The Mindset Mentor - Brainwash Yourself for Success

Episode Date: January 12, 2026

What if the words you say to yourself are secretly creating your entire life? In this episode, I break down why affirmations aren’t “woo-woo,” but a practical way to rewire your brain using neuroscience, psychology, and intentional self-talk. I’ll show you how beliefs are formed, how negative patterns get programmed, and my simple three-step process to create affirmations that actually work so you can retrain your mind for discipline, confidence, and long-term success. If you want to be a high performer in 2026, click here: https://2026workshop.com/   If you want 2026 to be your best year yet then this video is for you. In just 30 minutes, I’ll help you build a clear, simple goal system so you stop guessing and start moving forward with confidence. 👉 Build your 2026 goal system here: https://www.goalmastery2026.com/lp1   High performers don’t wait for clarity, they create it. This Mindset University call will help you see your blind spots and your next level. Grab your spot here 👉 https://www.coachwithrob.com/mindset-university-call-rob   Feeling stuck? It's time to take back control. If you're ready to master your mind and create real, lasting change, click the link below and start transforming your life today. 👉 http://coachwithrob.com   The Mindset Mentor™ podcast is designed for anyone desiring motivation, direction, and focus in life.     Past guests of The Mindset Mentor include Tony Robbins, Matthew McConaughey, Jay Shetty, Andrew Huberman, Lewis Howes, Gregg Braden, Rich Roll, and Dr. Steven Gundry.   Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to today's episode of the mindset mentor podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not, you've done so hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. And if you're committed to make a 2026 the best year of your life, join my free two-day high-performance live workshop this January 14th and 15th, where I'm going to teach you the real life tools to stop procrastinating, to take action, follow through and get the results that finally match the potential you know that you have. You're going to leave with the mindset systems and habits to build the version. of you that you know that you're meant to be this year. So go to 2026 workshop.com to register for free. Once again, 2026 workshop.com. Today, we're going to be talking about how to brainwash yourself for success, how to speak into existence the life that you want, and how to use affirmations to do so. And now, I get it. This is, when I first heard about affirmations and for years, I thought affirmations are just this woo-woo-y, fru-frew-fluffy thing. And I'm just going to ignore are my problems and say that everything's amazing and everything's positive. But really, more than anything else, if you use affirmations, affirmations are probably the most powerful tool that you can use to

brainwash yourself. And I'm going to talk about what brainwashing yourself means and how to actually do it today. But the deal is we need to figure out exactly what it is that we want in our life and then speak it into existence. If you know the phrase abracadabra, abercadabra. Abacadabra is not just a phrase of what a magician says when they pull a rabbit out of a hat. Cadabra is actually a Hebrew word, ancient Hebrew word, that means as I speak, I create. As I speak, I create. So constantly, I am speaking into existence, whatever it is that I say. And when you're talking to yourself in your head, you are speaking to yourself in your head. And so, you know, I don't think anyone listening, including myself, speaking to you guys, really understands

how powerful of creators we actually are. Like, I think that we are beyond more. more powerful than we can actually comprehend. Then we know we're powerful and we can create the life that we want, but I don't think we actually truly understand how powerful we actually are and how that we have created the lives that we currently have. Mostly, unconsciously, we've created them. So if we've unconsciously created a life that we have, why not figure out exactly the life that we want in the future? And then instead of unconsciously living, we actually consciously create it. We consciously speak it into existence and work towards it every single day. And so when you look at affirmations, what exactly are affirmations?

They're really simple. They're just positive affirmations are these simple, empowering statements that basically encourage you to declare the reality that you want to live in. You speak the reality that you want to live in. You don't speak based off of the past. You don't speak based off of the present. You speak based off of the reality that you want to create and you're going to be stepping into. And sure, we can say it's just words. It's just speaking to yourself. But once again,

as I speak, I create. Most people are not saying what they want. They're not creating what they want in their lives. They think about, you know, they speak to themselves about what they're worrying about. They speak to themselves about what they're afraid of and what they don't like about themselves. And in fact, when you look at neuroscience, when you look at psychology, when you look at ancient spiritual traditions, all of those together talk about the same thing. The words that you speak, especially when you repeat them consistently reshape and shape how you see the world. Neuroscience says this, psychology says this. Every spiritual tradition I've almost ever seen and read about says this as well. It changes the way that you see the world and the meaning that you give everything that happens to you

and everything that happens around you. And ultimately, how you, they, respond to everything that happens to you. And so to understand how affirmation work, it's really important to know a little bit about your brain's neuroplasticity and the actual science behind your brain. So I'm not just going to talk about manifesting and speaking into existence and going on the edge of a mountain and declaring what is it you want. I'm going to actually talk about how, sure, those things can work, but how when you do it over and over again, it actually reorganizes your brain. And so when you look at neuroplasticity, Neuplasticity is your brain's ability to reorganize itself and form new neural connections

throughout your life. This isn't just some people, this is every person. Your brain is always changing. It's always adapting to new information, new things that happen to you, whatever it is that you feed it, whether it's positive or negative. It's just responding. It's not putting them into categories. And when you repeatedly speak something or when you have certain thoughts over and over again, you strengthen the neural pathways that are associated with those thoughts, which then make you more likely to think that way in the future. And so if you regularly tell yourself, I'm confident, I'm capable, I deserve success, well, then you're going to strengthen those neural pathways in your brain,

which make you more likely to think that in the future, which means that you can consciously start to think these things, and then later on down the road, those thoughts actually start to become automatic. So your brain begins to associate those words with your sense of self. And then over time, these pathways become stronger. And they tend to influence your emotions. They influence your actions. They change the way that you interact with the world around you.

That's positive self-talk. But on the other side, if we have negative self-talk, if we say stuff like, I'm not good enough, I always fail, I'm not smart, whatever it is that you say, it also strengthens those pathways. but it reinforces your doubt, your anxiety, your low self-esteem, which in turn shapes the way that you think about everything in your life and ultimately how you're going to respond to it. And so what we need to do, and when I keep going back to, is consciously choose our affirmations in the way that we're going to speak to ourselves.

Because essentially what you're doing when you consciously choose what it is that you want to say and you're very adamant about making sure that you speak to yourself this way, you are going to rewire your brain to support more positive, more empowered version of yourself that's going to take action towards the life that you want. And so in order to understand this, you've got to understand this thing that's called the reticular activating system in your brain. And if you go back a couple episodes a couple weeks ago, I talk about much, much more in depth about the reticular activating system. But let me give you a real quick overview. The reticular activating system is the filter in your brain between your conscious and your subconscious mind.

It's basically the bouncer at the door. It decides what information gets through and what information does it. And it's based largely on what you decide to focus on. And so when you use positive affirmations and you consciously decide how you want to speak to yourself, you're basically directing your reticular activating system to pay attention to the things that align with the goals that you're trying to create. And so when you say stuff like, I'm going to be successful, I'm creating an amazing life, and we will be right back. And now back to the show. And you start noticing opportunities around you,

and you start noticing people and places and things that respond to that, it's not that those opportunities suddenly appear out of nowhere, they were always there. But now your brain has been primed to recognize them versus filter them out. And so it doesn't let opportunities slip by now because it's focused on looking for those opportunities. And so you're basically controlling the filter. of your brain versus once again just unconsciously letting it do what it's going to do.

And so this leads to a concept that's known as a self-fulfilling prophecy. Real quick, what's a self-fulfilling prophecy? When you believe something strongly enough, you unconsciously behave in ways to make that belief come true. So if you think I'm a failure, you're going to unconsciously behave in ways to make yourself fail. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy. But when you say, I deserve success and I'm going to have everything I want one day,

you unconsciously start to behave in ways to make that belief come true. And so if you believe you're going to fail, then you're going to avoid taking risks. You're going to procrastinate. You're going to not put all of your effort. You're going to half-ass some of the things that you do. And that will eventually lead to the failure that you were concentrating on. On the flip side of that, like I was saying, if you plant seeds for success and you say, I deserve to be success, I'm going to be successful, I'm resilient, I'm resourceful.

Everything that happens to me is for my own best. betterment and to help me grow and to help me improve, then you start to build this mindset that makes you more likely to overcome obstacles and to keep working towards that thing that you're trying to create. The more you speak it, the more you believe it, and the more that you act in ways that align with that belief. This is your own brainwashing is what you're doing. Your actions and what you do stem from what you believe. So affirmations literally change your beliefs because beliefs are just thoughts that you've been thinking for a really long time. And so if you have negative thought patterns, if you have self-doubt, if you have the fear of failure, if you have the imposter

syndrome, all of those are deeply ingrained to us, but all of those patterns, all of those ways of speaking to yourself, you learned in some sort of way. And if they were learned, it means that they could be unlearned. They're not fact. They're not set in stone. They could be unlearned. It just requires you to be very conscious and pay attention to what you're saying. And, you know, we were all unconsciously programmed in our childhood by other people, by the world, by our own young minds that didn't really consciously know what was going on. Now that we're adults, you're listening to this podcast, you can consciously program yourself to believe what is that you want to believe.

It is time for you and you alone to start to brainwash yourself. Not me, not the government, not politics, not your parents. But for you to sit down and be like, what do I want? What do I believe? Who am I going to be as a human? human, and I'm going to brainwash myself to believe this and not pay attention to whatever other people tell me I should believe. And so when you use these affirmations, they interrupt old patterns, and then you start replacing old patterns and old thought processes with believing

yourself, with empowering beliefs. So, you know, if, for instance, you catch yourself thinking, like, I'll never be successful. And you notice that thought come into your head, okay, well, that shows me something I need to reprogram. And I can consciously replace that thought with, I am, worthy of success. I'm capable. I'm getting better every single day and I will be successful one day. Over time, this practice starts to weaken the old negative thought patterns and then it strengthens the new positive ones, which is literally the definition of neuroplasticity. So the words as you speak to yourself affect your relationship with yourself, but it also influences massively how you interact with other people, how you interact with the world.

And so, you know, if you use affirmations like, I am a supportive, compassionate friend, I communicate clearly and openly and vulnerably with my partner, all of these things start to help you develop healthier relationships and more fulfilling relationships. And when you affirm them, you're more likely to embody them, which then helps you become better as a friend and better as a partner and better as a spouse. And so you have to understand there's the idea of affirmations. and how to actually start doing it. But really what it comes down to is you need to figure out what you want in life

and what you don't want in life. And then what you need to do is you need to actually start speaking the things that you want to speak. So then everybody always asks a question, that's nice. Well, then how do I create affirmations? Well, let me give you my exact three-step process that I give people. And I'll tell you why it works. I'll tell you, I'll give you a bunch of examples of exactly how to make it better

and how to keep working on yourself and how to keep speaking to yourself. creating a perfect affirmation is very simple. I don't like, you know, people that sit outside and they're like, meditate and say, you know, I, the money is flowing freely to me from all corners of the universe. And then you wake up one day and you have a million dollars in a bank account. That's bullshit. We all know that's bullshit, right? It's not about that. What it's about is I'm trying to actually consciously reprogram myself, not just sit around and think that there's just going to be money that, you know, Pluto is going to send me into my Bank of America account. So what it comes down to is because when you start to say, oh, I am rich beyond belief, we all have a bullshit meter in our head. And immediately

we're like, that's bullshit. I have $12 in my account. So that's not going to work. And so what you want to do is this three-step process. Okay, number one, it needs to be true. Number two, it needs to be empowering. And number three, it needs to be present tense. True, empowering, present tense. So let me give you an example of how people negatively speak to themselves. And once you notice that negative thought pattern, if you want to rewired into something different, what you could rewire it into. Now, don't steal mine. I mean, you can't if you want to.

I don't care. But I would prefer you come up with something that feels empowering to you, that strikes a chord. So let's create something that's true, empowering in present tense, right? A lot of people say stuff like, I'll never be successful. Well, how do we take that and we change it? Okay. I'm building success through working hard every single day. Okay, that's good because it's not like I'm successful because you are dramatically

know that you're not as successful as you want to be. It's like I'm building success through hard work every single day. That feels better. I'm working my house every single day. I'm not successful yet, but I'm getting there. If you say stuff like, I'll never be happy. Well, an empowering change to that would be I choose happiness in gratitude in my life now or I choose to focus on what I'm grateful for and find my happiness for what I already have. Whatever it is, it strikes a chord for you. If you're one of those people that says, I'm not confident. I trust myself in every situation. Because trust is the first piece of confidence, right? So I'm going to start working on my trust than myself. Instead of saying, I'm not confident. I trust myself in every situation. If you say stuff

like, I'm just so anxious all the time, well, that's going to find more ways to be anxious. So it's like, I am working on becoming more calm, centered, even in the most challenging moments. So instead of saying, like, I am calm, which you might not always be calm, it's like, I'm working on. It's true, it's empowering, and it's present tense. I am working on becoming more calm and centered, especially in challenging moments in my life. If you say stuff like, oh, it's impossible for me to lose weight. Impossible? That's not true. Could it be harder for you than other people? Sure. But you could switch it to, I'm working. harder to be healthier every single day. I'm working to create a body that's healthy every single

day so that I can live longer for my grandchildren. Whatever it is, it strikes your core with you. If you say something like, I always procrastinate, oh, I'm such a procrastinator. You'd say something like, I'm working on taking action towards my goals and focusing on doing what needs to be done. If you say stuff like, you know, disempowering, like, I'm not, I'm not really a good girlfriend, if that's what you say. You can say stuff like, I'm working at becoming. a loving and supporting partner. I'm working hard every single day to become a better partner for my spouse, for my boyfriend, for my girlfriend, whatever it is. I'm not very disciplined, right? I am working at becoming more and more focus and discipline so that I can achieve the life that I

want. And you say these things to yourself over and over and over and over again. So there's like a broken record in your head so that you actually start to rewire yourself. Because repetition is required in order for you to brainwash yourself and you're in order for you actually start to change and use neuroplasticity. I'm such a negative person. I'm embracing, I choose to embrace positivity and to try to find the best in every situation around me.

I'm not a very creative person. I am more creative than I know and my ideas flow naturally. I'm not good enough. I am enough and I improve every single day through my efforts. I'm afraid of failure. No, I'm resilient. And I learn from everything that I fail at

and everything that happens to me is a lesson for me to grow and get better. People don't really like me. I'm kind, I'm confident, and I attract supportive relationships. I'm so disorganized. I'm becoming more organized every single day and I'm working on managing my time effectively.

I'm shy. I'm not really good at putting myself out there. I'm not really a people person. I am open to new connections and new meaningful relationships in my life. I'm so hard on myself. I am going to start treating myself with more kindness and find ways to celebrate my success and my progress. Oh yeah, I can't really make a difference. I am working on making a difference in a positive impact with my actions every single day.

Oh, I just have bad luck. I create my own opportunities and attract good fortune with my actions. Do you guys see how it's not like, it's not like I'm just making up stuff that just complete bullshit. It's like these are things that I'm consciously working towards where it's like instead of saying like, oh, I'm rich. It's like I'm working hard every day to build more wealth in my bank account in my life or to build more wealth in financial stability.

Whatever it is that rings true for you. It's got to be true. It's got to be empowered. and it's got to be present tense. And over time, when you do this over and over and over again, like I always say you can't control your first thought, but you can always control your second thought. So when you notice that first thought come in, you change it to the second thought that you want to rewire into your brain. And if you do this over and over again hundreds of times, thousands of times, tens of thousands of times over the next one year, two years, three years.

Eventually, you'll fast forward. And what was your second thought will naturally start to become your first thought because you were in charge of brainwashing yourself. The positive will actually start to change the way that you think. Your brain will rewire itself. And you'll notice that when it rewires itself, your mindset will change, your emotions will change, your behavior will change. And then challenges that you have now that felt really overwhelming will just be like, oh, this is just an opportunity for me to grow. And those negative thought patterns will start to fade. They'll start to be replaced with more empowering ones with a better internal dialogue. And so it's really important for all of the people that are listening out there to realize how powerful you are. And we have all been

brainwashed unconsciously by other people, by ourselves, by teachers, by friends, by, you know, everyone else that's around us. It's time for us to brainwash ourselves and to decide what it is that we want in our life and to start speaking it into existence because you are much more of a powerful creator than you understand. So that's all I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, So please share it on your Instagram stories, tag me in it, Rob Dial Jr. And once again, if you're committed to making 2026 the best year of your life, join my free two-day high-performance live workshop on January 14th and 15th. It's where I'm going to teach you the real-life tools to stop procrastinating,

take action, and get real results that match your potential. You'll leave with the mindset, systems, and habits to build yourself into the version of you that you know that you're meant to be. So to register for free, go to 2026 workshop.com. Once again, 26 Workshop.com. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way. I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better.

I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.