The Mindset Mentor - How Mindfulness Changes Your Mind
Episode Date: July 21, 2025What if mindfulness isn’t about achieving peace—but remembering the calm that’s already within you? In this episode, I’ll break down the real meaning of mindfulness and how it can transform yo...ur mental and emotional state. You’ll learn a simple, neuroscience-backed mindfulness technique that reduces stress, quiets your mind, and helps you reconnect with the present moment—anytime, anywhere. Are you ready to stop procrastinating and break your bad habits? If so, I just opened the doors to Mindset 2.0—my full system to help you break through fear, rewire your identity, and follow through like never before. Discount disappears July 24th. Click here 👉 https://www.coachwithrob.com/enroll-aThe 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. Here 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 TikTok Facebook Youtube
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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 episode. I put out episodes
four times a week to help you learn and grow and improve yourself. Because if you can improve
yourself, you can improve your life. So you you like that, hit that subscribe button. Today, I'm going to be talking about how mindfulness changes your life
and I'm going to give you a step-by-step process to use mindfulness, the easiest way to use
mindfulness to actually improve your mental and emotional state. And the idea of mindfulness has
exploded over the past few years. And I don't think people really even know what it means.
I didn't know what it means for what it meant for years, but study after study shows how
beneficial mindfulness actually is in your life.
But what the hell is it?
And also how do you do it?
Well, if you think that like mindfulness is just about feeling calm, like lighting a candle
and turning on the calm meditative music and crossing your legs on a pillow and closing your
eyes and floating away from our stress, like a monk on a mountaintop, you're way off. That's not
what mindfulness really is. The truth of it is that mindfulness has nothing to do with trying to feel peaceful and everything
to do with realizing right here, right now, in this moment, you are not your thoughts.
You are not your stress.
You are not your to-do list.
You are something that is way bigger behind all of it.
You are the awareness that is underneath all of it.
You are the being that is living inside of your body.
And it's like taking a mental step back with it.
It's basically this act of at any moment in your entire day,
separating yourself from all of it.
And I like to see it the way I use it as kind of like a moving meditation that you can do
all day long.
And so let's unpack it.
I want to talk to you about it because this will change the way that you experience every
moment of your life if you do this, especially the moments that are the most challenging
or the moments that you don't like.
And I'm going to share a really simple practice
that I've been using that's really changed my life
in a really big way as well.
Let's talk about it real quick.
Mindfulness, you don't meditate to calm down.
I think that's what most people think
that you're supposed to do.
You meditate to calm down.
You don't try to fix your feelings,
any of those types of things.
Meditation is something that you do
when you just decide, okay, I'm gonna sit down,
I'm gonna turn on some music, I'm gonna meditate.
Mindfulness is something that you do
throughout the entire day.
And like I said a minute ago, what it really is,
it's about taking a step back from the chaos
in the outside world, the world that is outside of you,
the 3D world outside of you. So you can connect with the still
grounded presence that's inside of you. And that's it. And if you do it and you do it often,
it can really, really change the quality of your life. So you're not sitting there going,
oh my God, I'm stressed out. I need to change the way that I feel. You're learning basically how to
notice your thoughts and your feelings. And then you separate you from your feelings.
Because lots of times we identify with our feelings.
I'm anxious.
No, you're not anxious.
That's an identity statement.
You're feeling anxious.
I am stressed.
No, you're not.
That's an identity statement as well.
You're feeling stressed.
You're not stressed.
Those are two little things
that are just very
minuscule changes. But you're separating you, the being the
soul, whatever you might the consciousness that's inside of
your body from what you're thinking and what you're
feeling. And you're not trying to, I don't want you to think
it's like trying to escape the moment, you're not trying to
escape the moment, what you're really actually doing is
becoming more present to the moment. You're not trying to escape the moment. What you're really actually doing is becoming more present
to the moment.
You're returning to the moment.
You're becoming more present than you were
by being more mindful.
And being more present in this moment
is where real peace actually is.
Not by sitting there and pretending that everything is okay,
but in realizing that you are not the storm, you're the sky that it is okay. But in realizing that you are not the storm,
you're the sky that it passes through.
And so you might have a really crazy day,
but you're not the storm, you don't get caught up
in the storm.
You're the sky that the storm is just passing through.
It's learning basically to become the calm
in the middle of the storm.
No matter what's happening outside of you,
it does not affect inside of you.
And when you look at neuroscience, it actually shows that when you practice mindfulness,
it changes your brain and then mindfulness becomes easier. And there was a study that
was done in, and it was published in Nature Reviews Neuroscience that showed that regular
mindfulness practice reduces activation in the amygdala,
which is the part of the brain
where all of your fear comes from.
It triggers your fight or flight mechanism.
It reduces the activation in the amygdala
and it increases the thickness in the activity
in the prefrontal cortex,
which is a part that's responsible for awareness,
for focus and for emotional regulation.
So what does that mean?
Like the translation,
the more that you practice mindfulness,
the more that you do what I'm about to teach you,
the better your brain gets at handling chaos
without spiraling into panic.
And so the way that I did this,
I wanna bring this down to earth,
I wanna teach you actually what I did.
I hate doing the dishes.
I always have, I've always hated hated and I still do if I'm being
completely honest. But a few months ago, I heard something and I was like, I'm going to try this
and just see if I'm my own guinea pig. I am the BS meter to see if things work. I saw a video
of a monk. It's like a Shaolin monk talking about how mindfulness is nothing else other than
noticing the being that is inside of you.
And I was like, hmm, that kind of resonates.
That's kind of cool noticing the being inside of me because when I get out of my own head
and I stop being so wild and crazy and getting so wrapped up, sometimes I notice there's
like an inner calmness being being, presence, consciousness.
There's something that's there.
There's something that's moving this meat suit of mind.
And so it's basically noticing the being inside of you,
moving yourself from the 3D world for just a moment
and noticing the being that's living inside of you.
However you wanna say that.
Maybe you're like the being that's living inside of me
sounds kind of like there's an alien that's inside of me Whatever it might be your soul your consciousness your presence
And so I decided to try it out. And so the next day I was sitting there and I was doing the dishes
we were at an Airbnb and we were in Airbnb in California and I was doing the dishes because our
You know, we needed to we needed bottles for the baby, but it wasn't ready yet and I had to do them by hand.
And I was sitting there, I was like,
ah, fuck, I gotta do the dishes.
And I was like the first thing that popped into my head,
right, gotta hand wash all these damn bottles.
And I was doing them and I'm just kinda like,
well, all right, let me get through this,
let me just finish this thing.
And as I stood there, I had my hands in the sink,
my mind was thinking about my to-do list
and trying to hurry through this thing.
I kinda like caught myself.
And I was like, I'm gonna try that thing
that that monk said to do.
And so I stopped trying to push through the task
of getting done.
Instead, I kept doing the dishes
and I turned my attention inward.
And I was like, let me see if I can feel
like that calm presence that lives inside of me.
Call it your soul, call it your consciousness, your spirit, presence, whatever it might be.
It doesn't matter what you name it.
What matters is that it's always there.
It's always quiet.
It's always watching.
It's always safe.
And I didn't try to make myself feel peaceful.
All I did is I just noticed the deep part of me
that already was, that calm presence.
And when I noticed and felt like,
oh my gosh, yeah, there is a calm presence inside of me.
When I noticed that, it actually calmed me down.
I noticed that my body went,
and I naturally took a deep breath.
I was like, whoa, I can feel myself actually relaxing
when I notice the part of me that's already relaxed.
It's like my, it goes from inside to outside.
Inside, I notice what's already relaxed,
outside starts to relax.
So then I thought to myself,
can I start to make myself more present in this moment?
So I'm noticing the being inside of me,
but is there also a way that I can make myself
more present in the moment?
And we will be right back.
And now back to the show.
And so I started doing this mindfulness practice
that I learned years ago.
And what I want you to understand is that your body
is always here, your body is always in the present moment. Your mind is almost always, always here. Your body is always in the present moment.
Your mind is almost always,
I mean, your body is always in the present moment.
It's not almost always.
It is literally always in the present moment.
It's here.
Your mind is almost always somewhere else.
It's in the future, worrying about things
and your to-do list and all the stuff
that you gotta get done, what's in the past,
where you think about guilt and stuff
that happened in your past,
you wish that wouldn't happen.
And so what I did was I was like,
okay, I'm gonna use my body to bring myself even
more into the present moment.
And so I started noticing and focusing on my five senses one by one.
So the water was really warm and I was like, I'm going to notice the warm water.
I'm going to notice the water feels really nice on my skin.
It's nice and warm.
It's kind of a little bit soapy. And I was like, okay,
I'm noticing touch. Okay. I'm bringing myself more to the present moment. What's another one
of my senses? Sound, what I hear. Okay. I'm noticing the sound of the water, the clicking
of the dishes against each other. I'm noticing the sounds that are around me in the present moment.
What else can I bring in? My smell is another one of them as well. I'm gonna notice it.
It was like a citrusy smell. I was like, okay, that's actually pretty nice. I don't know how
I didn't notice the smell before. So I was noticing the smell of the soap. I was like,
okay, sight, what can I look at? And inside of this Airbnb, there was a window that was right on the
other side of where I was doing my dishes. And I was looking out there and it wasn't like an
amazing view. It was just some trees that were outside and then past the trees were
an interstate that we were ridiculously close to in this Airbnb. So I was watching the cars
go by. I was just watching the cars and seeing, oh my God, there's so many cars. It's a five
lane highway in San Diego. I'm just watching the cars go by where we were. Okay. So I'm
noticing sight and then taste. I'm not really tasting anything because the fact and I'm just watching the cars go by where we were. Okay, so I'm noticing sight and then taste.
I'm not really tasting anything because the fact that I'm not obviously drinking the soap,
but I thought, you know what, I'm going to notice if there's a taste in my mouth.
I was like, there is a little bit of left. It sounds gross.
There's a little bit of like a coffee residue. I could kind of taste some coffee in my mouth.
And so I went through all of my senses.
And I realized that moment standing at the sink
kind of became a moving meditation. And it wasn't about escaping. It wasn't about numbing out.
It was about being more here than I had been all day. And guess what? I don't tell my wife,
actually started to enjoy the moment of doing the dishes.
And I was like, what the hell? Like I'm enjoying myself doing the dishes.
This is crazy.
And when you look at this, this is, this is really the technique of it.
And this is backed by science.
It's this is a really similar technique that's used in trauma therapy.
It's rooted in what's called polyvagal therapy.
And so when we consciously engage our senses,
we activate the ventral vagus nerve,
which helps us shift out of survival and fight and flight
and stress and anxiety into a regulated safe feeling state
when we consciously engage our senses.
And so this is one of the most effective ways
to bring your nervous system back into balance as well.
When you bring your awareness to the feeling of the water,
to the smell of the soap, the texture of everything,
the sound, the sights, you're not being just more mindful.
You are definitely being more mindful,
but you're also calming your physiology as well.
You're becoming the calm in the middle of the storm.
And so most of the time when we're sitting there
and we're stressed out and we're anxious
and we're mentally spiraling,
it's because we've actually left this moment.
We're not here.
Our physical body is here.
Our mind is a million steps ahead.
We're gone.
Our mind is in our future.
It's running imaginary disaster drills
or it's stuck in the past and it's replaying old guilt and shame and regret
But your nervous system doesn't know that those aren't happening right now. And so your body reacts as if there is real danger
Which turns into stress, overwhelm, anxiety. It's your body's reaction to what's going on in your mind. And when you practice
mindfulness, mindfulness brings you back to what is. And what is, like in this moment,
is usually way more, way more peaceful than what's going on in your mind.
And now some of you might be like, but my mind is not calm. I know that's why I'm trying
to bring you back to your body and out of your mind. You have way more calm, like a real calm presence inside of you than you actually believe.
And that calm presence, it's like your North Star.
Never leaves you.
You just forget to look for it too much throughout the day.
And you know, there was a study that's a really famous study now that was published in Science
in 2010 by Killingsworth and Gilbert, and researchers found that a wandering mind,
just wandering, is an unhappy mind.
That's a quote from the study.
A wandering mind is an unhappy mind,
regardless of what someone is thinking about.
In fact, people reported being less happy
when their minds wandered away
from what they were doing in the present moment, even if they were thinking about something pleasant. And so simply being present
in your reality, even if it's boring or mundane or difficult, actually creates more happiness than
trying to escape it. And so the best part about this is you could practice this
anywhere. You can practice all day long. You know, it's powerful to close your eyes and meditate and
to breathe and to do all of that. But the real magic happens when you bring mindfulness to your
everyday life, to washing the dishes, being stuck in traffic, to folding laundry or waiting in line
or walking the dog or, you know, sitting in a work meeting, especially when the boring moment
is a moment where you would normally pick up your phone and you decide,
I'm not going to look at my phone. I'm going to pay attention to the present moment.
I'm going to pay attention to the being that's inside of me.
And you just take a moment, you pause, you breathe, and you just
notice. You ask yourself, you pause, you breathe, and you just notice.
You ask yourself, where's the awareness
inside of me right now?
Can I feel my feet on the floor?
Can I feel my butt in the chair?
Can I feel the breath going in and out of my lungs?
Can I just take a few seconds to look around me
and just notice stuff with my eyes?
Can I just take one deep breath and just be for a moment? Mindfulness doesn't require you to sit
and close your eyes and meditate.
It just requires you to wake up to this moment right now.
And that is why I like to call it meditation in action.
And the thing about peace that I think is really important
is you don't have to feel like you deserve peace to feel it.
Some people feel like, oh, I don't deserve peace yet.
Even if your mind is a mess, even if your life feels chaotic, if shit's hitting the
fan, if you just yelled at your kids, you forgot that meeting, or you spiraled about
something dumb that happened in your life.
That calm, anchored presence is always there.
It's always there.
It's just the calm in the middle of the storm waiting for you to go, huh, let me see if
I can go back to that calm that's inside of me.
And you're always allowed to come back to it.
You don't earn mindfulness.
You don't earn peace.
You just remember it.
It's already there.
You don't need to sell all of your things, get on a plane and move to Nepal.
You just need to become aware of that calm being that lives inside of you.
And so let me just show you the step by step process that makes it really easy to do.
Step one, just notice the being that's inside of you.
Take one deep breath and just ask yourself the question, what is noticing this breath?
That's interesting.
And you say to yourself, well, hold on, what is hearing this
voice inside of me and what is talking inside of me? And you notice there's something inside of you,
right? That's it. Not the thoughts, not the mood. You're the observer behind it. Take a deep breath,
ask what is noticing this breath. Second thing, come back to your five senses, like I said,
engage with as many senses as you possibly can. Name what you can see, what you can smell, What is noticing this breath? Second thing, come back to your five senses, like I said,
engage with as many senses as you possibly can.
Name what you can see, what you can smell,
what you can hear, what you can touch, what you can taste.
And then number three, after you do all that,
try to just learn to let go.
Don't try to fix your mood.
Don't try to chase the calm.
Just notice what's here.
Peace isn't created, it's just remembered in the moment.
And so what I want you to do is I want you
to try this out today.
Try it right now, as soon as this podcast ends,
if you want to.
You don't need to chase peace.
You just need to notice the version of inside of you
that is inside of you that it already is at peace.
Even in the middle of all the chaos.
That's really what mindfulness is all about.
It's not about escaping the mess.
It's about realizing you're more than that mess.
You're more than your thoughts.
You're more than your feelings.
And trust me, once you feel it for a second
and it kind of clicks, everything will feel different
because you can always come back to this.
Even doing the dishes won't feel the same again.
But once again, don't tell my wife.
So that's all I got for you for today's episode.
If you love this episode,
please share it on Instagram stories,
tag me in at Rob Dial Jr.
And if you want to learn more about coaching with me,
you can check out my course called Mindset 2.0,
which is a 12 week course video series
that takes you everything through deprogramming
and reprogramming yourself, how to create habits,
how to actually break your old habits,
neurologically how to create
and set up dopamine reward systems, and a whole lot more. You need to learn more about if you go to coachwithrob.com,
once again, coachwithrob.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.