The Mindset Mentor - Episode 2: Take Control of Your Life & Mind

Episode Date: August 23, 2015

Your life is 100% your fault. Sounds harsh but how you react to everything is your decision and therefore your fault. In this episode Rob teaches steps to taking control of your life and mind, controlling your mindset when times get tough and how to find the silver lining in every circumstance. Life is not what happens to you, but how you react to it. This is from Follow me on IG here: @RobDialJr https://instagram.com/robdialjr Want to learn more about Mindset Mentor+? For nearly nine years, the Mindset Mentor Podcast has guided you through life's ups and downs. Now, you can dive even deeper with Mindset Mentor Plus. Turn every podcast lesson into real-world results with detailed worksheets, journaling prompts, and a supportive community of like-minded people. Enjoy monthly live Q&A sessions with me, and all this for less than a dollar a day. If you’re committed to real, lasting change, this is for you.Join here 👉 www.mindsetmentor.com My first book that I’ve ever written is now available. It’s called LEVEL UP and It’s a step-by-step guide to go from where you are now, to where you want to be as fast as possible.📚If you want to order yours today, you can just head over to robdial.com/bookHere are some useful links for you… If you want access to a multitude of life advice, self development tips, and exclusive content daily that will help you improve your life, then you can follow me around the web at these links here:Instagram TikTokFacebookYoutube

Welcome to the MWF Motivation Podcast. My name is Rob Dial, occasionally joined by my co-host Dean DeVries. And this is our podcast that comes out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. We compress a massive life topic into about 10 to 20 minutes to help you take control of your life, become the best version of yourself, and follow your passion. Buckle up, because the best version of yourself, and follow your passion. Buckle up because the podcast starts now. Welcome to the MWF Motivation Podcast.

My name is Rob Dial, your host. And this is episode two, which is also chapter two of our book, Hack Your Goals, the Step-by-Step Guide to Achieving Success. I know it's a mouthful. It's hard to remember all that. But this is the episode where we are going to cover taking responsibility for your life and mind. And this is a very important one, and it's going to sound harsh to some people, but everything, you know, no matter what in your life, no matter where you are, whether it's good or whether it's bad, it is your fault. And that might be hard to kind of hear for some of you that it's your fault and for someone to kind of say it, but I'm not saying what has happened to you is necessarily all your fault. But what I'm saying is how you respond to it is your fault. You know, where you are in your life is the culmination of all the decisions that you've

ever made. Big decisions, small decisions, the tiniest decisions, where you are is your fault. So if you're a successful person, that's because you made the choices to get there. That's your fault. That's a good thing. If you're not successful, you're not where you want to be financially or as a parent or a wife or husband or brother, sister, son, whatever, daughter. It's your fault if you're not where you want to be in that. But the great thing about it is, is once you take responsibility for everything that happens in your life,

then that's when your life starts to change. And it's like my mentor when I was 19 years old used to tell me, you know, it takes a lot to motivate a 19 year old when I was into drinking and partying and doing a bunch of other stuff I don't want to say because there's a good chance my mom might hear this one day. When you're doing all that type of stuff, it's hard to motivate a 19-year-old to go out and try to be successful. And he told me when I was 19, he said, Rob, you need to start treating your life like you're the CEO. You know, your life is like a business. You need to run it like a business. If you want to be successful, it's like if you were to be a CEO and you want a company to be successful.

No matter what happens to that company, good or bad, it is the CEO's fault because it's how he reacts to it. It's the same thing with your life. No matter what happens, good or bad, and bad things are going to happen sometimes, but how you react to it is your fault and that's your decision. So the first thing I want to talk about is the responsibility for your life. And I understand there's outside circumstances, bad stuff happens, people die, all of those types of things. But you have to realize that there's a silver lining in everything stuff happens, you know, people die, all of those types of things. But you have to realize that there's a silver lining in everything that happens to you.

You know, I'll, I guess in episode two, it's kind of early to really get vulnerable and just dive straight in. But the only thing I can think about is a personal story with me and the way you react to something that happens. So I'll just give you this story. When I was growing up, my entire life, my father was an alcoholic. And he's, you know, I don't, I don't even really think I have a memory of my father of not being an alcoholic or drunk or, you know, no matter what happened. I remember, I think most of my childhood was spent in bars. And, you know, I remember going to Boy Scout things.

And every time my father was there, he was drunk. And that's not my fault, obviously. I can't control that. And my parents got divorced when I was 9 or 10 years old. And then my father passed away when I was 15 from being an alcoholic. And it came unexpectedly. And I specifically remember my sister's 21st birthday, which was, you know, right after the, it was actually, let me think, it was a few,

three weeks after my father's death, we were leaving the Olive Garden, my sister's 21st birthday. And I remember being in the car and my mom was asking questions, you know, what do you think of your father's death? And how do you, how do you think you're going to react to it? And, and, you know, what do you think this is going to do for your life? And I remember, I don't know how I had the mindset as a 15 year old to say this, but I remember specifically saying, you know, I think that if, I think that if dad knew the positive stuff that's going to come from this, from his death and the way I react to it, I think that he wouldn't necessarily be mad that it happened. And let me give you an example of

what I mean. I understood, now I want you to realize this, the very first person to die that I, the very first death that ever happened to me in my life was my father at 15 years old. So this is the first time I had ever encountered it. But since then, my mindset has been, this is a very short life. We don't get a whole lot of time here. I'm going to capitalize on every moment that I have when I'm alive. And my one thing that I work for the most, my biggest fear is that I don't want to get to the very end of my life and my deathbed and think, man, I wish I could have done more. I wish I could have done more. You know, I wish I could have, I wish I could have traveled more. I wish I could have, you know,

become more. I wish I could have been a better, you know, spouse or been a better father or, you know, just been a more successful person or impacted more people. I don't want to get to my life, end of my life and have a regret. And all of that stemmed from my father's death. So what I tell people is, obviously, the worst thing that's ever happened to me is my father's death. But also, I think the best thing that's ever happened to me is my father's death as well, because it gave me perspective. So if you have situations, good situations, bad situations, how you react to that is your fault. So I want you to realize that you take responsibility for it. There's a silver lining in everything.

Sometimes it's hard to find. And sometimes as you're going through it and you're drudging through all of the crap, it's hard to find exactly the silver lining is. But it's hard to connect the points of the way everything works in life looking forward. It's easier once you look backward to connect the dots and see how everything's worked out. So that's the first thing I want to cover is taking responsibility for your life. And, you know, as far as that goes, take responsibility for your life. Also take responsibility for your thoughts in your mind. And, uh, you know, it's, it's very important to, to realize this. You can't control your first thought, but you can always control your second. And if you want to have a great life, a successful life, a positive life, a happy life, you have to be in control of your mind. That's the number one step to anything. And I want you to think of this. Think of your rest of life as

this. Be a spectator in your own mind. Whatever thoughts come into your mind, positive or negative, let's say it's negative, take yourself out of your mind, look into it and say, why did I think that? Why did I just think that negative thought? What can I do to change that thought? And so when you do have a negative thought, because you can't really control your first one, immediately change it to a positive one. And constantly monitor your thoughts. Constantly monitor everything. Thoughts are things. Think of the rest of your life that thoughts are a physical, tangible thing. And there's a great book that's called As a Man Thinketh that is one of the very first self-help books. I think it came out in like 1912. And he relates your mind to a garden. And it's a really

good analogy that I want you to try to remember. And he says, if you think of your mind as a garden and you're the gardener and you're the only one that has access to this garden, then that's how you need to live the rest of your life. So let me give you an example. If you're a gardener and you have a garden and you're the only one that has access to it, well, then you're the only one that's in control

of what grows in your garden. So if you want the exact same thing, if you think of your mind, if you want, you know, positive, a positive life, everything around you to be positive and to be happy, you have to think positive things. If, you know, I'll give you the analogy again. If you think of it this way, you can't plant a strawberry seed and expect a tomato to grow. It's impossible. It will never happen. You can't put, you know, strawberry seeds in the ground and expect a tomato to grow. It's impossible. It will never happen. You can't put, you know,

strawberry seeds in the ground and expect tomatoes to grow. Just like if you think of your mind, you can't think negative thoughts and be a negative person and expect that you're just gonna have a positive life. So if you think positive thoughts and you take those seeds and those positive seeds and you plant them into the ground in your mind, you're going to create a more positive, a more happy life as well.

You know, if you're a gardener and you're trying to take this garden and make the most beautiful garden you've ever seen, then you're going to pick the weeds. You know, as soon as you get those bad thoughts, you need to pull those weeds. You need to take them out. You need to be in control of your garden more than anything else. So if you think of your mind as a garden and you use that analogy, you have to realize if you think positive, you will get positive. If you think negative, I'm just going to tell you right now, it is basically impossible to think negative and to get positive. Just like it's impossible to plant a strawberry seed and expect for a tomato to somehow grow.

So think of your mind as a garden. Your thoughts become your reality. I'll give you an example. I know I have some friends like this, and I'm sure everybody out there, and it might be you, who knows, but let's just say you have that friend who they always talk about how broke they are.

You know, they're just like, oh man, I'm just so broke. No, I can't do that. You know, I don't have any money. You know, I'm just, I'm just so broke this. I don't have money. Like my job doesn't pay me anything like that. Uh, I can guarantee you until that person changes their mindset, they are going to be broken.

They're not going to have money. If they don't change their mindset, they're going to be poor their entire life. That's just, it's that simple. So think of it this way. Think blank, be blank. Pretty much whatever you fill in the first one, fill in the second one as well. So, you know, like I said, the people that think poor, they're going to be poor. If you think poor, you're going to be poor.

If you think rich, you're gonna be poor. If you think rich, you're not just necessarily going to be rich, but you will start thinking of ways to start acquiring more money. Your brain is going to start thinking of ways for you to become richer. You know, if you think happy thoughts, if you think positive thoughts, you're going to be happier.

You're going to be positive. If you think healthy, you're going to start being healthier. You know, it's the way your mind thinks. You know, if say, for instance, you want to start losing weight, say you're not in the best shape, right? What's the best thing to do? Start working out and start taking your mind and thinking of stuff like that. So for instance, they always say that if you're looking, you know, to have your body be a certain way and you want to look like somebody to print out that

picture so you see that everywhere. It's the extra motivation. So then your mind, you're thinking, thinking thin, thinking fit, thinking thin, thinking fit. And eventually it's going to give you the motivation and the tools to start getting to where you need to be. So print pictures, put them up everywhere. So that's the culmination of just this episode. I wanted to talk about, you know, taking responsibility for your life, thinking of yourself as the CEO of everything that happens in your life

and every thought that comes into your mind. So what I would say to wrap this up, the two takeaways that I want to give you. Number one, take responsibility. Think of your responsibility. Think of your mind. Think of yourself exactly like a gardener in your mind. Be the CEO of your life. Remember the garden analogy, like I said. And the second thing, as always, go out today and try to make somebody else's life better. And if you want to get some more information from us, you want to download the book that this goes to, mwfmotivation.com.

Thanks, guys. And so that is it. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you like what you hear, please share with a friend. Spread the love if you think it's something they could benefit from. If you want the show notes from today, you can get it at mwfmotivation.com, which is also where you can download our free ebook, which is called Hack Your Goals, The Step-by-Step Process to Achieving Success.

And if you want to keep in touch with us, you can follow us on Facebook or Instagram. Both of those are at mwfmotivation. And if you like what we have, please subscribe to us on iTunes, Stitcher or SoundCloud because we make it our mission to give you as much valuable stuff as possible. But thank you so much again for listening and I hope you have an amazing day. Outro Music