The One You Feed - Aaron Anastasi

Episode Date: April 12, 2016

This week we talk to Aaron Anastasi about not listening to the voices that hold us backAaron Anastasi is a Southern California native who graduated with a master’s degree from Princeton where he studied philosophy and psychology.He’s also a serial entrepreneur with online businesses such as Superior Songwriting Method, Signing Success, and the internationally recognized, Superior Singing Method, an online singing lesson program that grosses seven-figures annually.Having a love for adventure, he was a pro snowboarder in Vail, Colorado, scaled Glacier Lake mountains in Bolivia, and cut pathways through the jungles of Contagem, Brazil.Along with being a Los Angeles based actor and filmmaker, Aaron is also a prominent success coach for clients in industry-leading roles, ranging from film directors to marine biologists to TEDx speakers. His new book, The Voice of Your Dreams,was recently released.In This Interview, Aaron Anastasi and I Discuss:The One You Feed parableThe limiting voices in our headThe "You don't have what it takes" voiceInstead of asking "Do I have what it takes" ask "Do I have the capacity to find the resources I need to be successful"The fixed vs growth mindset, againHow the limiting voices often appear as realityHow inspiration and passion often arise while we are in actionWaiting on inspiration is a mistake and a misunderstanding of how it worksThe importance of just getting started- the hardest part is right before we startBreaking things down to very small chunks to help us get startedRecovering from pessimismThe old Hemmingway trick- Finishing while you still have one idea leftFor more show notes visit our websiteSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The mind projects how fearful something's going to be, this kind of worst-case scenario thing, automatically, but we can get over that through these small actions. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true. And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.

But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. This January, join me for our third annual January Jumpstart series. Starting January 1st, we'll have inspiring conversations to give you a hand in kickstarting your personal growth.

If you've been holding back or playing small, this is your all-access pass to step fully we'll have inspiring conversations to give you a hand in kick-starting your personal growth. If you've been holding back or playing small, this is your all-access pass to step fully into the possibilities of the new year. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Aaron Anastasi. He's a Southern California native who graduated with a master's degree from Princeton, where he studied philosophy and psychology. He's also a serial entrepreneur with online businesses such as Superior Songwriting Method, Singing Success, and the internationally recognized Superior Singing Method, an online singing program that grosses

seven figures annually. Having a love for adventure, he was a pro snowboarder in Vail, Colorado. He scaled Glacier Lake Mountains in Bolivia and cut pathways through the jungles of Brazil. Along with being a Los Angeles-based actor and filmmaker, Aaron is also a prominent success coach for clients in industry-leading roles, ranging from film directors to marine biologists and even TEDx speakers. His new book, The Voice of Your Dreams, was recently released. Here's the interview. Hi, Aaron. Welcome to the show. Thank you, Eric. I appreciate you having me. I'm honored. I love your podcast. Thanks so much. We're glad to have you. We will get into your forthcoming book, The Voice of Your Dreams,

here shortly, but let's start like we always do with the parable. There's a grandfather who's talking with his grandson, and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One's a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other's a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandson stops and he thinks about it for a second. Then he looks up at his grandfather and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do? Yeah, the work that I do centers

and the book that I wrote that you mentioned, it centers a lot around these limiting voices that we have. And the idea that we have these recurring voices that go on in our mind, these tapes that repeat themselves over and over and over again. Common ones for me would be, you don't have what it takes. You're too far behind. There's no reason to pursue that. You're not going to be successful. You're dumb. I mean, any number of those kinds of things are ones that I've dealt with at one time or another. So to me, the limiting voices, I would say the limiting voices are the evil wolf and the more true voices are the ones that would be the good wolf. I've got a chapter in my book called The Truth About You.

I have a list on my phone. Literally still, I went over it today. I go over it nearly every single day. And it's things that people have said about me, people I respect in certain industries that have said things about me that I'm insecure about. Maybe it's my acting or my filmmaking or my coaching, whatever it is. And they've said things to the contrary. People I respect and would have no really reason to blow

smoke up my butt. And I write these things down and I go over them almost every day to get re-centered on what's more true about who I am. So we've got these limiting voices that are this in my mind, the wolf, the evil wolf. And then here's what's more true about us getting centered when we're not in that kind of insecure state. What's really true about us. And it helps me become in a better state of mind to be able to get the things that I want in life and be able to serve others better. You have that section in your book. And at one point, you know, you talk about these questions we have, you know, I don't have what it takes or do I have what it takes? And I think that's a great example of a limiting, but extremely, in my experience, both with myself and other people, very common question when we look at trying to do something that

might be a bit beyond the ordinary. What's a good way to deal with that question when we say to ourselves, I don't have what it takes or I don't think I have what it takes? I have seen that it's common with me and my clients as well. And I think it asks the wrong question. It's not really a question. I don't have what it takes or do I have what it takes? I think there's a more resourceful question. And, and I find that when I say, do I have the resources? Do I have the capacity to find the resources necessary to be successful in this endeavor? And so it's never about what is in me right now to be successful in this one thing. It's do I have the capacity to find the resources and do I have the relationships and do I have the

knowledge? And if I don't, where can I go look for it? There's very little that is impossible for us or that we don't have what it takes to do. There just may be some resources that we need to gather or people that we need to talk to in order to get the ball rolling toward that thing. Yeah. The idea of the fixed versus the growth mindset comes up again and again on this show. And this, you know, I don't have what it takes or the question version of that assumes that there's a certain set thing inside you that won't grow, won't expand, won't become better. It's like I'm kind of, I am what I am. I'm as good as I'm going to be and I'm going to stay that way.

Yeah, yeah, which is that limiting voice. And the really insidious thing about limiting voices is they occur to us. We don't realize these limiting voices oftentimes are happening and are affecting our behavior and our automatic responses. And so they occur to us as reality. The tapes that are going on our head oftentimes occurs to us as this is reality and this is what's true. And then our actions follow what we think is real. And then, of course, our results become what they become, whether we believe those and follow

through with them or we choose to have a different story. Right. They're usually presented very realistically. Yeah. Oh yeah. Come on, be realistic, you know, be realistic, you know, you know, you don't, et cetera. As I started to read your book, one of the things that jumped out right away is very much a theme that, that we talk about a lot on the show. And I'm going to just read a couple lines from your book to sort of set the stage and maybe you can elaborate from there. You say that inspiration and passion most often arise while we're in action, getting busy doing whatever it is that we insist we want to do so badly. Sitting and waiting for inspiration to strike reveals a misunderstanding of this truth.

The inspiration we're waiting for before we start is on the other side of starting. ways, and I talk about a lot of different ways in the book, but one of the primary ways that I find to limit, to limit, to quiet, to silence those limiting voices is just to get into action. What can I start doing, whether I feel like it or not, that will get me into action? Because the hardest part is just before we start. So if we can get beyond that starting point, we begin to get some momentum and some excitement and some inspiration on the other side of that. And what I find is before we start. So if we can get beyond that starting point, we begin to get some momentum and some excitement and some inspiration on the other side of that. And what I find is really helpful is to just commit to very, very small chunks of time at a time. So, okay, I'll do this, but just for two minutes, five minutes, whatever it is, just a small amount, just to get me started.

Once I'm in, I'll write or whatever it is that I'm doing, I'll do it for hours because it ends up silencing the voice and I realize, oh, this isn't as scary as I thought. You know, the mind projects how fearful something's going to be, this kind of worst case scenario thing automatically, naturally, but we can get over that through these small actions. Yeah. I mean, I think if I was going to name one thing that I learned that did more to change my ability to accomplish things in life, it was probably that. It was learning to name one thing that I learned that did more to change my ability to accomplish things in life. It was probably that. It was learning to break down things that felt overwhelming into incredibly small things and essentially trick myself into getting started.

That's absolutely right. It just makes such a big difference. And I think the other thing about that that you were just hinting at is that I had this conversation with somebody today, a pretty long conversation. He kept bringing up all these different things in his head, all these various permutations on him thinking about something. And the answer every time was, well, why don't you just, instead of thinking about what's going on in your head or thinking about yourself, why don't you get back to what you are working on? Why don't you put your attention back into this moment right now, what you're focusing on? Because any version of those things that are going on in your head are all a distraction from what actually matters in this moment, which is the thing that's right in front of you.

Right. Once we get into action, that inspiration starts coming. And also it's a form of a declaration. I think declarations and commitments and visions, having a vision for a life and a commitment, a declaration, there's a goal that that thing that we're after, that is a form of a declaration that creates a new reality for us to live into. So if we're living into the reality, because I believe that we live into the future that we see coming toward us. So if the future we see coming toward us is just a repackaged bandage version of the past failures or whatever, then that's oftentimes what we get. Whereas if we make a commitment and a declaration like this is what I'm going after, I'm committed to going after this rather than saying, oh, this is scary,

or this is bad, or I'm not going to be able to do this. That's a form of a declaration, just like a declaration is, I'm going to sit down tomorrow at 2 p.m. and write two pages on this book is a declaration. One gets us one result, one gets us another result. Yeah, the thing about this stuff that's such a pain in the ass is that it's like, we do it today, like I did it, I got started, I was moving, and then, you know, very often, it's the same battle tomorrow. Absolutely. Which I know these lessons. I know that once I start, it's going to be better. Why this consistent resistance? Do you have any sense of why that resistance just comes back over and over to a lot of us? A couple of things come to mind.

People oftentimes, my clients all find that, because I'm also a coach, like a life coach, success coach. And I find that a lot of my clients, they will talk about, I'm just not that kind of person or that's not my personality. And I'm a big proponent of using our personality to victimize ourself into believing that we're only capable of certain things. It doesn't fly. What we are is a compilation of habits, generally speaking. So I think that it comes back over and over. I call myself a recovering pessimist. I remember I was doing a lot of work. One of the chapters in my book is about optimism and pessimism. And I asked my wife, I said, would you consider me an optimist or a pessimist? She did not hesitate. She said a pessimist, which was, you know, terrible for me to hear at the

time. It was good feedback, but, but what I realized and why it wasn't devastating is that I've okay. If in that moment or in the past days or weeks I've rehearsed the habit of pessimism, I could rehearse the habit of optimism and change my way of thinking and change my way of being and therefore change the results that I get. it's just habitual. It's habitual, like this pessimistic attitude and why these negative things come up are because it has a way of making us feel like, oh, well, if I feel disappointed before I go in and I have a pessimistic attitude about what might happen, then I'll be less disappointed if it doesn't happen. And it's actually true. That does help a little bit like that. But the problem is we end up living a dark cloud life and not getting a lot of the results that we could otherwise get just for that little benefit of slightly less disappointment if things don't work out. Hey, y'all. I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls.

And I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were, how we want to see ourselves and who we know ourselves to be

and who we can be. So a little bit of past, present, and future, all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Jason Alexander.

And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really Know Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal? The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you.

And the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Brian Cranston is with us today. How are you, too? Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park.

Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really, No Really. Yeah, really. No really.

Go to reallynoreally.com. And register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast, or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really, No Really, and you can find it on the iHeartRadio app, on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In the book, you talk about Hemingway, who was known for finishing while he still had one idea left. So that when he came in in the morning, he had something to start with. He knew where to start instead of staring at the blank page. And there's a lot of different tricks like that to sort of make sure that we can get started and get moving. I believe I read that in A Movable Feast. It became just part of my practice every day. So I wouldn't write my last idea. I'd just write the ideas that I had. That last idea, I would jot down

on paper. Next day, I would be excited because I've been looking forward to writing about this one thing. And that would lead to a dozen other things, but always stop with one idea. And it made me a much more prolific writer and made me enjoy the process a lot more as well. I think it's the jotting down that's the key there. You're like, I will remember that for sure. And then I'm like, I have no idea. It's amazing. that for sure. And then I'm like, I have no idea. It's amazing. We talk a lot on the show also about setting really small goals, baby steps. And one of the things that I was thinking about as I was reading, you've got a lot in the book about that. You're clearly a big proponent of that. One of the things that I was thinking about was this idea that sometimes we're shooting for a goal and success feels like accomplishment of that goal. So every step until we get to that goal feels like we're waiting to

be successful. And you really talk about letting success, you say, be defined as a completion of a small goal you set for yourself each day. These goals add up eventually putting you on the path towards the future you were creating, which will become a future worth having and living into. But you're really focusing on celebrating or enjoying or appreciating the fact that you're doing the work today. You're doing that thing that you want to do, that you care about, that matters to you. You're doing it right now, regardless of what result might come three, six, nine months, years, whatever in the future. When I talk to my clients, I first try to find out what is it that they love to do. So because oftentimes the result that we want in our life, I want this result, but I don't enjoy

the process toward that result. I would have to question how much you really love that result and why do you want that? Do you want that because you love doing that thing or because of fame or money or all these other things? To me, if you don't love the process, then you probably won't even love the result because in the result, you'll have to still be doing this process. Exactly. Exactly. Yep. Yeah. I love the idea of celebrating small victories. Like you said, I believe that celebration is a discipline, even a spiritual discipline of stopping and celebrating small victories and allowing success to be the accomplishment of small goals, like you said, over time. But it's this realization of the goals that is success. So today, did I move my goal forward a little bit? Okay,

then today was a success and I'm a success. Yep. I'm a recovering alcoholic and you know, the one day at a time thing really is like, if you went to bed today, not if you went to bed at all, if you went to bed today sober, that's a big success, right? Regardless of whether you stay sober the next month, week, et cetera. You say that I'll quote you again here, the primary operative term is progressive. Success is staying on the path towards your goal little by little. So if you're on the path, you're already achieving success. That's right. It's this progressive realization.

And in fact, I think it was Earl Nightingale that said, success is progressively realizing a worthy ideal. And the thing that is so nice about that, I think, is I think that there is, when we say we're going to do something, we want to do something and then not doing it gives a real sort of sense of internal disease, dis-ease. And so I find that just doing it is oftentimes, like I said, the reward is the fact that I did it because I feel good about myself. And I feel like, to your point, I'm on the right path. And boy, does it feel bad to feel like you're consistently on the wrong path. Absolutely. That reminds me of working out. Like I have a schedule where it's just been habitual over the past several years where I work

out, you know, about five days a week in the morning. I spend about an hour working out. It's nothing crazy, but that to me is such a good analogy because every day I go and work out, I not only feel good that I worked out and that I accomplished one of my goals early on in the day, but working out actually, you know, the serotonin level, it like helps me feel better and think better. And so immediately this process of, let's say I'm trying to lose weight or I'm trying to gain muscle, whatever it is, that goal is great. But if I don't let myself celebrate and hold my happiness, hijack it, you know, hold it until I reach that final goal, it doesn't make any sense. And we see that with working out. We get the benefit immediately from something like that if we love doing the thing and it makes us feel good along the way. Yep. And I would say even with working out, if you don't necessarily love the thing that much for me, I love the way it feels

almost immediately. And the fact of being on the right track, and it's even better when you can find exercise that you love, but I find myself sometimes sliding into a rut where it's the same sort of exercise. But I just know that every morning by, you know, I try and do it first thing in the morning, every morning by, you know, an hour after being awake, I'm like, all right, I feel, you know, I feel much better about where I'm going and what I'm doing. And I love that you said that because that resonates with me, the idea of, I don't always love working out, but I always love the way I feel when I've worked out. And if I can remember that, that's a good motivation to get in there. Yep. That's one of those back to that idea of like, why the resistance? Because I think

literally every time in my life I have worked out afterwards, I say, I'm glad I did that. Like without fail. And yet why does it seem like, why is that still, you would think something that had that much positive result would just be easy. You'd just be like, I'm doing it no matter what. You know, it's just, it cracks me up. So you talk a little bit about not focusing only on the goal or the outside piece, but on who you are, defining who you are. You say that if you define who you are and what you're up to at the outset, whatever you do becomes an outworking of who you are, not an attempt to define their identity. Can you tell us more about that? Yeah.

When I first started my singing program, back then it was called The Singing Guide. It's now called Superior Singing Method. But I created The Singing Guide for a lot of reasons. I wanted passive income. I was a good singer and I was a pretty good teacher. And so I thought this would be a good thing. So I spent a couple of years doing it and we were excited. And my business partners and I, when we launched it, it was an absolute flop. It was a total failure.

And I came to a point with that. I was obviously, you know, it's so many years of work and I was just like, oh, this thing's not going to take off. And I came to a point where I re-examined who am I? Like, what is it about this that I, is it just about money and passive income? Like, cause that, that's not enough to motivate me. I'm, I'm partially motivated by money, but not really. And so what is it? And I found that at the core of me, all the things that I do, whether it's coaching or writing or teaching singing or even acting and filmmaking, it's always for this purpose of I want to help people live a fuller and freer life. I want their life to be bigger and I want it to be freer. And I noticed that the singing program could do that.

So this was part of who I was and who I wanted to be. I wanted to help people all over the world be able to reach their dream of becoming a singer. I loved the idea of that. And so that motivated me to put my head down for another year and develop, you know, a rebrand, refilm, restudy and decide what to do with this singing program. And it, you know, eventually became a really big success. But that was a pivotal moment for me to lock it into my values and who I was and see this as a legacy rather than just like a moneymaker or just a whatever. Yeah, that always is helpful if you can find a deeper underlying reason for doing things. Yeah, and that also, I think it happened again with the singing program.

In 2011, Google released an algorithm called Panda. And I know nothing about algorithms. You just heard all the knowledge I have on algorithms. But the algorithm, I know what the effect of it was. We had all these keywords, 15 keywords, the main keywords, singing tips, how to sing, how to improve your singing voice, the main ones that people search. We had them all on top spots on Google, spot one, two, or three, and usually even the top spot. And so we were buzzing for a while, even with Superior Singing Method. And we were enjoying some of the success of that.

And then Google released Panda. And what it did is it shot all of our number one keywords down to page 15 and not spot 15, page 15 that nobody's ever visited except probably me because I wanted to see what that was. Long, slow click, seven. Oh, no. Eight. It was so painful. But that was another time where I had to revisit. Is this important to me?

What's going on? And, you know, we had to get a new strategy and implement something else. And that's when we did our YouTube videos. And those eventually blew up as well. But it was another point to where I could have not been tenacious and just been like, ah, we had a good run. What else? But when it locked into what I was about and who I wanted to be, it made it more motivating. Hey, y'all.

I'm Dr. Joy Harden Bradford, host of Therapy for Black Girls. And I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart series for the third year running. and I'm thrilled to invite you to our January Jumpstart Series for the third year running. All January, I'll be joined by inspiring guests who will help you kickstart your personal growth with actionable ideas and real conversations. We're talking about topics like building community and creating an inner and outer glow. I always tell people that when you buy a handbag, it doesn't cover a childhood scar. You know, when you buy a jacket, it doesn't reaffirm what you love about the hair you were told not to love. So when I think about beauty, it's so emotional because it starts to go back into the archives of who we were,

how we want to see ourselves and who we know ourselves to be and who we can be. So a little bit of past, present and future, all in one idea, soothing something from the past. And it doesn't have to be always an insecurity. It can be something that you love. All to help you start 2025 feeling empowered and ready. Listen to Therapy for Black Girls starting on January 1st on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You've got in your book a chapter called my life isn't working yeah you say that it's usually not

a circumstance or a person that's holding us back it's our language it's our words and our thoughts yeah and this and this goes back to the idea of the limiting voices so so our words certainly as we talked about our words with the pessimistic language, like for example, if I wake up every day and I have another list on my phone, I've got a lot of lists on my phone that help me get re-centered and it's just called I'm thankful for. a certain way of being for me and a certain way that I see my life, I see myself, I see others and my circumstances that gets me a much different result than if I wake up in the morning and allow those, I think I mentioned, when I wake up in the morning, oftentimes still today, which is probably why I wrote a book about limiting voices, my mind is filled with a lot of fearful thoughts. As soon as I wake up in the morning and I have a routine that I go through, and part of it is these lists of this language in my head.

So the language we speak for sure, but the language in our head that has all these negative kind of fearful thoughts ends up getting me a certain result. And so how do you keep those lists, those mind activities you do, those lists, those mind activities you do, how do you keep those from becoming sort of a stale repetition that doesn't really engender much change? Because I find that for myself, sometimes like ideas like a gratitude list is a great idea. There are some times though, that I feel like it's just going through the motions and it doesn't do me any good. Do you have any way of, of keeping those things fresh for yourself or getting the emotional connection with them

on a consistent basis? Yeah, I hear what you're saying. And I, and I have the same struggle for, for my list becoming stale and not having that, you know, that, like a, that EpiPen adrenaline pump to my heart, like, like they originally did. What's been helpful for me is to make sure that I'm continuing to add to the list. And so my thankful for list is that like 53, I think right now. And so I usually scroll down to like the last five or 10 that connect with me the most. And if I actually sit there and I say, okay, what are two more things right now that are different? And I write those down that usually, that usually has a way of helping. And then also is using different methods. I find that the idea of the daily morning

ritual to me after a couple of weeks or months of any ritual can become stale to me. So as long as I switch it up and sometimes I'll read books that inspire me in the morning or different quotes or wisdom literature or different things that will help kind of spike me and then I can go back to the gratitude list or these other things maybe in a few weeks. Yeah, I have the same sort of situation of trying to work to find a way to keep it fresh and to try and find a way to emotionally connect versus, like I said, just kind of going through the motions and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And, you know, I talk on here and in so many episodes I've done about how sometimes like

none of that stuff even seems to work with my negative voices. And I, I have to do something that like completely changes the channel, like concentration games help trying to start with the letter A and think of a song. Trying to start with the letter A and think of a song you like that starts with the letter A and then hear the melody in my head. And that sort of thing actually engages me enough that if I stick with that for a little while, I sort of emerge from the morass. And then things like a gratitude list or something help me a little bit more. But sometimes when I'm deep in it, that other stuff isn't as effective as I would like it to be. Yeah, that's great. I haven't heard that before. I may start using that. Another thing that's been helpful for me is I have a closet. It's not like a huge walk-in closet, but it's like still kind

of walk-in-ish. And I keep a chair folded up in there that I can like pull out and sit on, and I can close that door. And when and when I, when I just sit in there with, you know, sit up straight and have my hand, it's meditation, but really it's not like any formal meditation. If I just sit there and I do, I just do some breathing and just sit quietly for five or 10 minutes. A lot of times my inner wisdom, whatever it is, you know, it could be if people are from a faith tradition or whatever they believe, but my inner kind of wisdom starts to filter, filter through those thoughts and, and write them and give me, give me fresh ideas. Yep. Chris has a really small closet that he likes to climb into and, and sob like a baby. That's his, that's his morning routine. I like Chris.

So you have another part that I love. I love the title of it's something I tend to say all the time, which is it's all made up anyway. You're, you're basically saying our current, uh, assumptions and perceptions tend to be a story of some sort anyway. So why not pick a good one? I think most of our entire lives are a story that we tell ourselves. So the story, and back to the limiting voice, is kind of a story. So the idea of like, I don't have what it takes, okay, that may or may not be true, but it is just a story you're telling yourself. You could probably find some evidence in some way that there is some truth to that story. Okay, great. What about the story that says, I'm a resourceful person

and I could find what it is that I need to do this thing. That's just another story that's gonna be more resourceful for me. And so I love the idea. And even how you mentioned that even overwhelmed, overwhelmed is such a big one for my clients. I feel overwhelmed. Overwhelmed itself is just a

story. It's a story that we make up and then we believe, and then we begin to shut down. The story is I have too much to do. Another story could be, I only have one thing to do right now. It's the thing that I'm doing and I'm going to do that. And then the next thing I'm going to do, if I have time for that, that's a different story, but creates a less panicky state. Yeah. I'm just fascinated by the interplay between behavior, thoughts, and feelings and how all those things sort of can affect each other. It's not like a clean delineation between those. Like that feeling of overwhelm. Part of me when you say that, I'm like, yeah, but overwhelmed feels panicky. Yeah. that feeling of overwhelmed part of me when you say that i'm like yeah but overwhelmed feels panic yeah but then i was like but it feels panicky because of the story i'm telling myself about everything that has to happen and i may not even be aware that i am telling myself that story it just seems true i'm overwhelmed yes and i love that you bring that up because that the voice

the the things that we're telling ourself we we don't oftentimes, most of the time, realize they're there. It occurs to us as real as this is objective reality, and then our actions follow that. It rained this morning. I live in Los Angeles. It doesn't rain very often. It was pouring, pouring rain this morning. And just the idea of our feelings and our thoughts,

how they really dictate our feelings. I remember looking out the window and thinking, it's raining so hard. And my thought was, this is beautiful. California needs the rain. I love when it rains. It's such a fun feeling. It felt like the rain gave me a feeling of calm. But it wasn't the rain.

The rain has nothing to do with it. I could have looked out the window and thought, oh man, well, I've got to get to work and now traffic's going to be, there's all these other thoughts that the rain, I could have thought the rain was making me feel anxious. Yep. And that's, I think why sometimes in the beginning, just starting to learn to consistently question our thoughts, not even like, not even like they're wrong. They're just even starting to question the fact, like, maybe that's just not a hundred percent true. Maybe that's not, you know, objective reality and trying to really find out like, what is the fact? Like what you said there is the fact is it's raining. That's the really only fact and everything you

just described. Everything else is an interpretation. That's right. That's right. Well, Aaron, I think we are out of time, but thank you so much for coming on the show. I've really enjoyed the conversation. I enjoyed the book. We'll have links in our show notes to where people can get the book and best of luck to you on the launch. Thank you so much, Eric. It was, this was great. All right. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye. thank you so much Eric it was this was great alright take care bye bye bye you can learn more

about this podcast and Aaron Anastasi at oneufeed.net slash Aaron