpected things. Happened. The first one was that a few people started writing me thanking me for the have to be. For example, the woman who works across the street from me left me a note in my mailbox and thanking me for the half a beard. Now why were these people thanking me? These were people who were struggling with their own injuries. These were people who were feeling that they have to hide. For example, the woman who worked across from me, she had a big burn on her arm and she said she always walks with long sleeve shirts so that nobody will see. And she said that me being so out with my lack of symmetry was very helpful for her and she was going to start being less bashful. Okay? So I said, you know, if it helps some other people, let me keep that habit going. But the real strange thing and unexpected thing, the second one happened about four months down the line. Four months down the line, I feel higher acceptance for my own injury. You know, I have 70% burned. Lots of things are wrong with me. All of a sudden at age 50, I have higher acceptance. And I think to myself, why, why now? What, what's. What has happened recently that I feel that the injury is not me fighting with it, but it's part of my body. And what I'm realizing is that these people who told me that they want to stop hiding. For me, half a shaving, half shaving was also hiding. Like imagine I woke up when I was shaving smooth on this side, stubble on this side. And the act of half shaving is also an act of looking less non symmetrical. I was in fact using shaving to, to blend in so people would not notice as much. And letting go of that was incredibly healthy. It was incredibly created tremendous energy within me for, for self acceptance. Now why am I telling you all this story? I think this is the story of, of social science and it's also the story of mindsets. So you know, if you ask me what is social science about? Social science for me is about finding these half a beard. These things that we, yes, think are not good for us, but are actually good for us. You know, for many years I shaved. In fact, there was a doctor in my burn department that wanted to tattoo the right side of my face to help me be more symmetrical was the opposite of what was useful, but that's what he wanted to do. But going back to your question about mindset, I think there are things about big mindsets, but there's lots of things about little daily mindset. I think that for somebody like me standing in front of the mirror once a day. And hiding my lack of symmetry was, was a kind of it. It basically reinforced itself every day about, okay, I need to. People should not see it, they shouldn't pay attention. I should, I should hide it. And, and leaving that mindset behind and accepting my lack of symmetry was incredibly helpful. So, you know, I know that you're looking for kind of the big mindset shift, and there are some of those. But I also want to say that I think there's lots of little mindset shifts that are just daily and repeated.

A (9:27)

Yes.

B (9:27)

That are very fundamental to how we build ourselves.

A (9:31)

I love this. I write that sometimes in life we're just flowing and we have this momentum and then a life interruption happens. Maybe it's a little child and they find out their parents are going to get a divorce, or maybe it's somebody finds out that they have cancer. For you, it was the accident that takes place when you're younger. The life interruptions, from my standpoint as a person, that helps people try to get through problems is very difficult on most, Most people when they have a life interruption or a setback, they sit in the setback and they settle in it. And I love your approach of being yourself. This is me having a certain mindset and continuing to move on in your beautiful life.

B (10:30)

Let me tell you about the study I did on this life interruptions. So maybe the biggest life interruption that anybody could get is a news about a terminal illness. So I, I interviewed a palliative care experts. Palliative care experts are people that work not on fixing the disease, but working on quality of life. So they usually come into the picture in the last few weeks in a hospice or at home, but worry about pain and so on. But anyway, I took a group of palliative care experts and I gave them the following problem. I say imagine there's a person who is diagnosed with a terminal illness. And on average, the time between people get diagnosed with a terminal illness and the end of life in Western society is slightly longer than five years. By the way, only about 6 or 7% of us will get to die quickly. Most of us will have plenty of time. Okay, so you get somebody who is diagnosed today and you are assigned to them on that day. You don't wait to the end. You assigned to them on that day, day one when they were just told. And you have infinite amount of time to help them. You help them with symptoms and you help them with their social goals and you help them with solving relationship problems, if they have any. And you help them and you help Them and you help them and you're with them for five and some years, and then they pass away, and you help them in every way you can. And then after they passed away, half an hour later, you wake them up. I know it's not possible, but for the, for the experiment. And I said, and now you tell that person that just passed away. He said, look, you can repeat one of your chapters of life again. You can repeat early childhood, elementary school, middle school, high school, college. Pick a chapter, you can repeat it and ask them how many of them would repeat the last chapter of life. And guess what? They thought that about 90% would pick the last chapter of life. Now they say that right now they wouldn't. But they said with the right help, right? With them being there on their side. And basically what they said is that this could be the most meaningful and wonderful chapter in people's lives. Not the last two weeks, not the last month, but as a big chapter. They say it could be wonderful. Now, why is it, how come it can be such a good chapter? It's because of basically what you said. We mostly live an unexamined life. Tomorrow is going to be just like today, just like yesterday. We don't really stop. It's very hard to basically ask ourselves the tough question. Why am I here? Is this where I really want to be now? From time to time, some of us have midlife crisis, and then we ask ourselves tough questions. But a message finding about terminal illness is not just like a midlife crisis. It actually liberates people to do things. So imagine that you have a midlife crisis when you're 40 and you say, okay, I don't like my job. I want to be an artist. I don't like this. I don't like this. But you might live for another 50 years. Can you afford to make all of these changes? When you get the message on a terminal illness, people basically say, I'm getting a permission to act and do things that I really want. So, for example, there was a guy that I recently helped make decisions about his end of life. And when he got there, terminal illness, he said, I'm stopping everything I'm doing and I'm moving to the west coast of the country where my kids and grandchildren are. And two years later, he said, I met my wife picking maple syrup in Vermont. I want one more season of maple syrup. And then chemotherapy was not working, and he passed away while picking maple syrup. But the guy, he fixed relationships. He did, he did all the right things in the last, in the last Chapter. So it's kind of a shame that I think too many of us are not doing these changes when we can. It's not easy, it's not comfortable, but too many of us are with these not great chapters because we're not heading change heads on, we're kind of ignoring it, procrastinating, delaying, not thinking about this. And it's kind of a shame.

A (15:26)

This is amazing thinking because I think that in a time where visualization is so talked about, even amongst the people that I work with, to visualize this better life, to. To manifest this better life, I think that they don't take into account of this idea of life interruptions or if you choose to give it a different name, that'd be okay with me. But they don't take into account that something kind of shitty could happen in your life. Like, I remember my father, he went to go get my mother food, and it was the days before you can order food and they would bring it. He went to go get my mother food, but he never came back. I was 10 years of age. He was going through a green light in his vehicle. A man ran a red light, hit him and he died. I mean, you talk about an interruption. It's like we were already struggling financially. My mother, her first language is Spanish, she speaks broken English. She had no driver's license and worked at a donut shop. And we have five children. But I remember this feeling of being so overwhelmed. So let's see what we could do with this conversation because this can help some people that I remember.

B (16:53)

Like, I do want to say something about orphans. You know, people. People think wrongly that being an orphan from one parent is similar to having your parents divorced. But it's not because you lost one parent and the other person is now grieving in. In a way that is. Is hard to. So it's. It's almost like you lost both parents for a while before the one that has stayed is kind of able to. To catch up. And sometimes it takes. It takes years. So losing a parent this way is unbelievably harsh.

A (17:35)

That's very powerful what you just said, because I never saw it from that vantage point. My mother now is 94 years of age, soon to be 95. And I do remember she was not herself for a long time. And because she had to take on different roles, the emotions of the house changed because my father had a lot of energy. So this idea of us trying to manifest this amazing life. Oh my God. How's your life? Amazing. How realistic, Doctor, is this or how unrealistic is this, in your opinion?

B (18:17)

I believe that the human mind wants to imagine futures, and we want to imagine futures to test ourselves and understand ourselves. So, for example, I think that when people read fiction, we put ourselves in the mindset of the character and we say, oh, what would I have done? Now let's say science fiction. We don't say, oh, what if I had this power? But we say what was. At some level, the mind is a simulating machine that is asking itself, what would I have done in this condition? What would I have reacted? I think simulating, asking questions about what is the ideal. I think it's very, very important. But if you ask me what is more realistic, I think a more realistic question is to ask, what if I started again?

A (19:12)

I'm believing that you're enjoying this podcast, the Miracle Mentality. And so the best way to help other people is to share it with a friend, a family member, or even a colleague. We work hard on getting the right types of guests that will make your life go from the mundane, the messy, the madness into the miracle mentality. Don't forget, your mindset is yours to set. So make sure and share this with someone else and then tag me at Tim Story Official. That's Tim Story Official. Thank you for making this one of the most listened to and watched podcasts out there in the world. And guess what? Get ready for miracles to come your way.

B (20:00)

So I'll give you a story. Yeah, so one of my friends a few years ago asked me whether I think he should stay married or not. And he told me that they've been fighting all the time, which I knew that you know, not the secret, that they were fighting all the time. And he said, do you think if I thought that they should stay married, how they should get a divorce? And I told him, this is not the best way to ask the question. I said, because the way you ask it, one is staying doing nothing. One is making a change with all the cost and the consequences and hurting people and so on. I said, eventually, that's the true question. Should you stay or should you get a divorce? But I say, for thinking about it, let me give you a different expert mind, theoretical expert.

A (20:56)

Oh, yeah.

B (20:57)

I said, imagine you didn't know her. Let's call her D. Yeah, imagine you didn't know D. And you met her last night and with some divine intervention, in one night you learned everything about her. You've been with her for 10 years. Imagine in one night you learned everything about her and now you don't have staying married or this, you have a choice. Do I want to propose to her or do I want to never see her again? Now, this second way of asking the question is getting us not to think of ourselves in that position, right? It's a bit more like you're saying, do I want to stay in this house and move? But if you didn't have a house, which one would you choose? Now, eventually you have to stay, to move, you have to think about it. But anyway, he thought about that and he said, knowing everything he knows about her, if he was now in this junction of proposing to her, never see her again, he would choose never to see her again. So I said, look, I'm not saying that this is the right thing to do, but now you understand your preferences. So why am I giving you this story? I think imagining, you know, that I'm a prince with a horse, you know, imagining all kinds of futures is one thing, but I think a very healthy thing to do from time to time is to say, what if I was choosing something from scratch? Is this what I would choose? So imagine that you ask yourself about your work and you don't say, should I stay working here or should I look for something else? You say, if I was facing multiple options today, what could I do? Is this the one I would pick? And if your answer is no, you would pick something else, then it's a really good input to say, maybe you should start looking for something else. Exactly. I think that we should start by imagining great futures is wonderful, but I think we can also ask ourselves, what if we started thinking about the decisions we've already made? Don't assume that because you've made them, they are good decisions. Ask yourself whether you would have make them again today with what you know. Now.

A (23:30)

I love what you did with your friend because you're right, it wasn't A or B. You gave him a different perspective on the situation that, that, that he was in. I work a lot in Los Angeles, in Beverly Hills, in that industry, in the entertainment industry. I meet people sometimes even in restaurants that they want to hit it big, they want to be a movie star, they want to be the greatest. And I don't even think that some of them really want that. Deep down inside, I think they see the fantasy of what this possibly could be. But from my way of thinking, I think sometimes in chasing that fantasy, they're missing the reality of another beautiful occupation or different kind of life that they could have had.

B (24:28)

Yeah, so this, this kind of starts a different topic of Conversation which is, do we know what gives us happiness? And the answer is, to a large degree, no. And I'll give you a metaphor for this.

A (24:44)

Yes.

B (24:45)

When you ask people, why did you fall in love with your significant other? People give you a ton of reasons, because I have this profession and we share this background and all kinds of stories like that. The reality is that one of the biggest predictors is smell. You know, we are biological creatures. Smell enters directly into our brains, and smell convey a lot of information that we can't articulate. People smell fear, they smell romantic attraction. We can predict friends based on smell. So smell is a really big input for decisions. But nobody ever tell you, oh, you know, I picked this significant other because of their smell.

A (25:32)

Yes.

B (25:32)

So as a metaphor, this says that smell is a big component of how in love we fall with somebody, but we don't know that this is what's working on us. So we pick based on reasons, not based on emotions. You know, so you can say, oh, I picked this person because they scored so well on the sat. In fact, something else is very important. So the point, in my field, we think that we are not very well aware of what's really driving our decisions. And when we ask to explain our decisions, we tell a story, but it's not necessarily the right one. So now when you say to yourself, I think that this career will be the right one for me, I would ask you to say, help me understand why. What, what is it about this that you know and what is it about it that you. That you don't know? And again, I'll give you an example. So I told you that I'm studying the end of life. And there was one study that we, we interviewed about a hundred end of life doulas asking them what they think is a good end of life. And what they said, by the way, was no pain, no loss of dignity in the body, surrounded by love, feeling a sense of legacy that they're leaving something behind and trusting the people around them to, to do things for them. Anyway, at the end of this study, I became so interested in this that I went ahead and did the training myself. So I'm now a certified end of life doula. It's a very strange profession. I, I'm a university professor. I've done it a few times. It's not my daily job, but. But if you think about happiness and you say, how fulfilling is it to be around death and dying? Who would want. Who would want. This is the profession to help people at the end of life. But I tell you, it is something that I wouldn't have been able to predict. But there is something about this where you. I feel I'm incredibly helpful to the people I help. Being next to death is very sad, but also it gives me a real sense of the value of life. So, you know, you said, you know, do people know what will make them happy, satisfied, motivated and so on. End of life doulas is, for me, the. The classic example where you say, I've been spending all my life running away from debt and actually being close to it can be incredibly rewarding.

A (28:25)

I personally believe that one reason that you're studying the end of life is it's needed because there's so much talk about early life, going after your goals, body hacks, reverse aging. So I'll tell you one, since we're in our diner today. So my mother, she decided that she wants to go to a senior citizen's home. So we do well enough where we could be in a good one. So we looked at several, me and my two sisters, and she found this one that she really likes. And doctor, I tell you, been going there the last few months about three times a week because I love my mother. The way I'm looking at life is so different right now because you see these people in their late 80s, early 90s. The oldest person there is 97. My mother's the second oldest, about to be 95. And they're just talking about simple things. They're talking about, what time is bingo. Oh, bingo is at three. Then movie night. It's a little past my bedtime, but it's going to be seven. I mean, the way they're thinking. But it's interesting how if you look at the elderly, if you look for the beauty in. Almost reminds me of the curiosity in the innocence of when we were young. I'm seeing so much innocence in these conversations because that's the type of person I am. I don't just stay at my mother's table now. I'm getting popular in this place. So I'm talking to the people at the different tables. They're innocent. They're talking about it's going to be a full moon and what that means to them and just experiences that they had and what it was like for them to be in their 50s or 60s. So I'm loving that you're studying this subject because I feel like this has been an area that most people have no idea about. They get there and say, now what? And as you know, more than me, I don't think you have to just live in fear. Once this time comes in our life when it looks like we might pass.

B (31:09)

And it's not just about the fear from end of life. If you think back to what the doula said is no pain, no loss of dignity in the body, surrounded by love and having a sense of legacy. Yeah, especially the love. And legacy is something people can work on. You know, too many people have unresolved social issues that they haven't fixed before. Too many people have, you know, estranged cousins, siblings, kids.

A (31:39)

Yeah.

B (31:40)

Too many people have not thought about legacy. What do I want to leave behind?

A (31:44)

Can I ask you a question about this? What have you thought or maybe you already have done it adjusted in your life? Being that you're doing so much research on the end of life, is there anything that you're adjusting? Like, maybe like more time with my family or more time in nature? Is there anything that you're adjusting based on your studies?

B (32:09)

The first thing I did was I wrote the will. And as we said, we don't want to make any decisions taking things for granted. So I said, how should people think about the will? I didn't go to a lawyer and say, give me a form. So, for example, I. I thought about who have made an impact on my life and who do I want to live something, you know, people basically say, I'm leaving everything to my kids, Said, no, no, no. Just because we've done it this way doesn't mean that that's the right way.

A (32:42)

Yeah.

B (32:42)

I started thinking about who are the people. Like, if you think about legacy, who are the people that I think I had an impact on their life, they had an impact on my life, and I want something of me to continue with them. It could be a little bit of money, it could be something else. But I thought very much about the wheel. So that was one thing. The second thing is that I started writing in a more personal way. But one of the things that I think we get to leave behind is some of our thoughts. What have I learned in this life that I would be happy if people didn't have to discover it on their own? In my case, you know, things about pain, difficulties. So, you know, I am kind of writing more in that legacy part. And then the last thing I did was I felt very carefully about the surrounded by love. And I realized that I had a little bit too many acquaintances that were not real friends. And, you know, personally, I believe in friendships. So for me, a friend is like a brother. There's a real loyalty that comes with friendship. And over the years, I've realized that my model of friendship and some of the people that I interact with, I. I'm a much better friend to them than they are. They are to me. And I cut some of those off. I have a limited time. I have quite a few really good friends. I have too many acquaintances. I have too many acquaintances that I would do more for them than I realized they would do for me. Let me spend more time on the relationships that really matter. So I've also done some social refocusing. I'm very lucky. I have quite a few very good deep friends, but I'm spending more time with them now.

A (34:52)

I think it's so powerful. Again, what you're saying on this subject that I see with the younger people, let's say 20, 30 years of age, they're so excited about these social mixtures where they can just get together, meet more and more people, or Tim, you need to go to this event. They'll tell me because there's going to be so many new people that you need to know. And I think many times at this stage of my life, you know, I like meeting some new people, but I'm pretty good of where I'm at and I want to cultivate these friendships like you're talking about and deepen them and become a better listener. I'm already a good listener, but I want to even be a better listener and even a better friend. Yeah.

B (35:42)

We did experiments on this a while ago. We showed that people love to open new doors, and once these new doors open, they don't want to close them. But the reality is that friendship eventually is about how much we get to invest in it. And if we have too many acquaintances, we have a hard time finding time for our real friends.

A (36:04)

I have a question. So for my audience, how do we onboard into your way of thinking? What would be the best first book of yours that. That you think they should read to kind of onboard ourselves into way Dr. Dan Airley is thinking.

B (36:25)

So. So I think my first book was called Predictably Irrational. It's probably the. The best place to start.

A (36:31)

Okay.

B (36:32)

But I will tell you, I met. I met a very, very sweet British guy about a year ago and he asked me to do an online course with him for him. And I said, look, I don't have time to do an online course, but I'll tell you what, I'll show up in London for three days, you could ask me question and you can see if you can make up a course from that. And and he did. And he just sent it to me two days ago. And I think it's quite good. So when it's out, I like this, I'll send it to you and you can see if you, if you want to share this. But it's a. Looking at life from the perspective of decision making and assuming irrationality rather than rationality liberates us from a lot of our assumptions and all of a sudden we can see things fresh and make better decisions.

A (37:22)

You have a website, is that correct?

B (37:25)

Yeah, just my name. Www danarey-a n a r-I e l y.com I also have a website. So I'm, I grew up in Israel, I'm Jewish and you know, I've been very, very concerned with the issue of antisemitism. So, so I have a website where I invite anti Semites to talk to me. And it's not, I don't argue with anybody, I just try to understand them. So I say things like when was the first time you heard something negative about Jewish people? And how did this idea change in your mind? And I think it's the kind of discussion that should have of lots of things with the anti Semites. You know, these are people who self declare as anti Semitic. So you know, they, they, you know, they, at the end of the hour they almost always say I understand that not everybody is like this. And they almost always say I understand. I got this at an early age and I never really thought about where I got this idea from. It's almost always the. And it's true about them, but it's true about lots of things. We work in life by a lot of all kinds of assumptions and from time to time it's very good to stop and question our assumptions.

A (38:49)

I 100% agree. And you know this as well by me traveling to all these countries, studying the countries before. But more than that, sitting with the people, not just going to the tourist areas, seeing all sides, you know, the most you can see of a country, maybe if you're there one or two weeks, has so helped me grow. I don't think that I think like a person who was just raised in one country. I see myself almost like a worldwide citizen because of that. And it's expanded me. I have a final question for you, if you don't mind. When you look at the future of the world, I talk to a lot of young people and a lot of young people, for some reason they call me uncle, like Uncle Tim. Uncle Tim. What do you think? Like this guy, this guy got Shot. And this is happening here and this is happening in this area. Like, are we going to be okay? You know, obviously both of us have been on this planet for a while and we've seen a lot of challenges. Do you find yourself more optimistic during this time of your life? Pessimistic.

B (40:10)

Yeah.

A (40:10)

Where do you come from in your thought process?

B (40:15)

Very good. So I think that we have a range of possible futures. It's not one future that we're aiming for. There's a range of possible futures. There's some bad one, there's some worse ones. I would say that over the last 10 years, the worst ones have expanded more than the good ones. Like, the range have gone. Have gone in that direction. But I don't think the book has been written on that. I think it's a question of what are we going to do about it. So I think there's a range of possibilities. And now the question is, how are we going to contribute to make the world more likely to go to the right side than the correct side and the wrong side? And now your question about optimism. I think that optimism is really about two elements. There is, are we seeing the reality correctly or not? And the second is, do we get the energy to work toward change? Sometimes people distinguish between optimism and hope. But I think optimism for me is, are we evaluating things accurately or are we overly optimistic or negatively? But also, what is the source of our motivation? And my source of motivation in the world is optimism. Like, I wake up in the morning and I feel that we could do much better.

A (41:48)

Yes.

B (41:49)

And that feeling that we could do much better gets me to work and to hopefully do things in a better way. So I think we need to be hopeful in our motivation to drive change. And I think it's possible. I think it's possible. Right. We have overcome lots of things as humanity. We are in an amazing period of time in all kinds of ways. We just need to make sure that we do as well as we can. We're not there yet, but I can see it. By the way, I think about the last chapter of life. As we said right now, it's not a good chapter. It can be. How do we make it better?

A (42:37)

Your thoughts on the range of possibilities is brilliant because even though I think big, I many times find myself trying to put it into a category of fixing things to get to a certain place. But this range that you're bringing up is amazing. So Dr. Dan Airly, all his information is below. We'll have it there. His website. We want you to get his books. We'll promote those. Also, he has a course that's coming out very soon. We'll give you information on how to get that course. But thank you for having this talk with me.

B (43:27)

It was great. Next time in a real diner.

A (43:31)

Yeah, we'll do it in a real diner and I think we can continue to learn and grow from each other. But I truly thank you for this time.

B (43:41)

Thank you so much.

A (43:43)

Make sure and continue to follow the miracle mentality. Make sure to like and subscribe and tell a friend. And to me, this is one of my favorite podcasts that I've done and enjoyed this conversation so much. I think that if you take the time to really listen, what Dr. Dan was saying to it will build you. It'll strengthen you, but also build your faith that life can be great from the beginning all the way to the end. I'm Tim Storey. Keep on living well. Thank you for sharing space with me on this episode of Miracle Mentality with Tim Story. If today sparked your courage or helped you understand why you're created for success, I invite you to carry that miracle mentality forward. Visit me@timstory.com that story with an ey on the end. Until next time, walk by faith, embrace possibility and create your own comeback. Story.