Dhru Purohit Show - What Your Limiting Beliefs Are Costing You, And How to Overcome Them with Shelly Lefkoe

Episode Date: December 22, 2022

This episode is brought to you by BiOptimizers and Cozy Earth.  Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru sits down with international key speaker and philanthropist Shelly Lefkoe to talk about the top ways our belief systems hold us back from living our most fulfilling lives. Dhru and Shelly share their personal stories about overcoming their limiting beliefs and how understanding where they come from and the meaning we assigned to them is key to letting go.  Shelly Lefkoe is the co-founder of the Lefkoe Institute, a San Francisco Bay Area firm whose mission is “to significantly improve the quality of life on the planet." Shelly has helped thousands of clients worldwide eliminate emotional patterns such as fear, hostility, shyness, anxiety, depression, worry about what people think of them, and a negative sense of themselves. She is the author of Parenting the Lefkoe Way - a manual for raising confident kids.  In this episode, Dhru and Shelly dive into:  -The top ways our beliefs create stress in our lives (2:14) -Swapping out the question, “what will people think of me?” with a more empowering one (18:57) -How to begin unpacking the limiting beliefs we have supporting evidence for (26:43) -How we can begin to step into freedom and live our best lives (46:56) -Getting rid of old beliefs, and replacing them with new ones (59:47) -If we let go of our beliefs, does that mean our lives lose meaning or value? (1:07:23) -Figuring out how our limiting beliefs are connected to pain and suffering (1:17:19) -What to do if you feel scared about letting a belief go (1:24:22) -Breaking free from limiting beliefs when it doesn’t seem possible (1:35:20) -Final thoughts and where you can follow Shelly’s work (1:37:26) Also mentioned in this episode: -Eliminatebeliefs.com -Lefkoeinstitute.com For more on Shelly Lefkoe, follow her on Instagram, @shellylefkoe and through her website, Lefkoeinstitute.com.  For more on Dhru Purohit, follow him on Instagram @dhrupurohit, Twitter @dhrupurohit, and YouTube @dhrupurohit. Magnesium Breakthrough really stands out from the other magnesium supplements out there. BiOptimizers is offering my community 10% off, so just head over to https://www.magbreakthrough.com/dhru with code DHRU10. Cozy Earth are the most comfortable, temperature-regulating, and nontoxic sheets on the market. Right now, get 40% off your Cozy Earth sheets. Just head over to https://www.cozyearth.com and use code DHRU. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

No matter what you do, somebody's not going to like it. So you may as well do what you want. However, what might the consequences of my actions be? Way better question. Today's conversation is about how to break free of limiting beliefs that hold us back in all aspects of life. Whether you have a health goal, whether you have a goal in your relationship, whether you want to make progress on some creative endeavor that's important to you, we must capture. and identify our old belief systems that are holding us back and understand that they are not true.

And that's what today's conversation is all about. Welcome to the Drew Prod podcast. Each week, we explore the inner workings of the brain and the body with one of the brightest minds in wellness, medicine, and mindset. This week's guest is Shelley Lefco. Shelly Lefco is the co-founder of the Lefco Institute, a San Francisco-based firm whose mission is to significantly improve the quality of life on the planet.

Shelley, who's been a guest on the podcast previously, has helped thousands of clients, including many of you who have reached out to her, recreate their lives by ridding themselves of a wide variety of problems, including phobias, relationships that never seem to work, violence, procrastination,

unwillingness to confront people, health and wellness issues, and even sexual dysfunction. Her clients have eliminated emotional patterns such as fear, hostility, Shyness, anxiety, depression, worry, and so much more. But most importantly, they've rid themselves of what people think of them and the negative sense of themselves.

Today's conversation with Shelley expands on all these ideas and more, starting with the most fundamental thing of what are our beliefs. How do some of them hold us back from the things that we say are important to us in life? And how do we begin to be aware of them so that we can let them? them go. It's a fascinating conversation with Shelly. I hope you enjoy. Stay tuned. Shelly, welcome back to the podcast. It's pleasure to have you here. I want to jump right in. We're talking about beliefs and stress. So I want to start at the top. What are some of the top ways that our beliefs can cause more stress in our life, which impacts everything, including,

of course, our health and fitness goals? Everything. And it's great to be back. it's always great to be with you. Yeah. So there's, so first of all, I just want to, for people who haven't seen me, I want to say that my definition of beliefs is a statement about reality that you hold as the truth. So when I talk about beliefs, that's what I mean. It's something that is true, so nothing else can be true if that is. Right. It's true for them, but it may not necessarily be true in the larger context. And we're going to unpack all that. Exactly. And I'll tell you also how these beliefs get formed. But the basic beliefs that get in our way are in different categories. So self-esteem beliefs. If you believe, I'll never get what I want, or I'm not good enough, or I'm not important. And those are the most common beliefs that people have. You're not going to feel good about yourself. And when you have a project to do or when somebody asks you to do something, or you want to stop doing something you're doing or start doing something you're not doing,

you get stressed because the insecurities start to surface, that I'm not good enough is in your face, that I don't have what it takes is in your face. Other people are smarter than me. I'm not smart. Those beliefs, and those are so common, Drew, I now have clients in every country around the world. And I was working with this woman in Kuwait. And same beliefs, same source, as, you know, my clients in the States and Australia. So these beliefs are mostly unconscious. We don't even know that we have them. But they cause tremendous stress. Now, we also have beliefs about people. People can't be trusted. You know, people are going to screw me over. people are only out for themselves.

You know, we have all these beliefs about people. Now we're stressed because we have to go into business with people or, you know, we have to ask for what we want from people or sell to people or whatever it is. The stress starts happening because, oh, God, that person can't be trusted, you know. I've heard this great quote by the author Seth Godin, who writes a lot about marketing, but really writes a lot about life. He says stress is one thing going one way and another thing going another. So going one way is, in your example, is our potential, our opportunities, our opportunity

to self-actualize and be our highest version of ourself. And then going in the other way is all our old beliefs, which often aren't even things that we've chosen to believe. They're often inherited, which we'll talk about in a little. little bit. So I always thought that was a good example. One side of you is going one way and another side of you is going another. And that tension is what we cause call stress. Yeah. And in life, you're kind of, you know, running this marathon called life. And every time a belief comes up, it stops you. So it's like a roadblock. Like a roadblock, exactly, like an obstacle,

like something in your way that stops you tremendously. It's what makes people procrastinate. It causes fear of public speaking. Things that, you know, fear is always caused by a real or imagined threat to your survival, right? You take away the threat to the survival, fear goes away. There is no threat to your survival

when you speak in public. There's no threat to your survival when you have to ask for a raise. All these things that cause fear, in us, which causes stress, right, are caused by beliefs. Now, there's a third kind, there's another kind of belief called a survival strategy belief. Let me go back for a second. So if you have beliefs about life, life is hard, I'll never get what I want. You have to work yourself to death to be successful. And people have, again, very common people have

beliefs like that. So the stress of I have to work myself to death to be successful, now I have no life. I don't have hobbies. I don't have friends. I don't take care of my health. You know, I am a, I love your podcast. I'm a definite, rabid fan of your podcast. In fact, you're what a challenge. Changed my life. Everybody should look it up. It has changed my life. The morning hydration challenge. The morning hydration challenge. Oh, thank you. Oh, my God. I tell every body I mean about that. Oh, thank you. And I listen to you talk about health.

And, you know, this body is the body that, it's, it's like I say to people, you know, you certainly wouldn't let your car not have gas in it. You wouldn't not change the oil. You do maintenance for your car. You know, we take care of our car because our car gets us where we want to go. But our bodies, I talk to people who are workaholics, and they do. don't work out and they don't sleep well and they don't eat well, you know, and they wonder why they're sick and stressed. And it is our beliefs that keep us from taking care of ourselves,

which causes stress. Yeah. It seems another area that our beliefs drive a lot of stress is also when we do start to head down the path of making a change, people hit that upper limit because of their beliefs and they think I don't deserve it or this is just a temporary phase I know I'm going to fall off the wagon people often use that phrase yeah and when they do they use that as an excuse to beat themselves up I find that the world is so polarized right now primarily because people are polarized inside themselves people are so harsh on themselves and if the world could step into a little bit more individual empathy, empathy for I'm trying my best, empathy for even if I get off the wrong track, I can always turn back on, empathy for,

you know, I'm trying to make the world a better place. That gives you a little bit of grace and you're more likely to pass on that grace to other people, which makes you a more kinder, gentler, caring and still forceful, human being, forceful in the sense that you're still a force in your life. still go after the things that are out there. You can still make a difference. You can still have an impact. You can advocate for anything that you want to, but it really starts off with empathy. And if you don't have empathy, it's probably your beliefs getting in the way. Yeah. And preference is fine. Drivenness is not. And I want to explain about survival strategy

beliefs. So we come into this world and we don't know anything about the world. And we don't know anything about the world. And we come into this, or ourselves or life or money or anything. And we come into this little world called our family. And we watch our parents, right? And the one word question that every little kid asks all day long is, why? Why? Exactly. Why can't I have dessert? Why can't I have a play date. Why do I have to go to sleep? They just want to know why. So if mom and dad are struggling and complaining about money, why is that? Well, money must be scarce and hard to get, right? Life must be hard. My parents are struggling. And because we think we see our beliefs in the world, right? So people say, but I saw that life was hard. No, you saw your parents' life was hard. You didn't see life was hard. You

saw your parents criticize you, you didn't see that you're not good enough. So in the first six to eight years, these self-esteem beliefs get formed. Now, I don't want to go through life feeling not good enough. So one day, somebody acknowledges me for my accomplishments. So I get an A or I score a goal. now all of a sudden I say, oh, what makes me good enough is achieving things. Now I have a beach ball called I'm not good enough. I got to hold it underwater by achieving things because if I'm only good enough when I'm achieving things, then I have to constantly do it because this is constantly coming in my face. That's workaholism. That causes stress. It can't. It can't. It keeps people from taking care of themselves. Because if what makes you good enough is achieving things,

I don't have time to exercise. I don't have time. I just worked with this woman. She said to me, Shelly, I don't have time to cook for myself. She said, I said, well, stop at Whole Foods on the way home. You know, pick up a salad with chicken or something, you know. But, you know, well, you know, because she eats fast food. And her beliefs, when you listen to her talk, it's like what matters where her focus is, is on achieving and achieving because if she stops up in her faces, I'm not good enough. And nobody wants to live with that. So these survival strategy beliefs, what makes me good enough is pleasing people. What makes me good enough or what makes me important is having people think well of me. So that was my belief. You know, that was what ran my

life. My mother only wanted me to be happy and have fun and everybody loved me. And, oh, Drew loves you. He's your friend. Oh, that's so wonderful. You know, that's what was important in my life. So I started believing that what made me good enough was having people think well of me. Or is another way to say the opinions of other people. So the opinions of other people was defining your worth. Exactly. And so when you had it, you're on Cloud 9.

When you don't have it, what would you see in your life? What would you experience? Stress. So I would go home and go, I wasn't invited to the party. What's wrong with me? Why wasn't I invited? And she was invited and she's, you know, and this conversation would be, you know, and it would be like, oh God, why wasn't I invited?

Or this one doesn't want to be my friend anymore. or she hasn't called, or it just was this constant conversation. And when I got, and it affected how I presented myself. So I would always dress in monochromatic clothes because I didn't want to look too wild or too self-expressive, what if somebody thought something. And what's so interesting is I just Tenant Insight. I play pickleball and I'm passionate about it. And I had a little tendinitis in my knee, which is gone. And I had to wear a sleeve. And so I couldn't wear it with my workout pants. So I had to get a skirt. And I do not have great legs, right? I mean, and I'm going great. Is that a belief? Yes. And I'm going crazy trying to find longer skirt.

And one day I was just kind of like, Shelly, just get a, you know, get skirt. And now I don't care. It's like, it's not that I don't care what people think. It just no longer defines me. So when I spoke in Croatia in front of 600 people, I was able to be my authentic self. And people, no matter what you do, and I told this to my kids when I was raising my, kids, no matter what you do, somebody's not going to like it. So you may as well do what you want. However, before you do anything, stop and ask yourself, what might the consequences of my actions be? And do I want to live with those consequences? Way better question. So when your kids get into high school and somebody says, oh, let's have unprotected sex or let's do drugs or let's do whatever.

You want your child, like my daughter was at a party and she got in the car and somebody said that the designated driver had a drink. And somebody said, I saw him have two drinks. And my daughter came home and for the first time, she says to me, Mom, I got it. I said, what? She says, you're going to be so happy. I said, why? She said, because I didn't ask myself, what will the kids think if I get out of the car? She asked herself, what will be the consequences if I stay in? So is part of the teaching of that, besides just great parenting advice, is part of the teaching that we can replace our belief instead of what will other people think of me, which sort of sets up a belief, with a more empowering question? Is that one way to switch out?

Is that one of the takeaways? Very rarely because you can't hear inside, so a belief is like a box. And if I'm inside a box, it's very hard to hear you outside that box. It's like the box is keeping me from hearing you. I had a friend who had a lot of beliefs about men because her father was a violent alcoholic. and after I worked with her, we were in Fire Island and I was telling a story about my late husband. And it was a beautiful story about something that he had said and did. And she said to me, I heard that story twice before.

This is the first time I ever heard it. because beliefs will have you say, oh, that's just Morty, or oh, that's just, that's a rare thing, or, yeah, that didn't happen. So our beliefs are so powerful. I've said this so many times it's silly, but I've had five Harvard PhDs who had the belief I'm stupid that I worked with. So they know they're not stupid. but that belief comes up and one of them had a problem of stress. He was at this job. He hated it. It was stressful.

Or he felt it was stressful. I want to address that in a minute. And his belief was that he was stupid. And his father used to smack him on the head all the time and call him a genius when he was little. In a sarcastic way? Like smack him on the head and say, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

And so why our beliefs stay with us, again, is if you think you see something, you can't believe that it's not true. So if somebody said to you, oh, Shelly's a blonde, you'd say, no, she's redhead. And they'd say, no, she's always been a blonde. You'd say, no, I just had her on my show. She's a redhead, right? Now, if I took my hair off and you said, oh, my God, that was a wig, then you would say, She's not. It's like Santa Claus. You believe in Santa Claus for eight years. And then all of a sudden, one day you go,

that's my father in a Santa Claus. There's no Santa Claus. There's no tooth fairy. That was my mother putting that money. The belief goes away. And people will fight to the death that they saw their belief. I saw that I was stupid. I failed every class in school. No. You saw failing every class. in that environment under those circumstances with your emotional stuff going on at home. But you never saw, I'm Stupid. I'm Stupid doesn't have a color, a shape, or a location. So let's use the example that you set us up for. Okay. You said, I don't have great legs.

Right, exactly. So what did you see that led you to that belief? Perfect. So I saw magazines that have. have women with very thin legs and they don't have cellulite or cellulite. And that's the standard. That's a great question. And that's the standard. So I, it feels like, and I could get rid of that belief by saying, I never saw I have, I don't have great legs. I saw a lot of models look like this. And that seems to be the beauty standard in this country for certain people.

but but I don't have great legs is in my mind that's not in the world so in a little bit we're going to talk about meaning and where meaning comes from beliefs are like meaning and I'll explain the difference and they live in your head they don't live in the world so many people feel that somebody sort of put evidence in their head directly so a friend might have come come up to them or often a loved one or a parent or an aunt, whoever might be. And I said, Shelley, you don't have great legs. You should wear something a little longer, you know. That would be more fitting to your body. What about that instance? Is that not evidence for somebody's belief? Excellent, excellent. Because the truth about my beliefs about my legs came from my childhood

because I had a mother who was an angel, the most loving human being that ever walked the planet. And her one obsession was weight. And she was always on a diet and always talked about it. And oh, God, if I looked like her, you know, my life would be amazing. And so I had beliefs about body image beliefs. That's been one of my big things that I've overcome, obviously not my legs. but I have now. So you can have evidence that something happens, right? So there's a difference between a conscious assessment and the truth. So if there is a three murders on a street,

I probably won't walk down that street alone at night. That's a conscious assessment. But that doesn't mean that that street is dangerous, will always be dangerous, or that you're going to get murdered if you walk down it. So our beliefs, you can look at evidence and say, and again, you can't see evidence. You can see behaviors. You could see something happening, right? You can see certain people in a certain city behave a certain way. So my husband wanted to live, in Marin County, California, because there's a lot of conscious people there. But that doesn't mean everybody's conscious there, right? It doesn't mean you can just trust anybody you meet, or they're all on a spiritual path, even the ones who say they are may not be. So you can't ever see a belief,

because, again, anything you can see has a color, a shape, and a location. I work with a lot of cultures. I work with Indian culture. And I work with Asian culture. I just came back from Vietnam leading parenting workshop, which has been my dream my whole life, to work with Asian, my adult life, to work with Asian parents because that's a culture that pushes kids to achieve at all costs. Now, is that true for every Asian parent? No.

It's not. But there are cultural norms. that you can again make conscious assessments about, but you can't see Asian parents this, or black people are that, or Jews are this. Those are beliefs, and they are never, ever true. So going back to the example of if somebody, many people use other people's commentary or opinions about their lives,

as that evidence for why they have that belief. Yes. Again, going back to the body image example that you chatted about and people can apply this to any area, people say, well, I have that belief because so many people told me I was fat or that I was overweight, right? I would look better if I slimmed down. How do we begin to unpack a belief where somebody feels like they have so much evidence? I get the factual aspect of it, which is that, hey, you never saw.

that, right? You never saw that belief. You did see people commenting on your body. That's right. But many people would say, well, that feels good enough. That is exactly the information that I needed to come up with this limiting belief. It's because of these comments that other people shared. How do you work through that with the clients that you work with when they're navigating and they feel so much that they have that evidence in front of them? Yeah. So again, it's going to sound oversimplified when I say it, but it is extraordinarily impactful, powerful, and efficacious, but it works. So we go back to, now, generally beliefs are formed in childhood, most beliefs. And I think that's very important for people to understand. Because what, it seems like a lot of, like a newer belief, chances are if it really stings and is there, there's something deeper.

Totally. Totally. Because otherwise, like now, if I got feedback, Drew, and people said to me, you know, Shelley, you're very judgmental when you talk. If enough people said to me, you do something that doesn't work, you know, maybe you're judgmental or I once said something flip about God. somebody came up to me and said they were very, I said, that's great feedback. So I look at what do most people say, is it true for me? Is it not true for me? Am I compromising my values? I ask a lot of

questions. And if I feel that they're accurate, I will absolutely change. So my husband walked in one day and said, there are no bananas. And I said, bananas, I'm raising kids. I have thought sessions today. I'm blah, you know, and he looked to me and he said, I just asked if there were bananas in the house. He said, honey, you're very defensive. He said, do you mind working on that? I said, no.

And I went, and I had a couple of sessions, and bam, that was it, right? So I'm happy to put in, to use feedback. What I'm not happy to do is form a belief simply because somebody or a lot of people think it's true, right? Because if I went to certain areas in the country and I spoke my opinions, they would all tell me that I was wrong, stupid, and crazy to believe as I believe, right? So here's how you unpack a belief. You go back to the source, right? So again, let's take another belief that causes so much stress in people's lives is mistakes and failures are bad. Now, in answer to your question, a lot of people have read all the business books. They all tell you,

Richard Branson says, you know, if you're not failing a lot, you're going to be mediocre, right? I can go on for the next two hours about how mistakes and failures are not bad. Yet people still believe it, including me. And I could have given a lesson. I could have taught a class on why mistakes and failures are not bad and how there's no such thing. And Tony Robbins says it's only outcomes and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. I still was terrified to make a mistake or fail. Here's why. When you're a kid between your parents yelling at you, when you spill milk, drop something, hit another kid, don't do something they think you should do, get harangued on the way home from sports. The most common thing I hear, my father harangued me the entire way home after the game,

telling me what I did wrong. So we go back to where did you get the idea that mistakes and failures are bad? Well, every time I made one, I got yelled at, punished, or hit, or withdrawn from. Okay? Good. So that could. mean mistakes and failures are bad. I actually did this just recently on a podcast. The host was wonderful to go through the whole process with me, which we won't do. But so you go back to the source. Where did you form that belief? Well, when I was a kid, even in school, red X's, mistakes and failures are bad. Great. What's another interpretation? What else could it mean that your parents did that? Well, they were trying to teach you, and they didn't have very good parenting skills.

They didn't know how to empower you. So it's not that mistakes and failures are bad. They just didn't know how to do what I did with my kids, which was learning opportunity. So that's one interpretation. Another one is they thought mistakes and failures were bad because they were raised in an industrial world, not in an information age, where if you're not innovative, you're never going to be successful. But in a factory, if you make a mistake, you can cut your finger off. So they were raised in a different world than we're living in. So they thought mistakes and failures were bad. That doesn't mean

it's true. What's another interpretation? I went to a school that was designed, created in a industrial world. So it's bad there. But at my kids' alternative school, there was no such thing as mistakes and failures. So we go through, so we brainstorm four or five alternative interpretations for whatever belief it is. And then I say, so if there are other valid interpretations, is what you said, the truth or one interpretation? It is always one interpretation. And here's the question. Doesn't it seem like you saw mistakes and failures are bad? Every single person says yes.

Doesn't it seem like you saw I'm not good enough? You saw I'm not important. You saw life is hard. Yes. Well, did you ever really see mistakes and failures are bad? No. It's their moment where the person took off the wig and they're like, oh my gosh, they've been blonde the whole time. Totally.

That really takes that aha moment, but it takes somebody getting to that conclusion themselves with the support of somebody like yourself. And shout out to you. You work with people and people can reach out to you if we want to. I've got a bunch of people that you work with on our team and podcasts and other stuff. But you have to come to that location yourself. and you got to do a little bit of archaeological digging on how did you get into that situation in the first place. Yeah, and I'm going to give your listeners an opportunity.

I'm going to send them to a link and they can eliminate a belief for free and really take themselves through it. The hard thing is finding what beliefs cause what problems because underlying every pattern procrastination or stress or, you know, I'm going to say, I really keep wanting to say this, that nothing is inherently stressful. We're going to get there in a minute. But now here's one more piece of the puzzle. Okay.

So everybody kind of strap in. So now they get, I never saw, mistakes and failures are bad. I never saw the way to get attention is to get sick. I never saw I don't deserve. I'm bad, whatever your belief is, I saw my mother, father, parents, mother, mother, whatever. I saw my parents or my school behave this way when I did this. I saw very specific people, and you have to say who they are, behave a certain way.

And even if your father said, you're stupid. My father loved me more than life itself, and he used to say, ah, you're an idiot. I thought the word was nidiot. And then when we had to talk about all this, he apologized profusely. He said, I had no idea what I was saying to you was impacting you. Why? Because he doesn't believe he's important. He matters.

So he doesn't think what comes out of his mouth makes a difference. Also, could it be that that's how his... His parents talk to him. Totally. And he's just kind of unconsciously passing it on to somebody else. Totally. So now, if you never saw mistakes and failures are bad, which again, it's like Santa Claus, it's just like, where has it been all these years?

In my mind, I made that up. It was never true. But not because I'm telling you it was never true, not because I'm writing it on a piece of paper and telling you to say it 100 times a day, because you're, You got it. I never saw I don't matter. I saw my parents working all the time. I never saw, I don't have what it takes. I saw it being criticized all the time. I saw failing in school. Now, I make a distinction. Consequences versus meaning. Right? So the consequences of you being heavy, or fat, may be that certain people won't go out with you. It may be it's going to affect your health,

right? It may be a lot of things. There are consequences to our actions or people's actions. But then I asked the question, what does it really mean? What do I know for sure? Because that happens. and people start to make up meanings. Well, it just means my parents would have been love or it just means this or just means. And I say, okay, let me ask you a question. So I'll ask you this question. If you come home and Yasmin doesn't kiss you hello right away, what might you automatically think? Well, I don't have a lot of charge against that, but let's say maybe somebody else in that situation.

Right. would feel like, oh, she doesn't care about me. Right. Or she had a bad day. Or she had a bad day or she's busy or whatever. Whatever. Those are all meanings. So where do those meanings come from?

Your head. Yeah. Meaning comes from your mind. Right? Oh, they didn't invite me back. I was not a good guest or, you know, he didn't ask me. out. He's never going to be my boyfriend. We give meaning to everything all day long. And it's the meaning we give events that cause all of our stress, all of our heartache, all of our pain and suffering,

period. Now, most of the meanings we give come from our beliefs. So if you believe dogs are dangerous and a dog comes into the room, you're going to go, oh, God, they're going to bite me, right? That's the meaning you give it. They're dangerous. If you believe dogs are fabulous and a dog comes in the room, you're going to give it the meaning, oh, I have somebody to play with now. So, but it's the, and beliefs are formed in the past. Meaning is formed in the moment.

Okay. Morty did a, my late husband did a TEDx talk about this that you can watch and how to stop suffering. So I then asked the question, what does it mean that your parents yelled every time you made a mistake or failed to do something? What meaning does that have? If meaning is in your mind, do events have inherent meaning? No. No. So we don't know anything for sure because anything happens. events have no meaning. So I'll teach you how to use that in a minute, but just to make that complete, so I say, what does it mean that in school failure was not a good thing?

What meaning does that have? Does it mean it's not going to be when you grow up? Does it mean you're stupid? The fact that your parents criticize you, does that mean you're not good enough? And I say, no, I said, what does it mean? I work with incest survivors. My favorite population is sexual abuse victims, because in one to two sessions,

I can totally turn the entire experience around. Because when they get, I'm damaged goods, I'm worthless, I'm powerless, men have all the power. When those beliefs go away, at the end of each one, I say, and what does it mean that that happened to you? I'm not minimizing it.

I'm not saying it doesn't matter. My husband died. That matters. I miss him. We had an amazing life together. He was an amazing human being. But does that mean I'm never going to find love again? Everybody listening, I'm looking for love again.

We'll link to your social media account. Right. Anybody wants to slide in a DM. Go for it. My second act. I said to my girlfriend, there's a lot of heat left in this old body. And she says, that's the name of a book. So the fact that he died doesn't mean I'm going to starve to death.

I didn't know how to run a business when my husband died. I called you. I said, Drew, help. I don't know what I'm doing. I reached out to friends. I didn't know the difference between a balance sheet and a P&L. but I learned because I stopped giving meaning. And again, you can't stop giving meaning.

We have a course that teaches that, but you can dissolve meaning. You can be aware that you are giving meaning. And I'll show you how to dissolve it in the moment. I'll show you how to get rid of any negative emotion in the moment. So going back to mistakes and failures are bad, what does it mean that your parents yell? Nothing. It has no meaning.

So imagine giving the same events different meaning. Now is when you flip it like you're talking about. Now the belief is gone. So if you had said as a kid, my parents are old school thinkers. They don't understand that you can't be successful if you're not making mistakes and failing. If you had given the same events that meaning, would you have ever have had the feeling? And the answer is no. because our feelings come from meaning.

All your stress comes from meaning. Nothing is inherently stressful. Your job is not stressful. If you stop and say every time you have a negative emotion, what just happened? What meaning did I give it? What else could it mean? Come up with one other meaning and then get.

You don't know anything for sure, because that happened. And the emotion will go away. So is it fair to say then that meaning sits on the foundation of beliefs? Right? So just to make sure we connect the dots for everybody that's listening, beliefs which are usually shaped early on. You mentioned in childhood, like, you know, between, you know,

you said like three or four years old to like eight years old, beliefs are created from what we think we see in the world and our minds sort of filling in the blanks, not even conscious about it. And then meaning like little branches that have been created is an offshoot of those beliefs. Is that accurate? Yep. Got it. Yep. Yeah. If you believe mistakes and failures are bad and you make a mistake, you're going to go, oh God, I'm such an idiot. I can't believe I did that. You're going to come up with all these meanings. If you really believe mistakes and failures are learning opportunities and you make one, you're just going to say, great. Okay. okay, what did I learn? What could be different? How can I do it differently? And you're not going to

feel stress. It's not that the experience or the situation to happen. It's just the takeaway from it is different. If there are factual things to take away, you know, there's plenty of people. There's been a movement. It's a little bit of a hot topic on, you know, social media over the last few years. But there's a movement to say, you know, there's a whole group of individuals to say, well, there's body positivity, which is that everybody is right for whatever size that they're at. And we need more examples in the media and in life and in advertising to show people that you can be anything you want to be, any size, shape, everything like that. And that's still inherently healthy, right?

Let's say that that's one component. Then there's like the traditional old school sort of world of health and beauty and fitness. that has its own standards that are there. And if we really use your approach, what we can find is that it's okay if somebody genuinely wants to lose weight. They can factually say, you know what, I might be a little heavier than I want to be.

I want to improve my health for my metabolism, my metabolic health. I want to improve lower my risk of cardiovascular disease or severe COVID or whatever else. And by the way, I'm going to love myself through the whole process. and it doesn't mean that I'm broken. It doesn't mean that I am lack willpower

because I perceive myself to be overweight. Like I can see the situation for it being factual and I can also see my improvements and my desire to want to be a different size as also factual and I can go and do what I would need to do. I don't need to demonize myself on either side of the, equation. 100%.

It really, when I think about that, I really think that the opposite of stress to me is freedom. And what you're talking about here is how do you step into freedom? For me, that's it. The bottom line, for me personally, of my work is about giving people, giving people freedom to be. period, freedom, to be in your body, in your life. You know, so my daughter lives in Hawaii, and she has these two friends, these two women, they're married, and they're both heavy.

And they are the most loving, out there, outrageous women I've ever met. I mean, joyful and happy. and they post on Facebook these things that they eat. And one day, one of them started telling me that her knees were really getting bad and that she was going to probably have to lose weight and have bypass surgery. And she said, and I said to her, but your weight never bothered you because of how it looks. And she looked at me and she said, no. And I will never forget this, Drew, as long as I live.

I looked at her and I said, you don't, you really don't care what people think about you, do you? And she looks at me and she goes, I really don't. But it was like, it's not what her life's about. Her life's about, she is generous. I mean, when my grandson was born, she showered him with gifts. You know, she watched him. She's always out and about and posting and everything is upbeat and loving. self-expressive, you know, they do Valentine's Day and Halloween and they're in life.

She's not looking, it's not about her. That's, you know, that's a great name for a book, you know, it's not about me. You know, I'm here to serve. And when I got rid of the belief, what makes me good enough is having other people think well of me, my focus has not been on me for one second of this conversation. I might watch it and go, oh, God, you talked with your hands. My focus is on you and your listeners because I'm here to serve. I'm not here to worry about what you think. And if you said to me, you didn't live up to my expectation. I'd say, and? Like, yeah. But if you said to me, I have some people. I have some

feedback about you as a guest, I'm open. I want to do better. I want to serve better. I want to be a better friend, a better guest, a better person. But that I don't live up to your expectation is no longer of relevance. That's freedom. You know, that's such a powerful point because I think the thing that you get is when you understand this for yourself, going back to something that we talked about in the beginning of the conversation, you just do not take other people's perceived beliefs or statements, even if they're telling you, this is what I believe, you just don't take them seriously. It's not that you don't take them seriously, but you can see that so many of their beliefs are shaped through their story and narrative. It's not like they

actually sat down and said, I choose to believe these things. And there's a lot more empathy that you have for people around you, and in a way, you become less reactionary. When I got this for me through some of the work, you know, and of course, meeting you has been a part of that as well. But when I really started to look at some of this in, I would say college as I was dropping out of school and choosing to pursue a different path, one of the things I noticed is that I was less reactionary. People could say things and I would just kind of not react to it.

because I saw anything that came out of their mouth as a powerful word being tacked at the end of it. And that powerful word was maybe. Oh, beautiful. So if people said, Beautiful. You're never going to get a great job. I said, maybe. I didn't even need to defend it.

It was just maybe you're right. Maybe you're not. I know why I'm doing what I'm doing. and I can also see that your beliefs about my life are coming through your filter and I have empathy for you. You know, we talked about this a little bit last time. My dad, who's been always so supportive of me, had his own natural fears about me dropping out of school and pursuing the path of entrepreneurship.

Number one was I always was a great student, graduated pretty high up top of my class, and the fear was what is his life going to be like? And when we unpack that, we can see that my dad. dad primarily was able to get his immigration status and become a citizen here because he had his education and got a great job offer because he had his MBA. And the day that I was born, August 1st, 1982 in Nairobi, Kenya, there was a coup attempt. There was an attempt to overthrow the president by a faction group of rebels in the army. And my dad actually had dropped off my mom to the hospital back in the day people would do that the men would drop off the women

to the hospital the women would have the babies and then the doctor would call and say okay you have a baby boy or girl come to the hospital now obviously things have changed for all great reasons but back then it was different so my dad went home and you know on the night before august first and the next day he couldn't get in touch with the hospital he didn't know what's going on he turned on BBC and he had heard that there was a there was a coup attempt he put on the local radio and he heard reggae music and other stuff and it was the rebels who had overtaken the media. And he had a freak out moment. Like, is my wife okay?

You know, oh my gosh, how did I let the situation happen? All the different things that come with it. Yeah. Luckily, a few days later, everything calmed down. The rebels lost and the president was able to regain control. But that time, my dad made a decision of, as much as I love Kenya, I need to get out of there. And then this feeling of a big reason of him being able to do that, being his education, his connections, job offer, which is, of course, true for that situation, that those things were

important. Naturally, I have to have so much empathy for my dad for him to have his feelings and beliefs about me dropping out of school and what that's going to mean. And of course, it was tough. Just like working through anything like that is tough. Yes. But it just gave me so much more of an understanding about where he was coming from and it also put me in a place where I didn't feel I had to prove to him that I was going to be successful. I'm not saying that those thoughts didn't creep up here and there,

but I've seen a lot of my friends who come from similar immigrant backgrounds where they've taken a different path, especially as an entrepreneur, and it's this feeling of I need to prove to other people. So sometimes that brings well, not sometimes, often it brings stress of needing to be a certain type of successful, needing to choose a particular type of path, needing to show other people, not for you because

you genuinely want to do it, but because this is how you let everybody who know, who doubted you, that you're okay. That you're okay. And that doesn't take you anywhere. Brilliant. And the belief that I think that your father would have formed, is education will keep you safe. Yeah.

Something like that, right? So now the meaning that he gives to what you do, given that belief, is you're not going to be okay. You're not going to be safe. Without an education, you can't get out if something happens metaphorically. Sure. And the fact that you have compassion for him is so beautiful. I had a client, Drew, who said to me, my father's been dead for 40 years and I'm still trying to get his approval.

You're going to talk about freedom? No freedom, none, to live your best life. You know, again, I love your podcast so much because it's about living your best life. And for me, if you have your health, you know, and talk about beliefs. My mother told me, catching things is nonsense. She said, you have such a strong immune system, you don't catch things. Now, that belief has come in very handy in the past three years. Because so far, so good with COVID, of course.

But that the beliefs that people have that keep. keep them that when you're trying to prove yourself, yeah, watch this, watch this. Your focus is on proving yourself. Your focus isn't on improving yourself, right? And what you teach, and it's just, for me, it's just so addicting. It's like, oh, God, what can I learn more about taking care of my health because my belief is that if I'm going to be here, I want to be fit and healthy and play pickleball twice a day and never, like my friend say, Shelly, is a yes. Do you want to? Yes. Whatever it is. You want to fly to so-and-so for dinner. Yes, I'm game. I'm there, right? You have to be healthy and beliefs about somebody said to me, oh, it's all bullshit, you know, whatever you eat, you know,

doesn't affect you at all. I say, really, you're going to go to McDonald's and live like that and go read that article about what the guy, Jared, whatever his name was, you know, ate, I don't know, those fast food something sandwiches every day, subway sandwiches, you know, and he got deathly sick, you know so so when we look at the areas of our lives our health our relationships our work life our hobbies friendships you know are you watering all the plants so i'm writing a book ridiculous ridiculous um book i mean it's a wonderful book but it's a bad entrepreneurship and it's nothing that i would have ever written a book about entrepreneurship, but somebody heard me speak and he works with entrepreneurs and says,

ah, beliefs. That's why my clients don't listen to me, you know. Well, he started to realize that and then heard me speak and said, ah, that's what it is. We're in Costa Rica and we said, let's just write a book together. And it's just going into final edits. And here's the thing. we look at every area. I talk in the book about watering the plants. So if you had a lot of plants in your home, you wouldn't water just one because the other ones will die. And yet, there are areas of our lives that we don't look at and don't nurture. And whether it's relationship, if you're working all the time or parenting and you're not around for your kids or you do all that stuff at the cost of your own health, you have to stop and ask yourself, what must I believe to not take care of this body?

Because I know your audience listens to you, obviously. I mean, I'm on your podcast. But did they do it? You know, I heard the water challenge and I went, oh, my God, this is brilliant. It was probably now over a year ago, I have rarely do I miss a day where I have my two things of water with my lemon and my electrolytes before food, rarely, you know, because, and it made a difference in my life because my beliefs are that my health is important and I'm worth it. So I have a question for you.

Yes. Which is, do we have to replace an old. belief with a new belief? Or can we realize through our own discovery and working through it and archival sort of digging of seeing where this belief comes from? Can we leave it open? That's the question. Yeah. Do we have to replace an old belief with something new? It's a great question. Love, love, love it. A belief is a, the answer is no, we don't. So a belief is is people talk about limiting beliefs. A belief by its very nature is limiting. Whether it's a positive belief, and there's no positive beliefs and negative beliefs, but beliefs that work for you are

positive and beliefs that don't are negative. That's what we say it. So a belief is the truth, which means nothing else can be. And you could be very successful in business given the beliefs that you have and suddenly the industry changes and you're stuck on but this is the way we do it in our industry. Now all of a sudden, you know, I got rid of my old beliefs. Now I have a new belief. Well, that's not going to be true forever. So we're better off with space to create. There's two answers to this. Here's my belief. My problem, and again, I don't want to step on anybody's toes, but I'm speaking for myself. Affirmations.

You have a belief. I'm good enough. I'm good enough. I'm good enough. I'm good enough. Who has to stand in front of a mirror and say, I'm good enough. I'm good enough is somebody who believes they're not, right? So it's almost like you're reaffirming that belief.

Once you get rid of it, now I have the space to create anything I want. Once you get rid of the negative belief. The negative belief. and consciously look at what would work right now. What would work right now? What's happening? So you're in the moment creating based on the information that you have now. So that's number one.

It's more dynamic. Totally. And yes. And at the end of our process, we do something very, very spiritual. So I'll say to my client, where did all of those beliefs, and you can do this, by the way, online and digitally, you don't have to work with me. But we say, where did this belief, where did all these beliefs come from? And people say, I made it up. I made them up, right? I was here before they were. So we live as if we are our beliefs. Who I am is a good person, or who I am is

not good enough. Who I am is only good enough if I take care of people. So that's who I am. Now you see, that's not who you are. You made that up. But, Notice your life is consistent with your beliefs. People who believe life is hard, have hard lives. People who believe money is scarce and hard to get generally don't have it. People who believe I'm not important are not the people who, unless it's a survival strategy, are not the people who speak up. So our lives are consistent with our beliefs, right? I believe health is. important and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So I do the things you're supposed to do, right? Now, if you create your beliefs and your beliefs create your life, what does that make you,

the creator of your life? So everybody listening, just close your eyes for a minute. You come into this world as a little ball of consciousness. Before you create any distinctions, about yourself, life, or people. Do any exist? No. In that space, what's possible? Everything. What limitations do you have in that space? None.

You know how we live as if something's missing, you know, if only this, if only that. Right now, as the creator of your life, as that ball of consciousness, is there anything missing? No. And then I ask, what does that feel like to create yourself? So you don't know it cognitively. You don't even know it experientially. In that moment, you create a distinction that who I am is God in my universe. Who I am is the creator of my life. Limitless. Not as the creation, as the creator. And they say, it's empowering. It's free is the word most people use. It feels free, right? It feels expansive. And here's why I shared that. There is no the truth. So to create a new belief is creating a false belief. We're more empowered by living as if we are the creator, the generator, so to speak. and it's not, I'm not important or not important. I just am.

Hmm. What I like about that is that often in language, just normal language that people are talking, people will use the word belief and kind of just throw it around, right? Like, oh, yeah, like I believe money is a tool, right? It's neither good nor bad. It's just a tool to accomplish different things. And often you could see that what they really mean is that my experience has shown me, limited experiences, the things that have gone through, but obviously that takes a while to say.

Yes. So people will throw out the word belief in many situations. Yes. And there are other times where people do use the word belief. I believe this, right? And sometimes if you don't use the word belief, society will look at you and say, well, what do you stand for? If you don't have a belief, what do you stand for?

Now, I personally find it very freeing pulling away from many of my beliefs and just allowing whatever's to show up, show up. and I still stand in so many things. I still stand by so many things. I still have power in so many areas of my life. I support the people around me. And I still am willing to speak up against injustice and other stuff. But I don't need to rest on beliefs to do that.

It can just be my experience has shown me that when we're good to other people, then the world is good back to you. And it's the right thing. to operate on. But I don't need a belief to necessarily pull me. But a lot of people are afraid when they pull back on their beliefs. They're like, well, if I don't believe in this, who will I be is often the question that comes up.

But more importantly, is like, well, then what do I really stand for? Have you come across that? And what do you usually share to people who feel that? That is just stunningly profound what you just said. And I want to stop for a minute and just acknowledge you for that because there's a difference between your values, which basically can be your beliefs. But the way that you're, so they can be my value. I believe certain things, you know, I'm given what I do.

Parenting is a passion for me because I know if you do these things, your kid's going to conclude this about themselves and this is what their life is going to look like. I want to scream, you know, stop. So I created an eight-module parenting course of that's based on my experience, not my beliefs. Now, here's why what you said was so profound. I feel very strongly that children should never be hit, right? Now, or violently dealt with. with. If your child is running into the street and there's a car coming, I don't care if you have to grab them by the hair, pull them out of the street. So my beliefs about the way children should be raised, maybe, like you said, maybe, most of the time, keep this in mind. This is probably

going to work. But when you have a belief, there's no room for anything else. And you, you stop listening, which is what's happened in our political system. We can't hear each other because our beliefs are you're bad, you're wrong, you're a Republican or you're a Democrat or you're a whatever. And, you know, and then it's causing this divisiveness. So I love that I stand for things based on my values. And ultimately, maybe. I mean, I love that. That was just so good. You know, it really opens up for a lot more dialogue with other people, but it opens up for more dialogue with yourself. You know, just talking about the political sort of landscape of stuff.

I had a friend, well intention, well, meaning, you know, very involved in different social areas and components. And we were just catching up. And she was saying that she had gone on a date with somebody. And she said that one of the ways that I sort of rule out people that I don't want to date is that, you know, I'm kind of very clear about my politics in there. I'm just listening, right? I'm listening to her.

Yeah. So I wrote inside of, this is her talking, she said, I wrote inside of my profile on probably Bumble or one of the websites, like hashtag billionaire shouldn't exist, right? That was one of her sort of signalings to people about her politics. And, you know, because she's a close friend and we can engage in dialogue and everything, I said, wait, wait, wait, so hold on, right? What about Oprah, right? How do you feel about her? She's a billionaire. Oh, wonderful.

Is that in the same category? She's like, no, no, no, no. Well, what I mean is, and then she went from there. I said, listen, listen. I want you to write whatever you want to write. You can write anything that you want to do. But I'm having fun with you a little bit because there's something that's there. And I'm not saying you can't give attention and energy to it.

Yeah. It's just that when we use our beliefs as a way to make somebody else the other, which causes them to make us the other, we're no longer in a place versus, what we value, right? And obviously we're in our modern world and we're trying to communicate things effectively so people do things like virtue signaling and other stuff like that to try to get point across. But in that moment, there are so many, there's been so many times that I've changed my mind about things. But it happened when I was willing to just at least hear somebody from the other side. It's happening with my diet, with my political views, with the way that I see

the world, whatever it might be. It comes from listening. And I also, one of the things that I value is I value media and sources of information that don't try to tribalize me, that don't have a hidden agenda to make me hate the other. Because the other person that's out there, Sure, there are people that are genuinely, maybe so hurt that all they can do is instill hurt upon other people. There are genuine acts of violence, sexual violence, these things that are in the world

that are horrific. And the vast majority of people are good people who want to do well. It doesn't mean that we agree with them on everything. It doesn't mean we have to see eye to eye. It doesn't mean that it's always going to be kumbaya, but it means that if we're not at least willing to listen and not otherize the other person,

we're going to have a hard time making progress as a society but also in our own lives. Yes. So I just want to let that sink for a minute. It's the toughest thing. That's what I just, yes, that's what I just wanted to say. Yeah. That you and I are not sitting here like holier than now. We have no beliefs.

We're perfect. You know, that's not it at all. it's that there's a commitment to live differently. And I love what you just said because when you're otherizing, there's never going to be a world that works for everybody with no one and nothing left out, as my old guru used to say. Beliefs have you do that. Palestine and Israel. You know, and people like, Kanye West now. The Jews are. And my girlfriend was just driving down the freeway in L.A. And there's a giant sign. Kanye's right, you know, kill the Jews or whatever. He said. Now, I'm sitting here going, well, nobody, thank God, I'm not a person of color.

So I can walk down the street. Nobody's going to go, there's a Jew shooter. But what if they could? What if there was something like that? So our beliefs that that this is right. I tell parents, get rid of four words, right, wrong, bad, good. Don't use them their judgments. What works, what doesn't work. Hate doesn't work. And sometimes it's hard to listen to a point of view that goes against everything you believe in. But my husband used to say, when I would scream at the TV set, because the politicians were saying, who knows what, othering. My husband would say, Shelly, if you were raised the way they were, you would have the same beliefs they had and you would be saying the same thing.

Absolutely true. And it's what you said about your dad. It's stopping and saying, what must that person believe to have them saying those things? And where did those beliefs likely come from? And it doesn't mean you should tolerate it. It doesn't mean you have to be a friend of theirs. It doesn't mean anything other than it shifts your point of view. And when you come from compassion, you're much more likely to get through to someone talking about billionaires. I just came from my girlfriend's house and her brother

lives in a billionaire world in this community and, you know, whatever. And we got into this very heavy conversation about different points of views and her, you know, conscious point of view about you should be in social issues and why do you not care about blah, blah, blah, blah, and making all these assumptions about these people that she never met. And it wasn't until she acknowledged her brother and she said, you have a heart of gold. You're such a good person, you know, and I see something's been happening to you. that's changing. Suddenly, like I can see him start to listen, whereas before he wasn't really listening. And when you have beliefs that there's another and they hate you and they're bad and they're wrong and

they're stupid, you can't listen. And if there's no listening, there's no, like you said, there's no progress. There's no movement. I want to say one other thing before I forget. when you ask the question why, it's a lousy question, because why is meaning and meaning is made up. Even if you knew the meaning, oh, I was molested as a kid and now I have sexual issues. Now what? I mean, you could talk about that for a very long time in therapy. You could, you know, but it's not a powerful question. What is a very powerful question. What happened?

What meaning did I give it? What can I do about it? What can I do to change the circumstances? What can I do to get this person to think differently? Or what can I do to help my child? That's a question that's answerable. But why is meaning? And it's going to take you down a rabbit hole that's not powerful.

I want to go back to something that you shared in the beginning of the podcast you said one of the hardest things that you find working with people not it's hard for them meaning that they have to do the digging is figuring out what is the belief when it's connected to let's say the source of pain in their life so people have a pattern a quote unquote negative pattern something that doesn't work for them like procrastination right and they're not aware yet of maybe a belief that's there another negative pattern could be people feel like they well actually let's just use that procrastination i'm noticing that i procrastinate a lot and that i am not moving forward on these things that i want to do and it's hurting my life right

that's people feel that how do you help them from going from there to now connecting that to and identifying what the sort of central belief is what are some questions and steps that people can do that starts to help them get to what is the actual belief that's driving the narrative. Yeah. So we have a whole training on how to do that. It's a whole course. But let me see if I can answer it a little bit. So the first thing is there's a misconception that people will sometimes ask me, well, what's the belief under that pattern? So a pattern is a behavior. You can see a pattern. I can see you procrastide. Because people often, like you said, they throw around the word belief, they also throw around the word pattern, and they use it interchangeably. A pattern is what

you want to change. Nobody cares about changing beliefs. You care about changing patterns. So a pattern is observable, right? Actions and behaviors. Exactly. Actions and behaviors. That's a pattern. I do something I don't want to do. I don't do something I want to do. I feel something I don't want to feel or I don't want to feel something I want to feel. I don't feel something I want to feel. So the first thing is you identify the pattern. Now I look at what are the beliefs underlying that pattern. So with certain patterns like procrastination and fear of public speaking, the beliefs are very similar. So you can ask yourself the question, what do I feel and think right before I procrastinate? Or right before I'm going to speak in public. Or right before I'm going to, somebody once tell me I keep buying vitamins

and I never take them. You know, so that's a pattern, right? I buy my vitamins. I have tons of it, and I never take them. So when you think about taking your vitamins or you think about procrastinating, Doing it, when you think about doing the thing that you're procrastinating, what thoughts and feelings do you have and become cognizant of that? Then you can ask yourself, what must I believe? And it's usually very logical, not always, but mostly it's very logical. What must I believe? What would somebody believe to do that? I buy them. I spend tons of money. and I don't take them, right? So one person said to me, she had the belief I don't deserve, you know, I'm not important, you know, so she doesn't do a lot of things, it's not just not

take her vitamins. She joins gyms and doesn't go. She does lots of things like that, doesn't take vacations. So there's a theme. What might somebody believe who does that? I guess I'm not important. Because somebody who's important takes care of themselves. So it's what do you think and feel when you think about doing the things that you're not doing? That's one of the ways to uncover your beliefs. Another one is you can work backwards. So I don't have to do this, but sometimes I do. what happened in your life that might be responsible? So this guy's father, he hated his job, wanted to get out of it. We had a couple of people like this. And this particular man, I said, what happened in your childhood do you think that accounts to this? Oh, my father

had a business. Business went bankrupt. His partner screwed him. So now he has a belief partnerships are dangerous and being an entrepreneur is dangerous. He worked with me, got rid of that belief, and a few weeks ago, that was 10 years ago, got rid of those couple of beliefs like that about entrepreneurship and about partnership. It's very simple, not usually this simple. And 10 years later, he calls me and he says, so my business is now worth $15 million, and I want to buy my partner out. Can you help me? I have beliefs in the way. So you can look at it, you can ask yourself, what must somebody, what would somebody have to believe? You're trying on a few different hats to see if they sort of fit.

Right. And then the way you know you have a belief is, and you can go to our website and there's a lot of information like this, you know, and eliminatebelief.com, and you'll see what the three most common beliefs are. So if you say a belief out loud, right? So underlying every pattern pretty much is I'm not good enough. Because none of us had really, my parents were wonderful. They loved me. They tried to have me for seven and a half years. So when I came along, it was a big deal. But, you know, they did the best they can. My mother did too much for me because she loved me so much. Well, guess what? I had the belief. I'm not capable. So I did a lot of things well and I was okay, but I never went to that next level, right? I was on television when I was a kid and she kept saying to me, just remember, you're not special. You're not, you know, she didn't want me to be a spoiled brat or think I was better than anybody, but she didn't say it in a good way. She just kept saying, but I was treated

like I was special. And she was telling me, but you're not special. So I thought, oh, if you're special, people won't love you. So I never let myself be special and exceed until I got rid of those beliefs. So you can ask yourself, what happened that would lead to these? I'm not good enough. I'm not important. I'm not smart. I don't have what it takes. Mistakes and failures are bad. Those are the most common ones that stop us. You know, you mentioned and you gave this analogy of the beach ball, earlier in the episode. And you said basically that beach ball is, let's say, this belief that you don't want people to see about you, right? This belief that I'm not good enough. And people spend so much effort and energy in their life trying to keep that beach ball under the surface. And

anybody who's done that in a pool knows that it takes constant pressure and it's stressful. If you had to do that for 24 hours, which is what a lot of people are doing, you can see how stressful and taxing that is and how many other things you can't do because you're focused on that. Yes. Now, in that process of keeping that beach ball down, people often develop abilities and they get good at something and they often get praised at it. One of them that you mentioned earlier is this idea of being a workaholic. You know, many people who don't feel like they're good enough, often one of the ways that they get wanted from other people is that they're constantly available

or they're constantly working, even when it gets to the detriment of their relationships, their health, their kids, whatever it might be. Now, society sometimes will praise that and say, oh my gosh, look how hardworking this individual is. So now this person who's spending all this time with one hand keeping the beach ball down and has gotten good maybe catching other things

with the other hand, getting praised by that, they feel scared to let that belief go because they think it's going to mean that this thing that has maybe led to some external success, maybe some financial reward, maybe some notoriety, they're afraid that if they stop pushing this beach ball down, that they're going to lose this thing. How do you come across that? And how do you help people navigate that?

Great point. When a belief goes away, that doesn't mean you don't have a choice to do it or not. do it. In fact, what it actually allows you is true choice to choose from a place of and from nothing to generate something because you choose to do it. So I was working with someone actually in my life a friend who was molested by her grandfather. And she had the belief that men are, sorry, yeah, men are, that's right, men are dangerous. She had other beliefs, too.

Men are dangerous. And we're in the middle of the process and she goes, I'm not getting rid of this belief. I said, why? She said, because then I'm going to trust all men. I said, no, that's not what happens. When the belief goes away, the only thing that happens is it is not. not the truth that men are dangerous. Are there dangerous men out there? Absolutely. But you have a choice now to trust or not trust based on your experience of who's sitting across from you.

Right? Your own now assessment. When somebody is a workaholic, I have a couple of friends who love to work. In fact, my girlfriend and her boyfriend, brother. He's a tax attorney, very, very successful. He loves what he does. He loves it. He said, he's 75 years. He said, Jelly, I love what I do. Wouldn't it be wonderful if you could discover what lights you up? So Vaughn, who I'm writing this book on entrepreneurship with, said he had a business. He's a serial entrepreneur. He owns a law firm. He owns an entertainment company. And he was getting all these accolades and awards, and he felt empty. And one day he started working on himself.

And he said, I want to look at what brings me the most joy, being with his daughter, doing adventurous things and service work. He completely reorganized his businesses. He pays for people to have personal growth, you know, books and courses and what in his company. He has an incredibly diverse company, but he set it up that he is not needed all the time. And he climbed Kilimanjaro recently. He just did a race. I can never remember the name of this race, but it's where you, it's a crazy, you know.

Tough mutter, probably something like that. Something like, it's not the mudd. Sport and race. Sport and race. the one, Spartan race, and he just did his third one, right? And he goes to Costa Rica, he goes all over doing service work for children. He supports kids. He does, you know, this, that he's always doing, you know. So he's doing what lights him up when he realized that who I am, my worth and value, is not a function of how successful I am. It's a function of how I love my life. When you get rid of these

beliefs, you look at, I have to make a living. Is this what I want to make a living doing? You start questioning. I'll tell you one more very fair story. I worked with this guy who used to get on, and he gave me permission to talk about him in my workshops and I show a picture of him. And one is he's got a tie that it looks like it's literally choking the life out of him. He's in a suit and he's a banker and he sold his business to this big bank and they gave him a five-year payout. So they gave him some money and then a five-year payout. And he's miserable, miserable. And I get him like two years in or whatever. And we start getting rid of beliefs and I kept saying to him, at what cost? That's what I say to parents. At what cost must you do something

At what cost, what do you believe that would have you spend the next three years of your life doing something you hate for money that you don't really need? And we eliminated the beliefs. What makes me good enough is being successful and blah, blah, blah, blah, and whatever else. he left the business. He left the company, didn't get the payout. He started an e-commerce business that supports local people who make products and builds this business, right? He's at home.

He wears his sweat clothes, you know, he lives in New Jersey. And now I have a picture of him. And it's titled, because he called me, he said, I am now the happiest man in the world. And the picture next to the tie choking him is a picture of him with this smile on his face and his eyes are lit up. And he's the happiest man in the world. So when he got rid of the beliefs, he was able to look and ask himself, what are my true values? what works for me. And that takes courage.

It takes courage. And sometimes somebody might come to the conclusion that actually staying is part of my true values. Totally. It's not you're sort of putting on a pedestal the idea that he left. You're putting on the pedestal the idea that he just did what he wanted to do that was right for his life. Exactly. Because there's many moments in our life where a sacrifice is worth it. That doubling down on something, not quitting.

The challenge is, Many of us don't know until we ask and we pull back those beliefs that are unconsciously running the show. What motivates it? What motivates it? It's what motivates your decision. Are you doubling down because you love the challenge? Richard Branson says, I love starting businesses. I don't love running them.

So I hire smart people to run my businesses. You know, Mark, you know, he was successful and a doctor and whatever, and then he opened. up to you came into his life and suddenly, you know, you brought a whole new, but he had to be open to, I don't have to do everything myself and it's not just to be. And now he gets rid of his beliefs and has shared on his own podcast. And now he's loving his life. He does a lot of stuff, but he doesn't have to. He's not trying to prove it anymore. Now he could go enjoy his life with his girlfriend and travel and just have a blast. He's another one, the happiest man in the world because he's doing what he loves.

And part of what he loves is his practice. But he looked at his practice. Do I want to stay at Cleveland? Do I want to have a private practice? Do I want to do podcasts? What lights me up? But that proving, like you said, is not there anymore. Talk to us about this website that you and your team have set up.

That kind of helps people eliminate maybe a couple of the most popular beliefs. that are out there. Yes, for sure. So go to eliminatebeliefs.com. And there are the three most common beliefs that pretty much everybody has on how you know you have a belief. Say it out loud. Then be quiet. Don't talk. Just say it out loud. And then say, I'm a monkey. And when you say, I'm a monkey, it feels either flat or silly. When you say, I'm not good enough. If there's any resonance and don't go, I'm not good enough. No, I don't believe that. Just sit with it. And if it doesn't feel good, that's how you know you have a belief. It either doesn't feel good or it feels true. So go to eliminatebelief.com and then if you eliminate a belief and

you're happy, it will take you to a program called Natural Confidence where you can eliminate 19 of the most common self-esteem beliefs. That, you know, you'll see this 10,000 testimonials. and you can be free. When you're free, or actually, let's put this another way, sometimes freedom seems so far for folks who are so labored and burdened by their beliefs. They can't even imagine for the person who feels that way right now that's listening. They cannot imagine a life free from whatever this belief is that's weighing on them. They can't imagine a path on the other side.

What do you want to share with that person who's listening who believes that? They believe that they're stuck with their beliefs and that freedom on the other side is not possible. Thank you. Took me a second. Ask yourself the question. Change is hard. One interpretation is, so you look at the source, you've tried a lot of things, you've read books, you've did workshops, you blah, blah, blah, blah, and nothing changes. So on my tombstone, it's going to say, I tried everything. This is the only thing that works to eliminate beliefs. I'm not saying for everything else. So where did you get the idea that you can't change, that change is hard, you've tried and failed? That's the bottom line. And one interpretation is it's impossible. Another interpretation is the things you did didn't work. That doesn't mean

nothing will. Is that a valid interpretation? Yes. So if there are other valid interpretations is what you said the truth or just one interpretation? And here's the question. Did you ever see you can't change? You cannot get nothing will get rid of those beliefs. That doesn't have a color, a shape, or a location. all you saw was you did some things that didn't change. And where was I can't change? That was in your mind. You made that up. Shelley, before we give some links and some places where people can follow up with you,

if they want to work with you, check out what you're up to, keep in touch when the book comes out, anything else that you want to conclude on here. And if you feel complete, that's great too. Yeah, yeah. I just, I just, I feel very complete and, um, practice the, we call it the occurring, because there are going to be things that can flatten you, you know, seven years ago when my husband died, I didn't want to get out of bed.

And I looked at it and I said, what happened? Morty died. What meaning are you giving it? and then I would come up with one meaning, and then I get, well, it could mean that I'm going to starve to death, and it could mean that I'm going to step up and learn how to run a business. But the actual events have no meaning. You don't know anything for sure about what my life's going to look like because he died. So grieving was healthy, not getting out of bed is not.

So when you feel those negative emotions, that stress, that, you know, anxiety, that whatever anger, stop and just ask, what happened? What meaning did I give it? And just get, the meaning is in your mind. It's not in the events. And the emotional go away and it'll give you freedom. Now, ultimately, if you get rid of your beliefs, you won't have to do that because the feeling won't come up. So ultimately, you want to get rid of your beliefs. But interimly, practice that. It will be a game changer. Where can people keep in touch with you? How do you reach out if they want to work with you?

You've already shared the website, Eliminatebeliefs.com. Yeah, and I also just want to say, I've done a lot of podcasts, and you are without question, my favorite. You are just brilliant and delicious, and I love how much you give to people. And I just, it's such an honor to be with you. It's so awesome. Thank you, Shelly. Yeah. So Lefco Institute, L-E-F-F-N-F-N-F-N-F-N-F-O-E-I-N institute.com.

And there's all kinds of places you can get information, you can work with me, you can get natural confidence, we'll go eliminate a belief for free with that. But Lefco Institute is the other website that you can go to to find out more. Well, Shelly, I want to acknowledge you for just coming on the podcast and really sharing your story and using your personal experiences as a teaching tool because I feel like when you share very vulnerably, people see themselves in you, even if they're a man who lives in another country, even if they haven't had the same parenting experience, even if they've never lost their husband or a wife or whatever, we all are going through the human experience and seeing

authentically how people navigate through that where they've been trapped by their limiting beliefs and how they've overcome it, which is exactly what you do so well, you're an incredible storyteller, gives people hope, and it really gives them freedom. It gives them the idea that freedom is possible. So I want to thank you for bringing that again to our audience. I really appreciate you. Thank you, sweetheart.