The Mindset Mentor - How To Get Ahead Even When No One Is There For You

Episode Date: July 13, 2026

Freedom Live is a 3-day in-person experience in Austin built to help you break the patterns that have been quietly running your results. December 3-5, 2026! Claim your seat: https://freedomlive2026.com/ 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 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 yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. And if you did not hear last week, we opened up tickets to my three-day live in-person event here in Austin, Texas. And by the end of this past week, we had already sold over 150 tickets. So if you're ready to stop holding yourself back, and you want to unlearn your identities and fears and limiting beliefs and bad habits that are, all of your success, your happiness, your money, your relationships. Go to Freedom Live26.com.

This event will sell out. So don't wait. And early bird pricing is about to go away. So if you want to join us, go to Freedom Live. 2026.com right now. Today, I'm going to be talking to you about how to get ahead of 99% of people that are out there in the world. And the reason why this is important is because, you know, I don't like to think like

I'm in competition with everybody else in the world. but if you're on the marketplace in some sort of way, if you're trying to improve yourself, if you're trying to grow a business, if you're trying to do something like that, you do have some competition that's out there in the world. And so I want to teach you how you can improve exponentially in a short period of time compared to most people. And when you look out into the world and you walk down the street, what do you notice of most people? Like I notice a lot of things, but one thing that I notice is becoming super, super obvious. And that obviousness, if that's a word, is that humans are becoming more and more addicted to technology.

They're becoming more and more addicted to their phones. And I don't mean in a productive way. Sure, they are using it that way, but most people are usually just trying to entertain themselves or just trying to fill up the next seven minutes before they have to go into their next meeting. I was reading an article a couple weeks ago. It was about a guy who got out of jail and he was in jail for 30 years. And they said, what do you notice that's different about the world? He's like, everyone's only just looking at their phones all the time. I was like, man, that must be really weird to go from 30 years ago when, you know, cell phones didn't really exist, especially like they do now, to now you get out and everyone's just looking at their phones all the time. And what I want you to

kind of figure out is how you can get as much knowledge into your brain when most people are usually trying to just trying to get as much entertainment into their brain. The average person watches Netflix for 3.2 hours per day. average person is on their phone for 4.1 hours per day, in two hours and 25 minutes of those four hours is on social media. And so when you look at this, what I've come to see is that the human attention span over the past 20 years statistically has gone down 33%. The attention span of a human has gone down 33%. So you want to become a superhuman? Why don't you trade entertainment for education and for taking action.

When most people are looking at cat videos and trying to whatever challenge is coming up now, people trying to watch somebody chugget an entire sprite on TikTok, you are going to become smarter. You are going to fill your brain with knowledge. You are reading a book that can further your knowledge and make you smarter. You're taking action in your business while your competition is probably sitting on their couch watching somebody chug a sprite. And what I want you to understand is this.

When you talk about knowledge and the difference in the way people are getting knowledge nowadays, 33% of high school graduates will never read another book after graduation. 33%. Here's an even crazier statistic. 42% of college graduates, yes more than high school graduates. 42% of college graduates never read another book after graduating. And 80% of U.S. families did not buy or read a book last year. 80% of U.S. families did not buy a read a book last year. But here's another weird statistic. If you look at the average CEO, the average CEO reads 60 books per year.

That's more than one a week. So you can see the average versus the outlier. Do you want to be in the average in life or do you want to be the outlier in life? If you want to get ahead of everyone in anything, learn and learn while they are being entertained. While they're letting their brains fry away on their phones, you are using your brain to grow and to get better. You have to take a step back and kind of see what's going on. What I'm seeing people do is the exact opposite of what I want to do. I've always kind of thought this way.

I've looked at what people do and I've gone, yeah, no, I don't want to do that. I'm looking at people when they're on their phones all the time and I'm going, yeah, that's not what I want to do. That's not what I want to live my life like, like looking at a screen. It's not like I never turned my TV on or I only own a landline phone. You know, I'm not talking about that. I use all of the same things, but I try to be more intentional. Those things are designed to make you addicted. Can you make sure that you're one of the few that's not addicted?

If you want to get ahead in life, you have to do the opposite to whatever an office is doing. That's going to meet you ahead way quicker than doing whatever else is doing and trying to get further ahead. Everyone is becoming more and more addicted to their phones. And it was very apparent to me. So we just got back from Italy. And I noticed people had traveled from all over the world. And they're sitting in a beautiful square. And instead of looking at this beautiful square that's a thousand years old, majority of people just looking at their phones.

and taking pictures of themselves in the square, editing the photos so that they can share it with other people online because they care so much about what other people think about them. There was a couple, we went to a resort in Tuscany, and there was a couple that was sitting right in this beautiful view, this place that we were at dinner, and they were sitting there. And I was watching, I was like, man, they're on their phones a lot. And I was really, really, really trying not to judge. That's what I'm trying to become better at. But I was trying to look as objectively, as possible, right? And I'm looking at him going, wow, they are just on their phones the entire time. And the husband, no joke, was on his phone. 98% of this dinner. They're sitting in front of

one of the most beautiful views I've ever seen in my entire life in Tuscany. And then the waiters come out and they sing her happy birthday, which shows that this is her birthday. And I kept watching and it was like, he sings her happy birthday and then goes back onto his phone. And she was probably on her phone 75% of time. He was like 98% of time. But the tragic part was I was watching where it looked like she was looking at him like, can you just get off your phone? Like, can you just be with me? And I think so many people are just becoming more and more addicted. I'm trying to go the exact opposite direction. And we will be right back. And now back to the show. So instead of letting myself fall into my phone and fall into my TV and falling into social media, I'm trying to use

it intentionally how I need it. I've decided to stop being, and this was years ago, I'm not a consumer of social media anymore. I don't. I just create on social media and then I don't use it at all. I don't. I create, that's it. On my personal phone, I don't have any social media. On my business phone, I've got it so that I can check my statistics and see how things are growing.

That's it. But on my personal phone, I have zero social media. No Facebook, no TikTok, no Twitter, none of those things. Because I know those things make me more distracted and less focus. In fact, I notice when I look at my phone, I actually feel more. anxious throughout that day. So I'm consciously trying to remove myself from that. And if I spend 4.1 hours a day on my phone and I live another 50 years, 4.1 hours is average, and I live another 50 years, that would be 3,041 days of the remaining 50 years on your phone. Like what a waste of

our lives, staring at a screen. And so what I've been recently doing that's been helping me a lot that I think will help you as well is to take your phone whenever you're home and put it in you're drawing the kitchen. When it's not around, I don't think about it as much. When it's an eyesight, I reach for it all of the time. I am as addicted as every other person. So I'm trying to get myself away from the addiction. The same way that if someone's addicted to alcohol, it's a lot easier to not drink alcohol when there's no alcohol in the house. But if there's alcohol in the house, they know that it is and it's out and it's on the kitchen table. It's going to be really hard not to go there. So I check my phone when I need to, use it in the kitchen, put it back when I'm done. And so I've gotten my

screen time, I've been really working hard on my screen time app. I pay attention to it more than I ever have, down to about two hours per day. And I've run my entire business on my phone. You know, I have 45 people in my company, and almost every single one of them is not in Austin where I live. And I had friends over at my house a few months ago, and one of my friends is like, let's compare screen time. And so we compared screen time, and I looked at it, and mine was like two and a half hours at that point. And the average of my friends is about five to six hours. One of my friends, eight and a half hours a day he spends on his film. He's always on social media. He's always playing video games. And I love the guy to death, but he is the most stressed out out of all of my friends.

Not because of real life, but because he's constantly involved in this thing. And so another way that I've replaced education for entertainment, and this is what I would recommend for people, is to if you're buying books and you're trying to improve and you're trying to get better, I prefer a physical book. I'll download it on Kindle and I'll read books on my iPad. And when I find a part of the book that I like, all I'll do is I'll just highlight the book. So I'll just highlight it. I'll put some notes in it as well. That's one of the benefits of Kindle's. You can highlight it. You can notate whatever it is that you want to. Then what's really cool about it is that if I go to the doctor's office. So like two weeks ago, I was at the doctor's office. And while I was waiting there,

instead of me just going on social media, at the doctor's office, all I did was I went back to my Kindle, looked at all of the old books that I have read before in the past, and I looked back and I was like, which one do I want to reread today? Clicked on one of them. And in Kindle, you can actually look at just your notes. And so I clicked on my notes. And all I did was just sit there and reread all of the highlighted parts from a book that I read four years ago. And this is one of the benefits. I love physical books, I prefer them, but I also want to educate myself whenever I can. And so it was basically in those 15 minutes I was waiting at the doctor's office. I was rereading the most important parts of a book that I read four years ago instead of being on social media. This is a little tiny way

where you can start to have education seep its way into your life so you can keep learning. So think about that. How can you take action and do things that move the needle in your life and instead of just being entertained. How can you trade your entertainment for education some sort of way? Where else can you fit small bits of microeducation into your life? So like, for instance, one of the things that I like to do is when I'm showering and getting ready, I'll listen to something on YouTube. I'll find someone that I respect. I'll listen to them on YouTube so I can get as much knowledge as I can into my brain. And this is probably 95% of days. Some days I'm like, you know what, I'm going to listen to music. That's okay. No big deal. Sometimes I'm like,

I don't want to listen anything. It's just complete silence. But majority of days, like today, while I was taking a shower, while I was getting ready, getting dressed, all of that, brushing my teeth, all I did, listen to somebody that I have respect on YouTube. That's great. I learned while I was doing that. Whenever you get into your car, listen, you could definitely listen to music if you want to. I love music. I recommend that you do. But for the next six months, try it out. Just trade out your music. When you're driving, listen to a podcast, listen to a book, listen to YouTube from someone that you respect. When you're working out, instead of listening to music, how can you listen to something

where you're learning? How can you constantly be learning? You know, hours of our life are spent in silence or spent listening to music, and I recommend silence. I really do. I recommend music. I love music. I moved to Austin because I thought I wanted to be a musician, right? but what if for the next six months, just this short period of time, you decided I'm going to learn instead. Maybe you're like, you know what, I'm going to start my online business. And so what I'm going to do is I'm going to find people, whatever industry your online business is in, you're going to find people on YouTube. And instead of listening to music, you're going to replace it with education. And you're going to learn in the time that you normally would be just showering and getting ready.

You're going to learn in the time that you would be driving. You're going to learn in the time that you would be working out. You're going to learn in the time that you're sitting in a doctor's office. I'm not saying, and I don't want you to think this, I'm not saying never be entertained ever again. I'm saying, can you lower it? Sure. Watching cat videos is entertaining. But you know what's better?

Watching the sunset in Greece because you took action and created amazing life. Would you rather watch cat videos now, or would you rather delay your entertainment and watch the sunrise or sunset in Greece. Hopefully you're choosing Greece, right? Now, the problem with that is that you get dopamine immediately when you watch a cat video. You don't get the dopamine from the Greek sunset for another year or two years, whatever might be.

So if you can distance yourself and start looking at humidity and saying, people are great, I love people, people, people mean the best, but I'm going to do the exact opposite of everybody else. And you just learn more and learn more and learn more, considering that most people don't read books, most people are not trying to improve himself, and most people are not learning, 80% of U.S. households didn't buy a book last year, you're going to become more like a superhuman. And what I mean is your education is going to go up, your focus is going to go up when

most people's focus is going down, and you're going to set yourself apart massively from every other person out there. People are talking about wearing goggles and the metaverse and all those things. Personally, I'm not going to take part of it. I don't care. I like, I really like the universe that I currently live in. I'd rather travel to an amazing place and see it and taste their food and understand their culture than sit on my couch. I'd rather eat pasta in Italy versus play virtual tennis with someone that's in another city. That's the way that I look at it. The way I see the world is going, I'm planning ahead for the next three, four, five years and I'm going, yeah, I'm really going to double down right now because I'm going to set myself apart from everybody

else. And I'm not resisting it by saying, oh, back in my day, you know, I'm watching what's coming in the future. I'm planning how I can make myself more valuable for myself, for my family, for other people, for the marketplace. And then I'm just going to do the exact opposite of what most other people do. And if you do that, that is how you're going to be able to set yourself apart from 99% of other people. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, you would love to come to my three-day event here in Austin, Texas. So if you're already to stop holding yourself back and you want to unlearn your fears, your limiting beliefs, your bad habits, your identities that are capping the success in all areas of your life, go to freedomlive 26.com. Once again, freedom live 2026.com.

And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way. Leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.