The Mindset Mentor - What Do You Worship?

Episode Date: October 8, 2026

What if the thing you’re constantly chasing is actually controlling you? In this episode, I break down the hidden things we unconsciously worship—from money and success to validation, relationships, productivity, and control—and how they can quietly shape our identity and self-worth. I’ll help you uncover what has your attention, create a North Star for the person you want to become, and start building a life around what truly nourishes you. Finish 2026 Strong in this FREE 3-day live challenge. Build your 60-day plan and make the rest of the year count: https://www.finish2026strong.com/register-p The Mindset Mentor™ podcast is designed for anyone desiring motivation, direction, and focus in life. Past guests of The Mindset Mentor include Tony Robbins, Matthew McConaughey, Jay Shetty, Andrew Huberman, Lewis Howes, Gregg Braden, Rich Roll, and Dr. Steven Gundry. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I am your host, Rob Dial. If you have not, you done so hit that subscribe button so you never miss another podcast episode. And if you want to finish this year strong, join my free three-day challenge October 27th to 29th live with me. Here's why. Because most people check out around this time of year, they look at their goals that they've set, they see how far away they are, and then tell themselves that they'll start

over again in January. Don't do that. There's still enough time for you to make real progress this year. you just have to use it. Over these three days, I'm going to teach you how to deprogram and reprogram your identity, how to start taking real action, and also how to start changing your brain to the new you. You're going to get a 60-day roadmap for the rest of 2026 and a workbook so you know exactly what you need to focus on next. To join for free, go to finish 2026 strong.com. Once again, finish 2026 strong.com and I'll see you live on the challenge. Today, we're going to be

talking about the hidden addiction that controls your life. We're going to dive into something that I'm sure many people listening have never thought about before. And that's what I want to do. I want to challenge your thinking. I want you to think outside the box. I want to help you think and see the world differently so that you can see yourself differently so that you can see the world differently so that you can act differently. So that you're not stuck in these same patterns day in, day out. And I promise it will shift your clarity, your power, your purpose, and your peace when you start to realize these unconscious things. You bring them to the surface. and you start to work through them. And so what we're going to talk about today is what you worship.

And I don't mean religion or anything like that. I mean what you actually put in the center of your life, whether you realize it or not. Like you could say, oh, yeah, my children in the center of my life. Cool, maybe, but there's also something that's probably unconsciously behind that as well. And so usually we have something that we put into the center of our lives. And consciously or not, and we kind of worship these things. And everyone worships something. Most people just don't know it. And so most people hear the word worship,

and you start to think of going to church or Bibles or temples or gods or goddesses or something of that sort. That's not what I'm talking about. Whatever might pop up when you hear that word is not what I'm talking about. That's only like one tiny slice of the pie. The truth is that worship isn't

just about religion. Sure, it can be if you want it to be. That's how we're going to be talking about. What I'm talking about, what you worship is what you're putting in the center of the universe, what you're putting your focus and attention on the majority of your days. Because what you focus on and what you give your attention to owns you. It creates your perception of reality. And if it creates your perception of reality, it is actually going to change what you become. in what you get in your life. And more than anything else, like what you become sure, but also what you grant the power to define your worth, I guess you could say.

There's a quote I love by David Foster Wallace, and he said, there's no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And here's the thing to finally realize. You don't get to choose whether or not you're going to worship something. You only get to choose what you're going to worship. going to worship. And so you don't consciously choose most cases until hopefully after this podcast

episode you're going to shift and you're going to consciously choose. Because if you didn't consciously choose what matters to you and what you decide to worship, guess what? The world will choose it for you. And that's already happened to 99% of people listening to this. So what does the world want you to worship? Go through a few of them real quick. Money, things. You know, you'll never feel like you have enough if you worship money, if you're constantly focused on getting money or that's your end goal. That hunger that you have for it, it won't go away. It's only going to get louder. And when you make money, guess what you're going to need more of? Money. So that's one thing that people worship. Another thing that people worship, their body

and looks. And the mirror will become your judge, your jury, your executioner if that's the case. You need to look better. You'll constantly judge yourself. So that's another thing. people worship. Another thing that I've found, intellect, your knowledge. You will always feel like a fraud or like you're not smart enough and you need to learn more and become more worthy because you'll never get to the end of learning because it just goes on forever. Other things that people worship power. You know, if you worship power, then you'll feel weak at certain moments. You'll feel afraid, unsafe. You need to control everything in your life for other people to soothe your fear. You'll always feel like you need more power in some sort of way. And so these things are these, these soul

sucking worship habits. They don't devour you all at once. They just kind of slowly eat away to hit you quietly. So I want to dive deeper into these and give you some examples of what I see that people tend to worship in their lives, especially unconsciously. And let's see if maybe from this, you can start to go, oh, I'm noticing myself here. So the first one, I said it a minute ago, but money. Why? Because money feels like safety. And for a lot of people who didn't have a safe childhood, they want to create safety in their adulthood. And a lot of people equate money with safety. Like when I'm speaking this, I'm speaking from 100% experience from me growing up as a child to me being an adult until I finally woke up to this. Because money feels like safety. It feels like freedom.

It feels like power all rolled into one. So if you worship safety, if you worship freedom, if you worship power, any of those, it's a good chance you might have money at the center of your universe. Whether you think you do or not, you might unconsciously have it there. You also might consciously have it there as well. Many people do. I see this all the time with people. We think, like, once I have enough money, I'll finally relax. Then work that way. But, you know, what's enough, for instance? Because the bar always moves. And you have to understand this. You don't worship the money, like the actual physical paper that's in front of you. You worship what you think it will solve in your life. And if you worship it for too long, you won't really understand how to

get out of the pattern of the worship. I was reading a Reddit post a couple weeks ago, and it was in the subreddit rich, where people who are quote unquote rich go in and they talk about different things, what they like, what they don't like, what they struggle with all of us. And there's just one person I was reading, and you're going to be like, oh my God, boo fucking who for this guy. But I'm just going to tell you what he said. He said some of the lines, he was worth $55 million. and he was worried about retiring, and he couldn't figure out how to turn it off. And we will be right back. And now, back to the show.

What happened was his greatest strength became his greatest weakness. So he made a whole bunch of money. That was the strength of his, but it's also his weakness. He doesn't know how to turn it off. And so people think that they'll stop when they hit a number. This guy had $55 million in net worth and couldn't figure out how to stop because his worry drove him to be a certain way. So, yeah, maybe money's the thing that you worship.

Maybe worrying is the thing that you worship. If you go to money, like one of my favorite quotes that around money is Bob Marlin, he says, money is just numbers and numbers never end. If it takes money to be happy, your search for happiness will never end. So you will never really get there if that's the thing that you want. So maybe you should start figuring out something else that you want to worship outside of that. So that's one thing that I see that's very, very common, especially in our Western world, And so is this next one, number two, which is achievement and success.

Once again, I've been in this bucket. Why? Because we're taught that from very early age that gold stars and stickers create your worthiness. You know, it's ingrained into us in school. Get a gold star turns into get good grades. Get good grades turns into make sure you graduate with good grades. Graduate turns into make sure you make six figures. Make sick figures.

Turns into buy a nice car. It turns into buy a nice house. Turns into get more likes on social media, whatever it is. And so you might develop this inward hustle like your life depends on it. Because part of your identity actually does depend on it. And part of your self-worth comes from your achievement and success. And maybe that came from childhood or maybe it came for the fact that you felt like your only time you ever got love from your father was when you achieve something. or in school or whatever it might be.

And it's ingrained into you. That's not what you want to worship because you'll never be happy. You'll never get to the end of achievement. You never get to the end of success. The same way you'll never get to end of money because money never ends. Right.

So that's another thing that I see. Another thing that's very common is body yourself image, the way that you look, the way that your body looks, the way it's your face looks, the way that you dress, which you present yourself to other people. Why?

Because being attractive in our culture, but also in your own mind might mean validation for yourself. So you don't feel necessarily worthy. So when you get validation for other people, it makes you feel more worthy. And sure, some people are working out for health, but most people are not working out for health.

It might be a piece of it, but the majority of that is approval. So some sort of approval that they want from it, or some sort of attention that they want from it, or control, or to feel like you're worthy because you feel like you're unworthy. I used to work out when I was younger just because I hated the way that I looked

and I was real skinny and linky, and I wanted to get bigger. So it was like, I kind of worship that for a little while. And when your reflection in the mirror doesn't match your ideal, it'll wreck your day. And so that's a form of worshiping in some sort of way. So you go to the gym more or you diet again or you put on more makeup and you say, oh, but I like putting on makeup. There's nothing wrong to put on makeup. I don't want you to think that. But you might be putting on makeup because there's a deep-seated unworthiness the way that you look without makeup. Because maybe what you look like defines your own self-worth. and the world, it's really cruel because everybody ages.

And that beauty will eventually turn into wrinkles. And if you worship the way that you look in the mirror, you're going to have a really tough time as you start to get older. And then you want to fix and you want to cut and go under the knife and get surgery and get stuff pulled back or stuff removed. I don't know what people do now. Day stuff shot into your face. And so all to show that you can't worship something like that.

So the universe has created this moment where it's like, your beauty that you worship will eventually disappear to show you that there's something else that you should worship. Another thing that people worship is intellect, being smart or being right. Why? Because knowledge gives this false sense of control. It feels like safety. It feels like it makes you smarter than somebody else. It gives you some sort of power maybe. And so maybe you obsess over knowing more or being known as the expert or winning every single argument. You might be worshiping your intellect in some sort of way. But if you do, it might come

with this constant imposter syndrome and this fear of being exposed and not being smart enough. Why? Because you'll never know everything. There's always going to be someone else that's smarter than you. They will. And just as money never ends, knowledge never ends as well. And so you've got to start to look at yourself and be like, is that something that I worship? Maybe you do, maybe don't. Another thing that people worship as well is romantic love and relationships and what somebody else will give me by being in a relationship with them. Why? Because love promises to fill that empty space inside. If you notice a lot of these things I'm talking about worshiping comes back to your own self-worth. And oh yeah, if I make money, it'll fix my self-worth. If I look better, it'll fix myself worth. If I get into a relationship and somebody finds me loves me and I find my other half, then it'll fix my lack of self-worth. So you might find a partner or cling to a partner. or a crush or even an idea of finding the one like your soul depends on it. Like you're lost without this person. So you've made them your source. You've made not even necessarily the person a lot of times, but just the idea of having that person that loves you. You've made them a source of your

happiness. You've made them your savior, your God in some sort of way. That's way too big of a responsibility for another fallible person to try to live up to. And so maybe that's a part of it. It's like, oh, yeah, I'm not good enough. I won't finally be there until I get into a relationship. And then, you know, people get into a relationship and they get married and they're like, that's still, I still have found the end of it. So like, maybe I need kids to fill this self-worth hole that I have. So that's another thing that people really go after. Another thing that people really go after in worship, validation. This is the reason why social media attention, is so insane right now and why people really are just like addicted to it. Why? Because dopamine

hits from getting likes on social media or seeing other people stuff, it's easier than working on your self-worth. So you worship the likes and you worship the followers and you post something and then you check to see how many likes you got two minutes later. It's sneaky and it feels like really harmless but your worth and your piece are tied to that screen. That's dangerous. That's not what you want to be worshipping. Maybe another thing that you worship is control or certainty. Why? Because, you know, life feels really chaotic. And it is chaotic. It's just the universe is chaotic. Things are made and stars are made by things slamming into each other and exploding. Right. Everything is chaotic. That is one of the biggest truths. And it always will be chaotic in the

entire universe. And so when you want to control things, it feels like you're protecting in some sort of way. So you might micromanage your schedule or you might micromanage your schedule or you might micromanage every person that you work with or the employees that you have or you need everyone to behave your way in the house. So you've made order your religion in some sort of way. But it'll never be that way. Real life is messy. And if uncertainty comes, it'll wreck you. That's for sure. And so maybe you've also made another thing that's you with a lot of people is busyness or productivity. I've definitely fit into this one before is something that you worship. Why? Because being busy means you're important, right? You're doing something important. So you can't sit still. You feel your

calendar. You feel guilty for resting. I've done all of this. I'm definitely in this category as well. I've removed myself from it and been working at it for years, which is what's great. But it's not about time management. It's about worth management. So you're always checking on the clock and trying to do more and you're busy, busy, busy, busy, busy. Got to be productive, right? Because it's like, oh, that shows that I'm important. shows some form of self-worth. Another thing, and last thing I'll cover before I keep going deeper into, I just want to try to hopefully give you ideas is your victim story or your past pain story. You know, why? Because it's familiar. And your identity loves familiarity,

but you attach this and it gives you some sort of, oh, you replay the trauma, the betrayal, the thing that they did to you. Because it makes you feel like, oh, they did it to me. This story makes me feel important. It gives you some sort of meaning. So you worship the wound, because you haven't learned how to live without it yet. There's a million different things that we worship. All of the stuff I covered, fame, hustle culture, perfection, status, your children, your trauma, celebrity figures, political ideologies, oh my God, that's a big one, political, oh, I'm this group or I'm that group, your career, science, whatever it might be. So going through all of this, you start to think to yourself, all right, well, that makes sense. But what?

What should I worship? Well, this is for you to figure out. Let's be real. This isn't me saying like, hey, you need to go find God or you need to find a religion. It's me saying if you don't pick something that is life-giving to you to anchor yourself, your soul to what you're trying to create in the world, the world is going to hand you a bunch of options that slowly eat you a lot. You need to figure out what it is that you want to worship. Because if you're, you've gone, you know, like I went for productivity and for safety and for money

and all those things because I thought what it was going to give me. It didn't. And, you know, what you want to find is something that actually nourishes you versus depletes you. It could be, yeah, maybe for some of you, a higher power or spiritual practice that humbles you and can actually something bigger. It might be also service to others. It could be tiny acts of love and good deeds and unseen, unsexy things that you do. You do things for other people just because it makes you feel good and you get to do it for other people and it makes them feel good. Maybe you decide to worship a core set of values that you create like compassion or patience or courage or truth. even the simple awareness that you're not the center of the universe

because everybody acts at their center of the universe. Oh, this person's driving slow in front of me. Oh, are they in your way or are you in their way? And so this is about you figuring out what means the most to you and who you want to be. So many people don't have a North Star that guides them through their entire life. Like if you don't have a North Star that's like, this is who I am, this is who I want to be,

these are my traits, my habits, my quality. how I want to interact with myself, the world, all of that. If you don't have a north star of what you're trying to build, you'll never really know where you're going. And so I want you to think about this. I just want to say it as real freedom in your life isn't getting everything that you want. Real freedom is self-awareness, is growing yourself, is the power to pay attention to yourself, to notice when your attention is going to something that you don't want it to be. It's noticing when you get stuck in a feeling or a thought pattern. And the ability to look at that and be like, well, that's not who I want to be.

And I want to live intentionally. I want to get out of this pattern. I want to not be living on autopilot. And to become aware of the unconscious patterns that we get stuck in, these things that we unconsciously worship. Like some people unconsciously worship going and climbing the corporate ladder. So they're stuck in the rat race. And then they realize at some point in time, hopefully, that the rat race isn't a job.

it's a mindset. It's an unconscious mindset that somebody worships that's kind of at the expense of your soul. And so what do you worship? What do you want to worship? You need to ask yourself stuff like, what do I constantly think about? What do I fear I'm losing? What do I worry about? What do I chase when I feel like I'm unworthy? How do I see myself spending my time most of the days? Because whatever that thing is, that's like your God. That's the thing that's your worship. That's your altar. right that's where your soul is bowing whether you realize it or not and i've been there through almost every one of the categories that i've told you that we went through earlier for years i unconsciously worship success or money or validation or safety or social media following and it worked for a while

until it didn't i got to a point where i had the income i had the freedom i had the comfort i had everything that i had every single thing that i ever wanted in my life and it still felt like something was missing. Every box was checked. Still didn't fulfill me. And that's what I realized that I had unconsciously built a throne for a false God that could never give me what I needed. So that's when I started questioning myself. And it was kind of like a dark night of a soul moment. I started shifting my focus. Hey, how can I contribute to the world? What would make me fulfilled? What would make me feel like I can, I'm doing something good in this world? What do I want my life to be built around? I started thinking about contributing and coaching people and helping people wake up, you know,

who I want to be, how I want to act, what my purpose is, deciding for myself why I'm alive. And to choose that. Like, we all have the ability to choose that. For me, it woke me up from a lot of stuff and it changed everything. And it changed the way that I see the world and everything that I do I see from a different perspective now. And so I really want you to think about this. Like, you're worshiping something.

And maybe through this episode, you've been like, oh, my God. I notice that I'm worshipping this, this, and this. Maybe you're listening and you're like, I'm not really sure. Okay, well, sit around and think about it. What's the majority of your focus in your day go to? Because we'll become whatever it is that we worship. We'll become like that thing. And so the question isn't like, what do I worship?

The question really should be is what I worship worthy of my time, attention, in my soul, because that's really what we become. And so what I want you to think about is where does that focus? where does that time, where is that attention go to? Is it, is it money? Is it success? Is it worries? Is it fears that pop up in your life? Because those things are owning you. And so what's really best thing to do is to take a step back out of your head and to create that north star of who you want to be, how you want to act, what your characteristics, traits, where your life is going. And have that be the thing that you start to create your life around. So that's what I got for you for today's

episode. If you love this episode, please share it with so much you know and love. And once again, if you're out there and you're ready to finish this year strong so that you set yourself up for a great 2027, join my free three-day live finish 2026 Strong Challenge. Once again, all you got to do is go to finish 2026 Strong.com. Register for free and I'll see you live on the challenge. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way. I leave you every single episode. Making sure your mission to make somebody else's day better. I appreciate you and I hope that you have an amazing day.