Ep #5: How to overcome your fears

Hello, guys. Good evening. Just waiting for a few guys to jump on. Happy Tuesday. Happy Transformation Tuesday. For those of you that are tuning in on the replay, hello. Welcome again to Transformation Tuesday. And today is gonna be doing a incredible deep dive into fear. Now, fear is one of these things that cripples us. It holds us back. It prevents us from stepping into becoming the most ultimate, most incredible version of ourselves. It is driven by, to a large extent, a lot of unconscious factors that are going on, almost like the metaphor of the stuff below the tip of the iceberg. And what I\’m wanting to do tonight is to unpack what\’s below that iceberg. What\’s those unconscious triggers? What are those parts of ourselves that we\’re maybe not aware of that\’s driving the fear? So becoming aware of it. What are those major programmes that are operating? What are those roles that are going on beneath the surface? Hey, Danny, good to see you here, thanks. Hey, guys, if you\’re tuning in and you\’ve just jumped on, give us a shout-out. Share the love. I love to hear from you, and I\’d love to also hear from you. Hey, Rod. I\’d also love to hear from you what your experiences of overcoming fear as well, \’cause no doubt you\’ve all had your own experiences when we overcome fear. We\’ve all had experiences when we\’ve overcome fear, and there\’s also a whole \’nother level of overcoming fear that perhaps is beyond our level of awareness or beyond our level of experience. So I wanna dive into that and explore what is this thing that we call fear, and how do we overcome it? So I wanna give you guys some strategies and some tangible tools, not just intellectual entertainment, but some practical suggestions and some real life examples of what you can do to eliminate it. Because as being part of the human race, unfortunately there\’s not too many ways of avoiding the fact that it\’s gonna be something that most human beings experience. So, by understanding how to deal with it, how to move beyond it, and how to understand what\’s actually going on at the deeper unconscious level, that\’s where we regain our power. That\’s where we regain conscious awareness. That\’s where we become empowered to transform our experience of reality, because once we overcome fear, boom, we can literally take our life to a whole \’nother level. We can take our relationships, our business, our career, the foundation of our everyday reality, right? That\’s what we\’re talking about overcoming and transforming. So, I\’m gonna get stuck into it, guys, and please feel free to leave some comments as we go through. I\’d love to know, maybe even give me some suggestions as to what your biggest fears are, and I can give you some suggestions on how to bust through those. One of the techniques that I teach in my trainings is how to teach coaches how to help clients overcome fear, things like phobias, how to eliminate negative emotions like depression and sadness and guilt and all those sorts of things. So, fear is just another one of these emotions that we experience, so I\’m gonna dive into it and unpack this for you guys. So again, if you\’ve got any examples of where you\’ve overcome fear, please share it with me, guys. And if you\’ve got any questions as well as we go through, I\’ll endeavour to answer those for you. So let\’s dive in. So first of all, I wanna go through, well, what is fear really? What is this thing that we call fear? And I think it\’s important to remind ourselves that fear in itself is an emotion. It\’s this emotional experience that we have, and it\’s a sense of resistance. It\’s a sense of apprehension. It\’s a future-based emotion where we are predicting what\’s gonna happen in our future. So I touch on this in one of my other Facebook Lives, but I wanna go a level deeper, because fear is a future-based emotion where we create fear by imagining a future negative consequence. That\’s how we actually create it. So that\’s the strategy for how we create fear. Hey, Asha, how are you? Yeah, so that\’s the strategy for creating fear. We simply need to imagine an event that\’s about to happen in our lives, in our relationships, in our business, something, and just imagine that. So we\’re creating a picture in our mind. We\’re imagining that event not going successfully. So that\’s the strategy for creating a degree of fear. So the opposite of that is creating excitement. So in order to create excitement, we imagine a future event, and what we do is we imagine that event going successfully. So that\’s the only difference. That\’s the very subtle distinction between fear and excitement. Both very similar feelings in terms of the sensations in our body, but all that\’s happening is we\’re having a negative imagined experience, as opposed to a positive imagined experience. So as soon we recognise the pattern or the strategy that we\’re doing in our minds, this gives us empowerment to recognise, ah, that\’s how I\’m creating the fear. So let me give you some tangible examples. Someone who has a fear of public speaking. There\’s many different levels of this, and I\’m gonna see how we go depending on the degree in which we\’re gonna unpack this, because it goes down several different rabbit holes. So the first level of fear of public speaking, for example, is ultimately fear that we\’re gonna fuck something up. We\’re gonna underperform. We are going to not get it right, or we\’re not gonna get it perfect, something like that. So we\’re now imagining ourselves slipping up, doing something wrong, doing something undesirable. So that\’s the first thing that triggers our fear, because if we had 100% confidence and if we were focusing on it all going to plan, we wouldn\’t be creating fear. We\’d be creating excitement or we\’d be looking forward to it. So that\’s the fundamental difference from a strategy point of view. That\’s actually playing out inside our mind. That\’s the strategy that we\’re running. Most people aren\’t aware that that\’s actually the strategy. So the first thing is becoming aware if we\’re experiencing fear, that\’s the strategy I\’m running. I\’m imagining a negative event happening in my future. So that\’s the first step, is to intercept that strategy and become aware of it and pause ourselves and stop it and go, \”Ah, cool, I now need to go \”and imagine something positive happening in my future.\” Hey, Fred, good to see you, how are you? So that\’s step one. Now, to go a step further with that example with, say for example, public speaking, we need to now assess, well, what do we need to believe about ourselves such that we can generate the emotion of fear? Now, I\’ll give you some suggestions and hints as to what it is, right? And it is beliefs that we\’ve got about ourselves, about the fact that we won\’t be able to handle it, what it will mean about us at our identity level, what it will mean if someone else judges us. And what it actually is, it\’s essentially bringing up all of our own insecurities. It\’s bringing up our lack of self-worth. It\’s bringing up our externalisation of our sense of self-worth and our validation. So what\’s actually happening is there\’s many, many subprograms, many, I feel like, little sub-icebergs that are underneath the bit of the iceberg under the water that goes down even further. All right, so it\’s not just us afraid of a negative future event that\’s gonna happen, but it\’s what that now means about us at our core. What does that mean about our identity? If someone else is now judging us, what we\’re actually now doing is we\’ve now got a few chinks in the armour, because if we\’re now letting the opinion of someone else infiltrate our barrier about ourselves, what that means is it means that we\’ve got some gaps in terms of our self-worth, our self-love, and our opinion of ourself has got a few issues there. Because if we\’re outsourcing our emotions or our sense of self-worth, if we\’re looking for external validation from our external world to make us choose to feel good about ourselves, it means that we\’re kind of on shaky ground when it comes to our sense of our self-esteem and our self-worth. So straightaway if we have a fear of public speaking, first thing is to recognise, okay, what am I making that mean about myself at my identity level? What am I making it mean about people judging me? What are those insecurities that I\’ve got where I\’m actually? Why do I even care about what anyone else thinks of me? What does someone else\’s opinion matter to me? It brings up all this stuff and we go, hang on, what do I need to believe about my reality to let that external event which is just a random event happening. And again, this is the other thing to remember. Events in life, in this universe, there\’s just matter and energy and time and space all just bouncing around in this cosmic quantum universe, and none of it actually really means anything. It only means something when we observe it. Quantum physics tell us that the observer creates the observed. Until we actually view that event through our own human lens, none of that means nothing. So we need to assess, okay, I\’m now viewing this event. I\’m projecting my own insecurities onto it. I\’m predicting or forecasting what\’s gonna happen, and I\’m now making it mean something about me at my identity level about my self-worth, about me as a human being, my ability to be either liked or loved or accepted or belonging. So straightaway if we do experience fear of something like public speaking. I\’m just using public speaking as an example here. You can apply this to anything. This could be fear of going out in a public place and literally spilling ice cream or chocolate on yourself and then worrying about how someone\’s gonna judge you or worried about you\’re not getting enough likes or wondering if there\’s not enough live viewers on your Facebook Live. Doesn\’t matter what it is. Insert whatever the challenges you\’ve got that you\’re afraid of and go a level deeper and go, \”Wow, what do I need to believe about my reality \”in order to generate this emotion of fear right now?\” Because in an ideal world, if we had 100% unconditional love, 100% compassion for ourselves, 100% resilience and emotional toughness, we\’d be going through life and there\’d be nothing that phases us. So if there is something that phases us, we need to understand, okay, there\’s a belief system. There\’s a series of triggers, both conscious and unconscious, and a lot of this unconscious. So this is the thing, is also have self-compassion and recognise that it\’s a process to dig this stuff out, to become aware of what are these unconscious triggers that\’s driving the fear? And to be honest, I\’ve been working on this for all of my life, and I\’m only now starting to dig out and have overcome most of these unconscious triggers. Now, I still get triggered every now and then, but very quickly when I get triggered, I\’m like, aha, cool. That trigger right there, that\’s giving me awareness of I have some gap on some level. Great, let\’s investigate that. So first thing to do is remember if you experience fear, celebrate it, \’cause when you experience the fear, you know that it\’s triggered something within you at the unconscious level that needs to get resolved. And if it doesn\’t get resolved, if we don\’t become aware of it and then move beyond it and transform that limitation, it will forever be there limiting us. So this is the thing, is to celebrate whenever we get triggered. Now, I touched on this in one of my other Facebook Lives. Whenever we get triggered, doesn\’t matter whether it\’s fear, anger, could be any negative emotion. Again, we need to ask what is the belief system that we have such that that emotion gets generated in the first place? Because person A, that event happens, they might laugh. Person B, they get offended. So what\’s going on there? It\’s the belief system. It\’s got nothing to do with the external trigger. It\’s simply to do with our belief system about what it means. And again, this is very, very deeply unconscious, ingrained within us, which is all our programming, all of our conditioning from all the events in all of our life, all the way up to now. And we have been programmed by all the past events in our lives to have whatever operating software we\’ve got at the moment, what version, whatever Chris version. I\’m 33, let\’s just call it 33.1, and then tomorrow I may evolve to 33.2, right? Which now has maybe less fears, less limiting beliefs, less conditions imposed. So this journey of evolution that we\’re on, when the day we\’re born, when we\’re at version zero, we are so susceptible. We\’re so triggered. We\’re so vulnerable. And then each day that happens as we grow as a human being, something else imprints into us. Something programmes us. Something adds another layer of fear or another layer of insecurity or another layer of judgement . All this stuff just gets cascaded and built and built up and up and up and up. And unless we do the conscious work, unless we actually process it, become aware of it, and do the work at the unconscious level to resolve all of our stuff, it\’s just stuck to us. And this is why I\’m so passionate about sharing the work of things like neuro-linguistic programming and hypnosis and Time Line Therapy, because these are all the modalities that help us unload and offload all the stuff that we\’re holding onto that\’s limiting us, that\’s driving the fear. Where should we go from here? We can take this so many different dimensions. I think probably the most practical is recognising, well, I wanna give you guys some tools on what do you do about this? Well, step one is recognise when you get triggered, when you experience fear. Now, this is where it gets really interesting, and this is where it requires courage, \’cause what you\’ve then gotta do is you say, \”Okay, great, I\’ve just been triggered by my fear.\” Let\’s take a look at it. What\’s my belief system? What are the past experiences that I\’ve had that are generating this fear? What\’s the deeply ingrained unconscious programming that I\’ve got operating that\’s maybe been installed by the role of my mother, the role of my father, the expectations of my peer group, the expectations of my social upbringing? So all those programmed factors, they are contributing to our reaction. Now, again, we\’ve gotta recognise, aha, I\’m getting triggered there. What am I making that mean? What\’s the strategy I\’m running? What am I making that mean about me? And where is my gap such that I\’m being triggered in this way? So again, become aware of it, then ask the question, \”What do I need to believe about my reality \”so that I\’m creating this?\” Now, again, this is all unconscious, so you\’re not gonna know this. It\’s not just gonna pop in your mind and go, \”Ah, I just got triggered from public speaking. \”That\’s because when I was four years old \”and when I was at my dance class, \”I buggered up that little thing in front of people \”and they laughed at me, \”and ever since then I\’ve had this insecurity \”about public speaking.\” Not all of us are gonna know that. There may be something that happened when we were two years old, maybe one year old, maybe zero years old. And for some clients that I work with, there\’s stuff that happens in past lives and stuff that\’s handed down genealogically in your DNA and in your belief system. That\’s a whole \’nother rabbit hole. All I wanna point out is that there\’s all this stuff that\’s happened generally between, and most of it happens in the imprint period, which is the period between zero and seven years old. And during that period when we\’re completely unconscious human beings, what happens is we don\’t have what psychologists call a critical faculty. So when you\’re between the ages of zero to seven when you\’re a kid, you accept things uncritically. Everything that happens just happens and you absorb it. You\’re like a sponge. So whether it be the Easter Bunny or Father Christmas or religion, whatever our experience, whatever our parents are just bombarding us with, whatever\’s on TV, what our school system says, just gets sucked in and it just gets absorbed and imprinted, so that\’s why it\’s called the imprint period. Hey, Lauren, how you doing? So that\’s the thing that recognises in our imprint period, so between the major formative years of our personality and our value system, that is where a lot of the damage, so to speak, gets done when all of these belief systems get created. A lot of the insecurities and a lot of these fears get imprinted. So my point is we need to recognise that there\’s a lot of those events that have happened in our very, very younger, earlier years that have conditioned us and programmed us into playing out certain roles and certain belief systems and certain value systems. Now, we\’ve gotta override all of that. If we\’re still operating from the value systems and the belief systems that we had when we were seven, it\’s like us having the operating software of one of those old Nokia phones, right? It means that our iPhone hasn\’t been updated for 20-odd years. So we\’ve gotta go back and recognise, aha, I\’ve got an old maybe superseded belief system that I\’m still subscribing to, old beliefs, limiting beliefs, lack of self-worth, maybe insecurities. So we\’ve gotta do the work at the unconscious level to bring all those things to our conscious awareness so we can then move beyond them, because that which we are not conscious of, we can\’t actually get a resolution on. So the stuff that we don\’t know about, that\’s the most dangerous stuff, because we\’re unaware of it. Say for example, just like a fish that\’s swimming in a fish bowl and that doesn\’t know that any other universe exists outside its fish tank. We are the same in regards to, look, if we don\’t have any awareness of our triggers, our unconscious limitations, we can\’t move beyond them. We\’re stuck,\’cause this is just our reality and that\’s just the way it is. So this is why things like therapy, like NLP, like having these conversations, they bring up all that stuff, which means we get to deal with it, we get to resolve it, we get to move beyond it. If you don\’t ever have this conscious conversation, if you don\’t ever have the courage to look inward and address what\’s going on, like triggers like fear, we\’ll never move beyond it. It\’s just gonna keep happening over and over. Now, you\’ve obviously heard the quote by Einstein which is, \”Doing the same thing over and over expecting \”a different result is the definition of insanity.\” Well, the same thing goes for all our emotional triggers. If we keep experiencing the same fears, the same limitations, and we don\’t do anything about it, they\’re gonna continue. I\’m sorry, but they\’re gonna continue. Now, one of the ways that you can overcome your fears, which you\’ve probably already heard of, is as Dr. Susan Jeffers says in her book Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway is to just take action, is to literally take action in the face of fear. Now, that takes courage. It takes resilience. Now, this is really important, because that\’s also called, the terminology we use in psychology is systematic desensitisation. Now, systematic desensitisation is pretty much just doing the thing that you\’re afraid of and just doing it over and over and over until it no longer becomes a fear. So that\’s one way, and I recommend that everyone does these comfort zone, what I call comfort, or Tim Ferriss calls \’em comfort zone challenges, which is every day, every week, you\’re doing something that pushes yourself beyond your limitations, and I mentioned this before, whether it be walking into Woolworths, walking into a deli and asking to sample all the little olives in the deli and just eat them, and then when they ask you, \”Which one do you want,\” you just walk away. It could be walking into McDonald\’s and ordering a pizza. \”Sorry, we don\’t sell pizzas.\” Whatever it is, just something fun, something playful where you push your comfort zone bit by bit, progressively to the point where you can do anything in life because you\’ve already handled it. You\’ve built up a resilience progressively, bit by bit to the point where you can ultimately handle anything. Now, they do this with Navy SEALs. They do this with the military. They train these guys to be able to handle incredible challenge and incredible suffering so that when they\’re put in a war zone or when they\’re put in a time of challenge, they\’ve got this, \’cause they\’ve already handled stuff that\’s very, very similar to that. So again, recognise that our conditioning in life, that\’s our training ground. All the experiences in life, what we call negative experiences, all the challenging times, that\’s our training ground, because when we can handle that, we teach our unconscious mind we can handle anything. So the more resilience that you build by going through the tough times, by being challenged, by failing, and even that word failing, I think that\’s actually something to be celebrated, because failing is ultimately, it\’s a controlled way of us pushing past our limits. Now, a way to think about this is, say, if you\’ve ever lifted weights when you\’ve been bench pressing like 50 kilos. When you get up to 50 kilos, you\’ve just reached a new limit. Now, if you wanna get up to 55 kilos, you\’ve gotta stack on the weights and just go for it. Now, you might get there, you might not. You\’re gonna fail. But if you do fail, you\’ve torn some of the muscles, and what you\’re gonna do is you\’re gonna rebuild them and they\’re gonna grow back stronger. So it\’s the same thing in life. It\’s the same thing whether you go through a relationship that ends. It\’s the same thing whether you go through a business that fails or a relation, sorry, a career that ends or someone around you close to you dies or a friendship breaks down. All these what we call negative experiences are there in life. I mean, it\’s the rollercoaster of life that\’s there to give us all the contrasting experiences, which is what we\’re here for anyway. It\’s all those contrasting experiences that\’s giving us the grit, the determination, the resilience, building that muscle, that emotional, mental, intellectual, spiritual muscle that we need to be able to handle all the other stuff that\’s coming in life. So this is our training ground. So whenever we experience some sort of negative trigger, we gotta lean into it and go, \”Great,this is my training period.\” This is me lifting heavier weights in the gym. This is me pushing myself instead of running 10 kilo, sorry, 10 kilometres, I\’m now gonna run 15 kilometres today and push myself beyond my limitations. And when we consistently push ourselves beyond all our limitations in all the dimensions of our life, whether it be business, finances, relationship, health, when we start to expand in all those dimensions of life, we start to teach ourselves, I\’ve got this. I can trust myself, \’cause I\’m progressively expanding my comfort zone, progressively pushing past all those limitations which my programming has told me, \”That\’s all you can do.\” The same thing, if you\’ve only ever lifted 50 kilos before in the gym on the bench and you\’ve never lifted 50 before, a lot of people will think, I guess that I can\’t lift more than that. That\’s all I\’ve ever lifted. Until you try and you realise, ah, actually i could lift more than that. Oh, great. And you start pushing up. Lift a bit more, life a bit more, lift a bit more. So it\’s the same in life. We\’ve always gotta be constantly pushing ourselves outside of our comfort zone and pushing the limits of what\’s possible, because who knows? We might be able to lift a hundred kilo on the bench, 200 kilo on the bench. Hell, there\’s people in the Olympics that are lifting probably 400 and 500. I don\’t know what they\’re lifting, but they\’re lifting a lot of weights. Ronnie Coleman… If you haven\’t seen any Ronnie Coleman videos, that guy is hilarious. He lifts some massive weights. Anyway, I digress. Where were we? Yeah, so we\’re talking about systematic desensitisation. So it\’s important to be taking steps, taking actions every single day and planning controlled failure. Setting ourselves up to fail, knowing it\’s in a controlled environment, knowing that we can handle it, and knowing that we\’re gonna bounce back. We\’re gonna become more resilient, more emotionally tough, and we\’re gonna be able to deal with life. And by going through as many of those experiences as we can, what it gives us is it gives us that self-trust. That\’s what it gives us. It gives us the ability to know, yeah, cool, I\’ve got this. I can handle it. At every experience where we go for something, we\’re communicating to our unconscious mind, \”You\’ve got this, let\’s do it.\” Now, every time we hesitate, we communicate to our unconscious mind, \”Uh, don\’t do that, risky. \”You can\’t handle it.\” So again, that\’s what\’s actually being communicated. This is another thing. When we don\’t follow through on our promises. Say for example, you\’ve committed to a certain exercise programme or you\’ve committed to following a certain diet. And you get to it and you go, \”Oh, I\’m gonna start my diet tomorrow,\” or \”Oh, it\’s a little bit cold this morning. \”I\’m not gonna go out and exercise this morning.\” What that\’s doing is it\’s teaching our unconscious mind we can\’t be trusted. When you break your promise to yourself, you\’re communicating to your unconscious mind that you can\’t be trusted. That\’s what it\’s doing. So again, we need to recognise that following through on committing and following through on our promises is one of the ways of really installing and integrating at the deepest unconscious level that I actually can keep my promises to myself, so I now trust myself. Now, it\’s not always comfortable, but now we\’re gonna start following through because we recognise, well, if I don\’t follow through, I\’m training my unconscious mind that I can\’t be trusted. Now, the important thing here is to also recognise that we need to have compassion for ourselves. What do I mean? Well, we need to have compassion for ourselves by recognising that sometimes we\’re not gonna be able to follow through. Sometimes we\’re not gonna be able to hit the target. And it\’s in those moments where we need to communicate to our unconscious mind consciously, right, and actually send the messages, send affirmations, have conscious thought patterns of, cool, I strived for it, i didn\’t quite make it, and that\’s okay. I did my best, and I\’m gonna try it again next time and I\’m gonna push myself again. So there\’s this ongoing conditioning process that needs to happen. We need to be very, very conscious and stand guard at the door of our mind about all the signals and all the ports, because every thought we have, literally it\’s sending signals to our unconscious mind all throughout our body. And the more negative thoughts that we have, the more that we\’re imprinting negative beliefs, \’cause that\’s all a belief is. A belief is simply a thought that we\’ve had on repeat consistently so many times, and it\’s formed a neural pathway that gets connected to an emotion that then forms a belief. All right, so that\’s all a belief is. It\’s simply when we\’re having a thought on repeat, voila, you\’ve now programmed your belief system. Now, when you start to change your thinking, start to change your thoughts, and then couple that with action and emotion, that\’s how you update and transform and change all of your belief system. So this is why taking action is so important. Now, some of you may have related, but when we learn something intellectually but never action it and never take action and never follow through, the learning, it purely stays mental. It purely stays intellectual. So we know it cognitively and we kinda know, yeah, I\’ll be okay, but if we don\’t take action to push through, we don\’t retrain our unconscious mind that we can handle it. So it simply stays in the domain of just being this kind of fluffy, intellectual learning and we don\’t embody it, we don\’t integrate it. So this is why taking action is so important, because when we take action, we now update the software and we now update that thought pattern throughout our body by linking it emotionally to our experience. And we now have a belief system that\’s now changed \’cause we now have evidence and we now have action and behaviour that\’s now been updated. So where, and this is another beautiful power question, so write this question down, is \”where in my life should I be taking action right now?\” \”where I\’m held back by fear\”? \”Where in my life should I be, do I want to be taking action, but I\’m held back by fear\”? That\’s an ultimate power question, because what it will do is it will tell you where you wanna be moving forward, where you wanna be making momentum, where you wanna be making progress, but your unconscious mind is sabotaging you. It\’s holding you back. So there\’s ultimate power there in asking that question, \’cause if you know what you should be doing, if you know what you wanna be doing but there\’s something holding you back, you\’ve gotta identify, well, what is that? \’Cause it\’s like driving in your car with a handbrake on. Right? Most of us are going through life with multiple handbrakes on. They\’re literally handbrakes at our unconscious level that\’s holding us back. We\’re simply not aware of it. So that\’s the question that will elicit and bring to conscious awareness what\’s holding it back. I\’ll give you some other quick, really powerful questions, is what\’s the biggest thing in life holding you back right now? What\’s the biggest thing holding you back right now? Now, again, your level of awareness around how you answer this question will to a large degree tell you how empowered you are. Because if there\’s something in your external world that you think is holding you back, then that\’s every disempowering and that\’s placing your source of power outside of yourself, which means it\’s ultimately victimhood. Try it on. As opposed to if the biggest thing holding us back right now is internally within us, right, internally, we now are empowered \’cause we can change it. I\’ll give you an example. Someone now might be saying, \”The biggest thing holding me back right now is money. \”I don\’t have enough money.\” This is a classic one, right? Now, again, what do you reckon? That\’s pretty disempowering, \’cause it\’s like the number of digits in your bank account is holding you back, right? Just try this on. Right, a more empowering way of looking at that might be bringing it internal and taking responsibility for it would be, okay, the biggest thing holding me back right now would be maybe my attitude towards wealth creation, my lack of a wealth creation strategy, maybe my limiting beliefs around money, my lack of consistency, maybe my lack of resilience, maybe my lack of my courage, maybe my lack of actually doing something about changing my external world. So what we\’re now doing is we\’re now taking responsibility for, well, that\’s just an external circumstance. That\’s an external factor in my life. How can I take responsibility for that circumstance and be at, well, we call that a cause. Take responsibility for, well, I\’ve created that through all of my decisions through my upbringing, through all the events in all of my life, and I\’ve got to this point right now in my life and that\’s the circumstance, and I take responsibility. I\’ve created that. No one else has created it. I\’ve created it through all the choices, both conscious and unconscious choices I\’ve made throughout my life. And this is a place of empowerment. Great, I\’ve created my life the way it is. Now, yes, maybe I would like more money. So, great, what we do is we say, well, the biggest thing holding me back right now is not having money. It\’s me maybe not investing in my education, me not having a wealth creation strategy, me not having the courage, the determination, the resilience, the passion, the knowledge, the wisdom, all that stuff that\’s gonna generate the money. So the money is a symptom. The money is something that shows up as a result of us turning up as the best version of ourselves. So we\’ve gotta bring the cause of any of the dysfunction in our life back internally, take responsibility for it, claim it, own it, and that gives us empowerment. That place of empowerment is everything that we need to transform our life, \’cause we can now make different actions, take different actions, different decisions, different behaviours. We can learn different things. So that\’s just one example of where we can take responsibility for transforming our life. Wealth creation is one of those things. Now, I\’m just gonna drop into this one here \’cause I think this is really important and I\’ve had a lot of questions around wealth creation. The thing about wealth creation is… There\’s so many dimensions here. There\’s so many degrees here. The thing about wealth creation is, yes, it\’s a strategy. Yeah, in order to accumulate wealth, there is a particular strategy that if you execute that strategy, you will generate wealth. Right, you go and see a financial planner. You speak to anyone in the financial industry, they\’ll say, \”Great, if you put your money \”in this, this, and this investment, \”you can predict with a reasonable degree of accuracy \”what your net worth\’s gonna be in so many years.\” Yes, that\’s the strategy. Now, in order to get into the strategy, in order to understand and actually implement and actually do the strategy, we\’ve gotta do the work up here at the mindset dimension to actually follow the strategy,right? \’Cause the strategies are pretty black and white. If you follow the strategy, it\’s like baking a cake. If you add that ingredient, you cook that for a certain number of time, you take it out, you\’re gonna get a cake. Same with wealth creation, right? So wealth creation and success has been understood for quite some time. So if we follow the strategy, we get the result. Where we\’re empowered is where we recognise, well, is it that I don\’t know the strategy, or is it that I know the strategy and I\’m choosing not to implement it? So which one is it? So if we don\’t know what the strategy is, it like, okay, great. The solution then becomes become educated on wealth creation. Understand the strategy. Understand, maybe surround ourselves with mentors, read books, take courses, understand and build up the knowledge around wealth creation. If we already know wealth creation strategies but we\’re not implementing, we\’re not putting money away, then we\’ve gotta check in and say, okay, well, that\’s me. That\’s my internal game, as opposed to the external strategy. So again, taking responsibility for that. So I trust I\’m creating a powerful distinction here around internally owning where we need to take responsibility for something, as opposed to placing it outside ourselves. Because when we place the cause of our problems outside ourselves, it\’s the quickest way to feel disempowered. That\’s the quickest way to fuck ourselves up, because we\’re now outsourcing our power and we\’re now a victim. We\’re now blaming the world, the universe, life, and saying, \”Well, life hasn\’t worked out the way I planned. \”Poor me,\” right? Whereas what I\’m suggesting is we take responsibility and say, \”Great, I\’ve created it.\” Celebrate the fact that I\’ve created my life the way it is right now. In the same way, and I\’ll give you another example, our health. Same way, we might not have the level of health that we wantnow, the level of health that we\’re experiencing in terms of our fitness, our nutrition, our energy, our vitality. Again, generally most people understand how to be healthy. It\’s not this big mystery of how to be healthy. All you need to do is just go and read some books on health. I mean, again, I know that health is very, very complex and there\’s a lot of different perspectives, but generally there\’s some major fundamental principles of nature that you can follow and, again, coming down to a strategy, you know you\’ll be healthy. So the question here again is, is it that I don\’t know what to do to be healthy, or is it me, I\’m just simply not implementing the strategies that I already know? And that comes down to motivation. That comes down to awareness of limiting beliefs. That comes to our awareness of our core values. That comes down to our sense of identity. That comes down to everything internally within us. It\’s not an external thing. We gotta own that and say, \”Yeah, I\’m not implementing the strategy. \”I know what to do. \”I\’m choosing not to do it.\” Now, we might not be consciously choosing to do it. We might be unconsciously choosing to do something. Now, an unconscious choice is also known as a habit. So if we now have unconscious choices where we\’re doing things, we\’re choosing to do things, but it\’s unconscious, that means we\’ve got a habit to, if you like, write over the top of, to transform, to eliminate. Now, again, you\’ve probably heard the research, like 30 days to create a habit, 67 days to create a habit, whatever it is, whatever that period of time is. Yes, there\’s a period of time which it takes us to rewrite and rewire our neurology and our neural pathways to take different actions. So, yes, sometimes we\’ve gotta commit to taking action. Again, it\’s action. It\’s taking action even when it\’s not comfortable, even when, yeah, maybe this isn\’t necessarily feel-good, but I\’m gonna take action anyway. And a classic example was for me the other day when I woke up. It\’s pretty cold here now in Perth. I\’ve got my alarm set off at five o\’clock. Now, I snoozed my alarm the other day, and I was thinking, geez, it\’s cold outside. Woo, I might just have another five minutes under my nice warm blanket. And then straightaway the next day I kind of reflected on that and go, I\’m starting to let my game drop. I\’m starting to let my standards slip. As soon as that alarm goes off, I gotta do this, because otherwise I\’m gonna start teaching my unconscious mind it\’s okay just to snooze. It\’s okay to just sleep in, right? Now, don\’t get me wrong, I like sleeping in a little bit on the weekend, but when it\’s Monday to Friday and I need to get a job done, I\’m waking up and I\’m going for it. So again, I wanna raise my standards and I wanna teach my unconscious mind that it can be trusted. And what I\’m gonna do is I\’m gonna follow through on that even if I don\’t feel good, even if it\’s cold outside. And I\’m gonna go for my run. I\’m gonna go down to my gym downstairs and I\’m gonna work out, even though it\’s not comfortable, right? This is the thing about life, is we\’ve gotta follow through and take action, not because it\’s comfortable, not because it\’s enjoyable, but because it\’s important. Now, this is the thing about living our values. Our core values are the things in life which are important to us. The thing about living a successful life is not always doing what\’s convenient or what\’s enjoyable, but it\’s following through on what\’s important. Key distinction here. Enjoyable versus important, yeah? When we follow through on what\’s important, successful life. Achieving our goals, creating health, creating wealth, for example, as opposed to doing what\’s comfortable or what\’s enjoyable. Well, yeah, it might feel nice at the time, right, but, again, there\’s reward for delayed gratification, for doing something because it\’s important and doing it because it aligns with our greater good, not just the short term, temporary, in the moment joy. So that\’s the distinction I wanna make. And again, we\’ve gotta create a standard around this. We\’ve gotta create a standard that says do I wanna live my life just based on what\’s enjoyable and just what feels good at time, or do I wanna commit to having a principle by which I\’m committing to excellence where I\’m gonna live this and I\’m gonna do this because it\’s important to me and knowing that I\’m now teaching my unconscious mind my standards and if I can be trusted or not. So I appreciate that this is a stretch to get to that level of standard, and I\’m constantly stretching my standards and sometimes I get challenged as well and sometimes I go back and hit the snooze button. Yeah, and that happens. And when that happens, I recognise it and I go, cool,I\’ve just gotten a little bit slack. I\’ve gotten a bit sloppy. Let\’s boost the standards again. Let\’s do this. And again, I think we need to do that in all the different dimensions of our lives. And I think when we elevate our standards across all the different parts of our lives, including relationships and finances and wealth creation and business and career and health, when we elevate and become conscious about all the standards across all the areas of our life, that\’s how we master our life. It\’s by having standards, right? So it\’s one thing to value something when something\’s important, but it\’s another thing to have standards around it, right, \’cause you might say that wealth creation is important or health is important. Yeah, it\’s important. Well, what are you doing about it? And I say that with love, \’cause there\’s so many times in my life where I\’ve said something was important and I was just giving it lip service. So it\’s when we actually take a look under the hood and we go, \”Hang on, is this really important to me?\” And how do I know if I\’m living that value? How do I know if I have standards of excellence around that? And again, we\’ve gotta hold ourselves accountable. We\’ve gotta take a look under the hood and say, \”Well, hang on, how am I doing?\” And it ultimately takes a level of courage and accountability. Hey, John, how you doing, buddy? Good to see you here, man. Yeah, it takes a level of courage and accountability and actually assessing your life and saying, \”How am I doing?\” And confronting the gap. That\’s what it\’s about, it\’s about looking and saying, \”Look, there\’s always gonna be gaps. \”No one has a perfect life.\” But it\’s saying, \”What are my standards now? \”What do I want my standards to be?\” That\’s ultimately what it\’s about. And it\’s about constantly closing the gap between where we are now and where we wanna be. And then when we get to that new standard, we can then raise our standard. There\’s a whole \’nother new standard available, right? So again, it\’s the same thing as when you go to the gym. You might set a target of bench pressing 50 kilo. Then you get to 50 kilo, and it\’s like now let\’s set a new goal. Let\’s lift 60 kilo. Then you get to 60, then you say, \”Let\’s lift 70.\” That is life. That is exactly what life\’s about. It\’s about constantly pushing ourselves, expanding ourselves, and striving to push beyond all of our limitations. In life what we do is we set a perimeter. We set a fence line around what we believe to be possible for our life. Now, that fence line just basically maps out where we feel comfortable operating within. And we\’ve gotta constantly push the fence line out and see how much we can fuck with reality, so to speak. How can we push the limits of what\’s possible and start to put on a couple of extra kilos on our bar and start to lift some bigger weights and just test out to see how we go? So my question to you is where are you planning a small gain? And this is question for me as well. Where are we all planning a small gain? And I think that question, again, it\’s asked with love, it\’s asked with compassion, and it\’s asked from the frame of let\’s get better at life. Let\’s master our life. And that question, I think, is really empowering, \’cause it\’s like, great, there\’s work to be done. And again, it doesn\’t need to have judgement of self. It doesn\’t need to have putting ourselves down. It doesn\’t need to be competing with someone else. It doesn\’t need to come from the space of the ego. It comes from a place of heart space about how do we improve the quality of our life? How do we show up with more determination, more energy, more passion, more love for the world? So how do we experience more? Not because we\’re lacking, but how do we experience more so that we can give more, so we can be more and experience a greater quality of life? Anyway, I\’m not surewhere I was going with that. I went on a bit of a rant. But my point is this: when we have the courage to ask the questions and take a look inward and see where are we not taking responsibility for the results that we\’ve got out there, that\’s ultimate empowerment. It\’s the best empowerment. It means that we can actually own, yeah, I\’ve got a result in my life that I perhaps maybe don\’t want, and I can take responsibility for I\’ve caused that, I\’ve created that, and I can change that by me changing myself. Our external world is simply a reflection of our internal world. I\’ll say that again, just \’cause it\’s important. Write this down. Our external world is a reflection of our internal world. What that means is it means when we update our software, when we update our belief system, our values, our standards, everything that\’s within us, our external world will magically update, and it\’s bizarre how it happens. But at the end of the day, there\’s no other option. You can\’t force the external world to change. It\’s like looking in the mirror and smiling at the mirror. Oh, sorry, expecting the mirror to smile back at you without first smiling. That\’s the metaphor. If we wanna change anything in our lives, we\’ve gotta first change our internal perspective, our internal belief system, our internal values, our internal unconscious programming. We\’ve gotta change us internally first, change the programming, and then the external will automatically update. That\’s the way that it works. That\’s the fundamental universal principle of life. So that is empowerment. That is us taking control and taking responsibility of our life at its finest. Anyway, guys, I\’m gonna finish up there. I\’m not sure how long I\’ve been going for. I\’ve just been in the zone sharing this with you. Quick summary of what we\’ve covered, which is really looking at fear and understanding where we have a trigger, where we have a gap. We\’ve gotta take a look inward and say, \”Okay, what\’s my gap?\” Great, celebrate it, have compassion, have self-awareness, and then say, \”Righteo, let\’s move beyond the gap.\” What\’s that trigger? What\’s that external event? What\’s my reality out there reflecting back in terms of feedback? What\’s it telling me about myself, about the work that needs to be done? And there\’s a gift in everything, whether it be a fear, anger, lack of financial abundance, lack of health, whatever it is. There\’s an external world giving us all the feedback we\’re ever gonna need to recognise, great, there\’s some unconscious internal software that we need to update, need to reprogram ourselves, because what got us here is giving us our particular set of results that we\’re experiencing. It\’s like a rudder on a ship. Right, the rudder on a ship, it\’s sending a ship in a particular direction. That\’s the trajectory, that\’s our destiny in life. Now, if we wanna course correct, we\’ve gotta change the direction of the rudder on our ship. Now, to change that direction, that requires energy. That requires work. That requires us transforming our deepest, most unconscious programmes that have been around our whole entire life. So just getting to New Year\’s Eve and just deciding, yeah, I\’m wanna lose 20 kilos, all right, you can understand why a lot of people fail in that, because they\’re making a decision without updating the internal software, the unconscious programming that\’s been around for our whole entire life to make different decisions. So again, this process of changing our unconscious mind, it\’s a journey, it\’s a process. It requires work. And just like bathing, it\’s recommended daily. So this is why we need daily practises around self-love, daily meditation practises, daily reflection. We all need, myself included, we all need transformational coaching. We all need mentoring. We all need people to reflect to us our gaps. We all need assistance. We all need to be supported. We all need to have self-compassion. We all need to be on this conscious journey together, not blaming, not playing the victim, but just coming from a place of love and compassion, saying, \”Cool, we\’ve got some work to do.\” Let\’s do it, let\’s go on this epic journey of self-discovery and let\’s transform ourselves, because that\’s the purpose of life. Our purpose of life is to evolve. It\’s to push beyond our limitations. That\’s our purpose of life, is to have contrasting experiences in this world that gives us evolution. It gives us growth and it gives us experience unfolding. And we can handle it. The reason why we can handle it is because we\’re not given anything that we can\’t handle in life. I trust that was insightful. I trust that added value to you guys. And this is something I get really excited about and passionate about, and I just love to share this, so I trust you\’ve gotten value from it. I really like sharing it. And if you\’ve got any other suggestions, guys, for other topics that you\’d love for me to cover coming up on Transformation Tuesdays, please just send me a message. Thanks, Rod, good to see you here, brother. Please, ask me questions, and I\’m happy to share the best of what I know. I\’m gonna leave it there, guys. As always, I love you guys lots. I\’m gonna see you guys again for the next Transformation Tuesday. Signing out. I\’ll see you guys again very soon. See you guys.