Habits and Hustle - Episode 565: Dr. Elisha Goldstein: Emotional Health Strategies to Break Resistance and Build Discipline

Episode Date: June 23, 2026

Most people know exactly what they should be doing to feel better, follow through, and build the life they want, but actually doing it is where everything falls apart. In this episode, we get into why mindfulness has been misunderstood, why your nervous system can block follow-through, and why awareness is the first step to breaking the emotional loops that keep you stuck. We dive deeper into this in the Habits & Hustle Podcast with Dr. Elisha Goldstein. We also chat about why mindfulness does not mean calm, how to interrupt overwhelm in real time, and why emotional vocabulary can completely change the way you understand your needs. Dr. Elisha Goldstein is a clinical psychologist, author of six books, and co-founder of The Center for Mindful Living in Los Angeles. He holds a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and has developed programs focused on mindfulness, emotional health, and behavior change. His latest book is Tiny Shifts: How Emotional Health Transforms Stress, Relationships, and Longevity. What's Discussed: (02:14) Why mindfulness does not actually mean being calm. (06:04) The three questions your brain asks before you follow through on a habit. (07:39) Why people already know what to do but still struggle to execute. (15:22) What emotional health actually means beyond basic stress management. (16:44) The “emotional loop” behind overwhelm, anxiety, and resistance. (26:19) The tiny shift that helped him move from feeling lost to finding purpose. (29:18) Why motivational quotes do not work when your nervous system is dysregulated. (32:32) How fitness becomes a training ground for discipline in every area of life. (52:17) The real reason discipline is so hard to build when you do not feel motivated. (1:15:34) Why emotional vocabulary matters more than saying “I’m fine.”  Thank You to Our Sponsors! Momentous: Ready to try supplements that actually do what they claim? Head to livemomentous.com and use code JEN for 35% off your first subscription.  Therasage: Visit therasage.com and use code JEN to get 15% off your order. Your skin deserves this level of care. Magic Mind: Head over to magicmind.com/jen and use code JEN at checkout. AirDoctor: Head to AirDoctorPro.com and use promo code HUSTLE to get up to $300 off today! AirDoctor comes with a 30-day money back guarantee, plus a 3-year warranty (an $84 value) FREE! Kion: Visit getkion.com/habits for 20% off. Pique: Go to piquelife.com/jenniferrsd to get 20% off for life plus free gifts Prolon: Prolon is offering listeners 30% off sitewide plus a $40 bonus gift when you subscribe to their 5-Day Program! Just visit prolonlife.com/JENNIFERCOHEN and use code JENNIFERCOHEN to claim your discount and your bonus gift. Manna Vitality:Try it now by using code Jennifer20 at mannavitality.com  Rho Nutrition: Go to RhoNutrition.com and try Rho's Liposomal Glutathione. Use code JEN20 for 20% off sitewide. Find more from Jen Cohen:  Website: jennifercohen.com Instagram: @therealjencohen Books: jennifercohen.com/books Speaking: jennifercohen.com/speaking-engagements Find more from Dr. Elisha Goldstein Website: elishagoldstein.com Instagram: @drelishagoldstein LinkedIn: Elisha Goldstein Facebook: Dr. Elisha Goldstein YouTube: @dr.elishagoldstein Podcast: The Emotional Longevity Podcast - elishagoldstein.com/podcast/

Hi guys, it's Tony Robbins. You're listening to Habits and Hustle. Crush it. Welcome to the Habits and Hustle podcast with me, Jennifer Cohen, where we dig into the mindset, strategies and real life stories behind people who build extraordinary lives. Today I'm sitting down with Dr. Alicia Goldstein, a clinical psychologist, author and leading voice in the world of mindfulness and emotional health. He has spent decades helping people understand why we can know exactly what we should do, yet we still still struggle to follow through, stay consistent, calm or nervous system, and get out of our own way. And this conversation gets into the part of mindfulness. Most people completely misunderstand.

It's not about sitting perfectly still, clearing your mind, or magically becoming calm. It's about awareness, emotional capacity, and learning how to interrupt the loops that keep us stuck in overwhelm, comparison, resistance, and self-sabotage. What he shares in this episode will make you rethink, discipline, motivation, emotional health, and why these tiny shifts can create massive change over time. So let's dive in. Before we dive into today's episode, I first want to thank our sponsor, Therasage. Their trite panel has become my favorite biohacking thing for healing my body.

It's a portable red light panel that I simply cannot live without. I literally bring it with me everywhere I go. And I personally use their red light. therapy to help reduce inflammations and places in my body where, honestly, I have pain. You can use it on a sore back, stomach cramps, shoulder, ankle. Red light therapy is my go-to. Plus, it also has amazing anti-aging benefits, including reducing signs of fine lines and wrinkles on your face, which I also use it for. I personally use Therisage trilight everywhere at all the time. It's small. It's affordable. It's portable. It's portable. And it's really effective. Head over to

Therisage.com right now and use code be bold for 15% off. This code will work sitewide. Again, head over to Therisage, T-H-E-R-A-S-A-G-E.com and use code be bold for 15% off any of their products. All right, you guys, today on Habits and Hustle, we have, I love these types of podcasts. We have Dr. Elisha, I said it correctly. Yeah, that was good. Really? Yeah. Good.

Goldstein. And he is a clinical psychologist who is a leading voice in how mindfulness can actually help calm your nervous system. Would you say that's accurate? Yeah. Mindfulness. And because I'm a psychologist, there's kind of like a blend of emotional health and mindfulness, both of them.

Yeah. So, by the way, thank you for being on the show. Yeah. We were just saying before we started actually taping that I, in spite of all the inability for me to meditate and be mindful, I don't know how I've had any success because my brain and my nervous system were so shot on a regular basis. I can't imagine I'm the only one. Like I would you say, how would I say this? What would you say the percentage of people who are actually able to apply this idea of mindfulness can actually be. do so in a successful manner.

Well, let's just start there. Like what we've been told by our media, like what's a successful mindfulness? I mean, mindfulness enjoyed this incredible booms, like from 2000 through 2000, I don't know, 12. And at the time, there was like people on the head of magazines, like, oftentimes sitting there in like a serene environment, you know, everyone's calm. So the idea is that mindfulness equals calm. Yes. That's the idea. So how come I can't always become? I couldn't, like, I couldn't articulate that

sentence at the beginning of this podcast. That's exactly whenever I think of mindfulness, not to interject already, but is that exact thing. Like, I think of mindfulness as being calm. I feel on the antithesis of calm, therefore, how can I calm, how can I do something that's good for me if I'm not able to get myself there? So thank you for saying that. Right. But that message of mindfulness equals calm is the wrong message. And it's why it's why so many people feel like they fail or they're deficient in some way. In fact, actually, it created a huge disservice. I mean, look, the app calm, that's a great name for an app too, right?

But it creates that idea that that's what it is creates a huge disservice because what happens is, yeah, in our culture, it's hard to be calm. First of all, we're fed stuff at a very fast pace. We have a continuous fractured attention that we've been trained in for, I don't know, since 2007 when the iPhone came out, maybe. Yeah. Or maybe some of us was transgenerational trauma from, you know, being persecuted or people's lives or whatever over time. It's really hard to be calm. So if I try and, like, do some kind of breathing technique and I can't feel calm, what happens is I fall into a deficiency gap.

So all of a sudden, I feel deficient. Like something's wrong with me. I just can't do this. And that in itself is recorded in the brain as the same areas. stress. So all of a sudden we have increased stress. Well, it's hard to be calm when we get increased stress. So mindfulness just means awareness. That's all that it means. There's a great poem by this 13th century Sufi poet named Rumi, who might have heard of, right? Of course. This being human as a guest house, every morning, a new arrival, a joy, a depression, a meanness, some momentary awareness that comes as an unexpected visitor. He says, welcome and entertain them all. That's what mindfulness is. Mindfulness is just like, can I I be aware of what's happening in the moment as it's happening? If it was taught like that more or that was on the cover of magazine, it's not as sexy as like, you know, hey, we're going to create this some calm in your life because that's what we all really want. We don't really want awareness.

What's the outcome of awareness? We want calm. But it really just means the doorway to calm, the doorway to feeling more regulated emotionally, the doorway to having that hard conversation with the people that we care about starts with awareness. So you probably have more mindfulness than you think you have because there's moments where you just kind of know what you're feeling as you're feeling. Well, that's really interesting that you said it that way because awareness I have in spades, right?

Like I'm hyper aware of my surroundings. I'm hyper aware of people's, how people's responses. I'm highly observant. That doesn't make me calm at all. Like you're saying it's not even accurate. It's not the whole picture, yeah. Because, you know, it's funny. It's like, I feel there's so much emphasis, and it's extremely trendy to talk about mindfulness,

like, as like an overarching thing, like, mindfulness, mindfulness. And what are you doing to, like, you know, to save your, not save your space, like, all this, like, what's that? Protect your peace. Yeah. That was the one of the, exactly. Protect your peace. That's a very, and, like, all these, like, lingo around it. But yet I feel in like the ether, the more we focus on that, it's actually we're becoming as a society less peaceful, less calm, less aware.

I mean, there's a lot of chaos, I feel. And it's like this rhetoric doesn't make it any better. And so it's not like because I think it's nice to say on Instagram. Well, let me tell you why it doesn't work. Okay. It doesn't work because we want the, we want the, we want the. fast way out in our culture, right? We're bringing up. McDonald's, Twitter, whatever, you know, X or whatever it is. And we want, we want that because it helps conserve energy. I mean,

we're wired from an evolutionary perspective for a few different things. When we're, when we're making decisions on something or taking actions in something, and by the way, this is why we fail oftentimes at the habits we want to do in our lives. We know what we want to do, but we have a hard time following through is because we're, we're wired for when we're making decisions for safety. Is there a risk here? We're wired for certainty. I want to make sure that I'm, that I'm safe in this moment, that I know what's going to be on the other end of this thing. And we're also wired to conserve energy. So if we have something we want to do that is, like, let's say, as an example, let's say I want to eat better. Let's say I want to exercise. Let's say I want to exercise. Let's

say I want to have the hard conversation with my partner because I feel like we're disconnected right now. Our brain initially underneath it all is going to ask first, like, is this safe? Is there a risk here of me failing in this? Or is there a threat on the other side of this? Am I not going to be met with that connection that I'm looking for so that I feel like more vulnerable? There's more shame that comes on. Am I going to fail at this nutrition thing, this exercise thing again, which reinforces this idea that I'm just not good enough? You know, And that's intolerable. So that all happens unconsciously. And so what we feel is resistance. So we try maybe once or twice. And then it doesn't last. And I think that's what happens with

mindfulness or that's what happens with any of the things that are the habits in our lives. Every, just probably every single person that's listening to this or watching this right now has listened to podcasts, read books, has, you know, gone to therapy maybe, but coaching, whatever it is. they know what is good for them. They know what the answer is maybe to live a healthy or happier life, whatever. It's just that we don't have access to the follow-through. Well, listen, that's with anything. That's with everything.

We all have over-informationed, right? So even with these podcasts, I mean, like, people already have all the information. You can listen to it and like you can package it in a different way a million and a gazillion times. But it's all in the execution, right? Everything is an execution. Nobody wants to execute. No one wants to take the action.

It's, I think, considered easier if you just keep on going to school. Like, there's like, you know, there's like full-time students forever, right? Like, they'll get continual. Maybe you're one of them. No, no, no. What I mean is, as I was just saying, I was thinking about the younger kids right now that are going to college. Yeah. And, you know, and, you know, and they're safer right now kind of in college.

We don't know what's on the other end of that because we don't know what's going to be happening in four years. Well, the thing is that there's only so much theory and, and, academics that it can, like the knowledge piece can get you, right? Then it comes a piece where then you have to practice, execute, and take action repetitively, right? So you have to like get over the, like everyone you have is afraid of failure, but if you become immune to failure by doing it enough times, right? It doesn't feel like you don't have the fear as much. You won't have the fear anymore. Yeah. But it's how to get from that, it's, it's that line, right, from going from knowledge to not just, you know, attempting, but to attempt over and over and over again until

you feel that lack of, that lack of self-doubt or that feeling of being a failure. Yeah. That's my argument in tiny shifts is that it's, it's not that, it's not that something's wrong with us. It's not that we're failing at things. It's that we're not aware that this is like, we have this underlying biology, biological imperative that gets in our way. And so the answer to that is building up and training our emotional health. And so emotional health is to kind of give a sense of that for everyone here. The reason I don't, in the field, so this, the way this, where this came up for me is as I was like in my late 40, I've been a psychologist for like 20 years, but as I was.

I'm sorry, do you still see patients? Yeah, I still have a handful. I have a small private practice. Okay. Why is it? I mean, not to interject again here, but I don't understand why so many people, you know, they're not practicing anymore. They're talking a lot. They're writing books a lot, but then they just stop seeing patients, like, very, very often. Well, is it what are you doing that you're not? Are you researching? Are you doing a lot of, like, speaking? Like, what's the reason? I started getting to a point where there wasn't, there wasn't enough of me to go around for the, clients that wanted to come see me. And so I started running group programs. And so I started, and I've always been really fascinated with like, how do you reach people in a way that's high quality that actually creates the shifts and changes they want to see in their life? And I looked

at like Alcoholics Anonymous. I looked at like all the organized religions out there. You've been Weight watchers, by the way. No, you're going to say. Weight watchers is a great example. Accountability in group settings. That's right. And so what are the most successful organizations in the world. They're the spiritual organizations. They're the Alcoholics Anonymous, the Weight Watchers, right? And they have three different components to them. They have a priest, mentor, rabbi, teacher, trainer, whatever you want to call them. They have a curriculum that's there. And the Bible, you know, or they have, or Weight Watchers kind of curriculum. Like a step-by-step program. They have three elements. And they have a community. And the reason for community is that like, okay, I'm not alone in this. So it creates what? It creates that safety, creates that certainty a little bit more. And you hear from other people's stories, so there's a sense of belonging, which again, reduces the stress, increases the sense of safety, so that I can do this. Oh, this person's doing this. I can take a leaf from that. You know, so we, I think we learn faster when we're in community than we're just doing things on our own. So you're doing a lot of group stuff? Yeah. I do different coaching programs that are like group-based coaching programs. This next one I have coming up is called the Emotional Longevity Lab. And it's a 90-day program where I'm going to bring people through, creating the foundations of emotional health with their kind of like own personalized what they want to specifically work on. Then we're going to go down the avenues of like, how does this work

to increase your sense of self-worth, your health, your relationships, and also your sense of purpose in the work that you do. And then the last month of it is really to help ingrain it more in your identity. So you realize like, I am this person now. And so we do that through those three layers. And I'm kind of like weaving in some smart uses of technology. There's the live community. We do integration labs that happen in there. So this is like part of, this is like a big thing of what I do is these kind of like group programs. Right. You said earlier also that you met one of our mutual friends doing something in Costa Rica.

Well, my wife and I used to run family retreats. And she's also a psychologist, yeah? She's also a psychologist. Yep. We started the Center for Mindful Living in Los Angeles. It's in Brentwood, West L.A. area. And like 12, 13 years ago, something like that. I've never even heard of that, really?

Yeah. Now you have. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yes, I am. There it is. And what is it?

You just walk in and get mindful? No. No, that's just like where we practice. We used to run groups there pre-COVID. We had like the eight-week, mindfulness-based, stress reduction, cognitive therapy, relapse prevention type programs that are there. We did like some talks there. And then we all, other people that are associates of ours that work there as well.

So it's kind of like where you practice, basically. Yeah. It's a place we practice. Right. And so everyone has like their own office. So, okay. So you're like, do private practice there too. Yeah.

Gotcha. Okay. So it was not like a, it's not like a synagogue that you walk in and get a membership. No, no, no. It's a therapeutic spot. It's a therapeutic spot. Gotcha. Okay.

And so you did this thing with your wife in Costa Rica. Yeah. Yeah. And so we had people come. They had families. So I didn't see anyone doing this before. So families came with their, the parents, the kids. Everyone would be eight and older at the time.

How old? Eight and older. Okay. And so we had, we broke them up into groups of like parents and teens and kids. and we had a person that was assisting us while we were there and we did. It was kind of like a mixture of training everyone in mindfulness, but also seeing, how do we bring this into adventure? Because if it's like Costa Rica, it's like, how do you bring this into the fear of ziplining?

How do you bring this into paddle boarding down mangroves and like, you know, when you're bringing your awareness, like what you're seeing like around it? Or how do you bring this into your surf training? I love that. Yeah, it was super cool. Yeah. If I knew you back then. You would have invited me. You could have been.

Oh, yeah. That's amazing. I love that. I keep on interrupting because I don't like to stick to the questions I have. I like to kind of go on these tangents where, you know, but sorry, I know you were saying something. Okay, well, I'll go back to what I was saying. So it's my belief that the cornerstone to actually falling through on the habits that we want

to create in our lives is really our emotional health. And emotional health, so versus like, I guess what I was. When you say emotional health, what do you mean? Okay. So emotional health versus just stress management. as an example, which is what's talked about a lot on the podcasts that are around like the health-related podcasts, exercise, sleep, nutrition, stress. Like, how do we work with our stress? Which is kind of like a blunt instrument to say that type of thing. Emotional health is more about like, can I be aware of how

I'm feeling in a particular moment? Can I increase my emotional capacity in that moment? So I can be with or feel a little steadier with this feeling that's here that I may not even been aware of before. and can I have enough flexibility in the moment to see more choices, make different decisions, be aware of what I'm needing or what's going to support me or what's going to enhance the moment and make the decision to take a thought or an action in that direction. Okay, let's stay with this because I think this is a very good area. And I think I never really, people say it again like, oh, are you emotionally healthy? So what's the first step into becoming more aware if you're not aware of this?

Like, I think that it's all, it's easier said than done. But if people are listening and they don't even know what you're talking about, what's the first step to becoming more emotionally healthy? So the first step is being aware of what I call our emotional loops are. So emotional loops are just like, what am I thinking? What am I feeling emotionally in this moment? Which is really hard because we didn't grow up with an emotional vocabulary, most of us, right? What am I feeling? How is my body feeling physically in this moment?

And what am I doing? And so those four different areas are what I call an emotional loop. In any given moment we're feeling overwhelmed, which you're familiar with that feeling, right? Or we're feeling anxious, we're feeling shame, or we're feeling joyful or we're feeling excited, you know, whatever. All these four elements are happening. And typically we're not aware that they're happening while they're happening, especially in the current environment that we're in where we're so flooded with so much stuff. There's a great story, or parable by this guy, David Foster Wallace, who was talking about these two fish, these two fish that were like swimming in the ocean, and they were like teenage fish,

they were swimming in the ocean, and they were just kind of having a fun time. These older fish comes by them and says, like, hey, boys, how's the water? And they look at each other a little confused, and they continue on. They say, what the hell is water? And so we're swimming oftentimes in this kind of water of overwhelm that we're typically not even aware of. We've normalized it. and it's just kind of automatic.

So an emotional loop, I say the umbrella emotional loop that a lot of us are swimming in is what I call the overwhelm loop. And then we have other things that are derivatives of that. So in any given a moment, you can just ask yourself

of those four different things, like what's happening. So if you catch yourself scrolling a little too long while your partner's trying to talk with you, that could be a moment of awareness, of noticing what you're doing while you're doing that can kind of wake you up.

That's sort of the first step. I call it recognize. Recognize, this is part of a four step. four-step method called the four-r method that I have in tiny shifts that helps us build our train our emotional health, we'll say. I want to talk about that right when you finish what you said. So just like you're really watching all your, every time I watch your reels, I'm like, wow, look at her.

She's kind of, you know, you're really kind of training, right? And so. You want my fitness stuff? Yeah. Oh, okay. I wasn't sure what rules you were talking about because, yeah. Those reels, yeah. Not the podcast reels or reels where you're kind of training.

Those other ones too. Everyone watch those reels. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They have lots of other girls. Right? And I get inspired by that because I train a little bit physically, too. And so the, which is also part and parcel of feeling well in life, as you know. Yep. And so, but we can notice in any given moment, like I'm scrolling or maybe I'm feeling uncomfortable right now or my shoulders are tensing or I'm really being really critical of myself right now.

Right. Those are four different parts that we can have awareness of. that moment interrupts the automatic patterning that's happening in that. And so that's the first step. We have to interrupt it. So when you say, like, how do I become more mindful or how do I kind of become more aware in the moment? That's the very first step in our everyday lives is just interrupting it. The second thing we have to understand how to do to create to expand our emotional capacity a little bit

is we have to realize that this body, as you know, and people here, I'm just kind of maybe reminding you of there's no separation between our thoughts and our body. And so when you're feeling overwhelmed, you're feeling angry, or you're feeling anxious, or you're feeling scared, or you're feeling joyful or excited, whatever it is, your body's reacting. Your nervous system is your heart rate's going up. Your muscles are tensing to get in that fight, flight, freeze response. And your job in that moment is to just soften that slightly.

So what we're doing by softening that slightly is we're widening our emotional capacity. So now we're starting to kind of train and we're starting to get the, we're starting to grease the wheels, the reach the tracks of our emotional health. And also, by the way, that feels really good. If we can interrupt an emotional loop by just kind of naming it and expanding our capacity by softening our body, something about that feels good. And so that lays the groundwork for being able to then do the next thing, which is creating more redirecting our mind or expanding our choices. If you're not taking glutathione, you're missing out of one of the most critical foundations for your health. Your body is dealing with toxins every single day. Pollution, chemicals,

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foggy, or like your system needs real support, start here. Go to row nutrition.com and try rose liposomal glutathione. Use code gen 20 for 20% off sitewide. That's row nutrition, R-H-O-N-U-T-R-I-T-I-O-N-D-com and use code Gen 20. Is overwhelmed and anxiety, they're very closely tied, right? Like when you feel overwhelmed, I know, I'm like, you become anxious, right? Because you feel that feeling. You know, I feel like overwhelmed can be, and it's good for everyone to check in around this. Like, what are my physical, what are my body signals of feeling overwhelmed?

Overwhelmed can be like brain fog. You could be? Sure. Okay, so what are some of the signs of overwhelm if it's not anxious? Anxiety is a combination of fear and uncertainty. So I'm afraid and I don't know what's on the other end. There could be a threat on the other end of this right now. I don't know how this is going to go out.

I don't know how this is going to turn out, I'm in. Right? So I'm going to give a talk somewhere and I'm feeling really anxious. So my heart rate is going up. So there might be some similar physical symptoms that are there. My heart rate is going up. My mind is racing. I'm starting to kind of feel like I can't catch my breath.

I used to struggle like massively with insomnia. I used to have like panic attacks. I can kind of mention like how I got over those. You did? Yeah, when I was younger, yeah. Is that why you got into psychology in the first place? I got into psychology. I used to be in the corporate world in San Francisco.

I remember seeing that. But the reason why I'm asking is because normally when people go into something like this, like fitness also, it's because they have some kind of close tie psychologically to why they're doing it. I think a lot of therapists go into therapy because they've had their own suffering. Trauma. Yeah, they've had their own trauma they've gone through. And certainly in my 20s, and I'll tell everyone who's in their 20s, like the same thing, who are feeling like kind of like they don't really know, they can't really get the grasp on things.

Like the 20s is a tough time. Yeah, so is 30s and 40s. Okay. But I mean, it's even more confusing, I feel like. There's even a lot of confusion. You come out of the structure of if you went to school, let's say, and you're just trying to kind of find your way. And everyone thinks that high school, once I get out of there, I'm going to like know

everything, but you're kind of starting all over again. But anyway, yeah, I was successful in my corporate job at the time. And I was playing a whole lot harder, like, experimenting heavily with drugs and alcohol. And so I was pretty lost. So I said that. Where'd you go to school? UC San Diego was my undergraduate. Yeah.

And where did you, like, what, what do you say? Because I think the clinical psychologist can be a very vague term sometimes. Some people don't have this. They only went to school there. Not only, but I'm saying, like, I wanted to know, like, what is the education background? Did you go, do you have a PhD? Do you have a master's? Did you do the training at, like.

I stuff for myself. I, I. Are you a social worker? I mean, you know, like, like my doctor. So I had been in like, in a. out of therapy and I've been kind of a self-help junkie for like a long time. I remember when I first read Don't Swet the Small Stuff by Richard Carlson. I like loved that book. I was like, oh my God, this guy's saying everything. I like resonate. I kind of know this stuff, but the way he writes it,

it really kind of lands on me. And so I loved that stuff, but I was also just my emotional awareness was like sort of in the toilet. Right, right, right, right. And so I, yeah, it was sort of a, it kind of sort of saved me to go to graduate school. Okay. And gave me a sense of purpose and direction. And what happened was at some point in my 20s, I was like walking down the Embarcadero in San Francisco. And I was saying like, this just can't be how my life is going to roll.

And I thought, when I'm 50, which I've passed that point, but when I'm 50, what do I want to look back and wish I would have done? And then I realized, like, hey, I want to like work with, people and support people, support myself. I want to speak at places. I want to write. And so then I reversed engineered that and took a big risk. It was a huge risk because there was golden handcuffs in the world I was in. What were you doing exactly? I was in sales. I was managing sales teams. We were selling like long distance lines and and like data lines connecting up corporate offices, you know, because back then, right, right. That's kind of what you need to do. And so wait a minute.

then what is your back what is your schooling behind it what's your academic background for this do you want to get your do you have a PhD yeah okay and then did you do like a bunch of hours and practical and all that's up okay so you have to do three thousand hours i know three thousand it's a crazy amount of of like time i know it's crazy do you feel that since like did it help you help you did you getting your clinical psychology background and doing that work has it actually healed you? Because that's what normally happens, like we said. I don't think that healed me. I will tell you what it did, what it gave me.

And this is directly in line what we're talking about right now. So if you're noticing you're kind of lost or you're anxious, you're overwhelmed, or you're having a difficult moment or you're continually stressed or you're falling into patterns that you don't like, the first step is to interrupt it is just kind of name it. It's very simple. These are the idea behind tiny shifts. We're just kind of naming it, right? It's something we can do in the ordinary moments of our lives, just naming it.

Stress is here, overwhelm us here. My shoulders are bracing. I'm scrolling too long while my partner's talking to me like we talked about before. But then, and then we release. And then this question that was like, for me, what I asked in that moment, I didn't have the word, tiny shifts or emotional pivots or anything like that. What I asked was, what do I want to do that's going to be more meaningful for me in my life? Okay.

Like, how do I want to look back, like the question? How do I want to look back when I'm 50 and look back and say, like, yeah, I'm really happy with what I've done. And I think supporting myself and other people felt like a good direction to go. It felt meaningful. So what it gave me was purpose. It gave me a sense of purpose. It gave me a sense of meaning. And you know, because I know you've interviewed a number of people who have, like, talked about that kind of thing.

We know that purpose is, first of all, if you make, the way I always make sense of it is like, why is purpose? so having like a direction. By the way, when I say purpose, just so everyone knows, I don't mean it's like the, whatever that book was the balloon. I can't remember what it was called. But anyway, it's just like knowing your values and living alongside them. Yeah. That gives you a sense of purpose.

I think purpose is the most fundamental thing you need to be happy over time, right? 100% because you feel a sense of integrity. And a sense of purpose. I mean, I feel like what I always wonder, like, you know, there's a lot of people who have a lot of money, but they have zero purpose. purpose. Like they're just buying, like a lot of women, I know, right now, like they have a lot of money. They're buying a lot of clothes. They're going a lot of vacations. But they themselves are not contributing really anything. And I find those people to be actually the most miserable people deep down, right? It's like a lot of the external stuff really can't really match or or help someone with self-esteem or self-confidence. But there's like a mixed message, right? Like, because everything is about outer, right? Like if you can get this and that and that, that will make someone happy. That supports the deficiency gap. The deficiency gap?

Yeah, because what happens is you never quite get, it's never, you're never going to be good enough. There's always going to be someone who has more or is better at or whatever. 100%. And so once you get there, you see someone who's higher and it only highlights the gap. And so it highlights the sense that something's wrong with me. So it creates a self-worth issue that's there. 100%. And also for men as well when they're like, when they reach a certain level of wealth and success,

but yet like they don't really have a real purpose or they don't have a real why. They're never really happy and they're just constantly chasing. But I was going to say something interesting. Today I heard something that I thought was really, really interesting, and I really loved it. And it was the grass is green where I am. I don't really care how green someone else is grass because I'm not looking there anyway because I'm focusing on the grass in front of me at my house. And so I thought that was like really profound.

So that because you think that's profound and you resonate with that, this is how this would work for you. Okay. So the moment you notice yourself, like on social media, and you're comparing yourself to another person and saying, like, how come this person has more followers or whatever? Yeah, yeah, yeah. We all get caught in those loops, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so it's a comparison loop. So it's really natural for every human to have that kind of thing because we're constantly, our brain's constantly looking to see if we're safe. Is there a sense of belonging here or not? So it's scanning for that constantly. You would recognize that and say, okay, all right, this is the comparison loop. You'd recognize you.

Take a moment to see how your nervous system got pulled. Take a breath, maybe a little longer exhale. your lit your shoulders drop slightly, and then you remind yourself of that saying. Because if you just try, this is where it won't work as well. It won't work as well is if you're just like feeling overwhelmed and you try and pull that saying, your brains in sort of a not a receptive state. And so then we wonder why it's not working. Like that was such a great quote or saying, like, how come it's not making me calm or

making me focus or like giving me the alleviation, the relief I'm looking for? Right. is because we didn't do the first few steps. And so this is why, and this took me like 20 years to figure out, like, why is it that we know so much and we have these sayings, but they don't always connect with us or they don't create the impact we're looking for is because we haven't learned how to just like very basically, like release our nervous system for a second to create more receptivity.

We need more blood flow to this part of the brain, the prefrontal region, and the way to make that land and take root more. in like the ordinary moment when you're you are stressed and overwhelmed. So we recognize that. We say, okay, there's overwhelm here. Take a moment. We release. And then we pull one of the ways that we refocus.

So the four-hour method is recognize, release, refocus, reinforce. Right. So the refocus stage, one of the things we can do in the refocus stage is now pull from all the wisdom and experience that we have. Now we're in a more receptive state. So you can bring that in and it's going to land more for you. And that's a really important, again, something tiny, something small, doesn't take a lot of energy. Remember our brain's looking for safety, certainty, and trying to energy conservation.

None of this takes a lot of energy to do. So it flies under the brain's threat detection system. And if we do this with repetition, you probably know that phrase repetition is the mother mastery, right? I think you went to a Tony Robbins event like a while back or something. Didn't you go to that? On purpose? Did I? Maybe I did.

I thought maybe didn't. Oh, yes, I did. You were invited or something. Yes, how did you know? You know, you come to my feed sometimes. Oh, my God. I was invited to, yes, the one here in like a couple, a year ago. No, not even.

Yeah, he uses that phrase a lot. It's not from him. It comes from history. Repetition is the mother of mastery. So repetition. Well, you practice and repeat becomes out of matter. 100%. I'm a big believer in, like, a big believer in practice.

like practice, practice, practice. Well, because you train. Yeah, you clearly train. You know the value of training. Yeah, I do. And everything in life. There's a difference between exercise and training. Training is you're trying to build something and make it stronger. Exercises you're just trying to like, you know, do something regularly that's healthy for you. Exactly.

Right? Exactly. And so in this, I think fitness is a microcosm for life, though. That's my big thing. I think that doing something over and over again when you don't want to is how you get really, really good at anything and everything. So like doing a squat over. and over again, yes, you're doing a squat and you'll get better, but if you can take that same methodology and apply it to anything you want to be good at, you're going to be better than 99% of the world because nobody does it as much as that. But what's the methodology for somebody

who has had a really hard time with having a consistent fitness practice? Yeah, well, I think baby steps, tiny shifts, tiny things. Like, don't bite off more than that's humanly possible to chew. I think when people really get disillusion is when they have a goal that's very lofty. So, like, make it really small, like these, like, tiny little things. Right. So, like, there's the atomic habits and the tiny habits. It's all the same. Atomic habits, tiny habits, tiny habits. But the reason tiny shifts is. So what tiny shifts is, yeah. Is it saying, let's go a layer deeper. Yep. For a second. And saying, like, even with atomic habits and tiny habits, why a lot of people still don't, why a lot of people still have a hard time falling through with that is because they

still, now where the value of that is, is it lowers the energy output, right? I don't have to do a lot of energy to do one push-up. Right. Right. And so. Yes. Can I tell you something? Yeah.

Yeah, I agree. So I think you're going to say something that I, many years ago, I did a, I created a fitness app called Hot Five, five, five-minute workouts, right? Now it's very popular. That's still out called off. We sold it to Weight Watchers. That's why I used Weight Watchers as the example back when, because I'm very familiar with the whole Weight Watchers ecosystem.

But, and that's why I think, by the way, another, not to go on another tangent, but that's why I know of all the biggest programs, all these programs of all, now it's like everybody in their dog has a course of program. The one that works the best is wait watchers because of the accountability. They go into these like little stupid little rooms everywhere around the world. You walk in, you get wade. I remember growing up even saying them everywhere, yeah. You count your points. People laugh at it all the time. But by the way, guess what? It is the most effective program still to date, in my opinion, because it keeps people accountable.

It's not fancy. It's the basics. There's no magic potion. You're counting what you eat. People don't want what actually works. They want the newest flashy light bulb or the flashy influencer who's talking about some very fancy thing. Or just the one app that's going to help them that they'll pay, you know, whatever for. Because everyone's so distracted.

If they can just focus on the one thing. in general in life, like not jump around. Like we're talking about these tiny shifts or talking about being aware. I think if people are aware of the fact that like, if you're not constantly looking for the silver bullet, the magic potion and you just stick to the thing, whatever that one thing is, that one workout you like, that one food that you like, that one, whatever you like,

and just keep on doing it, you're going to get to your result. And that's behavioral too and everything, right? Like I don't think that, I think what's really confused the ecosystem and the ether in the world right now is choice. My, like, too much choice. Too much choice. My mom used to say to me when I was little, she'd be like, you know, basically you have too much choice, Jennifer, you're going to end up with nothing.

So, like, there was like a, you know, and in general, right, like if you go to the big Walmart, you know, you're overwhelmed with all the different options. But if you go to the little mom-paw shop and they have only one type of tape and only one one kind of bread and one type of milk, you get those and you're happy, you know, but you have too much and you end up with like, you literally walk out like completely empty handed with nothing. So even in that type of moment where there's too much. Too much. So then the question is like, the paradox of choice.

Uh-huh. How do I kind of go forward? And then how do I, how do I, I can only be in charge of me? And so in that moment when I'm feeling overwhelmed with too much choice, I, the very simple path forward to to move in the direction of doing the tiny, the atomic habit or the tiny habit, you know, that BJ Fogg and James Clear's kind of work, to be, were you the hot five?

Well, that's just, by the way, why I said that was giving someone five-minute workouts is much more psychologically attainable for someone to do, like, oh, I can do five minutes, much easier than saying, go and do a 30-minute hit training, go and do that tape for 40 minutes. If you say to someone, do five minutes, people are like, all right.

I can do that. I can do five minutes. And the biggest resistance for people is actually the beginning, right? Like putting on their shoes and getting their sports bra on or whatever. And then like going to the, get the mat. If you can like eliminate or like minimize that resistance or once you kind of basically get past that, five minutes, psychologically. And also I see it on the on the analytics will turn into 10 minutes. We'll be like, oh, I could do, you know, I could do 20 minutes.

The power of habit. There was, you know, there's so many different things in this, right? Habits and hustle, right? So the, I think the layer that I'm hoping when people listen to this, that they're kind of taking away is that that strategy is one strategy that's been successful of being able to kind of dial it back. I used to ask people like, how much do you think you can do? I think I could do five minutes.

Okay, why don't it you do four then, you know, so that there's a kind of no excuse from there. So, but that's one strategy. Now, if you recognized the overwhelm of too many choices, let's say, and you just noticed, like, okay, this is like, I'm feeling flooded right now by too much. And you noticed you paused for a second and you just kind of named it, flooded, overwhelmed, you know, whatever you want to say. And you notice that your body is now tensing, like somewhere, chest, shoulders, face. And you just took a moment, just softened for a second, all of like five seconds that takes to do. And then you asked yourself the question, okay, what's going to be most supportive? What's one thing I can do that's going to enhance the next three or five minutes from this in this moment? Now, it might be, well, I'm just going to take five minutes and do this. Or it might be, you know what? I need a person. I need another human. Like maybe that's what someone actually needs. Like I'm a huge fan of other humans. Like where you wait watchers, even one other person, that could be a buddy, that could be a coach, that could be some. Maybe someone needs that's really what they need. So we want to get in touch with personally what that person needs versus just a one size fits all type of thing.

It might be the shorter practice. It might be a person. It might be that, you know what? Today's just not the day. Actually, what I need is, I need rest. And then because rest is important in your fitness and your training kind of regime. I need recovery. It's a recovery day for me.

I'm just so over. I might need to talk with somebody. Like, so that third step of refocus is either we're going to have the now the capacity to reach for something that I know is helpful for me, like that mantra, that's saying that you had said, my grass is already green. I don't need to look at the other person. or you know what, why don't I just dial this down to five minutes? Like I know that works for me.

Or we can ask ourselves a question. When we ask ourselves questions, our brain looks for answers. And so we do this all the time, our mind's asking us, like, what if this doesn't work out? What's wrong with me? Like, you know, what's wrong with this person, whatever? And so we could cotton these kind of loops. And so we can ask ourselves, like I say this kind of in the book, we have this artificial intelligence that we're all like, either enamored or scared by right now, right? Other way. And then, but we have this natural intelligence, too,

this N.I. Both are kind of other value. And when we ask our brain questions, just like when we ask the artificial intelligence questions, it also gives us answers. We just need better prompts. Better prompts lead to better answers. We're hearing this all the time in the AI world. Same with ourselves. So if we ask ourselves the question, what's going to be most supportive for me right now? So after we recognize release, we don't just, we don't just recognize and jump to that question. We have to do the release, place. That's the part that most people miss, because that helps expand our emotional capacity to be able to ask a different question or reach for a piece of wisdom so that it takes root. So we say, what do I need right now? That's when we can kind of tattoo on our brains.

What's going to be most supportive in the next few minutes? I'll tell you this, just as an everyday type of thing. I was on the, I was going to my friend's house for dinner and I was exhausted, but it was my friends. So it was like, cool. I didn't have to like, wasn't going to take a lot of energy. So I was like happy to go. He calls me midway. He's like, oh, change of plans. I totally forgot when you got invited to our friend's house. I didn't know this person. And they're like, but they said you can come too. And I'm like, oh, no, this was not. I don't know these people. I'm going to have to like be on. I'm going to have to like, you know, whatever. It's going to take more energy. My brain's like, you don't have the energy to give, you know. But so I just paused and noticed kind of the resistance that was there. And the over one, I was already on the 405. I was already, it was in the valley. So I was already on my way there. And I recognized the resistance. I took a moment and kind of took a breath that longer exhale, as you know, is a really important one because it activates the parasympathetic nervous system. It's really enjoyable, by the way, if no one's, I'm sure people in your audience have done that before. I hope so.

Yeah, yeah. So that's a form of release. That's just an example, that lowering your shoulders, a little longer exhale, just an example. And then I asked myself the question because I was in a different state. I changed my state, my mind state in that moment by the recognizing release. I was a little more receptive. and I said, what's going to be something I can do to enhance this evening? Because I was already going.

So I can either go gritting my teeth and like, you know, what's something I can do to enhance this evening? And what came to me is like, okay, I wasn't, this wasn't coming to me before in the state that I was in was when I meet these people that I don't know at the door, I'm going to start off with a little gratitude. I'm going to say, thank you so much for inviting me here. And then I reminded myself that I can be quiet while I'm there. I can be like tired. It's okay. I don't have to be entertaining. You know, and what happened was that completely shifted my energy. Like, and so then I got there and what ended up happening was there was this guy that was this podcast dude that was there. Who, do I know? No, I don't know. I don't actually don't remember his name. Oh, okay. But the- Can't be that memorable then. No, no, but it was an enjoyable conversation. Okay, okay. I'm like, by the way, just historically bad with names in general. Really? Do you know my name?

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You just reminded me of something. I had this podcast. I've been talking about it since I've done it. I just went up maybe a couple weeks ago with a guy named Kevin Trudeau. Do you know who he is? Sounds familiar. Okay. He's not, you're thinking of Pierre Trudeau, who was a former president.

Prime Minister of Canada. No. But Kevin Trudeau, he wrote a book 25 years ago or more, Natural Cures book. He sold like 100 million copies or like something insane, okay? That is very successful. No, no, no. For his book sales. He sold like maybe 50 million.

It was a lot of copies of this book. And he was like the infomercial king. And he was very, very popular. And then he got into trouble with the law. And he went to jail for 10 years. everyone assumed he went to jail because he did something really bad and shady. Turns out he was put in jail for contempt of court because he was arguing with the judge. But he got 10 years.

That was like that's the maximum you can get. Crazy. The podcast was amazing. I'm just saying it was still one of my favorites of all time. Anyway, he sat here and I was just blown away by what he said to me. He said he was in jail for 10 years. Maybe I think he got out a year or. for good behavior. And I said, oh my God, like, how was your time in jail? Like, holy crap. Like,

you were like, you had all these millions of dollars. You were like riding high. And then you had all these legal problems. Blah, blah, blah. And he's like, it was fantastic. I'm like, what do you mean? It was fantastic. He's like, it was amazing. I had a great time. I was a cook in the kitchen. I got to choose the kind of food we got to make. It was like a retreat. It was like a retreat for him. Yeah, that's what he said. He was like, I got to choose the kind of food we ate. I read a lot of books. I would never, if I never went to jail, I would never have been able to read all those books. I was never, was, I would never be able to meditate as much as I did. All these, like, I would never, like, he's like, it was, it was like, it was like, I'm like, you're making it sound like it was like

the four seasons. And he's like, you know what? I get into, he's like, this is the deal. This is the truth. You go into, you get sentenced to 10 years in jail, Jennifer, you can either, you have two choices. You can complain and bitch and moan the whole time and be miserable. And, those 10 years go by really, really, really, really slow. Or you can like reframe and be a really and have a different attitude and be like, you know what, I'm here anyway. I'm not going anywhere. I might as well make the best of the situation. And so everything was like he turned everything into a positive. And he had a great, like, and legitimately he looked like he had a great time in jail. So it's so amazing to me how like just a different like reset and a reframe of how you

experience or take on that experience can change everything. Yeah. And what I want to say is that not everyone is the same. Not everyone has the same. I would never be able to do it. Right? Not everyone, no, maybe, but not everyone has the same. Some people like, like I always think of athletes.

Like some athletes are just naturally talented and they train. Right. Some have to really train a whole lot harder because they're not quite as naturally talented. Yeah. You know, some grow up with harder conditions. So with that example, I don't know him, but with that example, the way someone could get there who that's a little harder for, they try and kind of do reframes, but it kind of bounces back on them and then they, it's not working as well, is because when stress is low, scale of 10, I mean, that stress would have been like really high for just about everybody. But for in general, for people, when stress is low, you can jump to like noticing like, I'm kind of like out of whack right now and just kind of try and reframe the situation and it's helpful. That's one of the, that's one of the paths of refocusing. Ask a question, grab from your own wisdom because you already know it, reframe the situation.

Or sometimes I say, just take a joy detour. You have to change the channel. That's like going outside and putting your hands in the dirt or jumping in the pool or whatever. Right. That's why the release piece is so important for most people. Because when they try and jump from just recognizing they're out of whack to reframing the situation, it doesn't land like they're feeling anxious or overwhelmed. And so they're trying to kind of like force their brain into a different view.

but it's just not kind of like, it's like they're trying to wedge something in to everything, but it's not going in there. So you're saying for somebody who's not naturally inclined to do a reframe, that's a really good point. Or their stress is high. Or their stress is high,

and it's not as easy for them. What they can do is do that third R, which is the release? Well, no, the second R. So they recognize it. They notice they're like, I'm overwhelmed, I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm just too much.

They can just say too much. Sometimes they say, like, I want to pull my hair out of my head loop. You know, like whatever. You don't have to have it. Okay. Yeah, yeah. It's good to have an emotional vocabulary. We can all learn an emotional vocabulary.

I have a whole thing on my website that kind of goes deep around. We'll go into the emotional vocabulary when you finish what you said. So just finish what you said about the release. Okay. The second, it's really the second R, that release piece that allows our nervous system to soften a little bit. When I say our nervous system, it's literally just like your muscles. Right. Yeah, just allow your shoulders to drop.

By the way, when you do that because I know you've done that on here, you said, that idea of that inhalation a little bit longer exhalation. Well, it's parasympathetic. Parasmpathetic. But what I layer in there is when you do that, you notice your shoulders lift a little bit on the inhalation. When you exhale, your shoulders slightly drop. And when your shoulders slightly drop, what's happening?

Your muscles between your neck and your shoulders are lengthening a little bit. And that's what we're after. We're after moving from constriction to lengthening of the body in the release stage. I can also kind of brain dump and just kind of like write stuff in a journal as a way of kind of getting our thoughts out. But that's sort of what you're after, like loosening your body, because your nervous system just got, just got coiled. And we want to just release it a little bit. You don't have to fully released. That is what expands the emotional capacity to be able to do any of those things, like do that reframe more successfully. Do the reach for that piece of wisdom

one day at a time, one moment at a time, this two shall pass, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change or change the things I can't. Grab from your moms or your grandma or your spiritual teacher's wisdom, whatever it is, it's going to land more when your nervous system feels a little bit more, just a little bit looser, a little bit more grounded, just not everything, but it takes all five to ten seconds. That's the part most people miss. They just want to go from one to the shifting their mind state and they wonder why it doesn't stick. So when you say release, you just mean breathe. What I really mean is deep breathe, let your body kind of breathing. If that, if that's supportive for somebody, like the, for most people, if they take that

breath in, that longer breath out, that does kind of create a little bit of a release. That's really what it is. Sometimes I, I think of like a thought. There's a self-critical thought happening. Like, what's wrong with me? Why'd I do that? You know, this type of thing. As I'm breathing in, as I'm breathing out, I'm seeing that thought like flow out of my mouth and like flow out of my body. Not that that's actually happening. There's no paranormal situation happening, but it's, it's another way of you'll notice, you'll notice your body starting to feel a little bit differently. That's the release so that now you can refocus. Ask a different question. Grab from some wisdom. Do a reframe. Go out, go take a change the channels. Sometimes you just need a different environment. That's the refocus.

Well, yeah, the, like, it's that little area between, like, you're right. I think, because people always say to me, like, well, how do you, like, it's one thing to, you know, people like, how do you get motivated? And then I answer with, you don't rely on motivation. You rely on discipline. And they're like, well, how do you get discipline? It's like, well, you got to practice. Well, how do you get the motivation enough to practice enough to get the discipline to then do the thing over and over again. It's like, it's basically the chicken or the egg, right? And they always get stuck in that, right? I'm like, I don't know how to tell somebody how to do something over and over and over again when they just are not someone who wants to do it. Okay. So that's it, right?

So now you've touched on something very important. Right. Well, it's not that they're not someone who wants to do it because that's now, now we're saying this is part of their identity. That's what we want to move away from. Enough of the PC way. How do we get them to do it? No, no, no, because it makes a difference because when someone says, like, look, when someone says, I'm an anxious person. Yeah, then they feel, I know, then that that becomes your identity and you think you're anxious.

Okay. No, they think from that way. They think from the anxiety place. So what we say is, and that I'm, discipline is something that is a value. of someone going back to that right this is a value of your discipline you just have a hard time with it okay so so now we say okay it's a value so what we're going to do is we're going to train it what training means is you're going to fall off you're not going to be perfect with it but what we're going to do is realize that you have some resistance to discipline there's something there internally it's an inside

job so you have this idea discipline is working out discipline of working out discipline of working out discipline of writing discipline of whatever the heck they want someone wants to do in their life the habit they want to create. And you have a schedule you've created for yourself, a five-minute thing, a 10-minute thing or whatever, of planning your meals, Weight Watchers, and you say... By the way, I'm not endorsed or... This is not an ad for Weight Watchers, by the way. I haven't spoken to a Weight Watchers human for probably eight years. So I just make sure... They're just getting free marketing, which is perfect. They're just getting free, you know, basically, exactly, shout-outs constantly.

Shout out other people. Shout out Magic Mind. Shout out someone else. Okay. Go. Go ahead. I had a magic mind on Main Street, right? I love that. I love that company. Have you ever tried that? I haven't. I haven't tried it. Yeah. Okay. But they reached out to me. That's meant they, they, they, they, they, they did? Like a year or so.

Because they, that is probably the best mental performance shot on the planet. Well, I'm not just saying that I am actually, I take one every single day before I work out. This one has zero caffeine. You should try one. And everyone, I've been doing this for five years. I've been trying. I love them. This is one of my favorite companies. I have to talk to you about it more offline. I will you can tell me more about it. Okay.

drink one though. Okay. Right now. Oh, okay. All right. No, I'm serious. Like right now. Okay. This is going to, this is going to change this podcast entirely. Hold on a second. That one has zero caffeine. Yeah, it's tasty. Yes. Okay. We're going to see if I say things a little bit clearer and differently from here on now. Exactly. And more focus. Okay. Yeah. So they have this value, the values discipline. We're going to train it. We're going to, we have that you have a task that's part of the whatever, writing every day for half an hour or exercise, whatever. sleep routine, you know. And you notice this resistance because when it comes up, because A, again, underneath it, your brain's asking the question, is it safe, is it certain, is it going to take

more energy than I have? Right. And you notice this resistance. So you notice it, the resistance loop, call it. Great book, The War of Art. Oh, it's great book. I love that book. I love that book.

Yeah, yes, yes, yes. She was supposed to be on the show a couple times. I don't know what happened. Right. So it's a great example. He does a great example in that book of naming an emotional loop. It's just resistance. And the repetition of the word he uses in there just helps with people like recognizing it more and getting better sense of what that feeling is for them.

So you recognize the resistance to the discipline, right? But when you, the resistance is creating a physiological reaction in you. You're not aware of it because it's underneath everything. I want people to become more aware of their bodies and the emotional experience of resistance is actually a physical experience too. Emotions are biology. I want to be very clear about that.

And so then we take a moment and we just kind of like soften our bodies. You can even kind of stretch it out or shake it out. But you keep on saying the same thing, which is the softening of your body, releasing, breathing. But that doesn't make somebody go back and do the thing over and over again.

What it does is it sends safety signals to the brain. when you do kind of release because it says, okay, I'm not under threat. My body, if my body's able to relax. We're changing the way of our subconscious thinking through physiology in that release stage. So if your body can relax, if you can, like, soften your muscles,

you send safety signals to your brain. You say, like, I'm safe enough for my muscles to relax. I'm not under threat anymore. If you can take a deep breath, you send a message to your brain, I'm safe enough to take, to exhale for a second. That's what you want. You want your mind-body to be in a sense of feeling more safe so that you can get to the next stage.

Which is what? Which is the refocused stage. Okay, so now the question is. A question is... You ask yourself, how am I going to feel after I do this thing? Right? That's a common question, right? But now you've, since you've recognized and released, you can ask yourself that question.

You can remind yourself, okay, there's this resistance here. I sent these safety signals to my brain by just taking a few seconds, to kind of soften, then you ask yourself a question because you want to access your natural intelligence in that moment. What's one thing I can do that would support me in the direction of this? How am I going to feel after I do this workout, after I do this sleep routine, after I, you know, make this healthier a meal? And if a positive, we know that positive emotions are motivating, that encourages a positive emotion that's there and like a vision of a different experience. What's that thing called when you, like,

Like when you kind of eliminate the resistances so you can actually do the thing. Limbic resist, limbic something? Have you heard of this? I don't know. Yeah. Like take out all of the possible things, triggers, resistances that you could, so you can actually do the thing. Like so, like for example, put your shoes out in the morning, you know, your gym shoes, you put your clothes out to work out, like work, put the treadmill in your kitchen, like whatever it is.

What are those called when you eliminate any of the disqual? any of the distractions or the blockages so you can actually do the thing called. I know what you're talking about. A name of where it is not coming to me. Yeah. I'm just saying based on what you said, if I were to be honest with you, this is the same stuff. I've heard this many times. And at the end of day, I'm a big believer. And if you want it, someone wants to do something bad enough, they're going to do it. You can say that you can't, you get what if this value means something to you and you can loosen your body and you can do this and you can do that. And then maybe they'll do it once or twice. But if you have a very powerful reason why you're doing something or why you want to change, you'll do it.

Like, I've been down this road many a times with a lot of people in a lot of ways. And like I've noticed that most people are very stuck in their chaotic loop of their own habits. They can be bad habits. They can be unhealthy habits. They could be negative habits. but it's how they are, that's their survival mechanism. So it's very hard to break survival mechanism habits, right? Unless something traumatic or something really negative,

like something really is forcing you to do it. You can train it. You can train your way through that. I don't, that's, I've done this for 20 years of people. Help me. Yeah. So that, I'm completely in alignment with you. Yes, you're why Simon Sinek talks about this. Tony Robbins talks about this.

People for years have talked about, if I had, I talk to people, I say, listen, you can't get this. you don't think you can do this thing cross this threshold get this done regularly let me ask you a question is someone held a gun to your your person you love's head and they said you do this you do it okay that just means your reasons aren't strong enough okay so we understand that so the why is or is it how about just pure laziness is it okay these days to just say it maybe someone's just lazy and they don't want to do the actual thing that's too that's like again a blunt instrument like what is what is that word mean like what's underneath that word oftentimes under laziness is fear okay I mean yes

Sometimes it is. Yes. Sometimes it is. There's those three elements happening. I don't. I'm not sure if there's a threat on the other end of this. I'm not sure if I'm going to fail once again and remind myself that. I have a friend.

Okay. Let me tell you this. I have a girlfriend. I'm in front with for 20 years. Okay. And she's, she doesn't, like, she refuses to exercise. She's very overweight and she refuses to exercise. Yeah.

She will do everything and anything. to lose weight except the one thing that everybody has told her, who did myself, that she needs to do. She will go to every retreat. She'll go to every spa. She will take every potion and lotion. And at the end of the day, the one thing she needs to do is exercise. She will not do it.

There is a blockage. Now, usually that's because of something much more deep rooted, of course, right? I would argue there's an emotional reason on it. There's an emotional, for sure there is. So this is probably where your awareness comes in, right? Like if someone has the awareness to know what that thing is, it's much easier to unlock it, right? To then get past the, you know, whatever that blockage is to then do the thing, right? Yeah, like that, this would come into the refocus stage.

It would be re-it. I try, repeat, I fail, I try a repeat, I fail. You know, like there, if I got to the, if I was able to recognize that I was, once again, again, resisting, you know, exercising, even though it was on my schedule. And I took a moment just to kind of ground myself. That would be the kind of release stage. And I refocused by saying, like, what's really underneath there? What's going to support me in really unpacking what's underneath this?

Like, how can I better start moving in the direction of this? Like, if it's deeper, what I might need is some kind of other type of support to help me. It might not just be like, it's not all pulling ourselves up. But this kind of method is not pull myself up on my bootstraps, do this method all by myself. Sometimes, like, we really just do need other people. Sometimes we don't want to let go of something. Yeah. Sometimes, yeah, sometimes there's like a willfulness there that underneath that is there's like an anger that's underneath that.

Right, that's my point, I think that there's like sometimes, sometimes we're trying to like fit a square into a circle. Okay, I have some rapid fire questions. Can you go rapid fire? Yeah. But I'll just say before we go rapid fire. Yeah. That's the angle behind and underneath the recognized stage is getting a better idea of your feelings and your emotions because those are really the things that are pulling the strings for most people. Those are subcortical.

It's not conscious. And so having a better handle on or intimacy with the actual feelings and emotions that are there can really be helpful in being able to move forward with these other things. Well, 100%. And by the way, I'm guilty of this myself, right? Like I can be considered to be maybe a high performer because I work out and I have a lot of my own, you know, nonsense and, you know, cookiness. And I can't get out of my own way in a lot of things too. Even though I have the awareness, I have the ability to kind of know why I do what I do. And it's still really, really hard to do it, right?

Like it's very, very, very difficult. None of this is easy, right? Like self-awareness, you know, they sometimes say ignorance is bliss, right? because self-awareness can also be very, you know, difficult. Yeah, but there's the, I think that just want to kind of name for those people have kind of, kind of deep, gone deep into this. Yeah. Self-awareness, we want to kind of like, and again, I think what you're touching on is very important because you're talking about the reality of imperfection with all this stuff, with teachers and people who are speaking about it and psychologists and whoever you look up to, I always tell people, I'm like, whoever you look up to who you think is like. The guru or whatever, I go, I've been with some of those people.

Believe me. Like, you know. I say it all the time. I say like there's anybody that you're, don't ever meet the person that you admire the most. Because like you would be very, very shocked to see just when the curtain is unveiled. Everybody has shit, right? Everyone's got their imperfect. And I've said this all the time.

Like the people that you think are the smartest, the coolest, the most successful, I've sat with them all. Probably 85 to 95% of them. And they're no great shakes, to be honest. It's always, like, I'm usually not that impressed with those people. It's actually the people who show that they're flawed, who are not the people that you're putting on a pedestal, who are the most impressive people. People you don't know, and they don't need the applause.

You know what I mean? And I think the takeaway there is that if anyone's listening or watching this right now and you're feeling like you have your imperfections, that just means you belong. A hundred percent. Listen, I'm going to use myself as an example, right? People think, oh, you're so fit, that means blah, blah, blah. It means I have one area that I'm good at.

That's good. But how about all these other areas, right? Like, I feel like just never look at somebody and think just because you admire that one thing that their whole life is better than yours because it's actually not true. Everyone has things that make them good and bad and make their lives good and makes other people. Like, never compare yourself because you never know what someone's really going through or what their situation is or why they're there or how they got there or what baggage they have.

I think it's a very, I'm really, really adamant about this. And I've been talking about this so much more lately because I feel like social media has been such a number on everybody. Oh, huge. And now it's making everybody more insecure. Like everybody I know is getting facelifts like they were going to get a cup of coffee at Starbucks. I mean, it's insane to me.

We live in L.A., by the way. Oh, but these are people not even in L.A. By the way, I used to say, oh, it's because. because L.A. I travel a lot. It's not just L.A. I guess it's, I guess the Internet's actually made it probably all over. Yeah. Social media. These people are in like in Tennessee, in Kansas, in, you know, which, whatever they are. People are people, right? And if you see something in an image or a person or you hear something enough times, you actually believe to think that's like, that's now become the norm. And we shouldn't make things like that the norm. You know,

people should, I just think that like because of that, I want people to kind of remember, these are just filters that people put on their life. I just want to say, well, I'm going to say it a different way than the way that you said it. Yeah, go ahead. Which is because people are going to naturally compare themselves to others, it's human nature. It's human nature. Instead of not doing it because it's going to happen, what we want to do is recognize that that's happening and then to kind of put it, put it into this kind of method.

Then you want to, you want to kind of take the semantic moment with yourself just to kind of like ground for two seconds. Then you want to ask yourself a question or you want to bring, then you can bring this. wisdom into it of saying, like, could it be that this person also has other imperfections in their life? Could it be that because... I just said. Yes. And I just wanted to kind of...

The different way that this is happening that I'm saying it is I'm using the method of like asking a question so the brain can search for answers versus saying, don't do this, right? Which is because they're going to do it. I love that. We're all going to do it. Yes, I love that. So you're saying, I love that. you're saying when you are recognizing, when you're seeing somebody and your human nature, goes into like, oh, that person has is so much better than me in that way. Feeling shame or feeling bad about yourself or whatever, yeah.

Ask yourself the question of, well, is that maybe they have, do they, it's just because they have that going, maybe they have some, maybe they have another issue somewhere else that you don't know about. Or is my brain making them overly perfect? Or what am I proud of? What's one thing I'm proud of myself today? Like, you know, you can kind of bring, right? asking the question. You're right, because it just also changes the, it changes the, like, the direction of where your brain is going. And that makes a difference. Again, it's all connected. So the way you're thinking impacts how you feel, impacts how you stand. It's called embodied cognition.

And then you can kind of shift that through the way your body's feeling too, right? A lot of things we can do to shift our state. Okay, here are rapid fire questions. So, which means you have to be rapidly fast. Okay. So no long, Well, I think that magic mind, like, made me, like, phew. Good, I'm glad. Ready? Question one. What is the one thing someone can do in the next 60 seconds to calm their nervous system?

I just think it's really just simple. Notice where your body is holding the tension and see if you can loosen that a little bit. Okay. That's it. You shift your thoughts through your body. Number two. What is the fastest way to interrupt a negative thought spiral before it takes over your entire? day. The fastest way is first do a little planning for a second and just notice if you can name like your

top three negative thought spirals that you fall into, whether it's a comparing loop or whether it's a catastrophizing loop or whether it's some other kind of loop. And then you can spend and you can set an attention to be on the lookout for that. And if you can name it and be on the lookout for it, just that awareness alone in that moment can create a little bit of an interrupt. And then again, again, this is all very simple. And I say this with repetition for a reason. If you can notice how pulling on your body, you do want to be able to, you do want to loosen that and then ask yourself, see if there's a reverse question, you can ask yourself. Okay. If someone only has five minutes a day, what mindfulness practice would actually make the biggest difference? For me, in my life, it's the

body awareness practice. So you're actually just kind of going through your body and you're curious about the sensations of your body and you're kind of moving through from your toes to your head. that practice, and I know we're rapid fire, so I won't say exactly why it works neurologically, but that practice healed my insomnia. Wow. Yeah. I want to know now. Okay.

How did you do that? Can you tell me that answer as fast? How did you heal your insomnia in 60 seconds or less? Go. Okay. There's two different levers of the brain. There's the part that's a bit more of a, it creates steadiness, and there's a part that creates a bit more narrative chaos.

And so when you hit the lever, which is just being aware, allowing yourself to direct your mind to being curious about sensations of the body versus the story the mind is telling that's keeping you awake, it's like a seesaw effect. The other one goes up while one goes down. It's a little bit like training a black stallion because you're going to be knocked off a bunch of times, but you have to trust the neurology of it. That if you keep coming back, you recognize you release, you refocused back on the sensation that's here, then you're the lever of the kind of more chaotic. gear will begin to go down and just kind of kind of continue to bring it back the repetition. A little bit, 60 seconds is tough to kind of explain that in, but. Okay. Yeah.

What is the one thing people misunderstand about meditation that keeps them from not sticking with it? That it's, it's meant to be calm. Well, mindfulness is, tell people what, how about this? Mindfulness is awareness, meditation is a practice. Okay, that's good. So mindfulness and how about this? Mindfulness and meditation are.

not the same thing. Mindfulness is actually about being, it's not about being calm. It's about being aware. And meditation is a practice. Yeah, but meditation, people do meditation for an outcome. And that's the wrong thing. Meditation is meant to be a training. So in other words, if I want to train emotional awareness, my meditation will be on my emotions. If I'm going to train concentration, I'll focus on my breath for concentration. If I want to train like more equanimity, which means open awareness and being aware of things coming and going, I'll do a different type of meditation practice. Prayer is meditation if I want to get closer to God. So the question is, what's your intention with this practice? Treat it like a training and not for the outcome. That's not what you're

after. You're after like the practice and repetition of something. You want to train in playing an instrument. It's not that every now all of a sudden you'll get an outcome of a beautiful song that you'll get, but you're training the agility of your fingers on the instrument. You're training. That's what you're doing with meditation. It's just a training. That's all it is. I like it. All right. So Dr. Elisha, I said it, yes. Goldstein, his book, his new book is called Tiny Shifts. And it's out everywhere, right? It's one of your third book. My sixth book. Oh, geez. Sixth book. Wow. Okay. Well, he's been around a while, I guess. You guys go grab a copy. And you can also, where can people find you if they want to know more about tiny shifts or anything that you talk about?

I'm on Instagram. I'm on the most universal spot as just my website, elisha Goldstein.com. There, there's also this tiny shift bundle there that you can get that's going to give you a bigger emotional vocabulary, give you a few practices to train with. That was what I thought to ask you. When you say emotional vocabulary, what do you mean? I just mean like being able, yeah, it's more words. Well, it's two things. It's words. So being able to know what you're feeling while you're feeling. So for example, and this is part of my. my story, and I'll say this pretty quick, is that my parents got divorced when I was six. My mom left the family to pursue other things that ended up being really wonderful for her. But for me, I was kind of left with a lot of anger. And then I shut the anger down. I decided, like, I guess, unconsciously that I would just not be angry. And you just wouldn't see that. I had no,

I had no connection with the feeling of anger. And so one time in my 20s, I was at my mom's house and she's, I was like being irritable with her and frustrated. And she's like, I think you're angry with me. And I said, no, no, I'm not angry. And she said, but when you notice that you are angry with me, I want you to know that I'm open to talk to about it. That's when I ran into Marshall Rosenberg's work on nonviolent communication, which really expanded a whole massive vocabulary of emotions. And I started realizing annoyance, frustration, irritation, these are all experiences of anger. So all of a sudden, I was noticing more anger and being able to, the value of that is being able to communicate it. And also, you have different needs depending on how you're feeling.

You're going to need something different if you're overwhelmed versus sad versus lonely versus, you know, afraid. And so being able to accurately name how you're feeling is key to understanding what your underlying needs are. Damn. Why did you leave it to the, okay, you mentioned it like a 10 minutes ago, and I was like, I really love that emotional vocabulary. We're going to have to come back to it. But we got to it too late. That's a great. I want to know more about that. that. Clip that out. Yeah.

I'm going to clip that. I want to know more because I think that is so accurate because I think what we, the way we describe how we feel or what a situation is is usually not accurate enough. And therefore, so we're not getting the right solution back at us. Right? Like if I'm saying to you, for example, I'm really frustrated, but it really isn't the frustration at the word. The word isn't a frustration.

It's really a different word, like sad or angry or. or hurt or whatever, then like I'm not, I'm not explaining myself, right, or anybody not explaining themselves correctly, then they're not having the correct conversation and the correct kind of back and forth to actually get a resolution. Yeah, and you or your partner or your friend or whoever communicating with doesn't know what you need. And so because you're not, because we're not able to name what's happening as well.

And so if we can get clear on what our emotions are and what our needs are, It's like a puzzle piece. They fit together. What are the main, what are some of the main emotional words that people misused by accident? Some people, well, I think most people just say they're feeling fine. Right, exactly. That's true. But they don't.

So, you know, they just kind of, again, we don't really have a good vocabulary. But I think we, sometimes we say we're feeling sad and we're feeling lonely. Those two go together. So sad and lonely or two? Sometimes we're just feeling agitated really underneath. that we're feeling lonely. Sometimes we're feeling angry, but underneath it is really sadness.

Sometimes we're feeling sad, but underneath it is anger. Sometimes we just are feeling like a yearning to feel loved or cared about and understood. And instead we get agitated with people. And so to just kind of be able to get a little more intimate with, that's why I kind of point to the body a lot because emotions, they're physical.

And so when we're able to name them, we also want to know like how they feel so we can better identify them when they're arising. And that helps us communicate it with the people that we care about. Yeah. Listen, when you do this, it makes me feel like that. I wonder if we can compromise and kind of do this in the future.

I love that. Okay, go look at, go check him out, Dr. Elisha Goldstein and learn more, because I love that, that emotional vocabulary. Thank you for being here. Yeah, it's been great. Thanks for having me. Of course.

Bye.