The Mindset Mentor - One of the Scariest Things in the World

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dylann. 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 receive an email from me with my mindset tips every single week, every single Monday, I'll send it to you if you go to mondayemail.com. It's absolutely free. I send out emails to tens of thousands of you guys every single Monday morning with some tips and tricks, how to improve your mindset going into every single week. So once again, it is mondayemail.com. Today, we're going to talk about one of the things that people rank as one of the scariest things in the entire world to them. But before we do, can you take a guess

Starting point is 00:00:46 what that might be? What do you think people rank as one of the scariest things in the entire world for them? Is it spiders? Is it heights? Is it someone breaking into their house in the middle of the night? What is it? What do you think that it is? Now, all those things are scary, but do you know what most people actually think is scarier? Being alone with their thoughts. Now, this isn't me making it up. There was actually a study that was done and they actually gave people an option where they could be alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. That's it. Just be alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes, or they could just skip it and give themselves an

Starting point is 00:01:25 electric shock. Not something that would kill them, but something that was extremely uncomfortable. What do you think the results were? It's only 15 minutes. What percentage of people do you think decided to sit with their own thoughts? What percentage of people do you think took electric shock? Well, who do you think did better? Do you think women did better? Do you think men did better? Well, let's figure it out. 30% of women chose electric shock over sitting alone with their own thoughts. 30%. How do you think the men did? Do you think more men went for the electric shock or less men went for the electric shock? The answer is more.

Starting point is 00:02:08 Twice as much to be exact. 60% of men chose to get an electric shock over being alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. That was it. All they had to do was sit for 15 minutes alone in silence. Am I the only one that finds this extremely alarming? Well, it kind of comes down to a few different things. There's a French philosopher, I can't pronounce his name, so I'm not even going to attempt to do it. But one of the things that he says is he says, all of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone. All of humanity's problems stem from a man's inability to sit in a

Starting point is 00:02:47 room, quietly in a room, alone. Think about that for a second. What if all of the world's problems actually come from people being completely out of touch with who they truly are? If you think about all the wars that happen in the world, all of the injustices that happen in the world, all of the terrible things that people do to each other, to the environment, to animals, what if all of those things could be solved as people would finally come in contact with who they truly are and just be quiet more often? Wouldn't that be interesting? Because all of it comes from unresolved trauma. All of the wars come from unresolved trauma. All of us not taking care of ourselves, not taking care of other people,

Starting point is 00:03:29 not taking care of environment comes from some sort of unresolved trauma that's in all of us. We all have a little bit of trauma. Some people listening have had big trauma. They've had life that was really, really, really hard. Some people listening have had pretty good lives. Not a whole lot of bad stuff has really happened, but it doesn't matter because trauma is trauma in the brain. Maybe someone has incredible parents, they have an incredible life, but then they're bullied a couple of times in school. Maybe they go through a heartbreak and then they start feeling worse about themselves. There's so many places in our lives as we grow up. I'm 36 years old where I have seen many places in my life where there's been, I'm 36 years old, where I have seen many places in my

Starting point is 00:04:05 life where there's been trauma, big, little trauma, all of it, doesn't really matter because our brain stores all trauma as trauma. And then I've seen other people around me that have gone through many, many traumas. And part of my job is I talk with many people that have many traumas. You cannot go through this life without some sort of scars, without some sort of trauma. So how do we fix it? Well, first off, we don't fix other people. So if you see something wrong inside of the world, the problem is not other people. The problem is us. The problem is ourselves. You can't fix other people. That's impossible. We can only fix ourselves. So what do we do? Well, as Gandhi said, we need to be the change that we want to see in the world. Do you want people to

Starting point is 00:04:49 be more kind to each other? Are there areas of your life where you could be more kind? Do you want people to have more compassion? Are there areas in your life where you could have more compassion? Do you want people to be more open? Are there places in your life where you're a little bit too closed? Do you want people to meditate more often? Are there places in your life where you're a little bit too closed? Do you want people to meditate more often? Are there places where you could meditate more often? And so you have to start thinking about this. Going back to the original study, why is it so hard for so many people to do nothing? Why is it so hard? It's kind of crazy if you think about it. We have an overstimulated society, and this is the reason why. Because they can't sit quietly with themselves.

Starting point is 00:05:31 We have video games. People are addicted to video games. People watch TV all day long. It's why the cell phone and social media scrolling is so addicting to people. It gives them something to do and not have to think about what's going on in their lives. That's why so many people are addicted to working too much. They overwork. We will do anything, literally almost anything, to run from our thoughts. It's all a form of running in some sort of way. Like, think of this for a second. People hate being bored. People hate it. They would try to do anything to not be bored. Twiddle their thumbs to not be bored. Think about boredom for a second. What is boredom? Think about it. Let your brain kind of zone in on it. Boredom is doing literally nothing. Literally nothing. And our brains can't handle it. Why? Because we are so addicted to

Starting point is 00:06:28 stimuli because we've been running, running, running, running, running for so long that all we're used to at this point is just running. And people hate boredom. People hate it so much that they're willing to give themselves, 30% of women and 60% of men are willing to give themselves an electric shock to not be bored for 15 minutes, to not be alone with their own thoughts. Why is that though? Well, now we're going to start going deep into it. Because when we're quiet, eventually things will bubble to the surface. Things will bubble to the surface. This is why meditating is so hard for so many people. things will bubble to the surface. This is why meditating is so hard for so many people.

Starting point is 00:07:10 Because when you're sitting there doing nothing, that's when all of the things that you've been pushing off, you've been trying to sweep under the rug. It's like, you know, before the guests come over, it's like sweeping all the crap under the rug, right? That's what we're trying to do. We're trying to sweep under the rug all of our traumas that are unresolved, trying to sweep under the rug all the places where we've been hurt, where we haven't overcome heartbreak, where we haven't overcome different aspects of our life. And we sit down and meditate and we can't stop thinking and things keep coming up. And then sometimes you sit down and meditate. I have this happen decently often, probably 15% of the time when I meditate, I start having anxious feelings come up. So we think we're doing it wrong. You can't do it wrong. That's the best part about meditating.

Starting point is 00:07:50 Meditating, you can't do it wrong. Meditating is not stopping your thoughts. It is sitting back and observing your thoughts. And if you sit there long enough, your relationship will pop up and you'll start thinking, oh my gosh, you know what? I should treat her differently. I should have done this. I said this the other day. That was actually rude of me. Where did that come from? Where did that stem from? And you start to work through those things. That's why it's hard. Because sitting there will bubble up all of the things that we're trying to look a different way from. It's like we're looking to the right all of the time, looking to the right, looking to the right, looking to the right, to avoid this thing that is just to our left that is the biggest thing that we need to work on. So we look right, we look right, we look right. When you meditate,

Starting point is 00:08:23 when you sit down and you're quiet for a little while, when you give yourself some space, when you just sit there quietly for 15 minutes, it's like taking your head and looking directly at that thing, seeing what's below the surface all day long. Hey, are you the type of person who's always thinking about new business ideas or wondering, hey, what's the next side hustle that I should spin up? If that's you, check out the podcast, My First Million. It's hosted by Sean Puri and Sam Parr. Each of them have built eight-figure businesses and sold them to Amazon and HubSpot. And each week, they brainstorm business ideas

Starting point is 00:08:54 that you can start tomorrow. These can be side hustles that can make you a few grand a month, all the way to big billion dollar ideas or anything in between. One of the episodes that's really cool is number 158, where Sam and Sean explain how to make millions of dollars by buying Michael Jordan's home and turning it into a museum. Another episode I think you'd really like as well is with Rob Dyrdek from

Starting point is 00:09:15 the MTV show Robin Big back in the day, which is episode 224. It was fascinating. The guy has built a $400 million media empire and has been tracking every second of his day for the last decade. It's crazy. So make sure you check out My First Million. That's My First Million on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. I remember one time I was talking with someone who was a monk, and one of the things that he said to me was, he said, meditation is like this. Meditation is like going to your grandparents' house and you go into their attic. Their attic hasn't been opened up in a really long time. And you see all of these things inside of their attic. And one of the things that you see is an

Starting point is 00:09:53 old mirror, but you can barely see the mirror. And so you want to see yourself in this mirror, though, right? So you go up to the mirror and you take your hand and you wipe off all of the dust to see yourself. But when you're wiping off all the dust, all of it comes in your face and you take your hand and you wipe off all of the dust to see yourself. But when you're wiping off all the dust, all of it comes in your face and you start coughing and there's dirt that gets on your face. That's the same thing as meditating. It's like walking up to a mirror and the first few times you start meditating, when you meditate for a while, when you meditate for, I mean, I've been meditating for since 2009. What is that? 13 years now. It's still not very easy for me and much better than it used to be, but it, you know, you just keep doing it over and over and over again. Some days are amazing.

Starting point is 00:10:27 Some days are harder. Some days I have amazing thoughts. Some days I have hard thoughts. Some days I have, you know, blissful feelings. Some days I feel like shit, but it's just about sitting down and doing it. But it's like walking up to that mirror and getting all that dust and all that dust is all of the, all of the dirt, all the dust that comes off it are all the things that we need to work on. It's very easy for us to tell somebody else to do something of how they need to work on themselves. It's not easy for us to actually do it. One of the things that I love, anytime I put something up on Instagram, almost every single time there's some person in the message that says, yeah, easier said than done. And I'm like, yeah, no shit. Because everything is easier to say than do. Because all you have

Starting point is 00:11:09 to do is move your lips to say something. It's harder to do something. And so we can tell somebody, yeah, you should probably meditate. Yeah, you should work on yourself. Yeah, you should do some journaling. Yeah, you should probably head to the gym. And then we could not do any of that because it's easier to say than to actually do. But you can't find your true self. You can't rediscover your true self until you brush all of that stuff off. You can't see yourself in that mirror until you brush off all the dirt and dust that's on top of it. That's the way that we are. Another thing that really helps besides meditating to work through all of these things that we're so afraid to come in contact with is to actively journal through these things. And so many people

Starting point is 00:11:50 say, it's so funny how many people are like, I thought I knew myself until I started journaling. And, you know, this past weekend we had the Unbreakable event. It was the two-day event. We turned it into a three-day event this weekend and we did a lot of teaching. And then while we would teach, when we get done, we would then have journaling questions. And everyone's like, I've never done this before. This is amazing. This is allowing me to go so much deeper into myself. And it's not like sitting down and being like, dear diary, today I decided to wear a green shirt. And for breakfast, I had this. And for lunch, I had this. That's not what journaling is. It's not keeping a diary. It's sitting down with pen and paper and putting down everything that's going on in your head.

Starting point is 00:12:30 Putting down everything that you need to work on. Figuring out what your shortcomings are. Figuring out how you need to become a better person. You know, maybe you woke up a little bit anxious today. It's okay. No big deal. You go ahead and you go to your journal and you say, how am I feeling right now? Oh, you know what? I'm feeling pretty anxious. Okay. Why am I feeling anxious? Well, let me think. Why am I feeling anxious? I'm feeling anxious because later on this week, I actually have a presentation and I don't really feel prepared. Okay. Is there anything else? and I don't really feel prepared. Okay. Is there anything else? Honestly, I feel like I'm really worried about being judged. I'm really worried about messing up and then being judged in front of my peers and people that I work with. Okay. Why do I worry so much about being judged? What can I do today to make myself feel better? What can I do today to make me feel more prepared for

Starting point is 00:13:23 my presentation on Friday? Can I move something around in my schedule to give myself more space and more time to work on my presentation, to practice my presentation so that I can therefore, you know, be able to start working through and creating something to make me feel more prepared? And you start to work through these thoughts. You start to work through these feelings that a lot of times we're just trying to work on in our head. This is the reason why a lot of people don't understand how they feel. It's because people don't know where their feelings, it's an alarming number of how many people come to me that don't know where their feelings are coming from. They don't know why they feel a certain way. And as you do this more and more, you start to kind of

Starting point is 00:14:00 rediscover yourself. You discover yourself here. You start to make some connections. You start to figure some things out. A lot of people don't understand how they feel. They don't understand their feelings. They don't understand their thoughts. And you can literally, by doing this process, by this meditation, by, and what I'm trying to do is tell you that most people are afraid of being alone with their thoughts. I'm telling you should lean in to being alone with your thoughts. That's where you're going to discover. That's where you're going to have some of your biggest breakthroughs is by yourself with no one else around. This is in a way where you can kind of become your own therapist. And one of the things that I'll tell you is this, do not, because I hear this all the time,

Starting point is 00:14:38 some of you guys are already holding yourself back from journaling because you're already thinking about this. What if my husband finds it? What if my children find it? Whatever. Do not be afraid of someone finding your journal. You have to be real with yourself. If you cannot be real with the piece of paper, you are not 100% not real, not the truest version of yourself with anybody in this world if you are not real with yourself with pen and paper, because you don't know who your real self is. And if it makes you feel better, write it all down and then burn it or rip it up if you need to so nobody can ever find it. The important thing though is that you start the process of working on yourself because so many people are so afraid of their thoughts. They're so afraid of their

Starting point is 00:15:15 feelings. So much unresolved trauma is causing so many shitty things in this world. If you got to burn the piece of paper when you're done, burn it. Work on yourself. Be okay with doing nothing. Be okay with not having to constantly be stimulated and constantly having to be running from your thoughts. Be okay with sitting there. You can meditate with your eyes open if you want for the first time, if it makes it easier. Sit there. Just go ahead and just stare off into the distance. Stare at a wall, go on your back porch, stare at the trees. Just start getting used to thinking by yourself a little bit more. And then start getting used to writing down, how do I feel? No, I feel a little bit sad right now. Why do I feel sad? Well, I'm thinking about

Starting point is 00:15:55 this thing that happened a month ago. And you know what? I don't think I've really fully processed it. Okay. Do I just need to cry it out? What do I need? Do I just need to journal through it a little bit more? Do I need to reach out to that person? And you actually start to use yourself as a therapist and make it so much easier. And what happens is I see so many people that before they start meditating, before they start journaling, they're so triggered all the time, they get angry so quick, for instance. They have a short fuse. They don't understand it. It's because it's all this unresolved trauma that's just bubbling up to the surface and one wrong thing happens and they explode. But as they start working on themselves, they start feeling these things less. They start working through their feelings,

Starting point is 00:16:32 start understanding themselves. What happens? They start having a longer fuse and a longer fuse and a longer fuse and a longer fuse. And eventually, a couple of years of working on themselves, there's nothing you could say to send them off. So meditation and mirror or meditation and journaling are both mirrors. It's a mirror for you to see yourself so you can truly know who you are and if we want to solve most of the world's problems it starts with a mirror. It starts with you. You have to fix it in yourself because if you can't fix it yourself nobody else is going to fix it. So you have to be the changes you want to see in the world. So that's what I got for you for today's episode.

Starting point is 00:17:09 If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories and tag me at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And I'm going to leave it 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.

The Mindset Mentor - One of the Scariest Things in the World

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