B (3:28)

Well, I was, I got, you know, aware of how significant values are many years ago. I've been teaching value applications for 43, almost 44 years. So I was probably in my early 20s when I started to realize the significance of those. But would you ask somebody what their values are? I can guarantee you, because I've done it so many thousands of times that they will tell you injected values of outer authorities, their mothers, their fathers, their preachers, their teachers, their conventions, traditions and mores of the social collective that they are part of the herd of will infiltrate and inculcate into their consciousness. And they will tell you things that have nothing to do with what their life demonstrates. You know, they'll say peace and this and that and honesty and all these things. They don't realize anything about human behavior. So they just say what they think it's supposed to be, many times even to themselves. They're not even aware. You ask the average person how many want to be financially independent, they'll all put their hands up, but their life doesn't demonstrate that. Only 1% or less demonstrate that. Rest of them are in debt. So I'm not interested in what people say. I'm interested in what they live and what their life demonstrates because their perception, decisions and actions are governed there. So I had to come up with ways of determining values that went through that filter. And one of the most significant one was space proxemics. Every human being, if you Give a child, even in a crib, an item. If they value it and it's intriguing to them and they value it, they will put it in their mouth, taste it, they'll play with it, look at it, they'll explore it, and they'll keep it next to them. And if you try to take it away, they'll cry or do something and they'll hold onto it because anything that's valuable goes proximal and they keep close to them. You give a woman a diamond ring, it usually stays close to them. Right. And distal distance is something they push away. So if you give a child something he doesn't want, it'll kick and scream and whatever and push it out. So even a child at a young age already has a set of values. In fact, values are already occurring in the zygote, the very first stage of first myotonic division from the sperm and the egg uniting. Values are already being developing in cells. But by the time we're born, we already have our set of values and we're developing them as we go and involving them. But first thing I do is look at space, how we fill our space. Most. What are the three most significant, most consistent items that we keep in our personal or intimate space? Personal is four feet. Intimates a foot and a half around us in proxemics, and we get an idea of what we actually fill our space with. And this tells us what we value. Like, I'm sure that you probably like me a bit. You probably have a computer in front of you a lot. And my computer is where I research, write, travel through, zoom, and teach. So my computer is probably the most significant thing. If a fire was to break out and they said I couldn't take the. I was on a plane or my ship or whatever, they said, you can't take that. I'd hide it in there and, you know, hide it with me.

A (6:44)

Because it's your life. It's your life that's the closest thing to you. Yeah.

B (6:49)

Yeah. So, not that I wouldn't grab my kids first, but I would. I'd grab my kids with my computer. Yeah, but it depends. If they're teenagers, you might get the computer first. But anyway, I'm joking, but space is number one. The next one is time. You make time, find time, spend time and create time for things that are really valuable to you. You ran out of time and don't want to take time and, oh, I don't have time right now. I can't do that on things that aren't and the more valuable it is you make time for. I mean, if all of a sudden, you know, I'm just going to pick a name. If Bill Gates or maybe Jeff Bezos or Richard Branch or somebody that's an icon in the business world. If all of a sudden they called and said, I can do an interview right this minute, you'd say, probably, John, I got to. I got to go. I got this opportunity. I'll call you, we'll reschedule this. Because you get an opportunity to grab it. So you would make time, find time, spend time on something that's very, very valuable to you. And so I look at how you fill your space, most top three things, how you spend your time, most top three things, and I don't want to go and write. You're not here to write what you wish you would be or hope it would be or what it used to be. You write down what your life demonstrates. Your life demonstrates your values. That's what's so crucial to look carefully at what you're objectively doing. If I videotape you from a hovering, you know, thing above you, looking down on you, and I watched your life, it would tell me what you're doing. And that tells me, watching that over a period of months and months and months, I can see what your pattern is. And I'm looking for that because that tells me what's valuable. The third one is what energizes you. Whenever you're doing something that's high in your value, your energy goes up. And whenever you do and your mitochondria go up, the mitochondria actually spit out that energy and, you know, do phosphorization and oxidation much more efficiently. When you're doing something high in your values that's been demonstrated. And then if you don't, if you go down into lower values, your energy goes down. If all of a sudden somebody said, look, I want you to go and repair your car. There's no mechanics, and you got to go out and do your car, you're going to procrastinate, hesitate, and frustrate doing that. And you're going to go, oh, crap, you're going to fall asleep. Probably your reticular activating system is going to shut down. But if somebody says, look, I want you to interview Jeff Bezos today, can you do that? Even if you didn't get any sleep, you would rally because you automatically would get the reticular activating system going. So what energizes you and what do you always have energy for and what is it that you, when you do it, you got more energy than when you started. That's a sign of a high value. And by the way, when you do the space, time and energy, you're going to find that those patterns are the same. You're going to see the same thing repeating. If you're honest, I've done it thousands and thousands of times. The fourth one is money. You find money, make money, spend money, get money for things that are valuable to you. If I said to you right now, do you have a $10 million in your pocket? You go, I may have to go and get that and work, do something to get my $10 million. But after I said, okay, I've got a guaranteed return, a 10 to 1 return in 30 days, you'll find that $10 million, I'll get you 100 million, you would find a way of getting $10 million. You find you'd call all your friends, you do whatever it takes to do it. So when you really, really, really value something, you find money for it. That's what's amazing. When people say I can't afford things, it means somebody hasn't sold it to them in a way where they feel their values are being met. That's all. There's no lack of money on this planet to any human being when they really have a value on something. So how you spend your money and where is that money going? If you look at the disbursement sheets, it tells you if it mostly goes to a house, then obviously a house and whatever that represents to you is. And then you look at what does it really represent? Just like what do you fill your space with? What's its dominant use? Because if I said my computer, well, the computer's not valuable. It's what you're able to do with it. So what's the utility of it? What's the purpose of that item? And the same thing for what you spend your money on. What exactly are you doing with that money? What are you trying to accomplish with that? That tells you what the value is. The fifth one is where are you most organized and ordered? Knowledge is organized in my mind. I have a vast amount of knowledge gathered from all the reading and watching YouTubes and stuff. So that's all organized on my computer and in my head. And wherever you have the most order and organization, it tells you what you value. And the next one is where you're most disciplined and reliable. You can rely on me to be teaching, you can rely on me to be researching and Writing. But you can't rely on me to socialize at a party or, or, you know, go to a social event or, you know, I, I do work out once a week. But you're not, or do your own.

A (11:28)

Or do your own tech support. That's not a, that's not a priority. That's, that's something that, you know, you don't want to take that.

B (11:34)

I, I, I haven't cooked since I was 24. I haven't driven a car in 32 years. You know, I, I delegate everything that's low on my values. I even joke with my girlfriend said, look, you know, you know, I'm not that great at lovemaking. If I was to get George Clooney or Gerard Butler or, you know, Brad Pitt or, you know, something like that. If they, if I was to get them to make love for, with you on my behalf, would you still love me? Every single time. My girlfriend says yes every time. So, you know, I delegate everything. I'm joking about that. I don't delegate that.

A (12:07)

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B (14:36)

I know, I know, but I. My girlfriend's pretty hot. She's a cool one. I'm not going to delegate that one. I've been stingy on that one. Good. But I delegate that. So you look at where you spend your money, you look at where you're ordered and you look at where you're most disciplined. And I'm very disciplined when it comes to research and teaching. I do it every single day. Now the next one is what are you thinking about, what are you visualizing and what are you internally dialoguing? Frontal and parietal cortex, occipital cortex, temporal cortex. What are you visually auditorily and what are you thinking about? Visualizing and affirming inside about how you want your life that shows evidence coming true. So I've said since I was 17 that I want to travel the world and be a great teacher on the planet and study the philosophy and the sciences and leave a mark in teaching. And so that's my internal dialogue, that's my vision. I actually have a painting I could show you a painting of me standing in front of a Million people with every iconic building around the world in the background. That really amazing painting, five by four foot, the guy painted with a million people there, me speaking to him. So I have a visual image of that. I've got an internal dialogue that I've got that, you know, hundreds and hundreds of internal dialogues. And I think about it daily. And so I look at what I think and visualize and affirm every single day. That is showing evidence of coming true about what I want in life, not my fantasies. You know, I thought about being in an international sex symbol, but there's zero evidence of that one, So I can't put that down. That's a zero evidence. But if I look at what I do have evidence of, it's teaching. And then I go, and then I look at the next one, what do I want to keep bringing conversations to? When I want to talk to people, what do I lead the conversation to? People come up to you and say, how's your kids? How's your business? How's your health? How's your golf game? They always want to talk about what's in their highest values. So I look at what you want to converse most consistently with people when you can spontaneously socialize. And then I look at what it is that inspires you and brings tears to your eyes and what's common to the people who you've been absolutely inspired to watch and interact with. And then I look at what are the most consistent goals that you have that's persistent consistent, that you're achieving and you're getting to come into reality. And then I look at what you spontaneously want to learn, study, read about, watch on YouTube and absorb and informationalize what's the most common thing you want to learn? And if you look and answer the three answers for all those 13 questions, I guarantee a pattern will emerge and you'll sit there and go, whoa, now I know what I'm really committed to, not what I fantasize about. And the degree of those inconsistencies are setting real goals with real time, realistic expectations versus setting unrealistic goals that are unmet that lead to frustration. So finding out what that is and summarizing that and determining the top values to me is like a starting point in mastery of life.

A (17:32)

The last point that I wanted to pull out of you is we've now established how we understand what our values are. So the follow up is, how do we change those values if we know they're not serving us.

B (17:46)

Well? There's no such thing as values that don't serve you. But what most people do is, and I want everybody to inculcate this, you don't make mistakes in your own values. You only think you make a mistake when you compare your actions to some outer authority's values that you've subordinated to. And you only think other people make mistake in your business. When you project your values onto them and expect them to live in your values, they're not going to. Futility is a byproduct of expecting others to live in your values. Are you expecting you to live in other people's values? That's why the mastery of hiring people is screening people according to what their values are and finding out whether the job description really matches their values. Because if there is, you're going to have a high engagement level and you don't need to micromanage them and you don't have to judge them because they're just going to get the job done and they're probably going to do it more effectively than you could do. But when you hire somebody that's not congruent with that, you're going to think they're making mistakes all the time, you're going to think they're disobedient, but that's because you're righteously projecting your values onto them and they're supposed to read your mind and expect to live in your values and nobody can. That's why the idea of a cultural value system is murky and not really well educated out there. So you want to make sure that when you're filtering and you're looking and hiring people that you basically get somebody that really is congruent with the job description and that you can do. And I've got a whole science for that on how to do that that's just amazing. And a lot of companies using it. So that's one thing. Once you identify the values, then you have to change them. Now first you find out what it is because you sometimes want to change your values when you're expecting to live in somebody else's life. Envy is ignorance and imitation of suicide, as said Emerson. But if you do, let's say you're 50 years old, you've raised beautiful children, you've had a great family. Anything else and you realize, oh, empty nest syndrome. Time for me to run a business or grow my wealth, because, oh my God, I don't have any money saved. I get it all to the kids, take care of their college, take care of this. Lived meager for the sake of my kids. Now I'm Going to get Alzheimer's condition and pretend like I don't know their names so I can put some focus on what I want to do. That's a joke. But if you want to change a value system, you identify the action steps that are proven to master that area. Success leaves clues. Find out the action steps that prove to get a result. And now you take those action steps and then you stack up and you use operant conditioning from Skinner or Pavlov conditioned reflexes. And you ask the question, how specifically is doing those actions helping me fulfill what I value most and how has it helped me spiritually, mentally, career, financial, family, social and physical? So you empower all areas of your life. And if you ask that question and answer that question and don't say, I don't know, I can't find it. But answer it, be accountable. You'll blow your mind. If you stack up enough advantages over the disadvantages. Once the advantages outweigh the advantages of what you're doing currently, your brain will neuroplastically remodel itself and go in that direction with stimulus responses. You'll start doing that action. But it's got to be enough where it overrides that because of Hebbian rule in neurology, that it basically has to, you know, the, the oligodendrocytes in the brain come on and myelinate all the cells and they myelinate a new pathway. It's like a blazing a new trail if you add enough benefits to it. So you go in there and stack it up until you can see a change in behavior. So you just keep doing it. I tell people 200 benefits until the brain is completely rewired in a direction where you now have stimulus and you now save your money, you now invest your money, you're now doing things, and then you look at all those things that are proven to work. And I've helped people that have never been able to save money or never be able to keep any money and change that. And I've seen that done in, in a 200 answer response. I've seen that done as quick as a day. I've seen some people do it in less than a day, but usually about a day's work of effort. And all of a sudden they're now noticing in the mall different things and they're now taking different actions. Because your decisions are based on whatever you believe will give you the greatest advantage over disadvantage at any moment in time according to what you're valuing. So you can shift the values. And I could remodel the values to move in directions that you want if you want more health, or you want more wealth, or you want more business savvy or whatever it may be. It can be, but I usually don't start there. I start with first identifying what the values are so they quit living in a fantasy of who they are and get grounded. They may not have to have a desire to change anything. They may just finally realize, hey, I'm pretty magnificent the way I am. I just never saw that because I've been comparing myself to others.

A (22:24)

Thanks for tuning in. If you found this valuable, don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode. And if you want to dive deeper into this convers, check out the links in the description to watch the full episode. See you in the next one.