The Price of Not Choosing Yourself

Summary

---

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 He emphasizes the crucial difference between living by outdated programming and conscious self-creation, urging listeners to break free from people-pleasing and inherited limiting beliefs to embrace their authentic "2.0"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

[Perigold Announcer]

Perigold is the destination for luxury home. They have the largest selection ever of design's best brands making it easy, inspiring and convenient to shop heirloom quality furniture, lighting, decor and more for every style and space. They're the first to bring these brands together in one place, granting everyone insider access to pieces previously only available to interior designers. They offer free fast full service delivery on most items, complimentary design services and extraordinary customer service at every step. Shop in store and online at paragould.

[Rob Dial]

Com the Mindset Mentor is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at progressive.com, progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates pricing coverage match limited by state law not available in all.

[Sponsor Announcer]

States hey Fidelity, Can I get a second opinion on stocks in the Fidelity app?

[Fidelity Representative]

With Fidelity, it's easy to get an outside opinion from independent experts in a single score. And then when you're ready, trade US stocks and ETFs with no commissions.

[Rob Dial]

That's right.

[Fidelity Representative]

I am always right.

[Fidelity Legal Disclaimer]

Investing involves risk, including risk of loss, online US equity trades and ETFs and retail fidelity account Sell order assessment fee not included, some account types and securities excluded. Details of fidelity.com commissions Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC Member NYSE, SIPC Foreign.

[Rob Dial]

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.

[Sponsor Announcer]

New habit for 2026 we're sharing small habits repeated every day or even just once a week can make a real difference for both individuals and the planet. Small habits, Big Impact Are you ready to start? Saving one surprise bag a week from the viral Too Good to Go app is an easy way to save money on food while helping reduce food waste. To supplement regular groceries, many people pick a surprise bag and build meals around whatever is inside. The variety on the app is extensive warm dinners, groceries, pastries, bagels and more. Too Good to Go has easily become one of my favorite easy wins each week because I save money and still end up getting great food that I might not have tried otherwise. Download the Too Good to Go app to explore which stores nearby are saving food. Available in all 50 states. Use the code MINDSETMENTOR to save $2 off the first 2 Good To Go bag. Expires May 31, 2026 first time users.

[Rob Dial]

Only now that the holidays are over.

[Sponsor Announcer]

You might be feeling like you got a big spending hangover. The drinks, the holiday food, the gifts. Luckily, Mint Mobile is here to help you cut back on overspending on wireless this January with 50% off unlimited premium wireless. All plans come with high speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation's largest 5G network. I've been using Mint Mobile for about four years now for my business phone and it just works. Amazing. This January, quit overspending on Wireless with 50% off unlimited premium wireless plans start at $15 a month at mintmobile.com mentor that's mintmobile.com mentor limited time offer upfront payment of $45 for three months, $90 for six months and $180 for 12 month plan required $15 per month equivalent taxes and fees Extra initial plan term only over 50 gigabytes may slow when network is busy. Capable device required availability speed and coverage varies. See mintmobile. Com Every business is asking the same question. How do we make AI work For us, the possibilities are endless and the guessing is too risky. But sitting on the sidelines is not an option because one thing is almost certain. Your competitors are already making their move. No more waiting. With NetSuite by Oracle, you can put AI to work. Today, NetSuite is the number one AI Cloud ERP trusted by over 43,000 businesses. It is a unified suite that brings you financials, inventory, commerce, HR and CRM into one single source of truth. Now, with NetSuite AI connector, you can use AI of your choice to connect your actual business data and ask every question you ever had, from key customers to inventory trends. Plus automate those tiresome manual processes. Let's see your competitors try to do that right now. Get their free business guide demystifying AI at netsuite.com dial the guide is free to you at netsuite.com dial that's netsuite.com dial.

[Rob Dial]

And now back to the show. You will always default to the 1.0 version of you turning into the 2.0 version of you. It takes time, it takes intention, and it takes a lot of work. As it does if you are building anything in this world, a business, a relationship, a building, all of them take work, time, attention, everything. And so you have to learn to start working yourself into actually be comfortable choosing yourself. You know, like let me call out the elephant in the room real quick that some people are already thinking based off of your programming. Choosing yourself is not selfish. It's not. It's the most strategic thing that you can do to make your life and everybody else's life around you better. Choosing yourself is not selfish. Because when you're depleted and when you're not showing up at 100% and you're not the best version of yourself, guess what happens? Everybody loses. You lose, your children lose, your spouse loses, your employer loses, or your employees lose. You know, you think that you're helping your kids by putting yourself last. No, you're not. You're actually modeling self abandonment to them. You think that you're helping everybody else around you by always saying yes. No, you're actually teaching those people to not respect your needs. So think about this for a second. If you're thinking to yourself, oh man, like there's a part of me that comes from my childhood that says that it's so selfish to work on myself and it's so selfish to choose myself and it's so selfish to put myself first. Think about this. Is your family better off by living and learning from the 1.0 version of you or the 2.0 version of you? It's an easy answer, isn't it? It's a 2.0 version of you. Nobody in your life, nobody in this world wins when the version of you that's showing up is the 1.0 version of you. The version of you that's showing up is 10% of what you could be. 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. And so I know, because there's so many people I know that are just such sweet people and people pleasers. And they were programmed to think this from childhood. Choosing yourself and putting yourself first is not selfish. Why? Because when you're better, everybody else is better. You have more energy. You lead with clarity instead of resentment. You can model what wholeness looks like. You can make everyone else's life better when you are better. And just so you know, this is actually backed by science. There was a study that was done in health psychology where they found that people who regularly engage in self care and self reflection have a higher satisfaction in their relationships. They have better parenting skills and they have greater work and performance. So taking care of yourself isn't an option. It's got to be something that is absolutely essential. You need to, to put yourself first. And the root of everything I want you to understand is your relationship with yourself. Like, let me, let me drop the biggest truth of this entire episode and maybe of your entire life. 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. If your relationship with yourself is incredibly strong, everything in your life is going to be better. Your career, it'll grow from your confidence, your relationships, they will mirror how you treat yourself. Your finances, they reflect what you believe you're worth. Most people are working from the outside in. Oh, they're trying to fix the marriage. They're trying to get a better job. They're trying to lose weight, they're trying to make more money. Cool. That's all great, but all of those things. The marriage will be fixed. When you work on yourself, your job will get better, you'll be performing better. When you work on yourself, you will lose more weight when you work on yourself, you will make more money when you work on yourself. So they're trying all of these outside external things, but none of them stick because your inner foundation is cracked. It's like trying to build a life on quicksand. It's not gonna work. You know, like I always say, you can't out hustle low self worth. You can't, you can't out love lack of self connection. If you want more peace in your life, get still. If you want more clarity in your life, sit with yourself. Take some time, Sit down and ask like, what do I need today? Like, how am I actually feeling? Where have I been ignoring myself? Who do I want to be today? Now think about the rest of your life. You could think about like and have a North Star and an end goal of who you want to be. But let's just ask like, who do I need to be today? And get really honest with yourself. Because that level of honesty, that's where all of your upgrading actually begins. And it's really important that you work harder on yourself than you do anything else. You know, you have to work harder on yourself than you do anything else in your entire life. There's a classic Jim Rohn quote where.

[Sponsor Announcer]

He says, if you work hard at.

[Rob Dial]

Your job, you'll make a living. If you work hard on yourself, you'll make a fortune. But like, I'll take that a step further. If you work hard on yourself, you won't just make money, you'll have incredible relationships, you'll have more peace and you'll be able to create a life that actually feels good to you. And that is the best thing that you can have. And so you've got to figure out a way to make space every single day to sit in silence, to be with yourself, to question your thoughts, to question your beliefs, to question who you are and say, does this line up with who I need to be to create the life that I want? Or are there aspects of myself that I need to change? Or are there aspects of myself that I need to strengthen and actually Sit with yourself, ask yourself these tough questions.

[Sponsor Announcer]

Feel whatever needs to be felt.

[Rob Dial]

Parent yourself. When old programming kicks in, you start thinking about your fears and your limiting beliefs and doubts. Go, oh, hold on, no, no, no. That's just the 1.0 version of me. I need to be the 2 point. What would the 2.0 version of me say right now? And commit to that 2.0 version of yourself every single day, multiple times a day. You've got to commit to being that person. Let me just really close with this. You need to choose yourself. You need to stop running from yourself. Your relationship with yourself is the most important thing in your world. Every time you choose others at the cost of yourself, every time that you ignore your own needs just so you can keep the peace. Every time that you wait for permission to be the real you, you pay. But the opposite of all that is also true when you choose you. When you choose to build a deeper relationship with yourself, you win. And guess what? Everybody else in your life wins as well. So I want to be very, very clear. 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 you'll create a better life for everyone that you love. And in turn, you will have a ripple effect that makes the entire world better as well. Hey, thanks so much for watching this video. Based off of what you have been watching recently, YouTube thinks this video is the best one for you right now. And if you want to make sure to never miss another video, hit that subscribe button and I'll see you on the next video. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on Instagram. Stories Tag me at Robdale Junior R O B D I A L J R and if you're out there you want to learn more about coaching with me outside the podcast, go to coach with Rob.com once again, coach with Rob.com and with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.

[Fidelity Representative]

Hey Fidelity, what's it cost to invest with the Fidelity app? Start with as little as $1 with no account fees or trade commissions on US stocks and ETFs. Hmm, that's music to my ears. I can only talk.

[Fidelity Legal Disclaimer]

Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Zero Account fees apply to retail brokerage accounts only. Sell order assessment fee not included. A limited number of ETFs are subject to a transaction based service fee of $100. See full list of Fidelity.com commissions Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC member NYSE SIPC hey.

[Rob Lowe]

Everybody, it's Rob Lowe here. If you haven't heard, I have a podcast that's called Literally with Rob Lowe. And basically it's conversations I've had that really make you feel like you're pulling up a chair at an intimate dinner between myself and people that I admire, like Aaron Sorkin or Tiffany Haddish, Demi Moore, Chris Pratt, Michael J. Fox. There are new episodes out every Thursday, so subscribe please and listen wherever you get your podcasts.