Financial Feminist - 295. How to Overcome Your Limiting Beliefs About Money with Nir Eyal
Episode Date: August 18, 2026There's a sentence I hear from women more than almost any other: "I'm bad with money." Today's guest spent six years proving that sentence isn't a fact — it's a belief, and beliefs can change. Nir E...yal, author of Beyond Belief, breaks down the science of why we get stuck telling ourselves the same money story, and exactly how to write a new one. In his new book, Beyond Belief, he digs into why the words that follow "I am" are so dangerous, and why getting comfortable with discomfort is the real skill behind almost every financial win. We get into identity, self-trust, why you can't see your own limiting beliefs (but can spot everyone else's), and the research that proves belief can override biology. This one will change how you talk to yourself about money. Nir’s Links: Free Belief Change Guide: www.nirandfar.com/beyond-belief-live 30-Day Belief Transformation Journal: nirandfar.com/beyond-belief Website: http://nirandfar.com LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/nireyal/ Learn the exact strategies to save money, pay off debt, improve your money mindset, and increase your net worth. Get your personalized plan: https://herfirst100k.com/ffpod. 00:00 Intro 03:00 Facts vs. beliefs vs. faith 05:00 Identity and the danger of "I am" statements 06:00 Belief can override biology 09:00 Self-trust and building your own track record 12:00 The evolutionary reason your brain resists change 16:00 The mindset shift behind getting comfortable with discomfort 22:00 Byron Katie's four questions for examining a belief 26:00 Building a "portfolio of perspectives" 30:00 Naming systemic barriers without using them as an excuse 33:00 Choosing the belief that serves you 35:00 Locus of control — why believing you have agency changes outcomes 42:00 Challenging your thinking without tipping into toxic positivity 44:00 Why manifesting backfires (and what works instead) 49:00 Mental contrasting 52:00 Why chaos and struggle mean you're alive 54:00 Tori's own story of choosing to feel pain instead of avoiding it 55:00 The rat study — how belief in possible rescue changes persistence 1:00:00 Persistence over intelligence — the real predictor of success Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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There are money beliefs that are currently sabotaging your success, and one of them is the most expensive thing you will ever tell yourself.
But here's the thing my guest taught me today.
These are not facts.
These are beliefs, and beliefs can change.
Near I all spent six years researching how our beliefs get installed, usually before we even seven years old,
and how we can actually rewire the ones that are holding us back.
In his new book, Beyond Belief, he breaks down why I Am is such a loaded phrase,
and how most successful people get comfortable with discomfort instead of running from it.
If you've been struggling to get ahead financially and you know that your brain is the reason,
then this is the perfect episode for you. Let's get into it.
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So when you were six, your family got scammed out of nearly everything
and you watched what losing money did to your parents
and you spent your whole career studying behavior and belief.
How much of this book is really that six-year-old
trying to understand what money does to people?
Oh, you're giving me goosebumps. Yeah, we're going deep, aren't we, Tori? This is great. How much of it? It's completely that. I mean, it's, we don't choose our beliefs. At least most people don't. That was the revelation for me is that we can choose. But most of us, we pick up these beliefs from our childhood, from what someone told us, from our culture, from our background, from the things that we repeated to ourselves again and again and again. We don't realize that actually our beliefs are installed into us.
I've realized in my own work around money
that the vast majority of our money beliefs
are cemented by age seven.
So right around that same age
that you went through that,
talk to me about that concept
of the beliefs kind of being baked in.
When we grow up,
we have these lenses
that we use to see the world.
And the myth is that we see the world clearly.
And the fact is we don't see the world clearly.
None of us can.
That the world is,
filtered based on our beliefs. And I'm not talking figuratively. We have experiments where we can
show conclusively that your beliefs dictate how you see reality. So, for example, do you know that people
who are on a diet see food as larger? That people who are afraid of heights see distances as
further. That I can show you an image called a coffer illusion. Maybe you can put one on the screen
later on. But I can show you this image. And based on where you grew up, based on where you grew up,
you will either see circles or squares.
Same image, Tori.
Doesn't that blow your mind?
I can show the same image to two different people
and based on where they grew up,
one will see circles first,
one will see squares first.
Isn't that crazy?
So of course,
if our backgrounds can affect literally how we see reality,
they are going to shape how we see money
and financial freedom.
The belief I hear most often from women
is I'm bad with money.
And I think that is one of the most expensive
sentences that women tell themselves. You spent six years researching belief. Is something like,
I'm bad with money, a fact? Or is it a lie we keep getting told and that we tell ourselves over and
over and over again? Yeah, so we should start with what is a belief and how is it different from a
fact? We use those words interchangeably. I believe this, I believe that. And it kind of is a
synonym for a fact, but it is not a fact. That a fact is an objective truth. Okay, the world is
more like a sphere than it is flat. I'm sorry if you have any flat earthers in your audience,
but the world doesn't care what you believe. You don't. I know. That's why I can make that.
They're too smart for that. But that's a fact, right? The world doesn't care what you believe.
A fact is a fact. You cannot change facts. On the other end of the spectrum, you have faith.
Faith is a conviction that does not require evidence. God rewards the righteous. There's no amount of
evidence that's going to change someone's mind about that, nor should it. It's a matter of faith.
But in between fact and faith is something very special.
And this is what we call a belief.
A belief is a conviction that is open to revision based on new evidence.
And so what's mind-blowing about beliefs is that they are tools, not truths.
Beliefs are tools, not truths.
Because so many of our beliefs are predictions about the future.
They haven't happened yet.
I'm no good with money.
Forever and ever.
There's no incidents where you've ever have been or could.
ever be good with money? No, we make that belief. That's the assumption. That's it. And we treat it
like a fact. And so many of our problems in life happen when we don't realize that the things that we
think our facts are nothing more than beliefs. And beliefs are malleable. They can change.
So instead of just taking what we've been given, we can look at those beliefs, especially what we
call limiting beliefs. We can talk about what those are and assess whether they are hurting us
or whether they are serving us.
What you're saying is also so tied to identity
because when we talk to women especially,
but I think everybody does this,
there's a level of not I failed
or this thing that happened didn't work out.
It's I am a failure.
Oh, yeah.
So where does identity fit in
with the beliefs we're telling ourselves
or the beliefs that we just take for granted?
Absolutely.
So I like to say the most dangerous words
in the English language
is whatever comes after I am.
I am not good with money.
I am not a morning person.
I am too old for this.
I am not ready.
Be very, very careful.
Can I tell you a quick story
that I learned writing this book?
There was a guy in the research literature
who's called Mr. A.
He's anonymized.
They call him Mr. A in this research report.
And Mr. A decides that he's going through a very bad breakup
with his girlfriend and he decides to end it all.
And he decides that he's going to commit suicide.
So he goes to his medicine cabinet.
He takes out an entire bottle of antidepressants and he swallows every single one.
Now, when he's swallowing the last pill, he decides he's going to change his mind.
He wants to live after all.
He rushes over to the neighbor's house.
He bangs on their door.
He tells them what happened.
He tells them to rush him to the hospital.
And when he gets there, he collapses in the waiting room.
And he manages to tell the nurses, I took all my pills.
Help me.
I took all my pills.
They rush him into the ER.
They're trying to figure out what he's overdosed.
on, and as they're taking his vital signs, they realize that his heart rate is plummeting,
that his blood pressure is dangerously low, and he's slipping in and out of consciousness.
Now, as they look at this pill bottle, they're trying to figure out what has he overdosed on.
And they realize that it doesn't say the name of the medication, it doesn't say the name of
the antidepressant, it only has a phone number. They call this mysterious phone number,
and it turns out that Mr. A was in a clinical,
trial, that in fact, he was in the placebo group, that nothing that he had taken could have
possibly caused these physiological symptoms, the falling heart rate, the blood pressure dropping,
the in and out of consciousness. That was totally psychosomatic. He had created that because he
believed, I am overdosing. They tell Mr. A this, that he was in the placebo group,
that he had swallowed an entire bottle of an inert substance within 15 minutes towards.
his blood pressure goes to normal, his heart rate stabilizes, and he walks out of the hospital
completely fine, maybe a little embarrassed. So why do I tell you this story? Why is this so important?
Well, if our beliefs about who we are and what we are experiencing can change our physiological
symptoms to that degree, they can cause an overdose symptoms, just like in the case of Mr. A,
what else can they do to us? What opportunities can we not see? Because we believe we are a particular
type of person. This happens all the time. So be very, very careful when it comes to our labels,
because it turns out our labels become our limits. If you believe I'm not the kind of person who gets rich,
or even worse, only people who get rich are greedy, right? If somebody's wealthy, it's because they took
it from someone. They didn't, no way that they earned it honestly. They got rich because someone
got poor. If that is your fundamental belief about the world, you are going to continue to self-sabotage
to be consistent with the identity you think you have.
That is so powerful.
I think a lot of what we're talking about here
is also connected to self-trust,
and I'm starting to do so much research
and thinking around this concept of self-trust,
because in that instance,
you know, this person has fully convinced themselves.
They've overdosed their dying,
and their body has a response to that, right?
And as soon as they realize, like,
oh, okay, this is not happening. They're able to regulate themselves. And I think in a, you know,
much less high-stakes situation, I see this in my own life of I didn't think I could do it.
I convinced myself I couldn't do it. I did it. I have now confirmation that I can. So that builds like,
you know, another little token in the jar of self-trust because I've realized, okay, I didn't think I could.
I did, now what's possible for me.
So how do we think about like putting more of those tokens in the jar of self-trust?
Like how do we start creating beliefs that do serve us, even if it feels scary in the moment
in whatever situation we're in?
Right, right.
So the hardest step, Tori, is seeing our limiting beliefs.
That seeing our limiting beliefs is almost like seeing your own face.
If I told you, look at your face, okay?
You can't look at your face.
You can look at your hands.
You can look at your feet.
You can't look at your own face.
Interestingly enough, you can look at other people's faces.
You can see everyone else's limiting beliefs, right?
You can see your parents, your kids, your colleagues, your neighbors.
You can see all their limiting beliefs.
But you can't see your own, just like you can't see your own face, right?
Unless you take out a mirror.
Unless you reflect, you need something outside of you to look.
let you see your own limiting beliefs. Because to you, your limiting beliefs feel like facts.
Everybody else's limitations, those are just beliefs, right? That's their problem, is that they
have these limitations. But my limitations, no, no, no, those are facts. Those are real.
And of course, that's not true. And the reason that your brain does this, I think it's super
interesting to understand why. So what is the definition of a limiting belief? What is a limiting belief?
A limiting belief is a belief that decreases your motivation while increasing your suffering.
decreases your motivation, increases your suffering.
Why do we have that?
What's the purpose?
Why would the brain cause you suffering and cause you not to be motivated to do something
that you're dreaming of doing?
Well, it's because evolution doesn't care about you getting rich.
Evolution doesn't care about you living to your full potential.
Evolution doesn't even care if you're happy.
What your brain cares about, the number one directive of your brain,
is to keep you alive.
That's what your brain wants to do more than anything else.
Yeah, it's safety. So the safest thing your brain can do for you, to keep you alive,
is to keep you doing and thinking and believing exactly what you have done before.
Because whatever you did yesterday got you here today, didn't it? And so that's your brain doing
its job. So when you hear these limiting beliefs, I'm not ready. This is too hard. This is not
going to work. People like me don't do that. I'm not the kind of person who does something like that.
When you hear these limiting beliefs whispered in your ear, and let me tell you, I wrote this book for me,
We can get into my limiting beliefs.
I need this more than anyone.
When you hear that, that is your brain doing its job.
It doesn't mean you need to be a slave to it.
It just means we can acknowledge and say, okay, I got it.
Thanks, Brain.
Appreciate you chipping in.
But I'm going to try and look for a different belief that is going to liberate me.
We call these liberating beliefs,
our beliefs that increase your motivation while decreasing your suffering.
So the most important part, we can talk about the step.
There's a methodology, this reflection process that we have to take.
It's not that hard. It's actually, I think it's a lot of fun.
But it's a skill like any other that we can learn to turn our limiting beliefs into liberating ones.
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So I would love that exercise,
but before we do that,
that level of discomfort is, I think, the thing that people can't move past, that feeling of, again, I'm not good enough or it feels scary, so I'm not going to do it. And I've done some of this research as well, where it's like your body and brain, even in 2026 does not know the difference between, like, you, like, facing off somebody in the caveman days versus you putting yourself out there to start a business. Like, are.
body and brains have the same reaction. So how do we get comfortable with that discomfort and see it instead
as an opportunity, not a threat? That's right. This is your brain's evolutionary hardwiring. It's putting
things, it can't put things into perspective. And so it thinks of every threat as catastrophic many times,
even when it's not life-threatening. Because remember, good things are nice, but bad things will kill you. So for our
200,000 years ago, if they found some berries, that's nice. But if in those same bushes,
they saw a tiger, well, that's catastrophic, right? And so we think about the negatives much more
severely than the positives. We remember all the things that didn't work out, not the things
that did. It's called a negativity bias. And so knowing, for me, that's very helpful,
knowing that, okay, that's just my brain doing its job. And the way to unlock myself,
to unshackle myself from those limiting beliefs is to change our beliefs.
how do we do that? It ends with, essentially, asking ourselves, could the opposite be true?
And we could do the whole exercise for how to get there? But the end state is asking ourselves,
could the opposite be true? And it feels super ridiculous. It feels really, really weird to do it.
Could losing my job be a good thing? Right? Could this business failing be great?
could me investing in the stock market and the stock market crashes, could that be not so bad?
And so they feel originally it sounds ridiculous, right?
No, no, all those things are terrible.
I don't want any of those things to happen.
But in fact, it's our judgment, it's our belief that feeling bad is bad is the biggest problem.
And I'm sure this is going to blow some people's minds.
What are you talking about?
Feeling bad is always bad.
Is it?
Is there never purpose to feeling bad?
Is pain always a bad thing? No. For example, if you're a parent, but being a parent involves a lot of
sacrifice, a lot of pain. Tell me that. I have a teenage daughter. But it's purposeful. There's a
reason I'm doing it, right? Investing in the stock market. You're going to feel pain every time there's a
drawdown. Every time there's a bear market, it hurts. Man, does it hurt? Is that necessarily a bad thing?
you know? And so that's this process that we go through to ask ourselves, why am I causing myself
suffering? This is the big unlock that I gained in my life of the past six years writing this book,
is that I realized something that ancient traditions have known for quite some time, which now
neuroscience is catching up with, is that pain and suffering are two separate things.
If you can understand that mindset, that pain and suffering are two separate things,
that what you experience, the pain in your life, that's just information. That's just information.
that's just information. It's our judgment about what happens to us that causes the suffering.
And what we judge is based on our beliefs. All we do all day is judge. Good bad, good, bad, good, bad.
Everything is, you know, we're judging, judging, judging, judging. And that's in fact what causes our
suffering. And so to free ourselves from that suffering and in fact, increase our motivation to do
what we want to do, we have to get comfortable with that discomfort. We have to welcome the pain.
And this is what we see with successful people across all kinds of fields, whether
whether it's athletics, whether it's in business, whether it's the arts,
they have figured out how to get comfortable with discomfort.
They understand that feeling bad is not bad.
And when they have that change in judgment, when their beliefs change,
so does everything else in their life.
I literally just wrote down,
if you're avoiding discomfort, your life is probably not that exciting.
Like, your life is probably not very interesting to you.
And that's the truth is it's like you're probably listening to this episode
because there's something in your life you want to change.
And the fact of that is,
is like, you're going to feel uncomfortable.
And that's the only way the change is going to happen.
So if you're avoiding discomfort,
and to your point, if you're avoiding that pain or that inconvenience,
yeah, you probably haven't kept your promises to yourself.
You probably are playing pretty small
because on the other side of, you know,
all the cliches are true.
On the other side of fear is everything you want.
But, like, that's the reality of this.
So you are already doing something that I think it's very easy for somebody to miss if they are not doing it, which is in the moment not only going, maybe it's not so bad, but like sitting there for a second. And I will say so much of like my success, I think, is understanding when I am traveling down roads that do not serve me and not only stopping myself, realizing I'm doing it first, but then stopping myself from going down that road again.
So walk me through that exercise of how do we not just, you know, the moment passed us by,
but how do we, one, see it and be mindful of it and then two, actually redirect it or have a
different outlook on what's happening.
Okay, sure.
So let me share with you one area of my life that most changed learning about the psychology of beliefs.
And the reason I want to share this example is because when you talk about the science and the studies,
that's all very convincing and great evidence,
but there's nothing like actually watching someone's struggle.
So let me share with you my struggle.
Now, this isn't a money struggle because I wanted to give you an example that's very universal.
This is just one technique.
But let me share with you one revolutionary belief change that I had in my life
because something that I've, a belief that I've carried with me for decades
is that my mom is super judgmental.
A lot of people's moms are judgmental.
Mine is extra super judgmental and very hard to please.
And a few years ago, I remember that I wanted to get her some flowers.
It was her birthday.
The problem was I was living in Singapore, and she was in Central Florida, where I grew up.
And despite the time difference, I stayed up until one in the morning, and I called the best
florist I could find in Central Florida, and I got the best possible bouquet that I was sure
that she was going to love Tori, and she was going to tell me the next morning that I was
the best son ever for getting her these beautiful flowers.
And that's not what happened.
What happened was, I call her up the next day and I say, hey, mom, happy birthday. Did you get the flowers I sent?
To which she says, yes, I got the flowers. But just so you know, they were half dead. So don't order from that florist again.
To which I said, well, that's the last time I buy you flowers or something like that. I'm a little embarrassed. That's what I said, but that's what happened.
Now, my wife, who is, we work together, she's my editor and she knows the research I do. And she was sitting right next to me.
And she turns to me after the call and she says, near, would you like to do a turnaround on this?
To which I said, knew, I do not want to do your touchy-feely, hocus, pocus, mumbo-jumbo,
I need to vent because did you hear what just happened?
Well, it turns out I knew enough about the psychology literature at that point to know that that's
actually not very helpful.
That when we vent about people, what the psychology literature tells us is that we are reinforcing
our beliefs about them.
because what we know is that we don't see reality clearly.
We don't see people clearly, especially the ones we know best.
We see them as we believe them to be.
So we don't see people as they are.
We see people as we are.
And the more we talk about people and say, oh, there she goes again.
She always does this.
This is so like her.
We're just reinforcing this effigy of that person.
So I said, okay, fine.
I'm not going to do that.
I'm going to take my wife's advice.
I'm going to do a turnaround.
So I'm going to walk you through this process.
And if folks are listening, you can do this yourself.
What you can do, the first step is to find an area of your life where you're suffering,
any area of your life.
Maybe it's credit card debt.
Maybe it's starting into that new business.
Maybe it's your inability to save.
Maybe it's that you've wanted to go to the gym but haven't made time for it.
You wanted to repair a relationship.
It's that New Year's resolution that you've had year after year that you're not doing.
What area of your life do you find yourself suffering?
For me, it was my relationship with my mom.
The next question is, why?
What's the reason?
Why are you suffering?
What's the reason you're not doing, that thing you want to do, whatever it might be?
I want you to just write down, what's the reason?
For me, what was causing my suffering is that my mom is judgmental and hard to please.
And that piss me off.
That's what was causing my suffering.
Now that you have that reason, we're going to label that our belief.
That's our belief.
And then we're going to use a process called inquiry-based stress reduction.
This came from a woman by the name of Byron Katie, who did a genius job of distilling down actually
thousands of years of this practice.
Turns out Aristotle did something very similar 2,000 years ago.
But Byron Katie gives us these four questions to ask ourselves of this belief.
That I think it's one really useful.
It's not the only technique, but it's one very useful technique that's actually been validated
now in several studies.
And so here are the four questions.
The first question is you look at that belief.
my mother is judgmental and hard to please.
In my case, is it true?
What a stupid question.
Obviously, Tori, you heard what my mom said.
Obviously, she's super judgmental, right?
If someone buys you flowers from the other side of the planet and sends them to you, right?
What do you say?
Thank you.
They're beautiful.
Exactly.
You're the best son ever.
Wow.
That's right.
I've never had a son like you.
Exactly.
It's the most beautiful bouquet I've ever seen.
You spent so much money.
You shouldn't have. Exactly. Okay, so stupid question. Question number one. Let's skip that one. Let's go to question number two. Is it absolutely true? Sounds like the first question, right? It's a little bit different. Is it absolutely true? Could I be absolutely 100% sure? It's a fact. A fact is always true. There's never exceptions. The reason my mom said what she said was because she was being judgmental and hard to please. Could I be 100% sure?
sure. Could there be even a 1% chance? That's not true? Maybe. I don't know what that other reason
might be, but yeah, okay, I had to admit there might be another reason. Okay, fine. So maybe it's not a fact.
Maybe it's a belief. Okay. The third question, how do I feel, who do I become when I hold
on to that belief? So when I believe my mom is too judgmental and hard to please, how do I feel?
You know, replace it with whatever belief you might have. Money is corrupting. I'm no good
with money, rich people are always greedy, lucky things don't happen to me. I'll never succeed at
starting a business. I'm not an entrepreneur. I'll never get out of debt. Whatever that limiting
belief is, when you sit with that belief, just sit with it for a second. How do you feel?
For me, when I held on to that belief, my mother is judgmental and hard to please. Whether or not
it's true, I felt crappy, right? If you tell somebody, I'm never going to get out of debt.
If you believe that, what happens to your motivation to try and get out of debt? It goes down.
What happens to your suffering every single day you believe that? It goes up, right? And that's what
was happening with me. I felt, I felt impatient. I felt this 13-year-old version of myself that I didn't
really like whenever I held on to that belief. And finally, the fourth question, who would you
be without that belief? So if I had a magic wand and, you know, Harry Potter style, I zap it at your
brain and that belief completely dissolved. Okay? The belief, whatever it is that you're holding on,
that you think is a fact, just let it go completely. Just pay attention to how your body feels.
When you just let it dissolve, it didn't ever exist. When I tried that, I realized that believing
that my mom was judgmental and hard to please, letting go of that belief, all of a sudden I felt lighter.
I felt better. I felt more like the person I wanted to be. So in just four questions, I realized,
the belief or the thing that I was holding on to, that I thought was a fact, was just a belief,
that holding onto it made me suffer, didn't feel good, and that letting it go serve me.
I felt way, way better.
Okay, so just with those four questions, now we're ready for the turnaround.
This is the fun part.
This is where we're going to ask ourselves, could the opposite of that belief also be true?
Okay, not is it true?
Could it be true?
Remember, beliefs are tools, not true.
So what we're trying to find here, we're collecting a portfolio of,
perspective, just like our stock portfolio, right? We don't want to put all our eggs in one basket and just
invest in one stock. We want to diversify. Well, maybe we don't want to invest in just one belief.
What are other potential beliefs that we might hold, right? What's the opposite of your belief?
The thing that you think is the reason you're suffering. For me, my mother is too judgmental and
hard to please. What's the opposite? My mother is not too judgmental and hard to please.
Sounds crazy, but could it be true? Could it be true?
Right? She did thank me for the flowers. She was just saying a statement of fact. The flowers weren't so nice.
So could I be sure that she wasn't trying to be helpful, perhaps? Maybe she just didn't want me to be scammed from this florist?
Could be, right? Could be another reason. Okay, now the third turnaround. Let's try another belief.
The opposite of my mother is two judgmental and hard to please. Could be I am two judgmental and hard to please.
Could that be true? Sounds crazy, but could it be true? Well,
wasn't I the one who was rehearsing exactly the script that I deserve to hear from my mom,
as you recited, very eloquently, that she didn't say. And when I didn't get that praise
telling me what a wonderful son I am, I lost it, didn't I? So who exactly was being judgmental?
Me. Okay, here's one more turnaround. A fourth belief. The opposite of my mother is too judgmental and hard to
please could be I am too judgmental and hard to please towards myself.
And you know what? That actually turned out to be the most true. Because when I did this nice thing
and I spent all this time and money and effort on it and it didn't work out, I felt incompetent.
I felt like I've messed up. I felt like this was my fault. And this is a very important psychological
concept called misattribution of emotion. When we feel crappy on the inside, we look to attribute
it to something on the outside. I can't believe she said that. How dare he do that? Did you see what
happened in the news today. And the financial system is rigged against us, all this stuff outside of us.
That's why I feel crummy on the inside. And that's exactly what I did to my mom.
So now, let me ask you, Tori, out of these four beliefs, now I have a portfolio of perspectives,
okay? Which one of those is true? Which one's false? All of them? None of them? Who cares?
Who cares? Beliefs are tools, not truths. Was it serving me to believe my
mother is too judgmental and hard to please. Does it serve you to believe you could never be an
entrepreneur, you could never save money, you can never get out of credit card debt? Does that serve you?
Well, for this belief that I had that my mother is too judgmental and hard to please, she had to
change so I could be happy. Let me tell you, Tori, you don't know my mom, but I'm telling you
that ain't going to happen. Because whenever we wait for outside factors to change so we could stop
suffering, if you hold your breath, you're going to suffocate. It doesn't work that way. The other
three beliefs I could do something with. Right. Now I was in control of my suffering. Doesn't mean I have to
be best friends with my mom. Doesn't mean we have to, you know, go to the park every day and picnic. No,
it doesn't mean any of that. It just means I don't have to suffer. So even the belief of saving money
is hard. And who says something hard is bad? Maybe something hard means it's meaningful.
Means you'll savor. It means it's an opportunity to grow and prove to yourself to your kids,
to your family that you're able to do something. So all of our suffering,
fundamentally comes down to our belief, that the suffering doesn't happen out here. The suffering
always happens up here based on our interpretation. So that's one example of how I found my limiting
belief. I explored that portfolio of perspectives by asking myself, could the opposite be true?
And then decided to pick a liberating belief, which I constantly have to repeat to myself,
which allows me to not suffer through this discomfort.
I need everybody listening to go back 10 minutes and listen to that whole thing again.
That was so important.
And I think that this is the practice that you have to get comfortable doing where, yeah, it kind of feels woo-woo, or it feels weird.
It's like, okay, I'm going to talk to myself in my brain.
Okay.
But yes, if you are tired of suffering from this particular thing, that's not working.
So how about we try something else, right?
And I think the thing that you just said that I want to like double click on, one of the things that I think,
think is so important about the work that I do and the community we've built is that we acknowledge
very clearly that your financial situation is not 100% your fault because there's so many
systemic reasons that you might not be able to save money or get out of debt or be an entrepreneur,
right? And especially for women, there is so much not only pressure, but just the reality of
inequity and inequality in our system. And also, we have so much personal responsibility. And I think
that both of those things can be true. You can be saying, yeah, I have student loans because nobody
taught me how they worked. And it's a fucking crisis and they're really expensive. And none of those
things are your fault. But the thing with our work that we talk about is, yes, all of those things
are outside of your control.
And it's not that we shouldn't
acknowledge them and realize them, right?
I might be in student loan debt.
Yes, because no one taught me
how to think about debt.
No one taught me what it meant.
No one taught me how expensive college was going to be.
Women take on way more student loans
than men do statistically.
Like, all of those things are true.
We have a trillion dollar student debt crisis in this country,
right? All of those things can be true.
And at the same time,
the 20% that is,
within your control, I need you to take fucking seriously because you can't use the systemic
reasons as an excuse. You can use them as evidence as to why this might have happened, right?
Or as your way as not beating yourself up all the time or not allowing shame to come in,
absolutely. But they cannot be the reason that you don't take ownership over your own life and
your own money. And that is what I'm so worried. Women do, especially because we're so good in
the show about acknowledging, here's all the systemic shit that you're not going to be able to
control. But that's why you have to take the 20% seriously, because if 80%, you have no control over,
and then you have to show up for that 20. Yeah, yeah. And look, it's not up to me to tell particularly
women what to believe and what to think, but I'll tell you what I heard from another woman that really
stuck with me. I was talking to Cody Sanchez, who I know you know, and she's a great example of an
entrepreneur who's really kick-and-butt out there. And she told me how she, from a very young age,
she loved being the only woman in the room full of men who didn't understand what she was doing there.
Like, it's not only that you can say, well, I'm going to succeed despite it. You can actually relish it.
Could it be true that you're like, hell yeah? Right.
I want that adversity.
I want that story because you know what?
I'm going to be the last generation that faces it because the next generation of women is not going to face it.
And so I'm going to have the story of overcoming this.
That's going to be part of my hero story that I get to tell.
That could be true.
And I'm not saying that has to be everybody's story, but you can always find a belief that serves you whether or not it's true.
This is the amazing thing.
It doesn't have to be true.
Beliefs are tools, not truths.
In Cody's case, it served her to have this belief of relishing the fact that she was a woman
in a male-dominated industry.
That was her belief.
She loved it.
She was disappointed when that wasn't the case because she told herself, this is a good thing.
I love this.
And that's all in her head, right?
It's completely a made-up story.
So we can use that same power.
Why?
Why would we do that?
Well, because the alternative is such a bummer.
The alternative causes stasis.
The alternative causes you to lack motivation and increase your suffering.
So you've got to change that story in order to ultimately change your behavior.
And you can acknowledge the injustice of it and also say, okay, what am I going to actually do for me?
Because the thing I talk about all the time is, like, yes, we know that the patriarchy has all of these impacts on women.
And also, we cannot be victim to patriarchy.
that's that like as much as we are in control of that because then that's right they're we're given
patriarchy exactly what it wants so it's like the worst thing you can do is say all of these things
are going to be the reason I can't do it it's like find all reason one reason that you might be able to
even if it's not perfect even if it's not yeah the perfect formula yeah absolutely there's actually
research to back this up they did studies on people who have what's called an external locus
of control versus an internal locus of control. An external locus of control, that type of person says
things that happen to me in my life are because of external circumstances. It's the economy. It's my
family. It's my upbringing. It's whatever. That's their basis of what controls their life is things
outside of them. Then we have people who are called, who have what's called an internal locus of
control. This is very, very well studied in psychology. An internal locus of control says,
no, I affect what I do in the world, right? Most of what happens to me is because of what I
do. Now, here's the kicker. We know that people with an internal locus of control do better in
almost every conceivable metric. They make more money. They have more friends. They contribute
more to their community. They have fewer instances of mental health issues like depression and anxiety.
All the good things happen to people who have an internal locus of control over people
who have an external locus of control. But what's amazing is that even when people
statistically have every reason to point to the fact that they are downtrodden,
that they are discriminated against, that they are at the lowest place on the socioeconomic total
pool, even when that is a fact, indisputable, those with an internal locus of control still do
better. They still do better, even if it's false, even if you have, there's nothing you can do
about your situation. You still do better when you believe you can, when you have that internal
locus of control. There's one exception. There's one exception. The one exception is judging other people,
that when you judge other people,
you want to have an external locus of control.
Meaning, you want to believe as much as possible
that you can affect change in your life,
but when it comes to judging others,
you want to give them the benefit of the doubt.
That makes you a much happier,
more compassionate person.
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I did the classic thing this summer where I realized I have nothing to wear.
I'm like, oh my gosh, everything either doesn't fit anymore because I've had it for like 10 years
or I just don't have the things that are going to actually keep me feeling cool and fashionable throughout summer.
And of course, I went to quince.com slash FF pod because I bought, oh my gosh, the cutest shoes on Quince.
They're really, really comfortable.
Their sandals, I realized basically that I had a pair of sandals, but they were like the ugly hiking sandals.
and I was trying to pair them with cute dresses, and they looked bad.
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slash FF pod. Talk to me about
your lucky people see more opportunities
research. What are the money opportunities
that women and people more broadly are
specifically trained not to notice?
Yeah. Oh, this is great.
So they did a study where they asked
people to do a very simple task. The task was, please look through this newspaper, and we want you to
just count how many images you see. And we're going to time you, okay? Just count as quickly as possible
how many images you see in this newspaper. One, two, three, four, five. Now, they separated people
into two groups. One group were people who believed they were lucky people. That wasn't a fact. They
didn't follow them around and see if they were lucky. They just asked them, do you believe you are
generally lucky or generally unlucky? They separated them to two groups. And they were, and they were
groups, lucky and unlucky people, the unlucky people to do this task took two and a half minutes.
Okay, two and a half minutes to do this task. The lucky people took just 11 seconds. Why the big
difference? Well, on page two of this newspaper, one of those images said in big bold letters,
there are 43 images in this newspaper, collect your reward. The lucky people saw that image, read it,
understood what it meant, got it from their chairs, went to the proctors, got their reward,
and they were out, 11 seconds later. The unlucky people saw the ad. We know they saw the ad
because they correctly put down at the end of this exam, 43 images were in the newspaper.
We know they saw the image. But they didn't see it. They didn't comprehend what was literally
right under their nose. Things like that don't happen to me. It can't be that easy.
Their beliefs that they were unlucky literally changed what they were able to observe right in front of them.
And so if this happens with a simple newspaper test, you better believe it happens with all kinds of financial opportunities in our life, right?
There's a business opportunity.
No, that wouldn't work for me, right?
Or you don't even see it.
You know, that one of the traits that defines the successful entrepreneurs, we call it entrepreneurial alertness.
For entrepreneurial alertness is this trait that successful entrepreneurs have where they see $100 bills all over the place.
And the rest of us think, nah, that's crazy. That would never work. We don't even see what these
entrepreneurs see. And it's not our fault, per se, it's that we have these beliefs that we've never
questioned that prevent us from seeing what they see. What I'm hearing you tell me that I need to go
in thinking I'm the luckiest person alive. Because if I go in thinking I'm the luckiest person alive,
I am going to find the loopholes in the tasks. I am going to find the things that help me
navigate this easier than believing I have to significantly labor over it in order to earn it.
There's definitely something to, or I would tell you this, I would say that you would suffer less
along the way. You may see things differently, that's for sure, because what this study demonstrates,
that people who believe a certain way literally can see the world differently than others.
If nothing else, you will suffer less. So, for example, one thing that my family started doing
is that whenever something nice happens to us, okay?
We go to the airport and there's no line.
We go out for dinner and it was a great meal.
We, I don't know, like whatever little silly things happen to us in life,
we have this little silly phrase that we say,
which is, everything good happens to us.
Everything good happens to us.
Is that true?
No, that's a lie.
That is not true.
There are some things that happen to us that are not so good.
However, having that little ritual,
that little awareness of this is what our family says to each other, whether or not it's true
helps us appreciate things and notice things. And it does seem like a lot of good things happen
to us. Because we don't comment what most people do. Stuck in traffic again, this always happens to me,
right? Just my luck. Well, then you're going to see more of it because you expect it. Whatever you're
looking for, you're going to see more. So if you believe that people are greedy and cheap and mean,
you're going to observe that more.
If you believe people are generally good
and they're trying their best,
guess what?
You're going to see more of that as well.
How does someone challenge their thinking
without tipping into toxic positivity?
So toxic positivity is when we are ignoring the evidence.
And so remember, the definition of a belief
is a conviction that is open to revision based on evidence.
So what we don't want is good vibes only.
hate the good vibes only. That is not a good idea, right? Because that is telling you to ignore the
evidence or positive thinking in general. Just be an optimist all the time. That that that's not a good way.
Even I would say, I'm going to piss some people off here, manifesting. Turns out that manifesting actually
has some really bad research. Or I should say has some very bad results from research that's been done
on manifesting. And this is what we call goal-oriented thinking. I'll tell you why.
There was a wonderful research study, a few of them actually, conducted by a woman by the name of Gabriella Otogen.
And she connected people to blood pressure monitors as she asked them to do a visualization exercise to manifest.
And manifesting is generally considered, you know, you're thinking about your end goals and the universe will find a way to bring it to you.
So I'm going to manifest financial abundance.
So here I am picturing myself in my mansion and my Lamborghini, blah, blah, blah.
I'm going to envision myself with a beach body, and so I can envision my abs, and the universe
is somehow going to come over and give me my six-pack abs and my beach body.
So she had people do this exercise, and it turned out that when people thought about the end
goal, okay, I want the beach body, I want the big bank account, I want to get a good grade
on my exam, whatever it was that they were envisioning, their bodies became more relaxed,
they became less likely to actually do the things that would get them what they wanted.
So, for example, students who were asked to visualize getting a good grade on an exam,
they studied less than the students who didn't do the visualization exercise,
and therefore they got worse grades than the students who did do the visualization exercise.
So is the manifestation the belief that, like, oh, I've done the work already?
So I'm not going to, like, actually go study or actually go say?
That's right. That's right. There's two big problems. Actually, I would say three big problems.
One is that it's kind of like, well, I put in my DoorDash order with the universe, and now the universe is going to bring it to me.
Right. The universe is this cosmic slot machine that because I said I want it, it's going to give it to me.
I'm sorry, the universe doesn't give a shit. It doesn't work that way. Okay. Yeah.
The second problem is I think that this methodology makes us suffer more. Because what it says implicitly is that,
I can't stop suffering until I get that thing.
Yeah.
Only when I have the money will I be happy.
Only when I find love and money.
Only when I weigh this amount of this on the scale will I be happy.
I can't wear the bikini until then.
Yep.
Yeah.
It's stuff outside of myself, right?
It's always this stuff outside.
When that changes, then I will be at peace.
Then I will stop suffering.
Nuh.
You don't have to wait.
The suffering is up here, right?
And then the third thing, and this is, I think, the biggest problem of the three,
it doesn't prepare you for the pain.
So when we do these visualization exercises and the manifesting and the vision boarding,
we're thinking only about the outcomes.
And then we say, okay, I'm going to go get those things.
I'm going to do that stuff.
And then life smacks you in the face.
It's going to be difficult.
You're going to have the pain.
But if you haven't prepared for it, you're going to say, oh, wait a minute, this is hard.
And it's not happening as soon as I wanted.
And there's difficulty here.
What happened?
I put in my order to the universe.
Why isn't the universe delivering?
Because you haven't prepared for the pain.
So when you look at actually what type of visualization does work, this is what Otogen called mental
contrasting. Mental contrasting is when we contrast what we want with the difficulty we will have
to face to overcome what it takes to get there. So for example, when you think about an athlete,
you know, that visualization comes from athletes, they don't visualize the gold trophy in the
medal. That's not what they're visualizing. They're not manifesting that. What they're visualizing
is what will I do when it's difficult and something gets into my way? I'm on offense and defense
is coming at me. I'm skiing down the mountain and I slip. That's what we have to visualize. That's what we
have to prepare for is what am I going to do when it's difficult? What will I have to do physically
and more importantly psychologically? So instead of visualizing, oh, I want a big bank account,
a much better thing to visualize is, oh, I go to the store and I'm going shopping and I really want
that thing and I want it, want it, want it, what am I going to tell myself in that moment of desire
when I'm craving something, how am I going to talk myself down so that I don't overspend
and blow my budget or whatever the case might be, right?
The market's tumbling.
What am I going to tell myself when I want to sell out at exactly the wrong time?
That's what we should prepare for, not the outcome, but how we prepare for the psychological
pain.
No, that's so powerful.
And it's such a powerful switch because, yeah, you start believing, okay, again, I'm manifesting
this amount in my bank account or like this feeling when I'm debt free. And even I've talked about
that. But I think you are right that almost the more useful exercise is yep, when I look at my bank
account and I want a shame spiral, what am I going to do instead? Or I'm going and getting invited on a
trip I know I can't afford. What am I going to say instead? How am I going to be in that certain mindset?
Yeah, as opposed to just dreaming about how good it's going to feel. I do think that like there's some
helpfulness in that, but agreed, like, it's not the most practical option in terms of, like, your day-to-day
struggle or your day-to-day uncomfortability with this pursuit of this goal.
Yeah, yeah.
I think it's a good tool for someone who is ignoring what they want, right?
If they're just saying, like, you know, I'm putting blinders.
I don't want to think about anything.
It can be a good tool to say, you know, wouldn't it be amazing to have financial freedom?
Wouldn't it be to unshackle yourself from debt?
Like, imagine that.
I think that's great, but that's step one.
That's not the end.
That's the beginning.
The next step is then they say, okay, well, what's some things that keep you from that?
And then we can work through that same exact process that we talked about earlier
where we're going to do that turnaround and ask ourselves for that excuse,
for that reason of why I can't do that thing or why that's causing me suffering in some way,
could the opposite be true, right?
That when I'm out with my friends and they're ordering drinks and I feel bad saying,
hey, I'm just going to get a seltzer water and that's going to feel uncomfortable because
I'm trying to meet my budget, right?
What will I tell myself and what will I tell my friends so that I can get through that situation
so I can get through that difficult choice?
That's what we want to rehearse.
And that comes down to our beliefs because, again, why don't we do what we know we should do?
We all basically know.
Who doesn't know basically that financial freedom is about, you know, making more than you spend, right?
That's the basics.
But to do that, the reason we don't persist is because it hurts.
It's hard, right?
It's difficult.
It's uncomfortable.
But if we can change the story about the discomfort,
if we can change our beliefs about the discomfort,
the discomfort doesn't have to become suffering.
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I did the classic thing this summer where I realized I have nothing to wear. I'm like, oh my gosh,
Everything either doesn't fit anymore because I've had it for like 10 years or I just don't have the things that are going to actually keep me feeling cool and fashionable throughout summer.
And of course I went to quince.com slash ff pod because I bought, oh my gosh, the cutest shoes on quince.
They're really, really comfortable.
They're sandals.
I realized basically that I had a pair of sandals, but they were like the ugly hiking sandals.
And I was trying to pair them with cute dresses and they looked bad.
And then I was like, okay, I'm going to quince.
and they had so many amazing options.
Quince specializes in effortless, high-quality essentials.
If you're trying to go anywhere this summer,
you've got to go to Quince because everything is so cute
and it's also so timeless.
So you're going to ultimately save money
by buying stuff at Quince
because it's 50 to 80% less than similar brands,
but you're also not going to have to replace it all the time
because it's so beautiful.
Upgrade your every day.
Download the Quince app for app exclusive offers
or go to quince.com slash FFPod.
Get free shipping on your order
and 365 day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too.
That's QI-N-C-E dot com slash F-F pod.
One of my favorite quotes that's been going around recently is that Reddy is a decision,
not a feeling.
Talk to me more about that.
Yeah, I think so, that if you wait to feel good, that's a very high bar.
I think we think that the goal should be happiness.
And I don't know where we picked up this notion, but I think that's a bad idea.
You know, we think about someday I'll be happy.
Someday I'll be satisfied.
Someday, you know, everything will be peachy keen, if only.
If you think about it from an evolutionary basis, you know, that's what I like to study.
I like to study the psychology of how our brains evolved over the past 200,000 years.
And if you think about it, being happy doesn't make sense, right?
If there was a tribe of people 200,000 years ago, let's say our ancestors, who was always happy,
who was blist out, who was contented,
let's say there was a tribe of people that found that happiness.
What would happen if our ancestors met those people?
I'll tell you exactly what would have happened.
They would have killed them and eaten them.
Okay, that's what would have happened.
Because being contented is not our default state.
That, you know, thinking, striving that, oh, someday, everything will be perfect.
There will be no chaos and I'll be super happy.
that's not the way your brain has evolved.
It's that disquietude.
It's that wanting.
It's that craving that keeps us striving.
It's a good thing.
So in fact, I think we need to lean into that.
People think that if I keep working at this,
then things will be perfect.
No, I think chaos is the point
that realizing that chaos means you're alive,
that the struggle should be a reminder
that you have this cosmic gift of being here.
And what a miracle it is, right? Supernatural or not. Just think of the odds that you get to be here to be
conscious. Think about all the things that had to go right. The probabilities are minuscule.
And so I think having that perspective of, you know what, chaos means I'm alive. And it's an
opportunity for me to be better. So for example, even just a simple example, you know, this morning,
I dropped a cup of coffee. I had my cup of coffee and I dropped the mug and it shattered.
before that would have really pissed me off.
I got to clean this mug.
Now I'm going to be late and I would have annoyed me.
Now I have a very simple belief that replaces all those limiting beliefs.
The belief is this is an opportunity to practice patience.
It's an opportunity to practice patience.
Just a belief, right?
So if I can do that, if I can control my suffering through these struggles, through the pain,
which the pain is inevitable, why wouldn't I take it?
Why wouldn't I adopt that belief?
Right?
Why would I keep telling myself these lots of life?
about who I am and how the world works that aren't necessarily serving me.
Yeah.
My mid-20s, I went through, we've talked about it on the show a bit, but just a moment
of grief where I thought, oh, I don't think I'll ever be happy again.
And I was just in a lot of pain.
And I remember having the realization after months of this when I was driving through
Montana with a friend and like the sun was setting and we were driving along a river
and it was so beautiful.
And I remember having the realization,
oh, I have felt this feeling of aliveness when I've been happy,
like driving at 2 a.m. with friends in college
and seeing a beautiful sunset and going, wow, I'm alive and how cool it is to be human.
And I realized I could have that same feeling for pain of going,
wow, I can feel so deeply this pain and suffering.
And it means I'm alive.
and like what a gift that is.
And I'm in the midst of a really hard season for our family.
And I'm just like, I'm so glad I went through that in my 20s to understand that, okay,
that pain was necessary.
It taught me something.
It was horrible in the moment.
It was awful.
I truly, I'm like, I love my life and I literally thought maybe I'll never be happy again.
Like, that was an actual thought I had.
And then I was just, I got to the point where over.
time and over just sitting in it, I realized, yep, this pain was here to teach me that the goal is
not to avoid pain because that is impossible. The goal is to understand that that pain can also
prove to you that you're deeply, deeply human and that it is here to teach you something,
even if that lesson is something you don't fucking want to learn. Right. And even if I know people
are thinking, yeah, but that's terrible, right? What are you lying to yourself? Oh, it was awful.
It was not fun.
It was not a good time.
And I only realized it going through it.
It wasn't like in the moment I was like,
oh, ye old wise teacher,
thank you for causing me so much pain.
Like, no, I was so pissed off.
Doesn't mean you have to go through it again, right?
It just means that you're making a different story
that gives you hope to persist.
There's one study I have to share with you
that totally blew my mind.
And if your listeners are a little squeamish
about animal studies,
this might be a nice part to fast forward through.
but it's a really important study.
And it's not ethical, but it was done 75 years ago.
So it's important to learn from.
There's this biologist by the name of Kurt Richter.
And Richter had this very simple question, which was, how long can a rat swim in water?
That was his question.
What did he do?
He takes a wild rat, puts it in a cylinder of water, and he sits there any times how long the rat can swim.
Turns out a wild rat can swim for about 15 minutes before it gives up and drowns.
Okay?
Now, he has another question.
He wants to figure out, can he find a way to get the rat to swim for longer?
How can you make the rat more persistent?
So what does he do?
He takes a new group of rats, puts him in the same cylinder of water now.
And this time, he stands there with a stopwatch.
And at the 15-minute mark, he reaches in, right?
As soon as he sees the rat starting to struggle, he reaches in, he pulls out the rat,
dries it off, lets it catch its breath, and then plunk back into the water, it goes.
Okay, I told you it was a little unethical.
But that's what he did.
I was going to say, woof.
Yeah, not such a nice thing.
You can't do these kind of studies anymore, okay?
But anyway, it was done.
Poor rats.
Very sorry for the rats, but it happened.
So let's learn from it.
Yeah.
So he does this a few times.
Okay, he conditions the rats to believe that if they persist,
salvation might be possible.
Something might save them.
So have you heard this study before?
No.
Okay, so now I want you to guess.
Okay, I've got a pop quiz for you.
How long did the rats swim after?
Richter conditioned them to expect they might be safe. So they started their natural limit was 15 minutes.
How much longer did they swim after Richter did this to them? After he pulled them out, put them back in,
put them out, put them back in. How much longer could he get them to swim for?
I'm going to say six hours. Six hours. Wow, that is super, super optimistic. From 15 minutes to six hours,
right? That's incredible. By the way, most people say 100% better, maybe 15 minutes more, 30 minutes more.
I'm trying to do the thing where I know it's going to be a big number.
So think about that.
What is that?
Like 24 times more, right?
Six times four?
24 times more.
That would be insane.
Like imagine if I had some kind of intervention.
If you said, you know, I could make you 24 times more persistent running a race or taking an exam or, you know, struggling with your job.
Whatever it might be, I can make you 24 times more persistent.
That would be off the charts, ridiculous, right?
Guess what, Tori?
The rats didn't swim twice or three times or four times or even 24 times longer.
They swam for 60 hours.
What?
Not 60 minutes, not six hours.
Yes.
I thought I was being like, I was like, it's probably crazy.
And to me, a crazy number was six out.
It is crazy, but the answer was even crazy.
Wow.
Okay.
So why?
What changed here?
Right?
What changed?
The rats had the same bodies.
Nothing changed in their bodies.
They didn't suddenly become Michael Phelps swimming rats.
And they were already probably tired because they had done, what, 15 minutes of, like, intense effort.
Right, he did this a few times.
Right, exactly.
Right, right.
So the experiment with which they had this experiment, right, as much as we talk about environment, the environment, the environment didn't change.
Same environment, same cylinder of water.
The only variable left, we don't know, we can't ask the rats, but we think the only variable left is that
something changed in their minds.
That suddenly there was this switch that was flipped.
And now what was always within them was unleashed, was unlocked.
They started at 15 minutes, but they always had the 60 hours within them.
So you see here, this rat experiment is not about rats.
It's about us.
Right.
We all have those 60 hours.
We all have untapped potential, but we're quitting far too soon.
is good for us. I was going to ask you another question, but I kind of just want to end it there.
Like, that is the power of this. You're exactly right. And, you know, there's not going to be,
hopefully, many situations in your life where you're having to do the 60 hours compared to 15 minutes
of, like, intense labor to save your life. But it is proof that, like, we have more in us than
we think we do. It's one of the reasons I love watching Survivor. I still watch Survivor all the
time. And I think that is one of the hardest things that human beings can do is go out without
sleep and without food and compete in challenges and also be not psychologically safe. And like anybody
you talk to who has competed on Survivor, they're like, I pushed myself past where I thought
I was capable. And like, isn't that an incredible gift? Right. And it turns out that is the most
important trait that when you look at what is the most determinant factor on whether someone achieves
their goals. Financial security, job success, family, physical fitness, whatever it is. It's not
intelligence. It's not how smart you are. It's not even what resources you bring to bear. It's not
even what skills you have. It's whether or not you quit. That is the number one factor. It's
persistence. Persistence doesn't guarantee success, but quitting guarantees failure. So this is
the real power of beliefs. Just like those rats, that suddenly a belief changed, and now they
persisted far longer, just like with you when you were at that low point, and you realized you
learned hope, you learned these new beliefs that helps you keep going. Getting to financial
freedom takes a long time. It's quitting. That's the problem. It's not that we don't know what to do.
We basically know what to do. It's that we quit far too soon that it's good for us because we believe
it's too hard. So that's the real problem. It's our beliefs that keep us from meeting our full
potential. This was such an impactful episode.
I know that this is one people are going to share with so many folks in their life.
Like, I'm literally so excited to go out of my room and tell my partner about the rat study.
I'm so excited to talk about that.
It's a good one, right?
I am thrilled for people to read your book.
Plug away, my friend.
Where can people find out more about it?
I appreciate it.
Yes, the book is called Beyond Belief.
Oh, and I prepared a special thing for you.
So I have this five-minute belief change journal.
We didn't put it in the final edition of the book.
It didn't fit.
So we decided to give it out for free.
You can get it at my website.
I'll give you the link for the show notes.
It's near and far.com, but near is spelled like my first name. So nir and farr.com. And the book again is
beyond belief. Amazing. Thank you. Thank you for my pleasure. Thank you. Thank you.
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