The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – MASTER THE ART OF DESPITES: EXCUSES SHAPE OUR DESTINY. NOT OUR GOALS by Axa Yox

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

MASTER THE ART OF DESPITES: EXCUSES SHAPE OUR DESTINY. NOT OUR GOALS by Axa Yox https://amzn.to/3YX20OF https://www.linkedin.com/in/axa-yox-phd-top-talent-award-winner-8529b1262/ ATTENTION FULL-TIME 8 to 5-ers!!! THIS BOOK IS FOR YOU IF YOU ARE SICK AND TIRED OF LIVING FROM PAYCHECK TO PAYCHECK. GOING TO WORK YOU HATE. BUT CAN'T ESCAPE THE RAT RACE COS YOU HAVE BILLS TO PAY. In this book, you will learn the innovative technique the author developed for herself when she was an 8 or 9 to 5-er, sick and tired of living from paycheck to paycheck and wanting to escape the DEADLY RAT RACE. The technique helps overcome anxiety and stop procrastination in pursuit of building extra sources of income. The approach Axa developed and described in her book is practical and effective, making her a valuable resource for those seeking personal development and transformation. NOW, WHY: MASTER THE ART OF DESPITES? It shows how the author went through hardship and came out of the tunnel as a winner. It is a motivational book to help those who go through similar adversity and think they are alone. You’re not alone. There are so many who go through similar hardships if not worse and might need help too. Imagine if you support them with love and encouragement and receive the same back. Or even better, if you made it a daily habit. Now imagine if you make that habit of supporting your true self. A daily habit that will lead to transforming your life one step at a time. Life toward becoming unstoppable and living a fulfilled and not FOOLFILLED life.

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast. The hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show. The preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, folks. This is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com.

There you go, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the big show. We certainly appreciate you guys. For 60 years, we've been bringing you all the smartest people, the most brilliant authors, the CEOs, the billionaires, the White House presidential advisors, you name it, Pulitzer Prize winners. I mean, just the bread is people that bring you their knowledge, their experience, their stories that are the fabric of their life,

and they share them with you. And guess what? We don't charge a dime for the show, so it's all free. So go back and watch all 2,000 episodes of The Chris Voss Show for the last 16 years. And if you still don't get it, watch them all again. We have an amazing young lady on the show today. She's going to be talking to us about her insights in her book that just came out May 16, 2024. It's called Master the Art of Despites.

Excuses shape our our destiny not our goals dr axa yox is on the show with us today we'll be talking to her about her insights as well and her new book as well she has a master's in physiology and a specialty diploma in biotechnology phd in microbiology with a focus on genetics. She has a big brain, ladies and gentlemen. She studied many years in Europe, Germany, Australia, Switzerland, Greece, and won a first prize award, multiple highest-ranked international scholarships, including Fulbright, and was an expert at the World Bank programs, the invited expert to the program at the French Embassy,

and the expert at presidential program at the French embassy, and the expert at presidential program in her home country, the only representative from her home country to the largest European program. She's done 12 inventions, was nominated as a person of extraordinary ability, and at the top of achievements, quit science, moved to the US, and built her own company. I welcome the show. How are you, Dr. Yox? Thank you.

Thank you for welcoming. I cannot imagine that I did all that you mentioned right now. There you go. There you go. And all at the age of 30, right? Yes, absolutely. There you go. So give us dot coms.

Where do you want people to find you on the interwebs, please? So I'm very active on LinkedIn. Definitely people can find me i'm starting my youtube channel and also the landing page that they can find and the book is on amazon they're welcome to to have it there you go on the big old amazon in the sky there so give us a 30 000 overview what's inside your new book oh absolutely so the book is about the technique that i developed while going through the hardship that's that's kind of behind the the title master the art of these sprites because i was coming with the background in science where i

had very structured life i was applying for the scholarship. I was very successful. Then you make the project, you obtain the results, you publish, you go for the conferences, and then you repeat the cycle. And when I did several inventions, I decided that I'm ready for starting my own company. And I failed tremendously. I wasn't ready for the real life as it turned out.

Then I went through many life-changing events. In 2020, I lost my dad. It was devastating. Then another life-changing event happened in my family. Then my personal trauma. And I moved to live to the US in 2022 and everything was happening so fast one after another I didn't have the time to recover it was quite overwhelming I didn't have the family in the US I was completely alone and I was so sure that I will start my company right

away like I knew everything and the company is about the biotech product. And that was something that I didn't expect. And because of all together, I needed obviously to support myself financially. So I wasn't very selective with the job and I was so sure that I'm starting my company. I'm ready for that. So I would go to work and then in the evening I would try to learn everything about the business and I couldn't do anything. I was procrastinating horribly. This is what happens with so many people. So they go to work, they are unhappy at work. They want to start their own company.

But what they do, they slide right back to their comfort zone because the motivation doesn't work. It doesn't last. So I started to check the motivational videos just to see where is that trick? Where is this like nudge that you can change your life, transform it and keep it there? And that's how I developed accidentally my technique. It helps to rewire the links in your brain and you see completely different picture. So during the hardship that I was going, when I lost my dad, I gained 40 pounds within a really very short period of time, and I couldn't lose any pound. In three months, I lost 40 pounds.

I sustained sugar-free diet for 18 months already. Wow, that is awesome. wow i sleep five hours per day i have twice meal and i am full of energy and everything right because i change the links in my brain to how i see the world that is awesome five hours of sleep you can get by on that that's awesome absolutely and i'm full of energy. I can do whatever I want, even better than I was before. There you go. Yeah, that'll make you full of energy. I've noticed that when I do intermittent fasting, and I noticed that when I'm intermittent fasting, one of the key things is I have more energy. It's pretty nice.

The first three months, it's very exhausting because you think that you are lacking the food. Where is my sweets? And you feel frustrated. But then when you feel that change, how it affects, the fatigue is gone. You feel better together. You can think better.

You see the things which other people don't and you are like i don't want to be back i want to keep that clear mind forever oh yeah it's it's it's something that's really important now on the cover of your book you you the word despite is a the i is lowercase what does that mean it means that everything is in our brain and we once you find them how to master the despite then you get in control of your decisions you rewire the links in your brain and you just ready to go. There you go. And it also says here in the description, how life toward becoming unstoppable and living a fulfilled and not fool-filled life. Fool-filled is one word. Tell us about what that means.

When I was procrastinating horribly, I wanted to understand what's happening in our body, especially with specialty in physiology. So I discovered some new things that are not very well highlighted in the literature. So part is highlighted, part is not. So I will go in really very tiny details, but I believe it's very critical. So it will help people rewire what's happening in their brain. So we have six human needs. It's well described.

And it depends on what is the life situation. You sequence them in particular sequence. And the first is the certainty, which is for everyone, is the priority. Because biologically, we are wired to feel safe. We need to make sure that we can avoid pain and depending what is the the priority the three first are your priority and what i discovered for me to be true so per day we have particular emotions that we go through and every emotion triggers the shift in our biochemistry per need that we have imagine that you have six cups of different volume and whatever the need for you for the that particular need that's the volume that you have so we want to work it's our

certainty we're certain whether we are happy or we are unhappy, it doesn't matter. You shift your biochemistry to make sure that you have something certain. But then to distract yourself, especially when something is unhappy, you go for the activities. And you start to fill your different tongues with the fake emotions. But at the end of the day, because emotionally you are exhausted, you fool your body that you did everything. That's why people go from the start of the year with the same list of the goals that they have for the year. And they end the year with completing maybe 10% top.

And then they just transfer the same list from one year to another. This is the fulfilled life that we're living. Yeah, it's definitely. So give us a story of your upbringing. How were you raised? How did you grow up? How did you go through some of the experiences you went through, et cetera, et cetera? I'm coming from the family where background and the knowledge were always the number first priority.

My dad was gifted engineer. My mom is engineer as well. And I always grew up with that feeling that you need to make yourself professional to be valued at your working space. That's the line that I always had from my parents. And maybe that was the reason that I was very successful in science I did several inventions and I couldn't stop I wanted always to go for more more there was no stop for me oh wow so you're pretty driven from your from the way you were raised I guess as a child that's that's that's true yes I believe there is a huge impact from my dad because he was also an inventor, very well known in my country. And he did a lot for the country.

Yeah, I believe that's what I saw since I was a child. And that's what I brought to my life as well. There you go. Sharing all that good stuff and et cetera, et cetera. What else is there to talk about with your book? Now, I believe you have another book that we want to promote as well. Can you tell us about that? Yes. I was passionate about relationships since I was a child. That's why when I saw what's happening with the singles, I started to see the patterns because when I was going,

I was learning about the motivation, about letting go and all that drives people. It's very well described that we fall for some patterns. And when I started to talk to people and the singles especially, I saw that there are particular patterns that people fall for. And those patterns keep you single. And I was like, oh, okay, let's highlight them in the book, because it kind of tells the number one mistake that singles make that keeps them single.

It's fascinating how it is that whenever you try to date, you fall for the same trap. Like you try to check for the green flags the person has instead of checking for the red flags. Because green flag never becomes the reason that you break up with the person, only the red flag. And at the moment, I'm also trying to collaborate with the managers of the companies and help them when they are hiring the new professionals to check for the red flags. Because do you know how much the company loses per every wrong hire?

It's minimum 10,000. Oh, yeah. And it's up to 50% of the annual salary for that person. It's horrible. And every time when they make the mistake, the company loses so much money. And I suggest the company managers, especially the hiring the hr managers to take the dating classes because whenever you go with the dating specialist they teach you how to pick up the person for life so if next time you need to hire the person you can end up hiring the person that will always stay in your company.

There you go. So, Dan, do you have a, is there a book on this or what is the coaching on it? It's coaching. I'm doing, yes, the coaching for the singles and also I'm starting the classes for managers. There you go. It's, yeah, it's, the one thing you learn with business is spending the time and investing to hire well and to vet prospective employees is super important and can save you a lot of brain damage on the back end of problems. And you're right, the same thing is true of dating. If you

spend time trying to figure out what this person's about what their red flags are and the funny thing is most people will tell you what their red flags are on the first few dates if not right away they tell you it's just the problem is most people don't listen you know and some of it's some sometimes they tell you on a projection well my ex did this because they they just want to see how you'll handle that information. And if it will cause you to run. Or what your reply is to it. But no, people always tell you.

And the problem is when you're dating is that's a contract. So when people, when you agree that, oh, that's not a big deal. Oh, you had whatever happened to you. That's not a big deal. Yeah, it is a big deal because you just signed a contract for abuse, basically. Absolutely, because we are so wired that we need to check the green flags that we start to ignore the red flags. And the red flag becomes the reason that you break up.

So if you flip that perspective and instead of focusing on the green flags, because once you check all the boxes, you are so happy. I found my soulmate. So you just keep ignoring the red flag which comes one after another one after another and then you are like i'll fix that i'll fix that because you your focus is on green flags we were told check for the green flags yeah it's one of those things that people just you know they they this i guess they're maybe just so lustful in their head or whatever. They're just so excited to meet, meeting somebody. They forget to take a hard look at what's in front of you. And if you, if you vet well in dating, you know, you have a better chance to

keep people around just like you do for, for, for an employees. Now what's your website again? So we can pull that up. It's the landing page. I don't have the established website yet. Okay. People can find me on LinkedIn. Okay. And that's a good way to find out about your coaching services as well? Yes. Okay.

There you go. So let's get back to the book, Master the Art of Despites. What does the word despites mean to you? What is the key word of that and what does that mean to people mostly whenever some hardship happens people are so easy to give up on their dream and this is something that i start to realize once i kept repeating myself the excuses that i had in my brain like in my head i don't have have this. That's why I don't have that. And the chain was endless. And at a certain point, I could see the accomplished

people just rolling their eyes. Okay, yeah, just go ahead and keep repeating. And the only person that hears your excuses, it's yourself. Because accomplished people, they are not interested in your excuses. Show me, show me where is your result. And that's what drives them. And before you realize, your excuses become so big, they replace your goal. And at the end of the year, you are like i it's complete year just passed i did nothing what i did i just repeat all my excuses all over again and again and the despite is just to show despite that i passed that situation so if i can do you can can do as well. Just keep going. Keep going.

Yes, keep going in the right direction because that's something that people misunderstand. They think that if they continue going or if they continue doing the same thing, they will have different results. You know what? No, you will end up with the same results. It's amazing how many people do that. They just keep doing the same thing over and over and they expect different results, isn't it? Absolutely. And that's when you have to realize because once you realize what comes from your subconscious, what comes from your cautious, you will never, ever break that link.

Because we are so wired to the safety from our nature nature created us to search for the safety first and cautious is so strong that we confuse subconscious with the cautious so whatever comes whatever emotion we have it triggers the change in biochemistry and we confuse the biochemistry with something that it's our decision and once you realize where the decision comes from you have the control over that because there is one nuance that it is not very well highlighted and i would i would like to bring it up because whenever there is a emotion or the feeling humans synthesize the hormones it is well described and normally people go with very generalized term to make it easy but there is another group of molecules that our body synthesize.

It's neurotransmitters. And the difference is hormones are produced by our endocrine glands. So they are located in different parts of our body. We can never control the synthesis of hormones. But what we can control actually. So everything happens on our subconscious because it is created by the nature to to keep us safe that's why it's subconscious what we are missing is the synthesis of neurotransmitters because everything is synthesized in our brain and this is where we

can control so how whenever there is an emotion there is a synthesis of the hormones this we cannot control but there is also the assessment by our cautious like what happened and then you start to synthesize the neurotransmitters this is the regular chain of the reactions and this is where people think that they cannot break it. So there is an emotion, there is a reaction. What happens when you start to add the extra tap is when something bad happens, you have this emotional trigger which triggers to synthesize the emotional like the neurotransmitter oh i'm very unhappy it's sad what what's coming next you choose to synthesize

the new neurotransmitter which will take under the control everything until that's said, but I can deal with that. And this is where you break that link. Because when you don't explain in details, people think that that's the emotion that I have, how I can break it. But that's when you add this extra layer of the protection that you choose cautiously that that's the reaction that I'm going to give to that particular event. This is how you rewire the links that exist.

And that's how when you change the life. There you go. That's how you change your life. Quit making excuses, right? Absolutely. Now I don't have the excuse. I see the sugar. I see the sweets. I don't eat because the link is broken in my head. There you go. That's a good broken to have, actually. Absolutely.

All those links and stuff. What are some other things we haven't talked about that are inside the book oh okay yes it's kind of interesting how we are choosing the the partners so it's kind of the connection between the book and my second book about the relationship that comes from our childhood so what yes how we even think to take to choose the partner have you ever asked yourself why the child who comes from the upbringing like the family where they saw that the the father to have the affair and they happen to choose the partner who most probably will cheat on them i was surprised when when i saw like how is it possible that you choose or the person chooses always the same type of the partner not the different are we so selective and then then once you start to realize that everything comes from the links that we have in our brain, and before you understand where the signal comes from, is it from cautious or it's from subcautious?

And once you break it, everything shifts. There you go. Yeah. A lot of times we're stuck in subconscious patterns. And our childhood shapes us. And people don't realize how much of an effect your parents really have on you sometimes and how they can how they can take and shape your experience and and and everything else and who you choose i mean your father is

someone who's supposed to be in life to show young a young woman how to, you know, the example of a good man and what a masculine man does in a relationship and raising children. A mother teaches her son what sort of woman to look for, who's nurturing and kind and all those elements, assuming that they are. But yeah, it's an interesting thing there. Yeah. And another thing that I want to mention also about the technique that I developed is kind of it relates to tolerance. Because the tolerance is what we tolerate. It's the range for anything that happens in our life before the permanent change happens. And that's why whenever we are, we are trying to motivate ourselves because we have particular tolerance for the event.

So if it's above, then we slide back to our comfort zone. But what I found, once you start to neutralize your biochemistry with the technique which is described in the book. Because you have your biochemistry nullified, which happens, by the way, when we go to sleep. So you nullify your biochemistry and in the morning, if you just keep doing the same things, you just end up with the exhausted emotions and you don't change anything in life. But once we hear that very often, motivational speakers are telling you have to build the muscle, you have to build the muscle. And I was like, what does that mean? Being from physiology, I was like, what does that mean?

Once I cracked the code, I was like, oh, that's very interesting. So from the biochemistry perspective, everything that we feel, it triggers the shift in your biochemistry. So if you go from this biochemistry to this biochemistry right away, if it is something completely new for you, and if you are scared, you will slide right back to your comfort zone.

But what if you go from one biochemistry, slowly adapting yourself to feel fine? This is the biochemistry of the fear, let's say, you want to change, you want to start a new company, but you are scared. If you start the company in one day, you will slide right back to your comfort zone. But if you learn step by step, what is the next step? What is the next step? And you adapt yourself to be okay with that biochemistry. This is how you build the muscle because you raise your tolerance, you extend your comfort zone and then it's fine you are not scared because the biochemistry of fear is familiar for your body and once something is happening and you are like oh if before you would be absolutely scared because you are not it's not it's new for you now you are like okay i know what that what's that i'm not scared

any longer because you adapt yourself step by step to feel fine with that biochemistry ah that can make all the difference that can make all the difference in the world yes that's how i changed everything because before I was coming from the very safe and structured life in academia. I knew everything. Now I knew nothing. I was stepping in the world of business where everybody tells that it's very severe. You have to survive. You have to fight.

I was not ready for that. Now I know that I might fail even though I know that I will fail. I'm not scared because I'm ready to that. There you go. It's a journey that we go through in life. And some of these influences, you know, being able to override the subconscious mind is like freaking everything. So there you go. Yeah. It's because when you call, this is something that we miss.

When you name the particular word and when you use it, your brain starts to decode it the way that it feels. So when we say comfort zone, what is the first thing that we associate with the word comfort? It's something cozy, nice, safe. And you try to motivate the person to quit their comfort zone where they are, by the way, already unhappy and to enter the progress zone and to feel uncomfortable. Majority of people will procrastinate because the way that your brain reads the information, if this is comfort and I'm already unhappy, I don't want to enter the uncomfort zone. But with my technique, what flips, it's not about feeling comfortable to feel uncomfortable, but it's about feeling uncomfortable to stay in your comfort zone. So that's the flip that happens.

And once you understand the difference, then the things change. change and another thing that could be the explanation because i believe you heard about the finding from amy cuddy they found this power pose with the elbows out if you stand for two or three minutes it raises the level of testosterone for 30 percent at the same time, it drops down the level of cortisol for 30%. So testosterone, which is considered to be the man-male hormone, it's present also in female as well. It is responsible for our good mood, for risk-taking, for bravery, while cortisol is the stress hormone. It lowers your metabolism, so you enter the survival mode. And those two hormones are in reverse. So whenever you need to go for something that needs bravery, you need to take the risk. You have to do something to raise your testosterone. And there is another thing that I found in the literature.

I was fascinated. So testosterone, cortisol, and estrogen, which is the female sexual hormone, they have the same biochemical basic molecule. What differs, they have different active groups. And depending on the active group, this is how the molecule will behave and interact with the environment. So whenever there is a synthesis of testosterone in our body, there is no synthesis of cortisol. This is how they are in reverse dynamic with each other. So if you want to drop the cortisol, then you have to do something to raise your testosterone. There you go. There you go.

This is really important for stuff to take and do that will make all the difference in life and shaping you. Give us your final thoughts as we go out. Tell people where they can go to your websites or find out more about you. Yes, LinkedIn would be the best to find me because I'm very active on LinkedIn. I share the content. I start my YouTube channel so you can find me, Aksa Yox. And obviously, subscribe for my newsletter. I send very interesting topics every Saturday, so you will learn a lot from me.

There you go. Well, we certainly appreciate having you on the show, Dr. Yox. Thank you very much for coming on. Thank you for hosting me and thanks for sharing so much insights that's unbelievable i spend a lot of time to checking all your podcasts and you do a lot for people because yeah thanks for helping to share the message too too so that we could do a lot for people as well there you go there you go thanks to my honest for tuning in order up where refined books are sold May 16th, 2024. Available. It's called Master the Art of Despites. Excuses shape our destiny, not our goals.

So quit making excuses. There you go. Absolutely. There you go. Thank you, Dr. Yox. Thanks to our audience for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisfast, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisfast, chrisfast1, the TikTok, any of those crazy places on the internet. Thanks for tuning in. Be good to eachs.com, 4Chest, Chris Voss, LinkedIn.com, 4Chest, Chris Voss, Chris Voss1, the TikTok, any of all those crazy places on the internet.

Thanks for tuning in. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.