The Mindset Mentor - I Am Addicted

Episode Date: May 20, 2020

After working with thousands of people over the last 14 years, I have come to realization that almost everyone is addicted to something. In this episode, I will talk about my addiction and hopefully allow you to uncover your addictions and work through them as well.Follow me on Instagram @RobDialJr https://www.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 today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. And if you have not yet done so, hit that subscribe button so that you never, ever miss another episode. Today, we're going to be talking about our addictions. Now, growing up myself with an alcoholic father who passed away from being an alcoholic, I always resisted the fact to any addictions. And I thought to myself, there's no way that I'll ever be addicted to anything until, you know, fast forward up until, you know, just a couple of years ago, I realized that I had addictions that I needed to work through. And I actually have been working through this and in turn have realized that I'm pretty

sure every single person has some sort of addiction. So we're going to talk about my addictions, how I woke up to them, but then also we're going to talk about your addictions. And hopefully this will allow you to be able to wake up, to become self-aware so that you can then start working through your addiction so that you can become the best version, the more enlightened version, the optimal version of who you want to be. So one day I woke up and it was about six o'clock in the morning. And I woke up, I was in the bathroom, I was peeing, and I just had this overwhelming sense of anxiety. This was about two years ago, overwhelming sense of anxiety. And I was like, oh my God, I got to get to work. I got to start working. I got so many things I got to do. I got to start making money. And I had this really like massive anxiety. I was like, oh my God, I got to get to work. I got to start working. I got so many things I got to do. I got to start making money. And I had this really like massive anxiety. I was

like, this is crazy. Why do I feel this way? Well, number one, when you first wake up in the morning is when you have the most amount of cortisol in your body. And the most stress that usually anybody is throughout the entire day is in the morning. And the reason why is because cortisol usually what wakes you up. Cortisol is the stress hormone. So I was stressed and I was like, why the hell am I so stressed right now? And I was like, I don't need to make money. Like I'm okay. Like I can not work for years and I'll still be okay. And I was like, why do I feel this way? This is so interesting. So I went and I meditated for about 20 minutes and I realized that I was addicted to working and I was addicted to the stress of it. And I was listening to a podcast episode right around that time. It was probably

a few days before, maybe a week before that kind of dropped this seed into my head and made me realize it. And the host of the podcast was sitting down with a psychologist and he said, hey, I've come to the realization that I think I'm addicted to stress. And I listened and I was like, that's interesting. He was talking about his childhood, talking about it. I was like, I feel like I could be addicted to stress. So, you know, a few days before this, I had, I had come to the realization of maybe I'm addicted to stress. And then this whole thing happens. And it was like the light bulb of like, oh my God, I am addicted to stress. So I was meditating. And, you know, so that day I took off completely. I actually took like the

next two or three days off because I really wanted to, you know, go deep and figure myself out. So I was meditating and I was journaling and I was trying to figure myself out. And I realized because of my childhood, I got addicted to it, not just my childhood, but my childhood going into, you know, my teenage years going into college and then going into my first real job, I became addicted to, you know, stress. And I think that as a child, all of the things that happened, I naturally stressed myself out. And, you know, it's the stress of not knowing if my father was going to live or die. After he died, the stress of not knowing what to do next. And it was just this stress that I got addicted to. And then I got into high school and, you know, got bullied.

There's the stress of being bullied. There's a stress of, you know, being in school and having to perform and playing the sports. Then I got into college and I never wanted to be in college. I dropped out of college. So while I was in college, it was a stress of, I don't want to be here. Why am I here? What am I going to do with my life? Then I dropped out of college and it was a stress of, okay, now what am I supposed to do? Because I'm supposed to have a college degree because that's what quote unquote successful people are supposed to have. Right. So then after that, I dropped out of college and I was already part of a sales company. I opened an office with a company and, you know, really worked 110 hours a week for about

three years, every single week from, you know, 21 to 20, basically early 21 to 23, 24 years old, 110 hours a week. And I was, I realized that stress was always there. And the, the childhood going into the teenage years, going into college, going into after college, it was always a form of stress that's there. And now think of this for a second. If I were to drink alcohol, you know, 10 beers every single day for the next year, would I become an alcoholic from that? The chances of that are extremely high. And the reason why is because my body has now become dependent on this one chemical being inside of my body every single day. Now, when you're stressed out, we'll just use stress as an example, but there's many examples of thoughts that become hormones in your body. When I think

something, that's a chemical signal from one place to another inside of my brain. There's something called a neuropeptide. A neuropeptide is a messenger from your brain to your body, and it tells your brain, your body tells your brain what hormones to make. So if I think something that makes me stressed out, my neuropeptides are going to go from my brain to my body and tell my body to create the stress hormones. So if you're addicted to, you might be addicted to stress, you might be addicted to anxiety, whatever it is, but those stress hormones, those chemicals are now inside of my body. are happening every single day, every single day, every single day, every single day, which means that my body is going to be addicted to those chemicals. Does this make sense? My body had become addicted to the stress chemicals. And so just like a crackhead, where they need to wake up and they need to get their crack, it was the same thing for me,

whereas I was waking up and I needed to get my adrenaline and I need to get my cortisol because my body had actually become physically dependent on those chemicals. Do you see how this works? My body had created its own addiction and I created the same thoughts over and over and over again each day that created the same actions, that created the same hormones, that created the same chemicals, that created the same hormones, that created the same chemicals, that created the addiction to stay inside of my body. Now, I realized this in the thing about is when I teach this to people, usually they're like, oh my God, I am addicted to something. And there's a lot of things that people can become addicted to. There's not just drugs and alcohol. You know, there's food, there's emotional eating, there's stress like me, there's working out,

there's love, there's sex, there's emotions, there's pity, there's misery. You know, some people are so miserable, but that's all they know because they know the feelings of misery, that they become addicted to those feelings. And that even though they don't want to be miserable anymore, they don't know how to release themselves from the misery because of the fact that that's all that they know. And they are chemically addicted to those feelings inside of their body. So I have a question for you. And I want you to just think about this for a second. What are you addicted to? It's an interesting question to kind of dive into. What are you addicted to? Are you addicted to stress? Are you addicted to anxiety? Are you addicted to the

feelings of depression, food, alcohol, emotional eating, love, sex, pity, misery, working? You know, for me, it was stress and working. That's what I became addicted to. So I would look at people who are addicted to alcohol or look at people who are addicted to food and be like, I wish they could just get their shit together. And meanwhile, I'm over here working 110 hours a week, completely addicted to that work and the stress that was being caused from it. And then the interesting thing, as soon as people start to realize this,

is they go, oh my God, I am addicted to something, whatever this thing is for you. And then they say, I need to get rid of this as soon as possible, which is great. It's beautiful. But I'm going to tell you a warning right now, because I was on, you know, I was on a Zoom call yesterday with my business breakthrough group, where I teach people how to, you a warning right now because I was on, you know, I was on a zoom call yesterday with my business breakthrough group where I teach people how to build coaching businesses. And, uh, literally somebody who was on there, it connected with them, the whole stress thing. And she was like, but how do I get rid of it? And I was like, here's the thing. I don't know if you'll ever fully get rid of it. Now you might think that's a bad thing. You might think that's a, you know, like terrible thing. Well, now I've realized I'm addicted. I'm never going to get rid of it. What do I do now? Hey everybody, real quick. As I talk

about this episode, I still love coffee. And my favorite coffee to make at home is called Four Sigmatic Mushroom Coffee because it contains lion's mane and chaga, which support focus, productivity, and brain function. And in fact, lion's mane mushrooms have been used by Buddhist monks to help during their meditation so that they can be more focused. And chaga is actually known as the king of mushrooms because it's antioxidant properties and its role in supporting your immune system as well. So don't worry, it doesn't taste anything like mushrooms.

It actually tastes amazing like coffee normally does. And of course, for all of you guys listening, we have a special offer for the Mindset Mentor audience. You receive 15% off your Four Sigmatic order. All you have to do is go to foursigmatic.com slash dial, enter the code dial at checkout. Once again, that is foursigmatic, F-O-U-R-S-I-G-M-A-T-I-C.com slash D-I-A-L to receive 15% off your order. All right, let's get back to the show right now. And the thing that you have to realize is this, it's not about fully getting rid of it because you know, I'm 34 years old. That means I've for the past 34 years, I've been addicted to

this, this, uh, this chemical inside of my body. It's going to take a long time to eventually get past this, right? It's going to take time to eventually get past all of these things. But what you have to realize is this, the first process of, you know, a 12-step process of when you're addicted to something, the first thing is that you have to admit that you are addicted to it. Admit that you're powerless to this. So the 12 steps of alcohol is first thing is to admit that you are addicted to it. Admit that you're powerless to this. So the 12 steps of alcohol is first thing is to admit that you're powerless over alcohol and that your life could have become unmanageable because of it. So the first thing you have to do is you have to admit it. You have to fully embrace, yeah, I'm addicted to stress. Yeah, I'm addicted to anxiety. I'm

addicted to misery. I'm addicted to food. I'm addicted to alcohol. I'm addicted to this drug. I'm addicted to smoking weed every single day, whatever it is for you. The first thing is you have to admit it. Stop running from it and you have to admit it. The second thing that you have to do is start to develop more self-awareness. And so I can say this over the past couple of years, I've become less addicted to stress. But then what's interesting is I still sometimes find myself getting into stressful situations and I don't necessarily know how I even got there, which is what's crazy. So the first thing is admitting it. The second thing is becoming self-aware and working through it. For me, for instance, what I've had to do, and you can kind of pull your own, I guess your own strategy from this is I've had to live my life as normal as I possibly could. But then notice

when I feel those feelings of stress, and I never get the feeling of like ridiculously stressed out. That's the thing. I get this underlying feeling of stress. And what I've realized is that stress actually makes me work harder. So I've developed this feeling of stress to And what I've realized is that stress actually makes me work harder. So I've developed this feeling of stress to make myself work harder, probably subconsciously in some form of some form. But I don't, I don't even know if I'm really being truly honest with you. I've created the stress inside of my head. And so the first thing is admitting. The second thing is becoming self-aware. And then the third thing is just living your normal life and being so self-aware that you notice yourself get caught up in these addictions. You notice the things that you've created. The, you know, the people

that you hang out around might cause you to be stressed. The things that you do might cause you to be stressed. One thing that I've really realized, and you guys have heard me say it, I've been releasing my, I wouldn't say addiction to coffee because I was never fully addicted to coffee. I'd have one, two, three glasses a day. But what I realized and the reason why I stopped drinking coffee is because I realized, now just so you know, before I even say that, I still drink coffee every once in a while

because I do love an incredible cup of coffee. I just love coffee. But what happened, I realized, is that coffee and just the way that my body processes the caffeine from coffee, not even specifically from teas, but from coffee, makes a stressful feeling. And so I would wake up stressed out because that's just how most people wake up is there's an underlying feeling of stress. Then I would drink a cup of coffee to keep myself stressed out. And then I would be in a constant flow of work and having to keep as busy as possible to keep myself even more stressed out.

And so slowly I started unraveling this, but I only unraveled this because I realized, okay, I'm addicted to this thing. Now I need to just become more self-aware and just be more aware of the way that I feel throughout the day, the way that I've set myself up. And over years I started to find out, oh way that I've set myself up. And over years, I started to find out, oh, coffee does this. Oh, hanging out with this people do it. Oh, constantly feeling like I have to be working does it. And you make note of what is causing these feelings of stress, of anxiety, of feeling like you need to drink alcohol, feel like you need

to eat food, emotional eating, whatever it is, feel like you have to work out because you don't feel like you have a high self-worth. We all set up these little traps basically for ourself subconsciously. Our brain's incredibly ridiculously smart. It's like you're smart, but then your brain is so much smarter because it subconsciously sets up these little traps to continue to get this hit of stress or alcohol or drugs or anxiety or whatever it is that it needs. And I realized that my brain had basically set up subconsciously little tiny traps to get me stuck inside of this stress loop. And so you all have this X loop. Like I had the stress loop. Maybe you have the anxiety loop. Maybe you have the emotional eating loop. Maybe you have the misery loop.

Maybe you have the sex addiction loop, whatever it is, where there's these loops that you get stuck in your brain creates them so that then therefore you feel like you need the hit. You need the hit just like a drug addict needing the hit. You need the hit just like a drug addict needing the hit. You need the hit of whatever that chemical is because an addiction is a chemical, literally addiction to the chemical inside of your body. It's not just food. It's not just alcohol, but it can be the thoughts that then create the hormones inside of your body that then keep you addicted to whatever this thing is. So I will say this, I'll be a hundred percent honest with you. I've taught this to thousands of people. I still, to this day, I've not found someone that's not addicted

to something. It's just interesting. It's just the way that it goes. So for you, I hope that this connects in some sort of way. And what I would ask you is, are you addicted to something? And realize that it's okay to be addicted. But now that you're aware of it, it's not okay to just let it go. What you need to do is you need to first become aware of it. You need to figure out what it is, discover it, I guess, is the first thing. The second thing you need to do is you need to fully admit it to yourself. The third thing you need to do is you need to become aware of what it is and what cycles and loops you've created in your life to keep you in that situation. And number four is you need to become aware of it and now work through it. I fully don't expect myself to be completely out of this when I've taken 34 years to create this addiction.

Well, if that's the case, it should take at least 10, 15, 20 years to completely get rid of, if that's even possible, this addiction. So don't just want it to be gone because that's probably going to be impossible. And it's going to, if I just wanted to be done with being stressed out. And when I got found that I was stressed out and got pissed off at myself, it would make me even more stressed out. So I'm trying to release that. And so if I've realized that work is an addiction because it causes me stress, well, then I have to have a time that I work from this time to this time and I completely click off. I have to have days off where I completely click off because I have to tell my brain, I'm not going to stay in this loop.

You're no longer in charge anymore. I'm in charge of this and I'm going to unravel this addiction slowly but surely. And so what I want you to take from this episode, if you have a pen and paper, write it down. What am I addicted to? And really start to see if there is something that you're addicted to. Maybe you're one of the few people in the world that has absolutely no addictions. Congratulations. Maybe you do have something that's just underlying under there that you haven't become aware of yet.

And it's something to think about because you get stuck in these loops and you don't even realize that you're in them. And I was in it for a very long time, had no clue that you could even be addicted to stress or addicted to anxiety and those underlying feelings. And once again, it wasn't like these feelings of I'm so stressed out, I literally am crippled. It was this underlying feeling of stress that kept me working harder, that kept me drinking more coffee, that kept me feeling like I wasn't enough and all of that stuff that's in there. So for you, what I want you to do is, is I want this episode to at least spark a thought inside of you of maybe I am addicted to something. And that's okay, because I think that it's kind of natural if I'm being honest with you. But now that I've, you know, opened up myself to this, I have to admit whatever it is I'm

addicted to. Now I have to become self-aware. And now I just have to be aware enough to watch myself as if I'm a third person, just, you know, watching in and seeing the ways that I've set up traps to fall back into these addictions. And so that's what I want you to become aware of and realize it's not going to go away right away. And when you do identify the addiction, it's going to take time to work through those addictions. And that's okay.

Everything is okay. Everything is perfect as it currently is. It's just something that you got to work through. And that's the beauty of life. We're here to learn, to grow, to get better. And that's all that we can work on every single day. So with that, I'm going to leave you the same way that we do every single episode. Oh, also, if you love this episode, please share someone that you know and someone that you love as well. And I will be announcing today is the very last day that you can share this on your Instagram stories and be put into a drawing to win a free one-on-one coaching call with me valued over $2,000.

So if you want to put yourself in the drawing in the very last day, go ahead and take a screenshot of you listening to this or a video of you listening to this or a video of you talking about the podcast. Put it up on your Instagram stories and tag me in it. Rob Dial Jr. R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And you'll automatically go inside and I'll be announcing the winner on the next episode. So with that, I'm gonna leave you the same way I 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.