Digital Social Hour - Why Therapy Doesnt Work, Conquering Panic Attacks & Turning Pain to Power | Vin Infante DSH #343

Episode Date: March 10, 2024

Vin Infante comes on the show to discuss therapy, how to change your mindset and overcoming childhood bullies. APPLY TO BE ON THE PODCAST: https://forms.gle/qXvENTeurx7Xn8Ci9 BUSINESS INQUIRIES/SP...ONSORS: Jenna@DigitalSocialHour.com SPONSORS: My First Million: https://link.chtbl.com/MFM-AD Opus Pro: https://www.opus.pro/?via=DSH Deposyt Payment Processing: https://www.deposyt.com/seankelly LISTEN ON: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/digital-social-hour/id1676846015 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Jn7LXarRlI8Hc0GtTn759 Sean Kelly Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmikekelly/ Digital Social Hour works with participants in sponsored media and stays compliant with Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulations regarding sponsored media. #ad Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Is there anyone you're opposed to working with? And I had a very strong belief system. I said, I will not work with anyone who's ever killed anybody. Wow. I don't believe in it. So I don't believe they should be here. I don't think they should have an opportunity. I think they should be in jail forever.
Starting point is 00:00:12 There's no excuse. So he said, OK, cool. Come back the next day. He's like, here's your first client. Somebody you killed so much. And I said, so why did you give me this guy? He's like, because you have to learn. Wherever you guys are watching this show, I would truly appreciate it if you follow or subscribe.
Starting point is 00:00:30 It helps a lot with the algorithm. It helps us get bigger and better guests. And it helps us grow the team. Truly means a lot. Thank you guys for supporting. And here's the episode. All right. Welcome back to the show, guys.
Starting point is 00:00:42 Digital Soul Shower. We are here with Vin Infante, psychotherapist and mental performance coach. How's it going, man? It's going great. First time in Vegas, right? First time here. Flew in from New York. All the way. Nice six-hour flight. And what are you looking to get out of this trip?
Starting point is 00:00:56 Hanging here with you. Going to be doing some things with David Meltzer and just, I guess, exploring a little bit. Okay, okay. Your story's unique, man, because I know you were a therapist for 10 years, right? Yeah. And you kind of left that profession and you don't really believe it anymore, right? I had saw a lot of things as I was doing psychotherapy that started making me think there was a better way to do personal development, self-help.
Starting point is 00:01:20 And I stopped believing that psychotherapy, traditional psychotherapy, was it. I stopped believing that it was as effective as it could be. And I don believing that psychotherapy, traditional psychotherapy, was it. I stopped believing that it was as effective as it could be. And I don't think it actually helps as many people as we are told it does. Interesting. Yeah, I did therapy. I did four sessions, this smart professor from, I think, Brown University. And it didn't do much for me, to be honest. I found myself just talking to my girlfriend about my problems helped me more than talking to some random dude, honestly. Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, I don't know. Maybe it wasn't for me, but a lot of people do recommend it. Do you think
Starting point is 00:01:52 they just don't know about other options? I think that there is definitely a narrative in today's country, or the world at least, where we are pushing, hey, the process is you're supposed to go for 10 to 15 years every week, once a week, take this medication, and you never really fix your problems, but you just learn to maintain. And I think that that's what people believe you're supposed to do. I stopped believing that that is what we have to do because I've seen better ways. I've seen people change and transform in minutes as opposed to years.
Starting point is 00:02:22 Wow, literally minutes? Literally minutes. What was the technique that could transform someone in minutes as opposed to years. Wow. Literally minutes? Literally minutes. What was the technique that could transform someone in minutes? Well, I've seen, for instance, everybody knows who Tony Robbins is, right? And if they don't, they should. He's been able to take people. And this is what actually caused me to quit traditional psychotherapy. I saw him take somebody who was struggling with a phobia for 15 years.
Starting point is 00:02:43 And using an NLP technique, he helped them overcome their phobia in 15 minutes. And it wasn't a stunt. It wasn't a ruse. It was a real person who was struggling for so long in therapy. And once I saw that, I said, this guy knows something I never learned in six years of college and X amount of years of experience. So there's got to be a better way.
Starting point is 00:03:04 What was the phobia? The phobia was she was afraid of snakes. She could just never overcome them. She would freak out if she saw them. By the end of this technique that he did, by the end of this performance, some people called it, he brought out a snake and she was fine.
Starting point is 00:03:20 That's fascinating. You see all the top guys in NLP and you see they're all financially successful and you got to wonder how and why. you know, they're doing something right. Something different from everyone else. Right. Exactly. Yeah. The phobia with snakes, they call the stuff like that, I think, irrational fears, right? Where do you think these irrational fears come from? I've come to find that a lot of the times when people are having irrational fears or phobias, it's because of the fact that they have a belief system that isn't serving them. Now, what really makes it interesting
Starting point is 00:03:48 is that in these moments, the fear is so heightened that all logic goes out the window and they go into what we call a survival state where they're just in a fight, flight, or freeze. They don't know what the next best step is, but they know they need to get out of there or they need to panic or whatever the case is. And so it becomes a lot harder for people because as you do something over and over, you're neuro-conditioning yourself. And so that phobia gets stronger and deeper and keeps going
Starting point is 00:04:15 and then you have X amount of time pass and now you're trying to overcome 15 years of this current repeating behavior. So it's really tough if you don't have proper skills and techniques to guide people through this. Yeah. Did you yourself have any fears or phobias? I got bullied a lot as a kid.
Starting point is 00:04:32 So I don't know if I necessarily had a fear or phobia, but I lacked a lot of confidence. And that caused a fear to talk to women, to go out, to interact with others. I was constantly afraid I was getting judged. I was constantly like, if people were across the street laughing, I legitimately thought they were laughing at me. Didn't even matter what they were doing or talking about.
Starting point is 00:04:56 I could be on this side of the road and I see them laughing. I'm like, oh, they probably. Shout out to My First Million hosted on the HubSpot Podcast Network. It is one of my favorite shows. The hosts Sean and Sam have both sold their companies for over eight figures to Amazon and HubSpot. They have on guests like Mr. Beast, Rob Dyrdek, Alex Ramosi, and much, much more. They bring on some of the top guys in their space. They'll help you brainstorm business ideas that you can start tomorrow.
Starting point is 00:05:22 It's a very tactical podcast. A lot of advice and tips in there that you can utilize right away. I've literally seen almost every episode. It's a very tactical podcast, a lot of advice and tips in there that you can utilize right away. I've literally seen almost every episode. It's one of my favorite shows. They do it remotely, which is super impressive. In my opinion, most podcasts need to be done in person, but these two know how to make it happen. So check them out wherever you listen to podcasts. My first million. I think I'm stupid or I'm ugly or like my shirt sucks. It was just the wildest thought patterns I had. See, that was me, but only if I was high.
Starting point is 00:05:48 So if I was high in a grocery store, I'd be so paranoid. Like they're talking about me. There's a cop right there. Like I'd get in my head for sure. And I think when you are high, it's kind of your inner emotions kind of manifesting, right? Because there's people that are high that are super chill, they don't get anxiety on it, and then some people get high, they get anxiety. Have you noticed that?
Starting point is 00:06:09 When they get high, they get anxiety? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, people get anxious for all types of reasons. I don't, see, I don't do drugs. I've never done anything. Wow. Yeah, I just, I had my own interesting experience with somebody when I was younger,
Starting point is 00:06:22 and it shaped my trajectory to never, ever touch anything. And I've seen though different people doing different things. People get high and they can get anxious or they can get depressed. Some people say that getting high helps them. And there is some legitimate research that says that too. But I also see that there are some clients I've worked with who they get high a lot, they start getting more anxious. Or other people get high a lot, they start getting forgetful. And I don't think that we have a super good grasp on that either. Sometimes smoking weed is making you stupid or anxious. It's not helping with pain or anxiety. Yeah. And I think it goes back to just it's your inner emotions just manifesting and it depends on the person. But yeah, some people smoke high and they love it i'm like holy crap i wish but no i can never get high anymore um now doing this for 10 years you must have seen some crazy
Starting point is 00:07:11 stuff did you see anything that really changed your perspective on things my first ever experience actually in a real clinical setting had completely changed the trajectory of my life. I had started off and my mentor, while I was working in an inpatient unit, he had asked me, this was before I had any clients in a caseload, he said, is there anyone you're opposed to working with? I had a very strong belief system and I said, I will not work with anyone who's ever killed anybody. I don't believe in it. I said, I don't believe they should be here. I don't think they should have an opportunity. I think they should be in jail forever. There's no excuse.
Starting point is 00:07:48 He said, okay, cool. Come back the next day. He's like, here's your first client. Somebody killed somebody. I said, so why did you give me this guy? He's like, because you have to learn. I said, well, there's nothing I could do. I report to him.
Starting point is 00:08:01 I did it. I started learning some very interesting things about schizophrenia and the use of drugs. So you might get high and you might get a little anxious or paranoid. This guy will get high and he starts hearing voices. And these voices are telling him outrageous things. So much so that it sets him off the deep end.
Starting point is 00:08:17 And he winds up committing murder to try and save somebody else in his life. And the voices were telling him, like, this person, I'm trying to be as vague as possible, just obvious reasons, but he said, this person is going to kill the other person if you don't do something about it. And he did something about it.
Starting point is 00:08:36 He ended up in this inpatient unit. I worked with him. And he had a lot of intelligence. He spoke four different languages. He was a master chess player. And he was extremely insightful. And I was so confused. I was just like, what the heck?
Starting point is 00:08:56 And it was really interesting to me because you see the different effects that drugs can have on the brain based on what you're already coming to the table with mentally. His circumstance was not permanent. It was an altered one when he did that action. Later, through clarity, through getting clean, no longer being a polysubstance abuser,
Starting point is 00:09:18 he started actually having that remorse where he's like, I did my time. I regret it every day. I just want to get out. He had a son. And we almost, we didn't become friends, right? But there was a nice bond that was forming. He was teaching me how to play chess.
Starting point is 00:09:33 We were sitting there and we were talking about life. And it was so interesting because I never thought I would have an experience like that ever, especially because I was so close to it. And so what that moment taught me was that you really never know are you interested in coming on the digital social hour podcast as a guest we'll click the application link below in the description of this video we are always looking for cool stories
Starting point is 00:09:56 cool entrepreneurs to talk to you about business and life click the application link below and here's the episode guys anything until you actually experience it for yourself and give yourself the opportunity to see what it can be instead of what you believe it will be right and that's just amazing life advice in general because too many people have their opinions without actually experiencing what their opinion is about right well we we get fed things in life yeah and you can't change a belief without challenging it. Most people don't want to challenge their beliefs. Most people just want to hold a belief and say, I'm so certain this is what it means.
Starting point is 00:10:32 And they're not willing to see, could it mean anything else? Could you be wrong? But then that question attacks the ego. It's like, now I've been wrong for, what, 18 years of my life. Are you willing to swallow that and say you were wrong and then move forward? It's very hard. Yeah, for sure. So what were the most common things people would come into you for? Was it relationship coaching? Was it anxiety? What was it mainly?
Starting point is 00:10:52 Well, for when I was a therapist, I was dealing with everything. I've worked in every setting you can imagine over the course of 10 years. As I started getting more into coaching, I started working with high-performing individuals, entrepreneurs, finance firms, startups. I've worked with a lot of people on many different things. Sometimes it'll be for business development, but most of the time it is on personal development. You're this leader, but you have anxiety. Or you're a leader, but you're stuck in a position where you're not as powerful as you could be because you don't know how to delegate or you have trust issues or whatever the case is. I really do handle a wide variety of things with people.
Starting point is 00:11:30 It's really just important of what do you need in that moment. Yeah, the personal development stuff is interesting because a lot of people either don't work on it or just neglect it entirely. I think for me, I'm always working on it and I think that's why I've been able to be pretty successful, honestly. Because you got to constantly evolve. I'm curious as your experience,
Starting point is 00:11:51 what have you seen as one of the best things for people to delve into when it comes to personal development? For me, what works, and it took me years to figure out, was gratitude. Meltzer talks about this. So every morning I write down 10 things i'm grateful for i do the wim hof breathing method which completely eliminated my anxiety and i wasn't depressed diagnosed at least but maybe certain moments um so those two things really
Starting point is 00:12:17 helped and then surrounding myself with positive people because i used to be around a lot of negativity dude a lot yeah like my parents, my friends. And I was attracting it because I was negative. So I had to just get rid of them. And then it took me years to become, I'd say I'm more positive than negative now. But a lot of people are pretty negative, man. They don't even realize.
Starting point is 00:12:36 They just think it's normal because you grow up like that. Well, they don't realize that it's a language. If you're going to learn how to be positive, it's like learning a second language. Because when you think about it, and I'm sure people have already heard this information, you might be familiar with this if you're listening, it's 95% of everything we're doing
Starting point is 00:12:54 is just a subconscious program. It's all in the same thoughts, behaviors, actions, emotions. Everything you're doing today is something you've already done. But what a lot of people don't know is in that 95%, there's another 95%. 95% of all of our thoughts are negative. We are geared to be negative, but we do that out of survival. We just don't need to do that as much anymore, and people don't know how to let go of that. So that's where people tend to struggle, because we are geared.
Starting point is 00:13:20 If you look at the dictionary, there's more negative words in the dictionary than there are positive ones. Really? Yeah. Wow, I never knew that. We're geared towards it. What is dictionary there's more negative words in the dictionary than there are positive ones really yeah wow i never knew that we're geared towards it what is the news always negative always what gets the biggest headlines negative and i used to watch the news every day growing up so i think yeah it's just programmed in me plus from prior lives or whatever like you were saying uh dude it was so bad that when i would picture myself shooting a basketball when i was a teenager i would always miss I couldn't physically think about making a basket. That's how negative I was. But now when I close my eyes,
Starting point is 00:13:50 swish, nothing but net. Took me years though to get to there. See, and that's so interesting. And it's funny because I struggled a lot too. When I was younger, I was diagnosed. I was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, panic disorder. My therapist wanted me on meds. I had self-harm tendencies and i struggled with all this and i never felt good enough and i never felt like i was going to amount to anything yeah i still get caught up sometimes thinking like how fascinating it is that i'm still even alive wow because life was just seemingly that hard but what's interesting is life didn't have to be that hard it became hard because one i didn't know a better way.
Starting point is 00:14:26 And two, I was stuck in a victim mindset where I was sitting there that everything is happening to me, where I can't make things happen for me because I got this guy who's bullying me. I got thrown in a trash can. Like picture that. You're in high school. You already have no confidence. You have low self-esteem. You have no friends.
Starting point is 00:14:43 You don't feel like you belong anywhere you've been for years and you're sitting there and you're thinking how am i right now pushed into a trash can with my knees pressed against my forehead you've come a long way come a long way that's crazy and it's interesting now did your parents know about any of this or were you too scared to open up you learn and anyone who listening, if you've ever been bullied, you probably can agree with this. You learn not to tell adults. Because if you tell your mom, she might be overprotective, and she might go to the school. You're going to get it worse.
Starting point is 00:15:17 If you tell your dad, he's either going to do some crazy dad crap, or he's going to yell at you to toughen up. And that doesn't do anything either and if you tell the teacher or the principal or the dean they're going to tell you well i didn't see it so i can't do anything about it let me know if it happens again and then if it happens again you tell them and then they sit you down to mediate and they still do nothing about and then you get your ass kicked more right and that is exactly what happened to me so i learned that in middle school because the dean one time turned around when i was getting bullied and blamed me for it and i was like i'm never telling anyone again wow yeah those were the old school days of bullying i feel like now it's mainly digital and social media stuff and you probably get a lot of kids coming into you for help there are you seeing that
Starting point is 00:16:02 you know i don't work with a ton of kids anymore. I'm very selective, mostly because it's hard to break through to a kid in the sense that they probably don't want to be there and then it's really hard to do the work. But I will say the few teens that I have taken on, the younger adults, kids, whatever we want to call them, a lot of them, when they are dealing with bullying,
Starting point is 00:16:24 you're right, it extends. They'll deal with it if it happens on the football field or locker room wherever and then it's going to follow them home then they're going to get an anonymous text message telling them to kill themselves then they're going to get some sort of a facebook message from an anonymous profile telling them they suck at life it it doesn't end and it's really crazy that there's so much just viciousness in this day and age. A lot of negativity on social media. I don't know why, but like you were saying, people are just programmed that way.
Starting point is 00:16:55 You're saying 95% of thoughts are negative. It does make sense hearing that being expressed on social media now. We are extremely exposed today, now more than ever. We are also finding ourselves to be less capable. If you look at the stats of society, it's somewhere around in America, I think the last time I checked the stat was like 66% of Americans are in a form of therapy right now. Wow. And the depression and anxiety rates continue to climb.
Starting point is 00:17:22 We're at the point in American society where we have more people in therapy today now than we ever did, and people are more anxious and more depressed than they ever were. Why? Yeah, why is that? Let's dive into that. There must be multiple reasons, but what do you think are the biggest factors
Starting point is 00:17:36 contributing to those high rates? I think a lot of people nowadays do not challenge themselves enough. And this is where I believe therapy is virtually ineffective for a lot of people nowadays do not challenge themselves enough. This is where I believe therapy is virtually ineffective for a lot of people. I find that a lot of therapists don't challenge people enough. In today's society, a lot of therapists sit there and they overvalidate. You come in and you're going to say, life's unfair, and your therapist will say, yes it is. The systems in place are screwing me. Yes, they are.
Starting point is 00:18:02 My life sucks because I'm being bullied. That's unfair for you. And those are all great validating answers, but they're also crap. What are you going to do with that? You're going to sit there and you're going to stay helpless. I don't believe in that. It didn't work for me when my therapist did it because my therapist was ineffective for me. And I stopped believing in a lot of the things that therapy taught because a lot of it is about validation. And what I've come to learn in my studies is that feelings aren't facts. They are simply indicators. Wow.
Starting point is 00:18:34 That's deep. That's a big point. Yeah, so that's fascinating. So you had a therapist growing up, and you ended up becoming one. Yeah. So why did you want to go that route? Did you want to help other kids in your situation at first? Well, actually, it was really funny.
Starting point is 00:18:46 Since I was a kid, I always wanted to be a therapist and a firefighter. My dad was a therapist. And then I think every boy growing up wants to be like a cop or a firefighter or military because it's cool. Yeah, yeah. We're rough and rugged. Especially in New York. Yeah, of course, right?
Starting point is 00:19:00 New York has, and you get the cool title. Yeah. FDNY, New York's bravest. So who doesn't want that? So you were a firefighter, right? I was, yeah. How long were you there? I did it for a year.
Starting point is 00:19:11 I was a firefighter during COVID. And that was a really interesting time. Nobody knew what was going on. It must have been scary because all the break-ins, right? The stores and fires everywhere. Well, that was actually more during the protest. But I mean, it was definitely interesting. You're right.
Starting point is 00:19:31 There was a lot more crime. Things were shut down. People were struggling. And then the protocols for going to an EMS run was like, we had to get dressed in this hazmat type gear. And we didn't know what was really going on. And usually they would send in the newer guy in this hazmat type gear and we didn't know what was really going on yeah and usually they would send in the newer guy in the hazmat gear because nobody wants to put all their crap on i was the newer guy yeah people were freaking out i would see people in hazmat suits it's funny
Starting point is 00:19:56 looking back at it that we overreacted for sure it was so crazy especially new york you couldn't even leave or you had to have a vaccine to eat at restaurants i remember oh yeah you had all this stuff you had to have a vaccine um there was like crazy they would block off half the restaurant so that you know there wasn't too many people it was just it just got out of control out of control man i gotta ask this because i thought this was interesting is it true you changed your name yeah to some degree. I had this thought in my head where I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. And at my lowest point in high school, which was when bullying was the worst for me, that was when I was thrown in the trash can. And that really did happen. That was when I was getting relentlessly just physically abused to
Starting point is 00:20:42 some degree. I was always getting made fun of i just felt like a shattered person and i sat there and i said i either need to do one of two things i either need to stop living or i need to change my circumstance because this isn't working anymore and i don't know why i'd never i never thought i would actually end my life but that was really consistently running through my head so i figured if that if i'm not going to do that i need to do something and that was i need to reinvent myself and so in college i wrote vincenzo on all my transcripts with the opportunity to go into college as someone completely new as vincenzo and it actually somewhat worked so all my college degrees say vincenzo. And it actually somewhat worked. So all my college
Starting point is 00:21:25 degrees say Vincenzo on them, which is ridiculous. It's funny. You think they would have checked your driver's license or something? I guess not. I mean, I went to a city college. Wow. Yeah, similar, right? I got bullied in high school. When I went to Rutgers, I was like, okay, no one knows me. Let me reinvent myself a little bit. And I did that too. But what ended up being your conclusion with the bullies? Did you fight back? Did you forgive them? Do you still talk to them?
Starting point is 00:21:50 What ended up happening there? At some point, I think everybody that gets bullied wants to fight back. And then you try and you get beat worse and you realize fighting back isn't for you. So that plan went out the window. I then eventually, so I had a little bit of a moment of grace. When I was 23 years old, I just graduated with my master's.
Starting point is 00:22:13 I got my license and I was about to embark on practicing licensed psychotherapy. So I had been doing psychotherapy since I was 18. I was co-facilitating groups and working in a hospital. But now I was really stepping into the big leagues. And one of the biggest things for me was having this understanding that I am responsible for the outcomes I want, and I am also responsible for what has happened and transpired in my life that has led me to the exact moment we're in now. In that moment of grace, I had complete and total control come back to me, where I realized my life has sucked because I made it suck and I contributed to that.
Starting point is 00:22:49 I also learned that I need to let go of everything and everyone to some degree. That degree was, I want to forgive my bullies because whatever they did to me is because they received probably 10x worse because they're struggling with their own pain and I was the focus. I looked at it too is that even if i wasn't there if vin wasn't in the picture to get thrown in the trash can or thrown in lockers whatever the case was it would have happened to someone else right i actually developed gratitude so not only did i forgive my bullies i developed the gratitude that i was the one that got bullied because you see nowadays people are committing because of how bad they're getting
Starting point is 00:23:25 bullied i'm grateful that it happened to me because i am here i'm stronger i've been able to help others because of my experiences and somebody didn't commit because they couldn't handle it insane yeah that's a powerful way of thinking so do you think you basically attracted the bullies towards you in some way i think i had a very punchable face i just got bullied because i was i was definitely nerdy but i was also different like asians really cared a lot about school i don't know if it was like that where you were from but where i'm from all the ap classes all that honors they're all in that and i wasn't so i didn't really fit in with the asian kids it's interesting what did you get bullied for mainly?
Starting point is 00:24:06 I was a little bit chubby. I don't know if you've ever heard of this. It's called gynecomastia. Gyno is actually really common in guys. We typically get it when we're going through puberty where as your test levels go up, so does your estrogen. And so it's like one in four or one in three guys get gyno and it's where you start developing breast tissue. Most of the time it goes away.
Starting point is 00:24:28 Again, it's most of the guys it goes away. There's only one in 100 or so that it actually remains. I was one of the 100. Get a lot of the jokes like, oh, there's man tits, stuff like that. That was a big part of my physical attributes. Then I was also a nerdy kid. I was awkward. I liked trading cards. i liked video games and because i had constantly and i've my whole story is i've been
Starting point is 00:24:51 getting bullied since i was in like kindergarten damn like when i was well and that's the thing you don't realize it's getting bullied but i was always the dog when you played house i never played that what is that you never played house no you have a mom and you have a dad and you're pretending that you live in a house and then sometimes you have kids. So you assimilate the roles, right? So we'd say, all right, Sean, you're going to be the dad and Vin, you'll be the mom. So you do what a mom does, you do what a dad does.
Starting point is 00:25:14 And kids didn't really want to interact with me so they'd be like, Vin, you could be the dog. I'd be like, what does the dog do? Well, the dog lays in the corner, so go lay in the corner and maybe we'll interact with you. Interesting, yeah, I never played that. It doesn't sound that fun to me. wasn't fun for me so i never ever fit in okay you know from
Starting point is 00:25:32 from that to being the butt of jokes at sleepovers to getting pants by my middle school crush it consistently got worse and more elevated and i was just aware that I could not fit in. And it wasn't until college that I was able to start reinventing myself. And even that didn't go well because you change the external and you take on a cool name. But to what you were talking about before, if you don't do the inner work, nothing changes. Yeah. And I think getting bullied for being different, looking back at it now, I didn't want to fit in with everyone. I didn't want to conform to society. I didn't want to be a normal kid. I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs were like that
Starting point is 00:26:10 and they were the ones getting bullied in school growing up from what I've noticed from my friend group and stuff. I would agree. There's a lot of times too where you see that kid that's getting picked on and he has a bit of a boiling point. I would hit my boiling point every now and then instead of just taking it i would explode yeah and i'd yell at him i curse at him maybe i try and hit him back i wasn't a tough kid i i did that and it made my life worse
Starting point is 00:26:36 and i definitely contributed in that way but i guess that's the part of it is is sometimes you're just tired of being a victim yeah well that's what that's what they want. They want you to respond. They do. Yeah. I never got in a fight. But going back to the anxiety and depression rates being at 66% in the US, what have you seen work in treating those with some of your clients? For me, so one of my favorite clients, like one of my favorite testimonials, I've worked with this guy who's in therapy for 15 years. He's on medication for anxiety and depression and panic attacks, what I was struggling with. And he really wasn't seeing any change. After a year of working with me,
Starting point is 00:27:15 he came off of his medications, he wasn't having panic attacks, and he was very rarely experiencing heavy depressive and anxious symptoms. And it wasn't because of the fact that I am some magic guru that changed his whole life. It was just because of the fact that you need specific tools. Anxiety is a feeling of being out of control. So every emotion actually has a positive intent behind it. People don't know, for instance, depression. There's a study called Analytical Rumination Hypothesis.
Starting point is 00:27:42 And it speaks about how depression formed in our ancestors. And it formed because it wants to help you actually come to a space within yourself where you can find some sort of resolution and solution for a deeper interpersonal problem. Wow. So depression, if you think about what it does to us, it draws you inwards.
Starting point is 00:27:59 It forces you to isolate. It makes you withdraw. It wants you to sit with yourself. Why? So you can spend the time doing introspective work. Anxiety is similar. Not in that regard, but it's similar in the sense that it wants to help you. Anxiety is there to warn us that there is an eminent danger in the surrounding area.
Starting point is 00:28:17 You may not always pick up on it. It might be a subconscious program at this point, but that's what anxiety is doing. It's trying to give you the energy and the power. Because if you don't have any strength in you right now, anxiety is going to help you through it. So these all have positive intents. And when you start teaching that, and then you start giving people a new sense of control,
Starting point is 00:28:36 they can start overcoming these deeper issues. That's so fascinating. I never thought of a positive from anxiety and depression. There's positives for all of them. Anger, procrastination, each one has an extremely positive intent. Wow. Now with anger, right? My dad had some anger issues.
Starting point is 00:28:51 What have you seen there? Is that some sort of trigger from trauma that's triggering people to have anger episodes? So anger has this interesting infinite loop where it's a cycle between helplessness and strength. If you're feeling too weak or helpless to get through something, anger will help you through it because anger is a direct response to helplessness. Anytime somebody's feeling angry or they're exhibiting a high level of anger, it's actually because they feel completely out of control. And so in an attempt to gain control, they want it the quickest way they could get it, which is through a strong response.
Starting point is 00:29:28 That strong response can only occur if you have an adrenaline surge or if your body feels tense and tight. If you think about it and you guys at home listening, when you're feeling angry, what happens? Your body's tight, it's tense. You feel strong, right? Sometimes your muscles have a surge of adrenaline.
Starting point is 00:29:43 You could lift heavy stuff all of a sudden. Dude, sometimes you black out if you're that angry yeah exactly and so anger is always deep rooted in some sort of a pain or helplessness but it's also always there to try and help you i mean if anyone's ever been for instance cheated on or you've had issues in your relationship and you've struggled to leave you might think about you're sitting there and you're like screw this girl i'm gonna leave her she sucks she ain't nothing blah blah blah and as soon as that wears off you like i kind of want her yes sir literally every guy i know every guy that's so funny van it's been fun man anything you want to close off with or promote to wrap up yeah i would love to uh just tell everybody who's listening if you want to learn a little bit more go deeper
Starting point is 00:30:26 We just scratched the surface check me out on my instagram at vin.infante And uh, I would love it if you guys subscribe I have a free newsletter. You can go to my website It's vincentinfante.life. Love it. We'll put it in the description. Thanks so much for coming on man. I'll see you guys tomorrow

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