The Mindset Mentor - The #1 Key to Relationships

Episode Date: January 31, 2020

The happiness in your life will depend on the depth of your relationships. In this episode, I will teach you the #1 key to building strong relationships.Follow me on Instagram @RobDialJr https://www.instagram.com/robdialjr/Try out NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/dial 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 miss another podcast episode. You know, I'm going to talk about vulnerability and why we're afraid of it and also how to embrace the power of it. And, you know, the reason why so many people, I would say 95% of people, maybe more, can't be vulnerable is because they view vulnerability as weakness. They think that if I show people who I truly am, if I show people who I truly am, then they won't accept me. truly am. If I show people who I truly am, then they won't accept me. Or if I show people who I truly am, they'll actually hurt me. And we think of vulnerability as kind of like a dark emotion. You know, vulnerability is the core of fear, anxiety, shame, disappointment,

all the really difficult emotions. But vulnerability is also the core of love. It's a core of joy. It's a core of happiness. And, you know, culture and ads and society always tells us that we're not good enough as we are, right? So we see magazines and even little girls' magazines, and they're all photoshopped. We see all the men who are photoshopped on the fitness magazines. We see the women on the front of Cosmopolitan. All of them are all photoshopped. If you go onto Instagram, everyone's photoshopped and we see those people and compare them to ourselves and think, God, I'm nowhere near that. Of course I can't show my true self because I'm nowhere near as good looking as them, as fit as them, as pretty as them, whatever it is. And we don't want to open

up because we don't want to open ourselves up to finally showing who we truly are to people and then possibly be disappointed, right? So we want to stay in our armor. We build these walls because opening up makes you feel emotionally naked and it feels like you're literally coming out of your skin. And it only gets harder with social media. We're only as good as how many likes we get. One of the reasons why Instagram is playing with taking likes away, you know, and through advertising and through social media, it makes us feel like we're not good enough, not good enough, not pretty enough, not fit enough, not successful enough, not rich enough, not smart enough, not thin enough, whatever it is. And so what do we do? We learn to build walls.

So instead of showing our true self, which is really what vulnerability is, we build walls around our true self so that therefore our true self, our inner child doesn't get hurt because being hurt sucks. And so we compare ourselves to people that we see online or in magazines or on TV. And we have these literally impossible standards because you will never be as pretty as them, as fit as them, because their photoshops are not real. It is unattainable. And so we're comparing ourselves to impossible standards. You know, we see the perfect marriages or love stories or relationships in the movies or the people who act like they have the perfect relationships on Instagram when you don't even know if they were just fighting five minutes ago

before they took that picture. And so what do we do? We compare ourselves to those and we hide. We try to make ourselves not be seen. We hide and put our arm up, put these big old walls around us so that no one can ever really see the true us. And over time, we kind of forget who the true us really even is. We've been playing this character and building this armor around us so we forget who we are and we hide our blemishes behind makeups and hide our bald spots and hats. And we get into relationships and friendships and they're all surface level because we can never really show someone who we truly are because we are

truly afraid of being hurt and we don't want to be let down. And what's even worse than being let down is showing who you truly are and then have that not being accepted or maybe even pushed away. So it's easier to hide than to never be let down or to open yourself up to the possibility of being let down. We don't even enter the race because we're afraid that we're going to lose it. We close off. But the problem is in order to experience the best emotions in life, the love, the joy, the happiness, the hope, the authenticity. I'm not talking about a little bit of it. I'm talking about all of it. To experience it at its highest level, it is impossible to get there without vulnerability. But like I said, the problem is we think that vulnerability shows weakness. It shows us being weak. That's the way that we view

it. But no person ever looks at someone being vulnerable. No one ever sees someone on TV that's telling their raw, true, authentic story and breaking down the armor and the walls and going, oh yeah, that person, what a weak person that is. Nobody ever thinks that. What do they think? They think, wow, holy crap, that person is courageous. I wish that I could do that. So we view vulnerability as courageousness when it's in other people. But we think that if we're vulnerable, get this ready, we think that if we're vulnerable, we'll be seen as weak. That doesn't make any sense. We think that if we show ourselves and our true vulnerable selves,

people are going to view it as weak. But in reality, people view it as strength. People look at you and go, damn, I wish that I could do that. The number one thing that I wanted to do when I first started this podcast, you know, five years ago was be raw, true, authentic, and vulnerable. Why? Because I never been that my entire life. And I saw it as cathartic. It was almost like I could finally open up and show people the true me. You know, when I, my father passed away on a Thursday and I went back to school on Monday after the funeral, all of that stuff, it was just like, nothing happened. I didn't tell anybody until my three best friends that it even happened

because I didn't want to show and be vulnerable. That's what boys don't cry, especially when you're in high school. 15 year old boy, no, you're not supposed to cry. Don't be a pansy. Don't be a girl. You know, those are the things that people say. There's a lot of worse things they say than that actually, right? That's what they say. Oh, and you can't cry. And so what happened was when I first started the podcast, I said, I'm going to be real and authentic and as vulnerable as I possibly can, because if I can show myself in that sort of way, someone can go, you know what? I connect with this message. How many people are out there right now that you're connected to that need to hear your

message so that they can process and feel like they're accepted? They can feel like, you know what? Me too. Think about that for a second. Most people are uncomfortable with what's going to happen because it's uncertain. You don't know what people's reactions are going to be. And everybody wants definites, right? Everybody wants definites.

It's all too risky to open yourself up to people. We don't want to open ourselves up to being hurt. And not just in love relationships, but in friendships and even acquaintances. And vulnerability is not just opening yourself up to, you know, be in a romantic relationship. Vulnerability is starting a business. Vulnerability is following your passion. Vulnerability is following or sharing an unpopular opinion that you truly believe in. Vulnerability is calling or sharing an unpopular opinion that you truly believe in. Vulnerability is calling up a friend who has cancer. Vulnerability is saying, I love you first.

Vulnerability is sharing your music or your art with somebody. Vulnerability is trying something new. Vulnerability is exercising in public even when you're overweight. Vulnerability is asking for help, asking to be held accountable. It's having faith. It's admitting that you were wrong. It's asking for forgiveness. The word vulnerable comes from the Latin word vulnerar, which means capable of being wounded or open for attack. And we all want to be strong. We all want to be courageous. We don't want to allow ourselves to be vulnerable because if we think that if we open ourselves up for attack, then we will be

emotionally wounded. It's emotional exposure is what it truly is. And all of this starts when we're children because children are vulnerable. That's like the definition of a child. Vulnerability. They don't care what you think of them. They don't care. It doesn't matter to them. Children don't care what you think of them. They'll walk around naked. They'll pee in a bush right in front of 45 people. They don't care. The kids do the craziest things. But as you get older, you get reprimanded. You learn what you can and cannot do and what you will be accepted for and what you won't be accepted for. And you get raised in society. Then you go into, and that's how you start. Then you go into elementary school and you share your secrets with a friend thinking that they'll never tell a soul. And then they tell everybody and you

get made fun of and you learn to close off. Because closing off and not showing your true self is easier than being made fun of. But when you close off to being made fun of, you also close off to joy and love and happiness. You close, when you close off, you can't close off to certain things. You close off to everything. It's the reason why your first breakup is so bad. You find your first love. You show them your true self.

You allow yourself to be emotionally vulnerable. And it makes you happy. It makes you so over the moon with love and happiness. And then you hear that that person was kissing someone behind the bleachers and your heart feels like it's been ripped out. It's complete emotional treason is what it feels like. So you learn to close off. You have your raw emotional years and we learn that if we close off, it's easier than being hurt. But once again, you can't close off to just some things. If you close off and you put those walls up, you close off to everything, all of the

hardest and the most beautiful parts about being a human. Because we're all humans. We all struggle with wanting to be enough, good enough, pretty enough, fit enough, successful enough, smart enough, thin enough. But to be vulnerable is to be alive. To open up and have true happiness. To be alive. To really feel what it feels like to be a human. We want to open up. We do.

Every single person truly, actually wants to open up. But the problem is we're afraid and fear is what truly holds us back. So how do you embrace vulnerability? Vulnerability is the only real thing that can set us free to really be truly deeply loved. And I'm going to talk about how to embrace vulnerability because we need to learn to be comfortable letting our armor down. It's just like anything else. It becomes easier with practice. It's not easy at first. You know, it wasn't easy for me to tell my story on the podcast when I first started it because especially now as adults, we need to learn to live with courage and live with purpose and

live with connection because we've closed ourself off for too long. And in relationships, the last thing that we want is for people to see us, right? But the first thing we want in them is to truly see them. Well, that doesn't work out that way. Relationships don't work out like, hey, will you show me a hundred percent of yourself and I'll show you 50%. We want to know them. We want to know the real them, the person they hide from everyone else. But we don't want them to think that we're weak. And some people have been wearing a mask for so long, they don't even know who they truly are. They don't show it to their friends, to their kids, to their partner. They don't know who they are. But one thing that makes us ridiculously happy is to show who we

truly are and to be accepted for that. The one thing that makes us so much more advanced than animals is emotional capacity to open up and let somebody in and to have them accept us. You know, there's a phrase that says, be the change that you want to see in the world. Well, in order for you to have true deep relationships with people, you might have to be the first one to open up and be vulnerable. You're the one listening to this episode, not them. The first step to being open and vulnerable is to believe that you are good enough as you currently are. Can you improve? Sure. But you need to believe that you are good enough as you currently are. Can you improve? Sure. But you need to accept that you are good enough right now. You are pretty

enough. You are fit enough. You are successful enough. You are rich enough. You're smart enough. You're thin enough. Could you be better in all aspects? Absolutely. But you have to accept where you currently are in order to improve it. And just because you might not be where you want to be physically yet, for instance, doesn't mean that you can't start looking at yourself as fit enough right now. You have to tell yourself that you're enough. Because if you're going to be vulnerable with everybody else, let's be vulnerable with ourselves first. Mouz El-Assami truly opened up and looked in the mirror and said, I love you. I accept you. You're beautiful as you currently are. Are we going to improve? Hell yeah, we're going to improve. But before I fix you, I need to accept you.

Have you ever done that? Because when you believe that you're enough, it makes it easier to be vulnerable because you can't be vulnerable with other people because you can't truly be vulnerable with yourself. You are worried about being accepted by other people because you can't truly be vulnerable with yourself. You are worried about being accepted by other people because you don't accept yourself. So when are you going to look in the mirror and say, I love you. I accept you. Are we going to get better? Of course. But you are perfect as you currently are. When you believe that you're enough, it makes it easy to believe that you can be vulnerable to other people because you truly believe that you're worthy as you currently are, and you don't need that worth in other people. When you look at yourself and you say, I'm going to be happy, I am enough, then you're confident showing that happy enough to other people. When you fully, truly, 100%

accept yourself, you don't give a damn about what other people think about you. Why does that matter? Because then you can open up and be vulnerable because it doesn't matter what people think about you because you already love and truly accept yourself. Whether they want to love and accept you as you truly are, that's up to them. But that has nothing to do with me, whether they accept me. That has nothing to do with you, whether they accept you. You have to allow yourself to be truly happy, to really feel joy and to stop hiding. Because, you know, I knew that if I wanted to have listeners five years ago who had a connection with me, I needed to show who the real person that struggles with daily life is. There's so many people that are quote unquote

gurus that act like they're perfect and they have all of their shit together. I'm the person that says, listen, I've got a lot of my shit together, but I still got a lot of stuff that I worked through. And I think that that makes it easier to connect with me. At least I would assume is because I don't act like I'm somebody that I'm not. I show you that I worked through. And I think that that makes it easier to connect with me. At least I would assume is because I don't act like I'm somebody that I'm not. I show you that I have issues. I show you that I'm always working through things. I'm 14 years deep in this personal development game and reading books and improving myself and hundreds of thousands of dollars invested myself. And I've done a lot of work, but I still got a lot more to go. And I think that when you hear that, it goes,

you know what? I can connect with this person because they're not perfect. And you know what? Neither am I. So I learned to hide it all away when I was younger. Like I told you, my father died on a Thursday. We buried him on Sunday and I was back to school Monday, Tuesday, I think it was. And I act like nothing ever happened. I hid from everyone. You know, it's hard for me to be vulnerable when I was younger, but the podcast is what truly allowed me to open up and be vulnerable because I could share my story and accept my story. And in a sense, I guess I was kind of hiding behind a microphone because I can say what I want to and almost talk to myself and there's nobody here to judge me. And then when I started seeing people come out and the woodwork is saying, I love this

because I connect you doing this way. I went, oh my God, the more that I share my vulnerability and the more that I share my crap, the more that people go, you know what, me too. And I went, oh my God, they don't judge me. They accept me. They accept me for who I truly, truly am. And so in the upcoming days, I want you to start thinking about how can you break the walls down just a little bit? How can you let yourself experience more joy? Some people don't allow themselves to experience, you know, they close off to fear, they close off to worry, they close off to weakness. And when you close off to those things, you don't experience the full, if you don't experience the full fear, the full worry,

or any of those things, because you're afraid, you're also closing yourself off to joy. Some people don't experience a joy because they are completely closed off. And in their happiest moments, they hold themselves back from being 100% in that moment, 100% joyful in that moment because they think maybe it'll be stripped away one day. I don't want to let myself be so joyful because what am I going to feel when things get bad? In my happiest moments in life, if I experience with full, raw, authentic joy, moments in life, if I experience with full, raw, authentic joy, what am I going to think about myself and about life when things get hard? And so they get 80% of their joy instead of 100% because they're afraid of really opening up. They worry too much. They see their kids on the first day of school. They watch them get on the bus and they worry about how soon they will be 18 years old and

leaving for college or how soon they're going to go to school and start getting bullied. They won't experience the full joy of watching their kids get onto the bus and go, wow, look at this beautiful child that I've made. They start to worry already. They watch their kids sleep. And instead of fully being 100% present and in love with that being, and look at how beautiful that being is, is they interrupt those thoughts with worrying about losing that child. Have you ever been there before? Or you have a moment that's full of joy with someone that you love.

And instead of being fully in the moment, you hold back because you worry that maybe that person won't always be around. They ruin great moments because they worry about being vulnerable and they worry about something that could happen someday. So they're not even fully present with their best moments, with everything in life, because they're worried about what could happen in the future. They don't want to let themselves down. So they don't fully experience the most joyous moments because they know that the most joyous moments are not always going to be there. So once again,

they put up their armor. Allow yourself to be happy. Allow yourself to experience joy. Allow yourself to be vulnerable. Stop trying to be perfect. Stop trying to be perfect. One of the things that I think people are really accepting the most right now and they love the most that I've seen a big shift over in the past three to four years maybe is perfectionism. People trying to be perfect and now people are starting to break the walls down and show who they truly are a little bit, not as much as they need to, on Instagram, on Facebook. And as a self-admitting perfectionist, I will call myself, this one's hard for me. Because perfectionists, we believe that we have to do

everything perfect to put our craft out there, right? And we can avoid or minimize the pain if we just don't put ourselves out there. Perfectionism is not self-improvement. Perfectionism is not self-improvement. Perfectionism is, let me think of another way to say this. Perfectionism is not something that you have. You're not a perfectionist. Everybody thinks they're a perfectionist. You're not. Everybody thinks they're a perfectionist, just so you know. You're not a perfectionist. Perfectionism is a mask that you wear as a reason why you're not, let's say, for instance, putting out your music or your art because you're truly afraid of not being accepted. So you say, oh, I'm a perfectionist. Oh no, you know, my painting isn't done yet. It's not, my paintings aren't perfect yet, so I haven't brought them out to the public

because I'm a perfectionist. No, you're not a perfectionist. You're afraid of not being accepted. You're afraid of failing. You're afraid of success. And perfectionism is a mask that we wear. It's a mask that we wear so that we don't have to truly come in contact with our fears. Putting your art out there and all of that is vulnerable. We don't want to allow ourselves to be vulnerable. And so I say, oh no, it's not ready yet because I'm a perfectionist. Right? And perfectionism is correlated to depression, anxiety, addiction, because we try to be perfect and it's literally impossible to be perfect.

Perfectionism is self-destructive. It is an unattainable goal. Remember this quote, done is better than perfect. Getting something done is better than having it perfect. Also, another thing you got to do is you got to stop numbing. What do I mean by this? You got to stop drinking, smoking, keeping yourself busy on Instagram and phone and everything that you're doing. That's numbing because people stay too busy so that they don't have to truly feel the feelings of life. Whatever that is, the fact

that they're not opening up, the fact that they don't feel loved, the fact that they don't want to be judged by people, the fact that they're not living the life that they want to. So they numb, they drink, they smoke. They're always on their phone. They're always watching Netflix. People keep themselves busy so that the truth won't catch up with them. People smoke and drink and eat and all of those things to minimize their feelings, number one, but also to minimize the feeling of vulnerability. And I don't just mean alcoholics. I mean the casual, take the edge off drinker, or I need to come home and have a glass of wine because work was stressful today. You're using alcohol as a crutch to not work through your

actual emotions. Oh, I'll just have a piece of cake to relax. I deserve it for such a hard day. I'm sorry to say it, but that is actually hiding. Instead of processing what happened, instead of actually working through what happened or all of the hard work or the way that you feel because of all of the hard work, because of the fact that your boss was a freaking a-hole today at work, instead of processing those emotions, you have a glass of wine instead. You numb. have a glass of wine instead. You numb. Numbing the real world because the real world is too much for us to handle. So if we can start doing these steps, if we can start thinking about how we can bring these walls down, then we can start thinking about real connection between us and other people. Because what makes us human, what makes us different from other species is our ability to make deep emotional connections. We as humans are hardwired to want to be connected to others

emotionally, spiritually, physically. We want to be seen. We want to be felt. We want to be heard. We want to be valued. We want to give. And we also want to give and receive without getting any judgment. But in order to do that, you have to learn to become comfortable with vulnerability. You have to learn to stop numbing. You have to learn to be the first one to take that step. It's a necessary thing in order to be truly happy, to allow yourself to open, to be seen, to be vulnerable. Believe that you are enough first, that you have enough as you currently are, and that you are perfect just as you are. In order for you to make deep, lasting relationships, romantic, friendships, acquaintances, work relationships, realize that someone needs

to be vulnerable first and take courage, courage to take the first step. If you're listening to this podcast, you might need to be the first one because the other person might not be listening to this podcast. You have to have courage. Don't be afraid of being looked down on. The one that is vulnerable is never looked down on. They're always seen as courageous and looked up to. Once again, if you see someone that's being vulnerable on TV, you don't go, oh, what a weak person. if you see someone that's being vulnerable on TV, you don't go, oh, what a weak person. If you see someone that's sharing their true, raw, authentic life story, their shit, and they're putting it all out there, you don't go, oh, what a weak person.

You go, oh my God, you know what? I feel you too. And that's the true connection that we all want. But in order for you to open up and be vulnerable with others, you have to open up and be vulnerable with yourself. In order to be accepted by others, you have to accept yourself. I don't mean that you never change and improve, but you accept yourself as you currently are so that you can work forward and become who you truly want to be. Because if you close yourself off to some things, you close yourself off to everything. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please do me a favor.

Share it. Put it on your Instagram stories. Put it on your Facebook stories. You know, I say it every single week and every single episode for the past couple weeks. I love the fact that I can see that you guys are sharing it. And although I can't send you guys all messages because my Instagram would literally block me because I would be sending too many messages in a short period of time, I see every one of you, literally every single one of you every single day that's sharing this on your Instagram and your Facebook stories. So I appreciate you for doing that so that people can learn about this. Because like I said in the

last episode, I don't have NPR. I'm not working at NPR studios. I'm not working in these studios, Fox studios, ESPN studios that spend millions of dollars to get a podcast on. Literally, I'm sitting in my office in my house with a microphone and a computer, and I'm putting this message out there to you. And we only grow when you guys share this message. So I truly, truly appreciate you for sharing it. And if you do share it, go ahead and tag me on Instagram, RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. And I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode, making it your mission to make someone else's day better. I appreciate you, and I hope that you have an amazing day.