The Mindset Mentor - How Winners Think Differently

Episode Date: June 17, 2026

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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. If you're out there and you love this podcast, you'll probably love the live event that I'm doing later on this year. If you want to join the waitlist to be the first to learn about it and to get massive discounts for my in-person event in Austin, Texas later on this year, go to freedom weightless.com. Once again, freedom weightlist.com. Today, I'm going to teach you the three relatively unknown reasons why some people continue to grow and continue to succeed year after year while other people just stay exactly where they are.

And it's not because they're smarter or because they were given a better life or because they're more talented. It's really because of the way that they operate. And because they see things just a little bit different different decisions every single day than everybody else. And the problem is that most people don't realize that the way that they actually look at their life in what comes to them is the reason why they're stuck. And if you don't learn how to change it, you will spend years working on your goals and never actually hit them. And you'll unconsciously work against yourself while you're trying to achieve them. So today, I just want to show you the three different ways that they think differently and how changing the way that you think and the way that you see the

world can completely change your results in your life as well. Okay. So number one, winners think that failure is data, right? Everybody else thinks that failure means it's their identity. And so this one's really important. One of the biggest psychological differences that I see between people who win at life, at anything in life, whether that be a relationship, whether that be sports, whether that be CEO, whether that be fitness, whatever it might be, is that winners see their failures as data while everybody else makes it part of who they are. Most people are unconsciously using failure as identity evidence. In other words, they make the thing that they failed at means something about them. Those are two completely separate things, right? So like something

goes wrong, for instance, the brain immediately goes to, well, what does this mean about me? I got rejected. I failed. My business didn't work. My marriage ended. I got fired. And subconsciously, the question becomes, well, what does this mean about me? What does this say about who I am? And this is where people like really get trapped. Because now failure isn't just an event. Failure becomes an identity. And that is a very, very slippery slope. One really important thing that I need you to understand is that you need to separate your behavior. from your identity. What you do and then who you are are two completely separate things. Just because you did something doesn't mean that's who you are. Do you get that?

Like for instance, just because you slept in, it doesn't mean you're lazy, but a lot of people call themselves lazy because they happen to sleep in today. Just because your business didn't succeed to the level that you wanted it to doesn't mean that you're a failure. The most successful people in the world, the most successful business owners have had multiple failed businesses. If that were the case, then they just be a failure forever, right? Or like, just because you had a hard day and you accidentally yelled at your kids, it doesn't mean that you're a bad parent. There is behavior and there's identity. Those are two separate things. Do not ever let those two things mix, right? Because your brain is a meaning-making machine. Suffering comes from the mind. There's pain in

this world, which is inevitable. And there's suffering, which is what happens in our mind. Human beings do not suffer from events that happen to us. We suffer from the meaning that we assign the events. Because two people can have the exact same thing happen to them. And one of them creates a story about how this thing makes them who they are. And the other creates a lesson from it. One of them becomes smaller from it. One of them becomes wiser.

The event is identical. The interpretation is the difference. and that interpretation creates identity for a lot of people and it creates the future. Once you get identity locked in, it is hard to get out of it. The most important thing that you can do is continue to change your identity and get yourself free from your fears and limiting beliefs and everything that you believe about yourself until the day you die. So one person can be locked in from an event and the other person can get better and learn from it.

So the brain will find evidence for the meaning that you assign to the event. So if you assign an identity to it, like I'm a failure, your brain will look for all of the evidence to prove that true. It doesn't matter what it is. It doesn't have to actually be true. It will try to prove it true. So if you say, I'm a failure because of this thing, it'll look for all of the evidence to prove what you believe about yourself to be true. But if you assign a lesson to it, your brain will also look for all of the evidence to prove that true and to prove, hey, this is actually something that I should be learning from. And so, like, let's go a level deeper behind this, right? The best way that you learn is from failing, not from reading a book, not from listening to

a podcast. Those are great, and they do have their places in your life. But failure is the best teacher. And most people are trying to avoid it, right? From going out, from trying, from fucking up, from learning from getting better next time. Right? Imagine a failed relationship, for instance. The fact is this. A relationship ended. Everything else is full on interpretation.

Yet most people immediately think, oh, well, the relationship ended, and they immediately add in like, I'm unlovable, and I'll always be abandoned, and nobody ever stays in my life, and I'll be alone forever. This is the example of the data, which is a relationship ended,

getting contaminated. The event happened. That's it. The emotion and the meaning that you assigned to it rewrote what actually happened. And so winners become unshakably skilled at what happened, like this is what happened versus what I feel happened. And these are very, very, really the same thing. And so like a great analogy to think about is like, imagine a scientist runs an experiment and the experiment fails. The scientist does not cry over the experiment and conclude that they're worthless and then do the experiment over again. They just simply gather information, they make adjustments, and they do it differently the next time.

Life works the exact same way. If you want to become a winner in your life, you must become the scientist. You are the scientist and you're the experiment in your life. Otherwise, you'll probably become a victim of your own narrative. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show. Okay? So that's number one. The second thing that I see about with a lot of winners is that winners think

in systems, not events. So most people live event to event in their life. Winners a lot of times move system to system. Creating systems is the way that you plan for the long term, right? Most people think like, well, how do I lose 20 pounds? That's like an event, right? Winners will ask what type of person consistently maintains a healthy body? That's a system, right? Most people will ask something like, how do I make more money? A winner would ask, how do I create a system that repeatedly creates value for other people so that money comes to me? That's a system, right? Most people ask something like, how do I become successful? Winners ask themselves stuff like, what habits would make success inevitable? That's a system. You've got to start thinking in systems.

The other thing that you find about this is that because of the fact that winners are creating systems, they're thinking more long term, and they tend to delay gratification, while everybody else tends to want instant gratification. And I like to think of life and building the life I want and building the business and the relationships and everything that I want, like gardening. Gardener's, you understand if you've gotten, even if you've never garden before in your entire life. You plant and you harvest. Those are not the same season, right? You cannot plant an apple seed today and expect that tomorrow's you'll get apples tomorrow. No, it takes six to 10 years to go from seed to a tree that is bearing fruit. And winners know this long before the fruit appears, right? And that's where

most people quit. The time horizon for a winner is so much longer than an average person. An average person thinks maybe in like days, weeks, maybe, if they're really thinking long term, they might think months. A real winter thinks in years and decades. Great things take time to be built. Think about how many people start going to a gym and then they quit after three weeks because they don't see abs in the mirror. Like how many people start a business and then they quit after six months because they aren't making six figures out? And how many people start healing themselves and meditating and journaling and going to therapy and listening to podcasts and then they quit because they don't feel completely different after a month. They're trying to harvest when they should still be planting. You get that? The process simply has

not had enough time to work. And the truth is almost every meaningful thing in life operates on delayed gratification, a healthy marriage, successful business, confidence, trust, making money, self-worth. All of those things take time. The challenge is that we live in a world that has conditioned us for like instant gratification. You want food? it'll be at your house in 20 minutes. You want entertainment. You can go ahead and you can get on your phone and get entertained. You can turn your TV and get entertained.

It's all instant. You want validation. Post a picture of yourself and see how many people liked it in the past 15 minutes. It's all instant nowadays. We've trained our selves to expect immediate rewards for almost everything. But things that matter, they're usually invisible for a long time. Like the seed underground that's growing underground and putting roots in the ground usually looks the same on day one as it does on day 30.

But something's happened and underneath the surface. The growth is happening. The development is happening. The transformation is happening. You just can't see it yet. And that's where winners think differently. Most people need evidence before they fully commit. I need to see a little bit of results and then I'll fully commit. They need a little bit of evidence.

Winners commit before they have any evidence. And so the life you want will take years, if not a decade, to build. But that's how life works. And when you truly understand this, like, you could stop ask yourself, like, how long is this going to take? And you just trust that as long as you put in the work, it will eventually end up working out. I don't know when it's going to happen, but I know it's going to happen. And so you've got to think to yourself, like, what system can I build in my life to stay committed for years? Because winners don't just focus on the next event. They focus on becoming the type of person who eventually makes winning inevitable by the systems they created. So that's

number two. And number three, winners are boring, right? What do I mean by that? They're consistent at doing the boring shit day in, day out. People love to study successful people after they become successful, right? They look at the podcast. They look at the company. They look at the amazing physique. Oh my gosh, they're worth millions of dollars. All of these are a compliment. And they just assume that there must have been like some sort of secret, right? There's some breakthrough, something I can study about them to try to learn about them. There's some magical morning routine that they do that changed everything for them. But when you really look at high performers, like the highest performers, they're really fucking boring. Like they are. They just do the same things over and over and over

again. And eventually those actions, and they are needle moving actions in their life, compound. And after a year, five years, 10 years, then that's the hockey stick moment where everything explodes. They're just consistent day after day, week after week, year after year, boring, boring, boring, boring, boring. And they can outlast everybody. If you were to watch the most successful people watch them build what they've built, you would probably be bored out of your mind because success is rarely built through like intensity and like a beautiful performance. It's just consistency. Brutal consistency to do what nobody else is willing to do for long enough until you get what it is that you want. Most people like dramatically overestimate what

they can accomplish in a month and they underestimate what they can accomplish in 10 years, 15 years. And so you don't want to rely on motivation. Like winners don't rely on motivation. They rely on repetition. They understand that motivation is just an emotion. Consistency showing up every single day. That's an identity. I do it because that's who I am. that's a very different thing than waiting for motivation. Motivation's like, oh, I'll do it when I feel like it. Consistency is I will do it no matter what. I will do it because that's who I am.

And I am so committed to my success that I'm going to do it until I get there. And winners like learn how to create a relationship with the habits that create success. Like they don't negotiate with themselves every morning. They made a decision. I'm going to do it every single day. And when you make a decision, one decision,

I'm going to do it every single day. You don't have to make a decision every single morning. No, they don't need to negotiate with themselves every morning because they've already made the decision in the past. I'm going to do it every day. They don't constantly ask themselves if they feel inspired. They just show up, even when they don't, especially when they don't want to. And that's where most people get it wrong. Like they think success comes from some extraordinary effort.

It doesn't. In reality, it usually comes from some ordinary, boring effort repeated, an extraordinary, extraordinary amount of times. One workout's not going to change your body. One sales call is not going to change a business. One podcast isn't going to build an audience. One healthy meal isn't going to transform your health. One difficult conversation doesn't transform a marriage. But hundreds, if not thousands of them do. And the reason why consistency is so powerful is because every time you show up, you're sending a message to yourself, to your subconscious. You're proving to yourself, I am somebody who follows through.

And that is where you really start to change your identity. You begin to trust yourself. You begin to believe in yourself. Not because you repeated some affirmations in the mirror that some book told you to say, but because you've gathered enough evidence by watching yourself that you show up for yourself no matter what. That's what confidence is. You can't brainwash yourself to be confident.

It's stupid. You show up, you see yourself show up, and you continue to go, oh, I'm seeing who I am. I do believe in myself. It's evidence that when you say you're going to do something, you actually do it. And eventually, something really kind of interesting happens. The thing that used to require discipline to start becomes more automatic. The thing that used to feel hard feels way more normal. The thing that used to feel impossible becomes part of who you are and you just do it. That's why winners are like often less talented than most people think. They're like less motivated than people think. They're less special. They're usually not even

that smart. Right. So it's like I think sometimes the smarter people are ones that overthink everything. Sometimes the people who are successful just kind of average. You know, they're not the smartest people, but they just do it. Well, I just do it. That's the way it goes. You know, they simply mastered the thing that most people will never do. They've just learned how to keep showing up long enough after all of the excitement wears off. They just do the boring things long enough to succeed. It is literally the fucking story of the tortoise in the hair because winners understand that success isn't built on like perfect days or best days. Success is built by doing the small things day in, day out regardless of how they feel. And if you do that long enough,

you will eventually outlast everybody who you're competing against for whatever industry that you're in and you will win and you will succeed. and so winning at life, whatever that means to you, whether that's money, whether that's success, whether that's love, whether that's relationships, where that's joy, happiness, traveling, whatever it might be. It's not hard. It's not rocket science. It requires you to think long term, think longer than everybody else, to take action regardless of how you feel and to build systems that help you make taking action easier on yourself. And then you just don't stop. And if you do that long enough, you'll take your head up one day and whatever you call success, you'll have. So that's what I got

for your today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on the Instagram stories, tag me at Rob Dial Jr., R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And if you want to learn more about the waitlist to come to my in-person event in Austin, Texas later this year, once again, go to freedomwaitlist.com. Once again, freedom, waitlist.com. And I'm going to leave you the same way to leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you. And I I hope that you have an amazing day.