The Mindset Mentor - Why Self Belief Is the Only Skill That Matters

Episode Date: September 23, 2026

Have you ever wondered if you’ve lost yourself by becoming the person you thought you needed to be for others? In this episode, I’ll show you how childhood conditioning, relationships, society, and the need for acceptance can pull you away from your true self—and why losing yourself can become the beginning of rediscovering who you really are. I’ll walk you through how to identify where you’ve changed yourself for others, reconnect with your values, and start becoming more of the person you truly want to be. Freedom Live is a 3-day live experience in Austin designed to help you break through what’s keeping you from your next level. Get $100 off your ticket: https://robdial.short.gy/freedomlive 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 yet done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. And if you feel like you've been stuck in the same place for the past few years, you're stuck because of patterns that you cannot see, unconscious patterns that you lived in childhood. And in three days at my Freedom Live event in Austin, Texas, in December, we're going to find those patterns.

We're going to break them, and we're going to send you home with a 12-month plan to live as a new person to make 2027 the best year of your life. Prices are about to go up this upcoming Thursday, September 24th, so make sure you grab your tickets now before prices go up. So to grab your ticket, go to Freedom Live26.com. Once again, Freedom Live, 226.com. Today, we're going to be diving into how to actually truly find your true self in who you want to be.

Let's dive in. In today's episode, I'm really going to talk to you about why you really, as a person, and as someone who has an identity and develops a personality, why you actually need to lose yourself in your lifetime so that you can come back around and find yourself, hopefully find yourself in your lifetime. Now, the reason why I say this and the reason why I am hopeful for you is because you have now become aware. If you listen to this podcast, you're somebody who's into personal growth, you're into self-discovery, you're into personal development. And you've gotten to the point where you realize that in order to make your life better, in order to improve your

life, you need to work on yourself. One of the things that you'll find throughout your journey of self-development, I've been on mine now for 19 years, one of the things that you'll find is that it's actually really the path of self-development is really the path of self-discovery, of rediscovering who you truly are and becoming more and more of your truest self. Because when you look at the the journey of life. You are in your truest form at birth. That is a perfect human. Obviously, you know, the baby has nothing. They're as far as like knowledge. They're knowledgeless about this world, but they're perfect. They haven't been changed. They haven't been told that they're not good enough, not smart enough, not pretty enough. They haven't developed thoughts because thoughts come from

language and they haven't developed any of that. So they are kind of in it, their purest form as a human. And as I mentioned in the last episode, as time goes on, we are changed from our truest self. We are changed by our parents. We are changed by society. We are changed by our peers. We are changed by ourselves comparing ourselves to other people. We're changed by seeing advertisements in thinking to ourselves, damn, I must not be good enough. So I need to change myself so that I look more like hers.

They look more like him. Oh, my body doesn't look good enough. and really it kind of turns into this situation where we mold ourselves into somebody that we think we need to be in in order to fit in and in order to be accepted. So we're conditioned and we're socialized to fit in. And that's from, once again, everyone from our parents to every single interaction that we have, things that we see, things that we think, all of that stuff. And so we're conditioned and socialized to fit in, aka we are domesticated, right?

And so what happens is in this case, we break from our true selves and we break away from the truest version of who we are. And honestly, like I said in the last episode, I don't think that there is any other way. I don't think that there's a way to raise a child that doesn't break from their true self. If they're going to be in society, if they're going to be around other people, if they're going to, it's just natural for all of this to happen. And it's also natural for us just to compare ourselves to other people. Breaking away from your true self at childhood and going off of this path of your true self, I believe actually is the most important part to eventually, hopefully, being able to identify who you truly are, and going on that path of rediscovery.

I believe this is how you find yourself, because you cannot find yourself, your true self, and work towards that every single day unless you have lost yourself first. this is just the way that life goes and for me since I became aware of this and got so far off track of who I truly was one day I became aware of this and hopefully you're starting to become aware of this

and hopefully this episode helps to become more aware of it is now my path is not how do I become the best version of myself how do I become better how do I make more money how do I do all of this stuff my thing is how do I start going more and more on the path to become my truest version of myself. Not the path that I, not who I think I should be, not who other people

have told me I should be, not that I was conditioned to think that I should be when I was a child, but like how can I be my truest self no matter what? And I am not there yet, but I have been on this path for years now to try to get back to my truest self. And I think that if I look at myself, and you could probably look at yourself as well, I can think of many times throughout my lifetime where I lost myself. You could probably think of many times in your lifetime where you've lost yourself. You know, I can think of many times where I thought that I should be somebody else and I should be someone that I maybe didn't want to fully be just so I could fit in.

You know, I remember, I've said this before on the podcast, I can remember in middle school the exact moment on the school bus where we were and the exact moment when I said, something that was really mean to another kid on the school bus. And I said it because I thought that other kids would think it was funny. And I felt terrible after, I still feel, you know, 20-something years later, 27 years later, whatever might be, I still feel terrible about it. So I was like, damn, that was such a shitty thing to say. You know, I was like, what, 11 years old, 12 years old?

And I said this thing and I'm like, man, I can't believe I still feel bad about that. And I said it because I just wanted to be accepted. and I didn't feel accepted. Like, why did I want to be accepted? Well, I think if I look at myself and how I was subconsciously as a kid, I think I probably didn't feel accepted by my father fully because he was an alcoholic and because he would not be around. And there was some emotional neglect that came from that.

And so because of the fact that I didn't feel fully accepted there, I wanted to be accepted somewhere else. And so I think that happens for all of us. We all lose ourselves in so many ways throughout. our life and we will be right back. And now back to the show. And we lose ourselves to then have a moment of, is this who I am? Is this who I want to be? Or do I want to be somebody else? You know, we get into relationships and we fall for people who end up hurting us in the long run, right? I'm sure many people listening right now, I've personally done it, have gotten into a relationship with somebody

and we have a pretty good idea, this ain't going to go very well. And they end up hurting us in the long run. And sometimes we change ourselves. Like so many people change who they are in a relationship with somebody in order to fit in order to feel like that person accepts them. And a lot of times people want to change the person that they're in a relationship with. And so we try to change other people. They try to change us.

And we kind of become these like chameleons where, you know, I'm this way in front of this person. I'm this way in front of my mom, and I'm this way in front of my girlfriend, this way in front of other people, and this way in front of my friends. And if we're constantly being somebody else, depending on who we're around, that's not our true self. Our true self would be, and this is why it's a path of rediscovery, we find out who we truly are, and we are that person in front of every single person no matter who they are.

Like, it's not like, oh, you know, I've got to be this way in front of her, I've got to be this way in front of him, I've got to be this way in front of this group of people. oh, I'm on a podcast, I've got to be this way. It's got to be, I need to figure out who I am. And once I figure out who I am, I need to try to stay as firm in that person that I can possibly be. Because we change ourselves.

So think about that. Have you ever lost yourself in a relationship? I'm sure many people have. And so what happens is we lose ourself in the relationship. And then the relationship ends. And then we're like, wait, who the hell am I? I have a friend specifically. She was dating a guy years ago, and he was really into Star Wars.

And she got really into Star Wars. And she went and saw all of the movies and had all of these things. And they were together for like three or four years, whatever it was. And they went through a breakup. And she was like, I fucking hate Star Wars. But she went to all of the things. And she acted like. She tried to make herself like Star Wars.

And she never actually liked Star Wars. And so how many of us do this in so many ways? How many of us, you know, when we're in middle school, we're in high school, we change ourselves and mold ourselves and make ourselves, you know, we're like a chameleon like everybody else. We wear the same things as them. We talk the same way. We have the same interests as them in high school and middle school so that we fit in with a group of people so that they will once again accept us.

You know, like in high school, I used to smoke a lot of weed, even though I never really liked the way that I felt because I hung out with all of the surfers and everything. everybody did, right? And so I was like, all right, I guess this is just, I guess this is what we do. You know, and so I did it, even though I didn't really like how I felt. So it was me, like just putting myself and saying, hey, I'm going to be this way. Can you guys all accept me? Right? And then I took that that smoking and drinking and all that stuff and I carried it into college. And I was drinking and partying like crazy because that's what everybody did. When in reality, I think what I was really just doing, and I think this is what a lot of us do, in reality, I was just drinking and partying

to numb the fact that I didn't feel like I knew who I was anymore. I was numbing the fact that I think a lot of us numb and struggle with self-acceptance because our truest self that's deep down below all of that conditioning that we've had, our truest self doesn't accept our conditioned self. So like our conditioned self is who we've grown ourself into. Our true self is who we truly are from birth, and we know this person's behind the scenes. It's like that voice that's in the back of your head, that intuition. I think the truest self is actually doesn't accept our condition self. And so what happens a lot of times is we numb ourselves. And in all of those things in life, and there's so many of them that happen over and over and over again,

thousands of times throughout, I'm sure our childhood, adolescence, you know, college, high school, all of that. All of them are super freaking hard. Like they're incredible. hard to go through those, to go through some of those. But the important thing is, is they are incredible lessons if we allow them to be. The problem is that I don't think most people understand this. I don't think most people understand that all of those tough moments where we do lose ourselves, where we do get kicked out of the crowd, where we do get made fun of for being a certain way, whatever it might be. I don't think enough people understand that those are lessons. And even if you didn't extract the lesson in that moment, like sometimes somebody does,

does break up with you, you realize you've lost yourself and you go, you know what, screw this. I'm going to be alone for six months and I'm going to rediscover who I truly am. Sometimes we do do that. But sometimes you go through and you might have been broken up with or had a terrible breakup six years ago. And you can now look back and say, okay, it's been six years. How did I lose myself? Who did I become? Do I want to be this person? Do I want to change this person? What is my truest self want to do? I think that we need to get completely lost in order to find ourselves. And what we need to do is we need to lose like every piece of who we are in order to build ourselves back up from scratch and say, hold on, let me let me, let me just wipe this

slate clean. Let me figure out who I am. You know, I didn't realize this until I was in my 30s. And most people are, we just do what we're told. You know, we're in school and before school, we just do what our parents tell us to do. And we get into school and in first grade, they say, hey, you've got to get good grades so you can get into second grade. And then you've got to get good grades. You've got to be a good boy and girl, so you can get into third grade. And then you get into middle school. And you've got to get your grades in middle school, so you can get a high school.

And you definitely got to get great grades in high school so you can get into a college, right? And you can get into a good college. And then you've got to do really well in college so that you can get a good job. And then once you get a good job, then you can climb the corporate router. So you've got to do really good. And we just kind of, we kind of just follow this path. We kind of do what we're told or do what we feel we're supposed to be doing based off of what all of society is reflecting back to us. And at some point in time, we wake up and we're like, what the fuck am I doing with my life?

This is where a midlife crisis comes from. Is people wake up and say, what am I doing? How did I get here? I don't want this. You know, they just wake up one day and they have a life that they feel like they didn't want or create for themselves. They just kind of followed the herd. And that is a really, really hard moment. but the moment is a moment of transformation if they let it be.

And that's what we really have to stop looking externally, and we really have to start searching internally. You know, what parts of the old me of my conditioned self need to die? It's like, it's like, you know, shedding of a skin. A snake needs to shed its skin as much as it possibly can. You know, like I remember, and I've told this before on the podcast, one of the most life-changing conversations I ever had with was with one of my first mentors, Matt. And I was running an office for this company that had 700 offices.

We were the number one office in the United States. We were killing it. The company was like a $250 million year company, and we were number one out of 700 and some odd offices. I was 21. I thought it was just hot shit. I thought I was killing. I thought I was awesome. And he calls me up.

He's like, hey, can we go get lunch? I'm like, yeah, we meet at Chipotle. We sit down in like immediately. he wasn't he was very short to the point but said it with love he's like hey i don't know how to tell you this but a lot of people don't like you i was like what like in my mind i'm killing i'm like running in a born office i thought i was great he's like a lot of people don't like you because uh because you present yourself uh in a way that is not who you truly are like this was a conversation where he made me realize i was not being my truest self he's like i know your heart i know who you are

and you don't present that to other people. And I think it's because you're afraid of being vulnerable. And so my whole thing was I would show, you know, I would say things that were a little bit more brash and would kind of cut people deep so that therefore they wouldn't come back and cut me because I was so vulnerable and so weak and so afraid of being wounded that I was like, I'm going to hurt you first so you don't hurt me. And I was protecting myself because my sense of self-worth was so fragile. And I started thinking of like, oh my God, do I want to be a person?

that person? How did I get this way first off? Like I was thinking that. I was like, how did I become this way? Is that who I truly am? Is this who I want to be? No, like this part of me needs to shut off. I need to get rid of this. And it wasn't like a get rid of it one day kind of thing. That part of me has been falling away for that conversation was, you know, now 16 years ago. So 16 years, I'm just, just continue to keep shedding it, right? Because I was 21 of the time. So that's 21 years of building up. And so I'm slowly still shedding it. And, you know, it's crazy how many ways we lose ourselves. You know, so many of us lose ourselves to and become somebody that we need to be for our parents and for society.

And so many of us lose ourselves in romantic relationships and, you know, become somebody that we're not hoping to please the other person. And you lose yourself and then you have to refine yourself. And it's all of this is just a path of rediscovering who you truly are. You know, have you ever lost yourself in a relationship with a family member where you have to act a certain way with your mom? because you know how she's going to react. You have to act their way with your dad. And make sure you don't cuss in front of grandma and all of this. Have you ever lost yourself in friendships where you become a chameleon to everyone else around you?

And then you end up not liking yourself. Or you become a chameleon in a job and you've got to be a certain way so that you're accepted. And you have to make sure you get a certain job title like that actually matters. Or you go and get a degree that you don't want because your parents told you to or because everyone that's that's looks like you has the same one or if you don't if you're not a doctor or a lawyer you're a failure or you know you're a guy so you should do this or you're a female show you should do this and we have all of these things of what we think we should do and think we should be versus actually just checking it with ourselves and saying

who am i truly and who do i want to be and so really the way that you actually start to to to find yourself is to first off the the first way like if you're driving your car the first way to realize and start to get on the right path is to realize, oh my gosh, like, I'm way off course. I need to get back on course. So the first thing you need to become aware of is like, have I lost myself in some ways? And if you have, okay, great, you know, we can work through that. We can start to, it's a process. We can do it. And you start to ask yourself, like, how have I lost myself? Have I changed myself for other people? And then in reality, who do I truly want to be? You know, and start thinking about like if I were to be able to be at my funeral, and I were to see what's being said about me at the eulogy,

what would I want people to say about me? What would I want people to say about my, not about what my job title was or how much money I made or how much I did, you know, had cars or clothes or whatever it might be, houses in certain locations, you don't want that. That's not what you want people say about you at your funeral. None of that matters.

What are the characteristics? What are the habits? What are the traits? How did you make people feel? And start to develop this version of yourself of like, this is who I feel like I truly am. These are my values. These are my characteristics, my traits that I say,

this is who I know. It feels true inside of my body that I truly am. And then what you do is you wake up and you look at that list and you become more of that every single day. And if you do that every single day and you become a little bit more, a little bit more, a little bit more, eventually you'll fast forward in five or ten years from today and you'll actually be the person that you want to be

and be the person that you truly are, not the person that you've been conditioned to be. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, you will absolutely love my three-day in-person event in Austin, Texas. If you've been stuck for a while at the same place the past few years, it's not because you lack talent or because you lack drive. You are stuck because of the patterns that you cannot see that were built into you in childhood. And in three days at Freedom Live in Austin, Texas, we're going to find them, we're going to break them. And I'm going to send you home with a 12-month plan to make 2027 the best year of your life. The prices are

about to go up this Thursday, September 24th. So if you've been thinking about coming with us, come on and join us before the prices go up. Go to Freedom Live26.com for more information. Once again, Freedom Live, 226.com. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way to 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.