The Mindset Mentor - How I’m Learning to Think Clearly
Episode Date: March 21, 2025Is your brain actually lying to you? In this episode, I break down why your perception isn’t reality and how your past experiences, fears, and desires are distorting the way you see the world. If yo...u want to start thinking more clearly, making better decisions, and stop letting your mind sabotage you, this episode is for you. 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
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Welcome to today's episode of the mindset mentor podcast. I'm your host Rob Dial. If you have not
yet done so hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you're out
there and you want to get some inspirational and mindset tips and tricks, text directly to your
phone and you live in the United States or Canada,
text me right now, 1-512-580-9305.
Once again, 512-580-9305.
Today, we're gonna talk about how to think more clearly
than how your brain is actually lying to you.
You know, we like to think and we like to believe
that we see the world clearly, that
our choices are rational and that we are making decisions from a rational place that is clearly
thought out.
And it's weighed out based off of facts and we choose them wisely.
But most of the time, that's not even close to true.
A lot of times, your brain is lying to you,
your perception is lying to you,
and you're making a quick decision
based off of every event
that's ever happened to you in your life.
What we actually see when we see the world
is a filtered version of the world
through our past experiences, through our beliefs,
through our fears, and through our beliefs, through our fears and through our
desires. And I want you to understand this. Your perception is not reality. It is your
version of reality. Now it might be hard for some people to understand, but your perception
is not absolute reality. It is your version of reality. So our perception isn't reality.
It's a filter that distorts reality
based off of what's happened to us in the past, based off of our past history, based off of fears
and limiting beliefs and traumas, based off of what you learned as a child, what you taught,
what were taught by your parents was right and wrong, what you saw them do, what you saw them
not do. And if we don't learn to see through this distortion, it's going to hold us back from
making the right decisions.
And we're going to continue to make bad decisions over and over and over again.
And we might mistake emotion for logic.
We might mistake personal beliefs for truth.
We might mistake our own assumptions for facts. And this is where thinking clearly
and having really good judgment comes in.
Judgment doesn't sound like the sexiest topic to talk about,
but it really is important
because judgment is not just intelligence.
It's not just reading books and having book smarts.
It's the keen ability to see
what is actually in front of you. Not just what you hope
is there, but it's the ability to see clearly and the ability to challenge yourself to see things as
they are, not as you want them to be or as you want to see them. And the key word is to challenge
and challenge yourself, challenge your own perception to
see is this absolute truth or is this just what I think happened?
Was this what I think is going on?
If you develop this skill set of judgment and of clear thinking, your life will be so
much easier.
And so the question comes from this, like how do we train ourselves to see the world
clearly? It's kind of a weird question, right, how do we train ourselves to see the world clearly?
It's kind of a weird question, right? How do I train myself to see clearly? I thought I was
seeing the world pretty clearly. Another question is like, how do I strip away all of my biases,
all of my desires, my emotional filters, so that I can actually make good decisions in front of me?
Okay, so let's dive into it. The first thing that you need to understand
is that your mind does lie to you.
Your brain is basically a prediction machine.
It takes the past and it throws it into the future
and tries to make predictions
on what could happen in the future.
It's constantly guessing and predicting
what's going to happen based off of your past experiences, not necessarily
based off of what's actually happening right now.
And this will really hold you back if you don't see it this way.
And I want you to understand, like for instance, I've had before the business that I have right
now, I have had two quote unquote failed businesses in the past.
Now if I were to look before I started the business
that I have now, I've been running for almost 10 years
and go, well, you know what?
I failed at the other two businesses.
I'm probably gonna fail at this one.
I probably wouldn't have started it.
Even if I consciously wanted to start the business
and I was like, I really wanna start this business,
but I'm holding myself back.
I'm self-sabotaging, I'm procrastinating.
It's usually because my brain is thinking subconsciously, those other two businesses
failed.
You put so much time and energy and money into them, it's probably going to fail on
this one as well.
So your pain that's happened to you in the past will create your fears in the future.
And this is why your brain wants to predict the future for you.
Your brain is a protection mechanism. That's what it future for you. Your brain is a protection mechanism.
That's what it does for you.
And so you might assume that things will turn out badly
for you because they have before.
Or you might have an opportunity pop up.
Might be a great opportunity,
but you don't trust the opportunity because,
not because it's actually risky,
but because you had something that you failed at
once in the past and so you see this opportunity and go, oh, I'll probably fail at that as well, let me pass on it.
Or maybe you hold on to relationships or ideas or identities that no longer serve you anymore
because your brain tells you that it's safer to stick with what's familiar than to go out
and to face the unknown.
Or you might avoid romantic relationships because your last one broke your heart.
Even though you consciously want to find love, like you consciously want to really find someone
you can settle down with.
That's 5% of your mind, your conscious mind.
Your subconscious, which is 95% of what's going on, is trying to protect you from that
pain again.
So it's like, no, no, no, don't trust that guy.
No, no, no, don't trust him.
Nope.
He looks a lot like the last one.
Oh, red flag, red flag.
And so even though you really want to consciously get into a relationship, it can hold you back
from getting into one.
Do you see the problem?
You have to understand that what kept you safe in the past can keep you stuck now.
You aren't actually seeing real reality,
you're seeing a version of reality, your perception,
that is shaped by your history.
So how do you break the cycle?
You wanna start to try to test everything
like you're a scientist.
Now, obviously there's some scientists in the world
that are paid by really big companies
to say what those really big
companies want them to say.
That's not the type of scientist I'm talking about.
A good scientist doesn't believe what they want to be true.
What they do is they test it and they try to, and this is the key part, they try to
disprove their own ideas, not confirm them.
They want to try to disprove their ideas. If they can't disprove their own ideas,
then their idea must have been true.
So that is what you must do.
And I think everyone in this world needs to hear this.
Just because you think something and you believe something
does not make it true.
And so you have to think like cognitive behavioral therapy.
They say, test the validity of your thoughts.
You need to get better at challenging yourself
versus blindly just believing in yourself,
in your thoughts, in your emotions, in your feelings.
Most people I understand do the opposite.
For years, I did the opposite.
They only look for the information
that confirms what they already believe
That's the thing that's really crazy about this world
That's what's really causing so many people to go on one side or the other side is that they're only looking
For the information that confirms what they already believe
It's called confirmation bias versus going. Well, I believe this let me have a conversation with someone who believes something completely different.
And we will do it all of the time.
If you think, for instance, your boss is unfair, then you'll only notice the moments that prove
that he's unfair.
And you'll ignore all of the times where he's been reasonable or been great.
If you believe that you're bad at it with money, you'll focus on every financial mistake
that you've made.
You'll ignore all of the times that you've made. You'll ignore all
of the times where you've handled things well. If you feel like you'll never be successful,
you will filter out any evidence of past success. If you don't think that you can trust yourself,
you'll filter out all of the moments where you did something that was trustworthy. So
if you want to think clear, if you want clearer judgment, you must learn to question everything,
even your own thoughts and especially your own beliefs. So next time you're convinced that
something's true, just take a step back and just try to play devil's advocate for a second. Try to
debate yourself and say, okay, well, if I think that this is true, what evidence would actually prove me wrong?
What evidence would prove me wrong?
If you can't answer it, you're probably not searching for the truth, you're searching
for validation.
So turn it into a game, make it more fun, have fun with it, play devil's advocate.
All right, this is what I absolutely believe to be true.
Let me try to just see if I can prove myself false.
What evidence would actually prove me to be wrong?
If you do this, you'll start to notice that a lot of the things that you think are truth
and you believe in aren't standing on solid ground.
And we will be right back.
And now back to the show.
The second thing you need to understand is your desires, what you want actually clouds
your reality as well.
One of your biggest blind spots that we have just as people that doesn't come from ignorance,
it comes from attachment.
Attachment to ideas, attachment to beliefs, attachment to people, attachment to outcomes,
attachment to what you want.
You want a relationship to work.
So you ignore all of the red flags
and you start thinking about,
oh my gosh, but he's got so much potential.
Or you want an investment to succeed,
so you downplay all of the risks
and you're like, yes, this is definitely going to work.
And you get yourself into a riskier situation.
Or you wanna be right.
So you dismiss any new information
that contradicts you in any sort
of way.
Desire distorts reality as well.
So you aren't seeing things as they actually are, you're seeing them as you wish they were.
And so many people do this in relationships, as I just said.
Most people don't want to be alone.
They don't want to be alone, so they pretend that all of the red flags don't exist.
No, those aren't, well they downplay them.
Oh, it's not that big of a deal.
No, he's just texting another person.
Oh, no, she's just a friend.
Whatever it might be,
all of these red flags that could exist, right?
Not saying that people can't have friends,
but I'm just saying there might be a lot of red flags
that are happening.
And what they do is because they don't want to be alone,
they try to convince themselves that love should be hard.
Oh, this should be really hard.
It should be stressful.
Versus actually like really seeing it as it is
because desire distorts reality.
So one of the most powerful mental shifts that you can make
is to detach yourself from the outcome.
Detach from what you want just long enough
to try to see things as they are.
You know, ask yourself stuff like, if I had no personal stake, what would I advise one
of my friends to do?
You know, if my friend came to me and said, this is what my boyfriend's doing, what kind
of advice would I give them?
Not my own, not my own boyfriend, not my own girlfriend, whatever it is that you might have.
What advice would I give them?
Instead of asking something like,
how can I make this work?
Maybe you should ask yourself,
should I be even working on this in the first place?
Instead of asking, what do I want to be true?
Ask what is true, regardless of how I feel about it.
See, the clearer that you can see reality,
the better that your decisions will be.
And this is a big, big point.
The better decisions that you make will come from seeing things more clearly.
You make better decisions the more clearly that you see things.
And it's like an example of, let's say that I give you a bow and arrow and I say, okay,
I want you to go ahead and hit that target. And then I give you a bow and arrow and I say, okay, I want you to go ahead and
hit that target.
And then I give you a pair of dirty glasses.
I take a pair of glasses and I rub them in the ground and I get a bunch of dirt on them.
I say, okay, go ahead and try to hit that target.
Well through distorted glasses, it's going to be really hard to hit that target because
I don't see it as well.
I don't see it clearly.
But if you just take the glasses off, it's going to be much easier for you to hit that
target.
Why?
Because you're not distorting it with those glasses.
You're able to see it more clearly.
It's the same thing here.
The more clearly that you can see, the better that you will shoot.
The more clear that you can see the better decisions that you will make in your life.
So next time you make a decision, write down what you want to happen and then write down
what you would do if you had zero attachment want to happen and then write down what you would
do if you had zero attachment to the outcome and then compare the two.
Okay, this is what I want and this right here is, you know, if I had zero attachment to
it, what I think, you know, if I had zero attachment to it, this is what I would do
and then compare the two and see if there's a gap between them.
If there's a gap between them, that's where your judgment's probably clouded.
Okay.
The third thing that you need to understand is that your identity traps you into staying
stuck as well.
So most people don't think freely.
We think through a lens of our own personal identity.
If you've been listening to this podcast for a long time, you know I am obsessed with the
identity that we have of who we think we are.
So like if you define yourself as a hard worker, it might be easy for you to work hard, but
it might be really hard for you to consider that there might be easier ways of doing things.
You might refuse to consider an easier way.
You might be refusing smarter ways to get things done because you're tied to your worth being
something that you struggle with. Oh I struggle, I struggle, I work hard and
that's what makes you valuable to yourself. Or you know if you hold
strongly to a political belief you might defend it even when you're presented
with clear contradictions. Many people in the world doing this right now because
changing your mind
and admitting that you were wrong,
or admitting that your friends group basically were wrong,
would feel like betrayal.
Because you identify with that political party.
This is who I am, this is what I believe in.
That's one of the most dangerous things that you can say.
If you believe yourself as somebody who never quits, you might hold on to things way too long, even when you should
have let go of them a while ago. Because your ego hates change. Your ego likes to say, this
is who I am. This is what I believe. And this is what I'm going to be forever. It would
rather be wrong and consistent than correct and uncertain. Let me say that again for you
to really understand. Your ego would much rather for you to be wrong, inconsistent, than correct and uncertain.
If you never question who you are, you will never grow. If you want better judgment, you must learn
to shed your identity when necessary. It doesn't mean that you become an empty shell that meditates all day long and has
no beliefs. It means that you learn to loosely identify with things. Like you hold on to your
identity loosely and you're okay with being fluid and changing your identity a little bit.
And you can update it when reality shows you something clearly and demands, hey, yeah, you
should probably update that about yourself.
You need a system update.
And that allows you to see things more clearly.
Instead of saying, imagine if you just had a computer
and you're like, no, I'm gonna use it forever
and I'm never gonna do the update.
You're not gonna be running programs very well
in the next three to five years.
10 years, your computer's probably not gonna work
with any of the programs.
If you want a computer to work well, you need to update it so that it can hold and use all of the new updates that are coming through all the new
Software is everything so you have to be willing to update your beliefs your thoughts your truths
Be willing to be wrong the faster that you can make
Admissions to being you know some sort of mistake
The faster you're gonna grow So you have to stop defending ideas
just because they're familiar.
Think about this.
If all of your beliefs fit neatly into a little box
in a single label, then you're not thinking clearly,
you're just following the masses.
You're following what you're told to do.
You're following what you're told to believe. You're following what you're told to believe.
You're following what you're told to think.
And so you have to pick one belief that you hold strongly and then try arguing against
it.
As if you're trying to prove somebody else, like you have somebody sitting and you're
trying to prove to them that you are wrong.
See if you can do it.
What do you notice?
Does it make you uncomfortable?
Does it feel like it's impossible?
If so, you've probably found one of your identity traps.
So that's the thing that you need to understand about it.
And then I just want you to understand
when you look at your seeing things clearly,
to see things clearly is a practice.
It's not a talent.
Clear thinking isn't something that you're born with,
it's something that you must train yourself to do.
It's a skillset.
And the skillset of thinking clearly
is one of the most important skillsets
you can build in your life.
Every day you have a choice.
You can see things clearly as they are,
or you can just see them as you wish that they were.
And so you've gotta be able to question
your assumptions and your beliefs.
Most people don't do this.
They go through life making the same mistakes, falling into the same ways of self-sabotage
every single time, trapped by the same illusions, and they wonder why nothing changes.
But you, you can train yourself to see things in reality as they actually are.
And once you do that, your decisions on what to do will improve exponentially. Your life will
improve and it'll open up a whole world to you that you never really imagined because now you're
seeing things you never saw before because your perception was distorting reality in front of you.
And so I have a challenge for you for one
week. I want you to just challenge some of your thoughts and beliefs and see what comes up. See
if you can get good at debating yourself because clarity is a skill. And once you develop it,
everything starts to change. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this
episode, please do me a huge, huge favor, Share it on your Instagram stories right now and tag me in it, RobDowellJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R.
And I'm gonna leave it the same way,
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.