Podcast Summary: The Mindset Mentor

Episode: The Price of Not Choosing Yourself

Host: Rob Dial
Date: January 19, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Rob Dial explores the profound consequences of not choosing yourself—how so much of our identity and mindset is unconsciously shaped in childhood by outside influences, and why true transformation and fulfillment come from intentionally building the life and identity you desire. He emphasizes the crucial difference between living by outdated programming and conscious self-creation, urging listeners to break free from people-pleasing and inherited limiting beliefs to embrace their authentic "2.0" selves.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. We Are Born into Others’ Programming

Shaping by Age Seven:
Rob opens by explaining how, before we even make our first conscious choices, our parents, caregivers, teachers, and society program us:

"You were born into somebody else’s programming... Most people, they stay there forever, they never break out of it, and they wonder why they can't create the life that they want." (02:15)
Research Backs This Up:

“Research from the University of Minnesota shows that our core beliefs about ourselves, about the world, about everything, 90 to 95% of them are shaped by the age of seven, and they're stored in your subconscious.” (05:22)

2. Living in the 1.0 Operating System

Most adults are still operating from beliefs and emotions set in childhood—what Rob calls the “1.0 version.”
These beliefs feel as absolute as “the sky is blue,” simply because they were learned so early and go unquestioned.

3. You Don’t Find Yourself, You Build Yourself

The myth of “finding yourself” is dispelled:

“You don’t find yourself. You build yourself. You decide who you need to become and you start building yourself into that.” (08:47)
Rob likens this to building a new house: you need to intentionally plan and create every part.

4. Default vs. Deliberate Mental Scripts

Repetitive, Negative Thoughts:
Citing a 2005 National Science Foundation study—80% of our daily thoughts are negative, and 95% are repetitive from the day before.

“You are reliving the same old mental script on a loop every single day until the day you die. Unless you interrupt it…” (09:44)

5. Choosing Yourself Is Not Selfish

Rob addresses the common fear—often inherited from childhood—that putting yourself first is selfish:

“Choosing yourself is not selfish. It's the most strategic thing you can do to make your life and everybody else's life around you better.” (13:41)
When you’re depleted and not your best, everyone loses—family, coworkers, friends.

6. The Ripple Effect of Self-Care

Science backs this up:

“People who regularly engage in self care and self reflection have higher satisfaction in their relationships, better parenting skills, and greater work performance.”
You teach your children and those around you self-worth and boundaries by modeling your own self-respect.

7. Your Relationship with Yourself Is Foundational

Root System Analogy:

“Your relationship with yourself is the root system for everything in your life. If your relationship with yourself is broken, everything else is going to be broken in some sort of way.” (16:01)
Working on yourself improves every area: career, relationships, finances, health.

8. Introspection, Honesty, and Daily Commitment

Rob urges frequent self-reflection:

“Sit down and ask, what do I need today? How am I actually feeling? Who do I want to be today?” (17:31)
Emphasizes the Jim Rohn quote (and builds on it):

"If you work hard at your job, you'll make a living. If you work hard on yourself, you'll make a fortune... And if you work hard on yourself, you'll have incredible relationships, more peace, and a life that feels good to you." (18:00)

9. Commit to the 2.0 Version

When old programming (fear, limitation) kicks in, notice it and ask:

“That’s just the 1.0 version of me. What would the 2.0 version of me say right now?” (18:46)
Commit daily, multiple times a day, to being your 2.0 self.

10. The Real Price of Not Choosing Yourself

When you neglect your own needs for others:

“Every time you choose others at the cost of yourself, every time you ignore your own needs just so you can keep the peace, every time you wait for permission to be the real you, you pay.” (19:38)
Conversely, choosing yourself benefits both you and the wider world.

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

On identity formation:

“Who you think you are, what you believe about yourself... is built into your subconscious by the age of seven. And we rarely question it unless we intentionally bring it to the surface.” (05:55)
Key perspective shift:

“If you're 40 years old now... do you think there’s some beliefs you learned by age seven that at 40 maybe you could shift a little bit?” (07:21)
Truth about self-work:

“You can't out-hustle low self-worth. You can't out-love lack of self-connection.” (16:53)
Paradox of self-prioritization:

“The real paradox in all of this is that the moment that you start putting yourself before everyone else is when everybody else's life improves.” (14:33)
Final call to action:

“You need to choose you every single day, multiple times a day, with everything that you have and without any apology. And if you do that, you will create a better life for yourself and everyone you love.” (20:09)

Key Timestamps

[02:15] - How early programming shapes our lives
[05:22] - Statistics: 90–95% of beliefs shaped by age seven
[08:47] - The myth of “finding” yourself vs. building yourself
[09:44] - 80% of daily thoughts are negative; the power of interrupting mental scripts
[13:41] - Choosing yourself isn’t selfish: it uplifts everyone
[16:01] - The root system analogy for self-relationship
[18:00] - The expanded Jim Rohn quote and call to self-work
[18:46] - Recognizing and updating your mental scripts—committing to 2.0
[19:38] - The cost of self-abandonment versus the rewards of self-choice
[20:09] - Final rally to unapologetically choose yourself daily

Episode Takeaways

Our beliefs and sense of self are mostly formed by age seven, without our conscious choice.
Continuing to live by that early programming keeps us limited, unfulfilled, and often stuck in negative mental loops.
You don’t “find” your true self; you intentionally build and become who you choose.
Self-prioritization is not selfish—it is the key to a better life for you and those around you.
True transformation and fulfillment require ongoing self-reflection and the daily, conscious decision to be your authentic 2.0 self.
When you upgrade your relationship with yourself, you upgrade every area—career, relationships, well-being—for the better.

Transcript

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Rob Dial (1:32)

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're the type of person who wants to learn and grow and improve yourself, I put out episodes four times a week to help you. Because if you can improve yourself, you can improve your life. And that's all all we're really looking to do. Today I'm going to be talking about the price of not choosing yourself and what it would look like to actually choose yourself because you were born into somebody else's programming. Let that land for a second. Before you ever chose your first dream, before you chose your first outfit, before you chose what your beliefs were, somebody was already shaping you into who you were supposed to be, whether that be that they did it on purpose or just by proximity to them and growing up in the same household. And most of the time what it really is is it's just us becoming our parents, us becoming what society wants us to be, us becoming what our family wants us to be. And most people, they stay there forever, they never break out of it, and they wonder why they can't create the life that they want. And those people are just running the same outdated 1.0 software version of themself, and they're trying to get to the next level. They're trying to create an amazing life, but they're doing it with the first level identity, the one that they're supposed to grow out of. But what if the missing piece, like the real, real key to success, to joy, to freedom, to peace, what if the real key to all of that, it wasn't more hustle, it wasn't more strategy, it wasn't working harder, it wasn't fixing anything outside of you, but it was actually you deciding that you're finally going to choose yourself, learning how and when to choose yourself and how to do it in a way that creates the life that you see in your dreams. And so let's dive into it. I want you to understand that the version of you that you came into this world as and that you learned, you know, basically majority of who you are by the age of seven is 1.0 version of you. And that is your default. If you're not paying attention, you will default to it all of the time. And most people think that it's their destiny, but it's not. It's something that you're supposed to grow out of. And so I'll hit you with the truth. That first version of you, like the 1.0 version of you, it wasn't built by conscious choice. You didn't sit down at 4, 5, 7 years old and said, who do I want to build myself into? It was built by what you learned. It was built by survival. It was built by fear, built by many different things. And it came from, you know, your parents beliefs about everything. Your parents beliefs about money, your parents beliefs about love, your parents beliefs about safety. It came from the emotional tone that was set inside of your home. It came from the approval that you got and what you had to do to get approval, or it came from the approval that you didn't get. It came from the way your teachers and your caregivers and your peers treated you. And it also came from what you thought about yourself or what meaning you gave yourself based off of how you see, like actually saw them treat you when you were younger. And so that version of you that you've built yourself into, you might be responsible, you might be nice, you might be a good person, you might be successful on paper, but deep down, you might be exhausted. You might be like, man, I feel like I've built my I built a ladder up the wrong wall. You might feel like you're unfulfilled. You might feel like you're over giving and like under receiving from people. Whatever it might be, you're noticing and you're listening this episode because you're going, there's something else outside of what I currently have that I'm trying to get or become and I want you to understand. Research from the University of Minnesota shows that our core beliefs about ourselves, about the world, about everything, 90 to 95% of them are shaped by the age of seven, seven. And they're stored in your subconscious. And rarely do we question them ever again unless we intentionally bring them to the surface. Because it is as true to us, because it was programmed into us at such a young age. It is as true to us as if I said, hey, what color is the sky? Everybody's going to say blue. And it's like that is absolute truth to us. What color is grass? Green. Absolute truth to us. Why? Because it was programmed into us. Those things were programmed into us before the age of seven. And so who you are, who you think you are, what you believe about yourself, what you believe about other people, what you believe about love, what you believe about the world, everything is built into your subconscious by the age of seven. And we rarely question it unless we intentionally bring it to the surface. So if you're in your 30s and you're in your 40s and you're in your 50s, and you haven't sat down and intentionally started to build yourself and change your beliefs, you're still living beliefs that you formed in the first grade. Like, think about that for a second. The first grade. Do you really think that if you're 40 years old now that maybe you have more wisdom than you did at six, than you did at seven? Do you think that maybe there's some beliefs that could be shifted that you learned about the world or that you learned about love, or that you learned about yourself by the age of seven, that at 40 maybe you could shift a little bit. Do you see what I mean? You're running 33 year old outdated programs. And I want you to realize if you are, you're not broken, you're just running an old operating system. You know, if you really start to think about it, the 1.0 version of you that you have, that 90, 95% of you was built by 7 years old. That version of you that child cannot create the 2.0 version of your life that you're trying to build. Think about that for A second. Right? And so I want you to understand it is really about you learning to build yourself, to be very intentional about you building yourself. You know, you don't find yourself, you build yourself. You know, there's a lie that I think is sold to us in our culture of like, one day, if you try hard enough, if you meditate long enough, if you buy the right journal, you'll finally find yourself. Nah, that's not it. You don't find yourself. You build yourself. You decide who you need to become and you start building yourself into that. You decide who you're going to be and you become that. Think about it. If you were building a new house, wouldn't you want to sit down and build out the blueprints and the floor and the flooring? And you want to put up the kitchen and what colors it's going to be? You're not just going to like figure out as you go along, right? You're going to build it and then you're going to put piece by piece together. That's exactly how it is when you're trying to build yourself into somebody. And so I want you to understand your 2.0 version of yourself is just ready for you to grow into them. They're not hiding, they're just buried under layers of people pleasing and fear of judgment and fear of other people's opinions and procrastination and perfectionism and playing small and guilt for putting yourself first or all these old conditionings that are based in the past. And the crazy part about the people pleasing and the fear of judgment and all of that stuff, the crazy part is that you think that's who you are. It's not who you are. It's just the 1.0 version of you that's outdated. And you need to let go of certain parts of it. You need to build new parts of it. And so here's what it comes down to. You're either brainwashed by your past, or you brainwash yourself and you reprogram yourself for the future that you're trying to create. And if you're not actively choosing your thoughts and saying, who do I want to be? How do I want to think? And when you have a negative thought or a thought that doesn't align with the future that you want to create, you change it immediately. If you're not actively choosing how you want to think and how you want to be, then you're being run by somebody else's thoughts and beliefs that come from your childhood. That's the old version of you you got to break through. There's a 2005 study done by the National Science foundation that found that 80% of your daily thoughts are negative. 80% of our daily thoughts are negative. Is that really facilitating the life that you want to create? And 95% of the between 60 to 90,000 thoughts that you have per day, 95% of them are the same as they were yesterday. They're repetitive, meaning that you are reliving the same old mental script of on a loop every single day until the day you die. Unless you interrupt it and we will be right back.