The Mindset Mentor - The Spotlight Effect

Episode Date: July 8, 2019

Episode 616 - What you focus on magnifies. We've all heard it before but how do we truly use this wisdom? In this episode, I am going to teach you how to stop focusing on what you don't want and start focusing on what you really want in your life. Follow me on Instagram: 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 the Mindset and Motivation Podcast, one of the top motivational podcasts in the world. Every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, we come out with a short, to the point, no BS episode to help make massive changes in your mind and transform you from who you are now to who you want to be. My name is Rob Dial, and the podcast starts now. so that you never miss another episode. And last but not least,

if you do not follow me on Instagram, actually about 600 people followed me since the last episode on Instagram. They came over from the podcast. So if you don't follow me on Instagram yet, you want some extra motivational videos, quotes, pictures, information, all of that good stuff, Instagram stories, follow me on Instagram.

That's where I spend most of my time in social media, even though I have 15 times more followers on Facebook than Instagram. Instagram is where I personally spend most of my time there. So if you want to follow me, go ahead and follow me. My handle is at RobDialJr, R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. So just follow me on there. Once again, RobDialJr. And let's go ahead and dive into today's episode. Whatever you tend to focus on in life, you will get more of. Our brain is an extremely advanced tool, but it's also 2 million years old. So if you know what it's going to do and you understand how it works, you can then hack your brain to help you be more successful.

Let me give you an example of what I mean. Our brain has something that they like to call the spotlight effect. The spotlight effect is that your brain will focus on one thing and find everything else that's around it that proves it true. So let me give you an example and the reason why this exists. If it was 50,000 years ago and we were walking down a path and we saw a lion in a bush, our immediate thing to do would be look at that bush, see everything that's happening around it, try to figure out if there's other lions and get as many associations and as many things as we possibly can to get the information that we need to from it. It's a spotlight effect.

Our brain will go directly towards that lion, that bush, and think everything that it possibly can. And this is why, this is a very useful tool, but this is why if you ever think about it, you can think about one negative thought and then you just go into a spiral of negative thoughts. Your brain will spotlight whatever you decide to focus on. This is why if you buy a new car, you never see that car, but then you see it everywhere after you buy it. So you can use the spotlight effect to your advantage if you want. Most people ask themselves questions whenever something bad happens to them of, why does this always happen to me? Why do I always screw up? Why is this always my fault?

Because you will get, the way your brain works is you will get whatever you ask of it. It will be able to find all of the answers that you need. So if you ask it the question, if you use the spotlight effect of why do I always screw up, it's going to tell you all of the ways that you screw up. If you think, why does this always happen to me? It's going to give you all of the reasons why it happens to you. And so what you have to do by using the spotlight effect is flip your question and have a better question to now ask yourself. So if you have something negative happen, you ask yourself the question, use the spotlight effect, what good can come from this?

Use the spotlight effect and ask yourself the question, what can I learn from this situation? See, because here's the deal. If you understand why your brain works the way it does, our brain is an amazing tool, but it's also 2 million years old. So there's a lot of things that it does that doesn't necessarily help us be successful. Your brain does not care about you being successful. It doesn't care about you being happy. All it's trying to do is keep you alive. And that's it. So it's got these different patterns and ways that it works.