
Have you been obsessing over your fears more than the life you actually want? In this episode, I’m going to show you why most people stay emotionally attached to their old identity and how that unconscious obsession keeps them stuck in the same patterns, excuses, and limitations for years. I’ll teach you how to redirect that focus toward your future self so you can finally reprogram your mind, break old patterns, and build the life you know you’re capable of creating.
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Hey, a bad hire can really cost your business, and a great hire can really accelerate your business. Running a small business means every hire really matters. A bad hire can cost you time and money and momentum, and a good hire can help grow your business and immensely. Finding great talent isn't easy when you don't have the time or resources to sift through resumes. LinkedIn's new hiring pro screens candidates for you, so instead of sorting through applicants, you can spend time talking to only the right ones. Get started by posting your job for free@LinkedIn.com dial terms and conditions apply. Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. If you're out there and you love this podcast, you'll probably love the live event that I'm doing later on this year. If you want to join the wait list to be the first to learn about it and to get massive discounts for my in person event in Austin, Texas later on this year, go to freedom waitlist.com once again. Freedom waitlist.com today I'm going to show you why some people completely transform their lives and other people stay stuck for decades. And it's not a difference of intelligence or luck or discipline. It's far, far, far deeper than that. And once you, like, fully understand it, you'll realize why. You keep repeating the same fears and the same excuses and the same limitations and you're staying stuck with the same results over and over and over again, year after year. Because if you don't understand what's really happening beneath the surface, you'll spend your entire life treating symptoms, but the actual problem will continue running under the surface and ruining your life. And so today's gonna be a little bit different of an episode. I want to hopefully change your perspective more than give you tips and tricks today. I want to lovingly call you the hell out. Not in a mean way, not in a shamy type of way, not in an Internet guru screaming at you from a rented Ferrari or Lamborghini type of way. I mean in a way that a that loves you more than anything, grabs your shoulders, looks you in the eye, gives you a little fucking shake for just a second and says like, hey, you're not lacking potential. You're not lacking intelligence. You're not lacking signs from the universe. You're not lacking another book or podcast or journal prompt or morning routine or notion board. You're lacking full on obsession. And I know the word obsession can feel intense because people hear the word obsession and think like, oh my God, that sounds unhealthy. And obsession with some things can absolutely be unhealthy when it's pointed in the wrong direction. But if you can point it in the right direction, you can point obsession, which means focused energy of your mind, of your body, of your spirit, of your actions in one direction. It's like a heat seeking missile. You're gonna fucking hit it. And I want you to be really honest with yourself. What are you already obsessed with? Because most people are not free from obsession. They're just unconsciously obsessed with the life that they actually want to escape and they don't realize it. Like, they're obsessed with their limiting beliefs. They're obsessed with proving why they can't change. They're obsessed with their insecurities. They're obsessed with their old story and fears. They're obsessed with defending an identity that's keeping them stuck. And so then when you say something like, I really do want a new life, it's like, yeah, but do you? Because I'm watching people fight harder for their limitations than fight for the life that they want. Think about that for a second. How many times have you over explained yourself to somebody as to why you're not good enough, why you have fears, why you have limiting beliefs, why your trauma is holding you back, why your parents didn't give you what you want, why it's the president's fault or the economy's fault, or another nation's fault, or Nancy and accounting's fault. It's always somebody. It's always a fault of something versus being like, I Don't give a shit. I'm going to be obsessed with what I want. I'm going to get it no matter what. I see people unconsciously become lawyers for their fear. Like they build a whole case, a whole case. Well, this is just how I am. And I've always been anxious and I've never really been disciplined. I'm not a disciplined person. And I am bad with money. And I'm just not the kind of person who follows through and I just self sabotage. And I'm also lazy and I'm like, damn, you have an incredible amount of focus. Like an incredible amount of focus. But. But you don't realize you're just aimed at the wrong thing. Like you're aimed at who you used to be. Like, life is like this. At this moment right now. It's like from, from this moment back to the moment you were born is chapter one. From this moment forward can be chapter two. But a lot of people are just like, I want to keep reading chapter one. I want to keep reading chapter one. Most people are aimed and focused hardcore, consciously and unconsciously on who they used to be versus who they want to be versus the life that they're trying to build. Because obsession is not something that you think about sometimes. Obsession is something that you think about all of the time. It's like this mental orbit. It's always floating around in your head, right? It's the thing that your brain keeps circling back to when you're driving, when you're showering, when you're walking, when you're lying in bed trying to fall asleep. Think about like this. Like the way when I always think about obsession, I always think about. Because this tends to relate with people. Like your first love, like your real first love. The person that you were obsessed with. Like, you weren't. You weren't like casually interested in your first love. Do you remember? You weren't like, yeah, you know what? Like, I think about them every other Thursday when I finish doing my emails, right? Like, no, it was like you were insane. Like you were checking your phone. Like it was a medical device that was trying to keep you alive. Like you heard their name. Oh my God. And like your whole nervous system lit up like a Christmas tree. Like you heard anything, any song with the slightest little hint of a love song or just even a line inside of a song that sounded lovingly and like, oh my God. And you think of them, right? You drive and you pass like a yield sign and you remember the last time you passed that yield sign and were sitting next to you, right? Like you were almost unhealthy obsessed. And I see this with so many people and I remember seeing it with my friends when I was in high school. And I remember being this way in high school. Right. What I want to ask you though, is what would happen if you brought that level of focus to like, who you want to be and the life that you want. And real quick, before I go any further, when I say become obsessed, I don't mean like divorce your wife and not pay attention to your children. I mean, I'm talking about become obsessed because their lives will all become better when you become obsessed with who you're becoming. So like, what would it look like if you brought that level of focus to your life? What would it happen to your future, like your future self if you became the person that you couldn't stop thinking about? Like, what would that be like? What would happen if your identity and your vision and your standards and your mission all just became louder than your fears? 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And now back to the show. Because whether you realize it or not, like your brain is always practicing the future. And so you've got to just ask yourself, like, which future is it? Is it predicting? Is it, you know, going into your default mode because your default mode is not neutral. You realize that like your default mode, which is when you look at the way that the brain works, 5% of our cognitive processing is our conscious mind, which is the part of your mind that wants to succeed and want something different. And 95% of it, which is your default mode, is your old patterns, old limiting beliefs, old identities, those are not neutral. Like your default mode is your current life, your current fears and current excuses and current emotional addictions and your current patterns that you're stuck in your current way of seeing yourself. And so if you do not become obsessed with who you are becoming and become obsessed with what you are building in your life, then you will always fall back into who you've always been. Because that is your default mode. Because your brain is extremely efficient and it loves to fall back to what is familiar. Your brain loves patterns. And we are literally just a bunch of patterns is all that we are. It loves a path that it already knows. There's a thing that they found in psychology called goal shielding. And it shows that when a person becomes like obsessed and deeply committed to like a Focal goal, like just one goal, one north star of where they're moving their life to, their brain can start to reject all other competing goals and distractions. So for people that are like, oh my gosh, I'm so add and I'm so unfocused, I'm so distracted. When you become obsessed with one thing, it allows your brain to start, quote, unquote, goal shielding, which is what it's called, which it allows it to stop focusing on other things, reject all the competing goals, reject all of the distractions so that the main goal becomes easier to pursue. The translation of that. When your goal becomes important enough, your brain starts filtering your life through it. This is what I mean by, like, you have to become obsessed. This is what obsession does. Healthy obsession becomes a filter. It tells your reticular activating system, the filter in your brain, that this matters now, this matters not. All of the other shit I've been focusing on for 40 years, this matters. And this is the number one focus. And this is where we're going to. And all of a sudden, it's weird. It's like you start seeing these synchronicities. You start seeing opportunities and you start having conversations and you notice behaviors and books and people and decisions that align with what you're building. It's the equivalent of when you see, you know, a new car, you want to go drive a car and like, you go drive a Ford and you're like, oh, man, I really like that Ford F150. I've never really thought about owning one before. And you start thinking about owning one, and then all day long all you're seeing is Ford F150s. It's not like they weren't there. They've always been there. But now you're starting to see it because your reticular activating system is not filtering it out anymore. It's the same damn thing with the life that you want. Because right now you've been focusing your entire life and everything that comes in based off of the old you, the old limiting beliefs, the old fears. And when you start focusing on what is it you want and you become obsessed with it, your life starts reorganizing around what you're repeatedly focusing on. And so most people are not doing that consciously. I'm trying to have you do that consciously. Most people are just like waking up and without them realizing it, the old self just starts running the show. Old fears get the microphone to just scream into. So they just hear those all day long. Old wounds choose what they do and what they don't do, like, old beliefs. Decide what's possible for you. Old insecurities. Get to vote on what you're going to be doing in this life. No way, dude. And then your future self is in the corner, and it's like, hey, remember me? Do you want to check in with me? Like, because all you're doing is you're checking in, like, once a week through some cute little journaling session in my life. I want to be this. In 10 years, I want to be this. And then 99% of your week, you're focusing on your old self. No, your future self cannot be your side chick. Right? Your future self has to become the relationship. You have to become obsessed with the life you want. You need to. In that analogy I just gave. Divorce your old self, and your new life needs to become the one that was your side chick. That now you're going to marry and you're going to promote to become married to that new life that you want. You've got to divorce your old self and you've got to marry your new self. Like, imagine if you got married to somebody and you only spent time with them sometimes and they didn't feel like they were a priority for you. Is that going to work out? No, they don't want to be a sometimes relationship if they married you. Be honest with me. Is that how you've treated the life that you want? Oh, I kind of think about it when I sit down for a cute little journaling session for five minutes in the morning. No obsession. Don't think about it sometimes and then just, like, run on your old defaults for the rest of the week because your old patterns, like, they're lightning fast. They have reps, they're good. It has so much momentum. It has so much years of evidence. And your new identity needs repetition, too. It needs you to brainwash yourself before the world brainwashes you into being average. And I mean that like, lovingly. Because the world's constantly telling you what to be. It's constantly like your past is telling you who you need to be. Your family system is telling you who you are. Your trauma is telling you on what you should do. Your body's telling you who you've been. Your environment is telling you what's normal for you. If you do not consciously install the new obsession, your old programming will win. It will. Your subconscious is 19 times stronger than your conscious mind, which means that you're not going to change it by just thinking about every once in a while. You got to Become obsessed with it. And that's why I love talking about reprogramming so much. We are patterns. That's all that we are. We come in this world with all of the hardware that we need, then we get conditioned. And that's the equivalent of the software being installed in us. And some of us have a lot of viruses that we need to uninstall that we got installed in childhood. And so that's our job. You can't always control your first thought, but you can definitely control your second thought. And with enough repetition. And I don't mean like 30 days or 60 days, I mean like 2 years, 5 years, 10 years, your second thought will eventually become your first thought. That is you reprogramming yourself. And so the question is, are you willing to give up your old life and your old self and all that familiarity in order to create the life that you want? Because if you're not, it's not going to work. Because that's what obsession really comes down to. It is all out focus and devotion. It is the repeated decision to stop worshiping your old identity than to start worshiping the future that you're building. And yes, I use the word worship intentionally because some of you have built an altar to your insecurity. It's like you worship your insecurities. You visit it every single morning, you bring it offerings, you give it your energy, you give it your excuses, you give it your dreams, right? And then you wonder why you feel empty, like, take your power back, become unavailable for entertaining. The same limiting belief for the 4000th time of like it's a Netflix series that you can't stop watching. At some point you have to say, I've studied this fear long enough. I have repeated this pattern long enough. I have defended this identity long enough. And I am done being loyal to a version of me that's not even happy or that's not fulfilled or that's not even close to my full potential. That's the real shift. Because most people don't stay stuck because they don't know what to do. You know what to do. Everybody knows what to do to be successful. 90, 95% of an idea, you know what to do, right? Is there some extra stuff you can learn? Sure. Everyone knows what they need to do
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to create a new life.
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But they say stuck because they are emotionally bonded to the old self instead of the new one. So your job is to make the new self emotionally real. Visualize them, journal about them, walk like them, talk like them, make decisions like them. Think about them when you're in the shower, when you're driving your car. Ask yourself what they would do in this moment. Ask yourself better questions like, what would the obsessed version of me do today? What would the version of me in the future that I'm building myself into refuse to negotiate on in this circumstance? What belief would I have to stop believing to become this person? What am I currently getting from staying the same? Like, oof, that's a spicy one, right? What am I currently getting from staying the same? Because staying the same does give you something. It gives you familiarity. It gives you sympathy. It makes your life predictable. It gives you a reason not to risk failure. It gives you protection from judgment and from being seen. It lets you keep the dream, like, perfect in your imagination instead of, like, getting messy in real life. But you will never be a graceful master if you don't allow yourself to be a foolish beginner. So become obsessed. I don't mean frantic. I don't mean, you know, desperate. I don't mean punishing yourself. I don't mean white knuckling your way to burnout. I want you to be devoted to it. I want you to love yourself enough to work hard for the life that you want. I want you to wake up and remember, like, I'm here to build something. I'm becoming someone. My life is not some random accident that I'm reacting to. I am the architect of my life. Because architects don't just, like, stare at an empty plot of land and cry because the mansion isn't there yet. No. They take out their pen and paper, they make a blueprint. They show up, they build, they put down one brick. One brick, one brick. One decision at a time, one uncomfortable conversation at a time, one workout, one honest journal entry, and eventually the structure appears. Not because you wished for it, but because you became obsessed enough to build it. And so today, I just want you to do this. I want you to write this down. Ask yourself this question. Be fully honest with yourself. What am I currently obsessed with that's keeping me the same? Because you're obsessed with something. You are. So what are you currently obsessed with? What fear? What limiting belief, what insecurity you obsessed with that's keeping you the same? And then right after you answer that, what must I become obsessed with? Like, what must I become obsessed with to create the life that I want and then do it? Become obsessed with it. Think about it all day long. Take the action that you need to, because one day, if you do this, you're going to go you know what? I noticed this pattern. I noticed that old software. You know, I know this is not who I am. I know that I'm changing. This is not who I'm becoming. And then what you go is who do I need to be? And you take that next action not because you feel ready, but because you are obsessed with the person and the life that you're building. And that obsession, aimed correctly, might be the one thing that finally sets you free. So that's what I got for you. Today's Episode if you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. Tag me obdialjr. R O B D I A L J R and if you wanna learn more about the wait list to come to my in person event in Austin, Texas later this year, once again go to freedomwaitlist.com once again freedomwaitless.com and 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.
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The Mindset Mentor with Rob Dial
Episode: "You’re Not Obsessed Enough" — June 15, 2026
In this episode of The Mindset Mentor, host Rob Dial challenges listeners to confront the real reason they stay stuck in old patterns: a lack of healthy obsession for the life they want. Rather than offering the usual motivational tips and hacks, Rob offers a direct, loving wake-up call—urging listeners to channel their intense focus not toward their fears or limitations, but toward their highest potential. Drawing on principles from psychology and neurobiology, he breaks down how our brains are wired for familiar patterns and how only deep, single-minded obsession can rewire us for real, lasting change.
"You're not lacking potential. You're not lacking intelligence… you're lacking full on obsession." (03:00)
"I'm watching people fight harder for their limitations than fight for the life that they want... you have an incredible amount of focus. But you don't realize you're just aimed at the wrong thing." (04:40)
"Obsession is not something that you think about sometimes... it's the mental orbit, always floating around your head." (06:00)
"You weren’t like casually interested in your first love... No, it was like you were insane." (07:10)
[11:17]
"When your goal becomes important enough, your brain starts filtering your life through it. This is what obsession does." (13:00)
"Your future self cannot be your side chick. Right? Your future self has to become the relationship." (15:20)
"You've got to divorce your old self and you've got to marry your new self." (16:10)
"Your subconscious is 19 times stronger than your conscious mind, which means that you're not going to change it by just thinking about every once in a while. You gotta become obsessed with it." (17:52)
"Some of you have built an altar to your insecurity... you bring it offerings, you give it your energy, you give it your dreams..." (18:45)
[19:09]
Make your new self emotionally real: visualize, journal, act, and decide as your future self would.
Key questions to ask:
It’s not about frantic effort or burning out; obsession means loving yourself enough to “work hard for the life that you want.”
"I want you to love yourself enough to work hard for the life that you want. I want you to wake up and remember, like, I'm here to build something." (20:43)
The “architect” metaphor:
"You're obsessed with something. You are. So what are you currently obsessed with? What fear? What limiting belief, what insecurity you obsessed with that's keeping you the same?" (21:35)
"Because one day, if you do this, you're going to go you know what? I noticed this pattern. I noticed that old software. You know, I know this is not who I am. I know that I'm changing." (21:50)
"At some point you have to say, I've studied this fear long enough. I have repeated this pattern long enough. I have defended this identity long enough. And I am done being loyal to a version of me that's not even happy or that's not fulfilled or that's not even close to my full potential. That's the real shift." (18:57)
Write and reflect:
Daily repetition:
Rob’s episode delivers a direct, motivating challenge: If you want a radically new life, it's not about reading more or hearing another tip—it's about redirecting your obsession. Become as single-minded and devoted to your future vision as you’ve unconsciously been to your old self. Only then will lasting transformation take place.
“Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better.” — Rob Dial (21:55)