The Diary Of A CEO with Steven Bartlett XX
[0] I've been a therapist for 35 years.
[1] I worked with millionaires and movie styles, and I realized that they have the same problem.
[2] I just didn't feel enough.
[3] Britain's number one hypnotherapist.
[4] The founder of Rapid Transformation Therapy, best -selling author, Marissa Peer.
[5] People who are depressed have a very interesting belief.
[6] One is, there's no cure, you know, it's genetic.
[7] And even if there was, it wouldn't work for me. Can you change that belief very quickly?
[8] Yeah, but you have to take a look at where did this happen.
[9] one go about at identifying which of these stories are the root cause?
[10] Well, I think the first thing is...
[11] You must have also faced some pretty heartbreaking cases.
[12] Tell me about one that comes to mind when I say that.
[13] I think my saddest case was a boy at 14, his father was hitting him with a belt.
[14] Nobody needs that.
[15] Oh, just excuse me for one minute.
[16] Nice.
[17] It's no one's job to make you feel good.
[18] It's your job.
[19] And if you give someone the job of making you feel good, then guess what you're given the job of making you feel bad?
[20] If you can give yourself the certainty you're looking for, instead of looking for it somewhere else, the shift isn't subtle, it's profound.
[21] So without further ado, I'm Stephen Bartlett, and this is the Diary of a CEO, USA Edition.
[22] I hope nobody's listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.
[23] first and foremost thank you for being here as you will know i'm a big fan of your work i included much of sort of something really pertinent that you'd said in my book as well and i think that's how we kind of came became connected um you spend so long helping other people and understanding them i wanted to start today by understanding you a little bit okay i want to go right back i know that so i did a little bit of childhood psychology as well and this is why your work is particularly resonant with me. But take me back to your childhood.
[24] I read this quote you'd said, which I thought might be a good stage setter, which was, when I was growing up, I struggled with the belief that I wasn't enough.
[25] This belief followed me through my teens and right into my 20s.
[26] Yes, certainly did.
[27] So who was that child?
[28] Well, you know, I had an interesting childhood.
[29] Later, someone in therapy said, my God, your childhood sounded absolutely crazy, but it wasn't crazy, but it was interesting.
[30] I had a very beautiful mother who was deeply, deeply unfulfilled.
[31] Beauty gave her nothing.
[32] She wasn't a woman who could stay at home and be a mother.
[33] I had a father who was deeply, deeply intellectual.
[34] He was a head teacher and he loved his career.
[35] And it was interesting watching this stranger.
[36] My father loved his career.
[37] He helped kids every day.
[38] He gave him something to my mother.
[39] It was totally unfulfilled, always ill, a little bit hysterical.
[40] And I watch that and I'm ever thinking you know what you have to have a great job you've got to get a job that's compelling and engrossing because it protects you from the pain it wasn't if there's pain it was there's going to be pain my parents relations it was a car crash but if you got an amazing career then you'll be okay so I always wanted something engrossing and fulfilling but my father was very interested in other people's children because they were easier to work with and his own so it was certainly an interesting life but I don't regret any of it because it gave me the ambition to also think wow you can help people my father's stories say helping people is what life is all about because it was for him he wasn't very good at helping my poor mother but that's okay so it was but there were lots of elements of my life that were strange so for instance I felt different I was the head teacher's daughter and I went to his school and I realized later that is the bane of people's lives to be different because we're all hardwired from birth to find connection and avoid rejection.
[41] When you feel different, then that can be really, really strange.
[42] But it made me understand human psychology very early on what it's like to be different, what it's like to not fit in, what it's like when it looks perfect on the outside, it's not really like that on the inside.
[43] So it stood me in very good stead.
[44] I think my childhood was the perfect background to be a therapist.
[45] And where did you, in hindsight, pick up the belief that you weren't enough?
[46] Yeah, you know, I remember being in my father's school and he actually was my history.
[47] He wrote in my history book, I think I was 11.
[48] I remember it to this day.
[49] He said, oh, this is amazing work.
[50] I had no idea you're intelligent.
[51] And I think he wrote that to please me, but I was not pleased.
[52] I remember thinking, well, my father doesn't even know who I am.
[53] And so the not enoughness came from living with a father who is in, invested in other people's children, living with a mother who was always in hospital, living with a brother who was very clever and went to private.
[54] Both my sister and brother went to private school, and I didn't because I wasn't the smart one.
[55] And my sister was a cute little, beautiful little baby.
[56] My brother was the firstborn smart boy.
[57] And I just felt like this thing, this kind of freak, if you like, in the middle.
[58] But now I'm glad about that because it gave me that understanding.
[59] But I did have one thing.
[60] I had a grandmother who really believed in me, thought I was a genius.
[61] And I remember thinking then, that's actually all you need one person.
[62] When I became a therapist, I'd work with a lot of, I always called them the lost boys, like 15 -year -old kids, who were so angry.
[63] And they say, no one believes in it.
[64] I said, but that's not true.
[65] I believe in you, and you can believe in you.
[66] That's already two people.
[67] And I've always believed that if you have one person to believe in you, your life can be amazing.
[68] So I always had my grandmother.
[69] She lived 300 miles away, but she really believed in me. And at that age, what did you want to do with your life?
[70] Did you have a hypothesis or a vision?
[71] So I wanted to be an artist.
[72] I was very good at art. My daughter's now an amazing artist, but I wanted to be an artist.
[73] And my friend's like, no, no, no, you can't be an artist.
[74] You can't go to art school.
[75] That's just for druggies and dropouts.
[76] I still love illustrating.
[77] And I was always writing stories, which is quite funny now, because I wrote stories and my mother kept them all.
[78] They were always about dysfunctional families and unhappy families and that was so interesting that I wrote that.
[79] Now, of course, I wrote that book it's all about the stories of unhappy people.
[80] So I always thought I'd be an artist and my father said, you should be a teacher like me. That would be amazing for you.
[81] So I went to teacher training college and I'd love to be a teacher.
[82] But then I realized that I didn't want to be a teacher after all.
[83] So I left that and went off to work for Jane Fonda here in L .A., which was much more fun.
[84] And I loved that I went fully into the diet, weight loss, fitness industry.
[85] But even then I realized how abusive their industry is, how cruel it is to people, how it tells them that your worth is entirely judged on the number on the scales or the number on the tape measure.
[86] And I saw working for Jane that, you know, anorexia and bulimia, mental illness as body dysmorphic, is a mental illness.
[87] And they were trying to cure it with aerobics and living on protein shakes and diet soups.
[88] And so then I came across this wonderful guy called Gil Boyne, who was a hypnotist, and I trained with him and thought, well, this is amazing.
[89] I've got all these people, I'm teaching aerobics in the 80s.
[90] It was a huge thing every day.
[91] and my class is war to war with anorexics, bulimics, body dysmorphics, exercise compulsive, orthorexics, which is people who only eat clean, organic food.
[92] And I thought, well, I don't even have to advertise for clients.
[93] And I didn't.
[94] And so then I had this amazing life teaching for Jane during the day, seeing clients in the evening.
[95] But then I got so busy, I had to actually stop working for her because I just couldn't cope with the amount of clients that were coming through my door.
[96] because I found something that really fixed eating disorders and that was such an amazing thing.
[97] So you meet Gil Boyne when you, Gilboin, isn't it?
[98] Yeah, Gilboin.
[99] When you got to L .A., yeah.
[100] And you talk about this individual being a really pivotal person.
[101] He was a hypnotherapist?
[102] Yeah, he was.
[103] And what was it about him and what he taught you that stayed with you?
[104] You know, Gil was one of the people I love the most.
[105] He broke all the rules.
[106] He swore like a trooper.
[107] He bang his fist on the table.
[108] but he was deeply, deeply religious believed that God worked through him.
[109] He was just such a fascinating character because he was a street fighter from Philadelphia who worked with Sylvester Stallone and hypnotized him to write The Rocky and realized he was onto something and then developed this amazing school teaching hypnotherapists and he so believed in it that he would guarantee that if he trained you and somebody sued you, he would turn up in court and defend you and pay all the costs, stands to phenomenal belief so I trained with him and then I became a hypnotherapist and I loved it and then over time he did ask me at once if I wanted to as he got older and retired run his business but then I'd found my own method, my own technique I always think that when you train to be a therapist any kind of therapist about how amazing your teacher is and I now teach amazing therapists but you have another teacher every client you see will teach you something profound and amazing.
[110] So then my own clients became my teachers and taught me so much.
[111] And they'd come back, you know, that one thing you did, that changed my life.
[112] That one thing you said, oh my God, that was a game change.
[113] So I started to collate the one thing, which is different, of course, for every client.
[114] They never all said the same thing.
[115] And then collating the one thing that gave them a stunning turnaround, I then created my own method, which I called rapid transformational therapy.
[116] People say, but that's not right.
[117] The words therapy and rapid don't go together.
[118] Why?
[119] Well, it has to be long and painful.
[120] Who said that?
[121] If I turned up, I did turn up at ER once.
[122] It broke my arm.
[123] And they didn't say, well, we got to build a relationship of trust to heal you.
[124] I didn't go to my dentist and say, you know, I've got an infection here.
[125] They went, well, we need the trust, you see.
[126] And I always thought people in pain, emotional pain is no different to physical pain.
[127] If I've got a headache or a broken arm, I've got irritable bowel or blushing or I can't find love or I stutter.
[128] That's really painful.
[129] And I thought that therapy should be like going to the emergency room that we should offer immediate help.
[130] So much of the underlying thesis about, you know, in your new book, and I guess behind your rapid transformational therapy is this idea that there's stories that are within us that are from our childhood or whatever and they are sometimes and often very stubborn stories.
[131] So imagine, as you've said, the reason why people think it's hard for it to be rapid or quick is because those stories are so deeply ingrained and stubborn and etched into us.
[132] And we make someone else's story, our story.
[133] My mom always wanted a boy.
[134] I was the fourth girl.
[135] My dad wanted me to go into the family.
[136] law firm but I wasn't smart and so I see two things a lot someone else's story my mom said don't even trust your own shadow but that's not your story that's someone else's story so the first problem is that we make somebody else's story my teacher said I'd never amount to anything it that's not your story my teacher said that to me but that wasn't my story but the second thing that's even more painful are the lies we tell ourselves.
[137] And the biggest lies, I'm not enough.
[138] I'm not lovable.
[139] I don't matter.
[140] And what happens with small children is they come into the world.
[141] They don't actually have a lot of needs.
[142] They need to feel safe, loved, significant.
[143] They need to feel they matter.
[144] But when you're a small child, if your parents cannot meet those needs because they're alcoholics, they're mentally ill, they're doing three jobs, they're a single parent, they're stressed, whatever it is.
[145] The child never stops loving them, and they immediately stop loving themselves.
[146] If only I was better, my mum wouldn't be crying.
[147] If only I was good, my dad wouldn't shout.
[148] If only I was something, my dad would see me at the weekends.
[149] And once they buy into that, oh, it's my fault.
[150] That becomes a lifelong sentence.
[151] But it's very easy to unpick that by saying to him, look, you know, you're looking at the suit of the filter of a five -year -old.
[152] One of my clients told me that she was walking with her mother in Ireland and her father's friend coming.
[153] And he said, it's a disgrace that you haven't given your husband a son.
[154] He'll never be a man, you know, because he doesn't have a son.
[155] What a strange thing for him to say.
[156] But this little girl heard that and thought, oh, I should have been a boy.
[157] I've caused both my parents as tremendous grief and then she became very masculine she worked as a fire officer in fact she was head of a fire crew and she wouldn't wear makeup she wouldn't let her husband put up a shelf she had very short hair and that was okay except she said I feel very conflicted because I just can't be the person I want to be and I feel I've got to do everything perfectly and my husband and I have so many arguments that I want to drive the car I'll carry everything.
[158] And just going back to remember that scene was a real aha moment.
[159] Oh, I heard something at five.
[160] Your husband will never be a man because he hasn't got a son.
[161] That last chance would have been a son.
[162] But you see, she interpreted it with the mind of a five -year -old.
[163] At 35, take a look again.
[164] And maybe understand that you were meant to be a girl.
[165] Your father was thrilled to be a girl.
[166] And even if you wanted a boy, somebody wanted you to be a girl.
[167] So we see things with a filter of a child who's been on the planet for four years.
[168] What do they know?
[169] I'm not good enough.
[170] I'm not lovable.
[171] I was a disappointment.
[172] So looking at it again as an adult, you get the chance to say, oh, I see.
[173] I believed something then that felt true, but it wasn't true.
[174] Can that change in beliefs be rapid, though?
[175] So say in that case, that can be a...
[176] Really rapid.
[177] I don't know if you read the case about Ryan the alcoholic whose father rejected him because he was gay and he always felt so sad he attracted men that were abusive to him and when I had him have an imaginary conversation with his dad who said I feel inadequate and when I had a gay son I just felt more inadequate it's not you it's me he began to realize that he wasn't a broken person at all but he'd had a broken parent And I think I said that to him, Ryan, you're not broken, but your parenting was broken.
[178] You're not flawed, but you had flawed parenting.
[179] But there's a huge difference.
[180] You are not flawed.
[181] But your parents who are young and his mother got pregnant, they weren't suited, you had a flawed upbringing, but there's a huge difference.
[182] And then he was able to make his peace with that and stopped drinking completely.
[183] He's never had a drink since.
[184] So if you think therapy is long, it can be like that.
[185] If you can look at a scene and reframe it and go, oh, I thought that, but that wasn't even true, then it becomes a game changer.
[186] And it can take 21 days for the magic.
[187] It can take 21 seconds.
[188] If you can look at something, think, oh, I see.
[189] I thought that.
[190] But actually, that was an incorrect thought.
[191] And I can go back and correct and incorrect thought.
[192] If at the crux of our lives and our behaviour exist these like fundamental self -stories we've told ourselves about ourselves, about who we are and about where we are significance in the world, etc., how does one go about even identifying, unless they have wonderful therapist, how do they go about identifying which of these stories are the root cause of the symptoms they're seeing in their lives, whether it's addiction, depression, anxiety, whatever it might be?
[193] Well, I think the first thing is, you know, just start to observe your thoughts.
[194] Do you have those, what I call limiting thoughts?
[195] I'm not enough.
[196] Who's going to want me?
[197] I'm not lovable.
[198] No one cares about me. And think about the thoughts and then ask us a question, where did this thought come from?
[199] No baby is born going, don't look at me, I'm naked, I've got no teeth, I've got milk sorts.
[200] I've got these triple knees here and I'm not enough.
[201] So what happened to that belief, well, someone chipped away at it, a parent, a relative, a teacher, somebody.
[202] And because children are so suggestible, it's very easy to make them think they're not enough.
[203] But can you change that belief very quickly?
[204] Yeah, but you have to take a look at where did this happen?
[205] You know, I never said, well, what's wrong with you?
[206] They always say, what happened to?
[207] They go, well, I was a perfectly normal way until I was 11, and then what happened?
[208] Well, I went to school, I got bullied.
[209] People started to make really weird sexual comments about my body and I just got fatter and fatter, and then they never did that again.
[210] So now we see, oh, so somehow what was happening had a role and a function and every thought you think isn't a thought, it's a blueprint that your mind, body and psyche work to make real.
[211] I think if you take a thought, you know, for me, I was always late as a kid for everything.
[212] I missed the bus to school every day and as an adult I was always late.
[213] If I had 10 hours to get somewhere, I'd be like I missed play.
[214] I missed appointments.
[215] And one day I suddenly realized that when I was a kid and I missed the bus to school, my father, I'd have to walk home.
[216] He'd be furious.
[217] He wouldn't even speak, but he'd get out the car and drive me in silence to my school's three -mile drive.
[218] I never missed the bus coming home, by the way.
[219] Then I thought, oh, of course I did that for attention.
[220] But my father is now deeply proud of me. And even if he wasn't, I don't need that attention to me. And it just stopped like that.
[221] because I suddenly saw the role of it, the job, the function.
[222] And many times if you can just ask yourself, if this headache or this blushing or this asthma or this feeling had a job or was trying to help me, what would it do?
[223] And it's really amazing the answers that come up.
[224] Is that why you say when you think about the sort of the core principle of RTT, it says don't just treat the behavior, treat the purpose, behavior is serving.
[225] Always treat the purposes.
[226] If someone...
[227] What does that mean?
[228] How do I make...
[229] Well, let's imagine that you binge on cakes or you're the kind of person.
[230] When something goes wrong, you eat pizza or cake or something.
[231] And most of them are to go tell you what's wrong with that.
[232] But I say, hey, what's right with it?
[233] You're an alcoholic.
[234] Tell me what's good about that.
[235] What do you mean?
[236] Well, you keep going back to it.
[237] And they go, actually, now you mention it.
[238] It does give me comfort.
[239] I can always depend on drink.
[240] It takes away the pain.
[241] I get comfortably numb, I can come home and just block out, or I can come home and eat five donuts and then I just go into this kind of sophorific place.
[242] And so I don't treat the symptom, which is I'm eating cakes every day or drinking alcohol or binging on Netflix.
[243] I'm using drugs.
[244] I treat what I call what lies beneath.
[245] Why are you doing that?
[246] What does it give you?
[247] When did you start that?
[248] Why do you think it helps you?
[249] I worked with someone who was a chronic alcoholic.
[250] When I talked to me, he said, you know, I never saw my dad.
[251] At 16, he took me to the pub and he got me drunk and he went, you're a man now.
[252] And he began to take him to the pub every weekend.
[253] And I thought, well, this is great.
[254] My dad likes me because I'm a man. And they had a very bonding time over beer.
[255] And then the dad died.
[256] And he continued drinking beer because he believed that he was bonding with his father even though he was dead and so what was right about drinking beer it has a memory that's how my dad bonded with me in the pub with his mates getting drunk and so when you see oh so the role of the drinking was to keep a memory going yeah but you can remember your dad he doesn't live in a pint of beer you can think of all the things you did do together and you don't need to drink.
[257] And so it's, it's coming to the realization that something that we hate, if something you hate keeps coming back, I keep dieting, I always gain the weight back.
[258] I've been to rehab eight times, but I still keep drinking.
[259] You've got to stop treating the drinking and treat the cause of the drinking, the role of the drinking, the benefit of the drinking, the purpose of the drinking.
[260] And when you do that and get it right, you can change it forever, like with Ryan, who's never had a drink since he realized that he felt worthless because his father rejected him because he was gay.
[261] And it starts with that awareness that you describe, right?
[262] And which is, I think, is such a difficult thing for some people, for many reasons.
[263] I think some people live in this kind of self -defense state where they didn't, they, the awareness is too uncomfortable for them to even contemplate.
[264] You know, I'm sure you've seen this in your practice, but either people don't want to come.
[265] Yeah.
[266] But when they're there, they don't want to go to certain places in terms of.
[267] if they don't want to reveal certain things, they'd rather just ignore opening that box and live in a state of, I don't know, bliss, naive bliss.
[268] Ignorance is bliss.
[269] I mean, there's a story in there of a girl called Terry who lost two babies, died, one at birth, one at a few weeks, and her two existed in one had a congenital heart defect.
[270] And the first thing she said was, don't take me back.
[271] I don't want to revisit that pain.
[272] And I said, okay, I won't.
[273] I promise I won't.
[274] So while my job is to take people back, I call it being a good detective.
[275] Someone's turned up and said, well, I don't know why.
[276] I keep sabotaging.
[277] I have no idea.
[278] I guess I'm just messed up because I sabotage every relationship, every job I get to procrastinate and I always get fired.
[279] I don't know why.
[280] So I've shut myself away and I don't even want to look at that.
[281] But you can still go back and find it out because in fact, Terry had a very functional.
[282] All it knew how to do was keep repair.
[283] and she had a massive breakthrough just in a half an hour conversation because she understood that being numb it's like you can't not feel but she was living in a world of not feeling and it was exhausting so I was thinking what I do wears three different hats the first hat is Michael being a good detective you're an investigator you never say what's wrong you say what happened why do you feel like that why do you want to change What would it look like to change?
[284] I often say to people, straightaway, tell me about your family.
[285] I've got three sisters, oh, they're all great.
[286] It's just me, or they might get, oh, they're all messed up.
[287] And then you know straight away that something's gone very wrong with his parenting or something's just gone wrong with this child.
[288] So when you put your investigator hat on, and, you know, a detective will lay out images and look at them and go, look at that scene, that scene, that scene, and they work out what happened by looking at information.
[289] And a good RTT therapist is the same.
[290] We gather information.
[291] You have lots of aha moments, lots of ear prick up moments, lots of things that come up, that you think, oh yeah, I'm going to go here, I'm going to go there.
[292] And after you've done the investigating and found out usually in minutes why that person is the way they are, you then switch to almost being like a dentist, extracting all that toxic stuff, removing it.
[293] And finally you become like a coder.
[294] It's like someone who's upgrading someone's software and you code in and wire in and fire in totally different beliefs.
[295] But the skill is doing it all at the same time.
[296] Many people go to therapy and just talk about what's wrong with me, what's wrong with me. I don't know.
[297] Maybe I can find out.
[298] And others go and maybe just do suggestion therapy, but let's give you a different belief.
[299] But in fact, you have to do all three seamlessly together because that's the perfect recipe for change.
[300] I understand.
[301] I can let that understanding go.
[302] And at the center, I'm going to put in something completely different.
[303] You know, with all these, a lot of the sort of mental health disorders, you know, depression, anxiety, etc., there's been a lot said about the recent and the just apparent increase in the amount of people reporting to have these illnesses.
[304] Do you believe that there has been an increase?
[305] And if so, what do you think has been, cause?
[306] Yeah, I would say there's definitely an increase in depression.
[307] You know, I've found in my experience, it's only my experience, that the major cause of depression are a couple of things.
[308] One, are harsh, hurtful, critical words that we say to ourselves on a regular basis.
[309] That is guaranteed to make you depressed.
[310] The second is being disconnected.
[311] And we have an epidemic of disconnection, because everyone is on their phone and their screen.
[312] We worked from home in COVID.
[313] Some of us are still doing that, we go to the store and we do a self -checkout.
[314] We go to the bank and we check out with a machine.
[315] So we are becoming disconnected.
[316] And human beings are wired for connection, not disconnection.
[317] And the other thing I find is a massive cause of depression is failing to follow your heart's desire, doing something as, well, the family expect it, the pay is good, it's a solid job.
[318] So those three things, I think, are the massive cause of depression.
[319] On that first point about people telling themselves negative stories, we'll all know people that are very self -dispairaging.
[320] Is that, and it's interesting because, I mean, I don't know what that originates from, but I know so many people that are incredibly self -dispairing, the first thing they'll say to you is, oh, I'm sorry, I look bad today.
[321] I know.
[322] I messed that up.
[323] I'm just a mess.
[324] I always fail.
[325] I'm so sorry, you know.
[326] They look in the mirror and they go, oh, my God, look.
[327] at me or they go I'm going to do this but it won't work where it comes from funnily enough is is our tribal need you know we're still inside tribal people and we need to connect with a group and so bragging I'm better than you I'm smarter than you I've got more than you is disconnecting and so people learn to connect by not having that tall poppy center we have to be the same you know children at school bond by being the same and I found many clients as you know my parents were rich or dirt poor.
[328] I was the only kid with glasses and I felt different like being the head teacher's daughter.
[329] So it comes from there.
[330] So it's a strange thing that a few hundred years ago, a few hundred years ago and beyond being negative actually saved your life looking for danger, looking for snakes, looking for lions, looking for weird people.
[331] You might do it because they believe it protects them from hurt and pain.
[332] If they reject themselves first.
[333] Yeah, if they reject themselves first.
[334] no one's ever going to like me. You see, I knew it.
[335] And now it doesn't hurt, but it really hurts.
[336] And so our job is to show people that no happiness is there.
[337] You might as well expect the best.
[338] You know, Mohammed Ali said, I told myself I was the greatest before I even was.
[339] And then something amazing, I became the greatest.
[340] He could have said, oh, I'm not much good me. I'm useless, really.
[341] It's all a fluke.
[342] But he said, I am the greatest long before he was.
[343] and that was so good for him because people think of him as undefeated which isn't true but that's the idea of him because he told himself a better lie and if we could only all do that our lives would be so much better mostly because the mind doesn't know or care of what you're telling it is true or false or good or bad it just lets it all in it's like as you say you said our thoughts are actually blueprints and I was thinking about them as like they are code going into a sat -nav yeah exactly if i tell myself i'm beautiful and i'm going to be successful i'm going to get married then my mind and my being will take me in that direction maybe even subconsciously my actions will further me in that direction i will say yes to things that are conducive with that outcome um and it really goes to show it doesn't it the power of um yeah as you say the limiting beliefs we tell ourselves because we all say them i've gone through my life telling myself that I'm really unorganized.
[344] I know.
[345] Because I grew up in a really unorganized home when my parents were never there, so everything was just a mess.
[346] Yeah, and I'm not wanted or I don't matter.
[347] You know, I was working with a kid a couple of years ago who was in the Chelsea junior team, Chelsea Football Club.
[348] And every day they're coached, you've got a 2 % chance of getting into the main team playing for just 2%.
[349] You've got to shape up.
[350] But you see, most kids, when they hear that, think, oh, I got a 98 % chance of failing here.
[351] 2%.
[352] It's tiny.
[353] I said, listen, you just got to say, I'm in the 2%.
[354] Someone else told me that their doctor said, you have a 20 % chance of surviving cancers.
[355] That's great.
[356] I'll go in, I'm in the 20%.
[357] I'm in that 20%.
[358] You might think that's foolish.
[359] But when you set your mind to something and look at being in the percentage that makes it, actually your mind and body start to work at a level that make you stay in that percentage.
[360] You do the opposite.
[361] well, I'm in the percentage of failures, the same thing happens, your mind and body work to make you stay in that percentage because the strongest force in humans is that we act in a way that totally matches how we define ourselves.
[362] When you say I'm a loser, I'm a hot mess, I'm a train wreck, everything I touch doesn't work.
[363] If only we knew how we are making those thoughts real and how our mind's job is to actually start making our thoughts real, we'd probably stop.
[364] them but but it's not i guess it's not so easy just to make someone an optimist if we think about the pessimists in our lives and i've i mean i've got friends that are pessimistic about they it just seems to be their default and no matter i mean none of us in our friendship group of therapists but the efforts we've gone to to try and make this individual not pessimistic in every situation have never ever worked thinking about a friend i've back home who always, and used to work for me, who always defaults to just pessimism and everything's going wrong and whatever.
[365] And I, you know, yeah.
[366] But then you have to ask them, if you said to them the same thing, I say to alcoholics, what's good about it?
[367] They'd say, I'm never disappointed.
[368] What's good about your pessimism?
[369] Yeah, what's good about it?
[370] If I said to my mother, what's good about being a hypochondry, actually, to say, well, I get lots of attention.
[371] I love being in hospital.
[372] Everyone's so worried about me. People come to visit me. so you have to ask what's good about being a pessimistic and he'll say I don't let people down people don't expect anything of me and so it's that expectation yeah and it's a little bit more than the thought because if you imagine a stack I have to use my fingers to explain it that's the thought and thought always comes first and then you think a thought when you think a thought you then feel a feeling and then the feeling dictates how you act so imagine you thought of thought which is I'm not enough the biggest cause of issues in the Western world is this not enoughness.
[373] If I thought I'm not enough and I went straight to the next ladder, the next stage, how would I feel if I thought I'm not enough?
[374] I'd feel sad, dejected, demoralized, maybe angry, maybe resentful, maybe bitter.
[375] So I've thought of thought, I've got some feelings that come with thinking the thought.
[376] But then what actions come from thinking that thought and feeling those feelings?
[377] Often no actions.
[378] take risks.
[379] I don't ask people out, ask for promotion.
[380] I'm actually angry and defensive.
[381] So now I've got actions and behaviours.
[382] I'm angry.
[383] I'm defensive.
[384] I'm reclusive.
[385] I'm a loser.
[386] I don't bother.
[387] And then we justify it by going back because I'm not enough.
[388] But if you switch that to I am enough and just took out the not and go, okay, if I thought I'm enough, if I said it, even if I didn't believe it, said it, said it, said it, what would I feel?
[389] Well, I might feel optimistic.
[390] I might feel confident.
[391] I might feel reassured.
[392] I might feel hopeful.
[393] I might feel excited.
[394] And then what thought actions would I have?
[395] Well, I would take some risks.
[396] I'd ask people out.
[397] I'd ask for that promotion.
[398] I'd follow my dreams.
[399] I'd behave differently and I justify it again.
[400] It's like a loop thought, feeling, action, behavior thought.
[401] So although it sounds very Pollyanna, oh, you're just thinking great thoughts.
[402] It's much more than that because when you think of thought, you feel a feeling and then you act on that thought and feeling and you behave in a way that's linked to that thought and feeling.
[403] And a lot of things say let's change the behavior.
[404] Stop drinking, stop smoking, stop sabotaging, stop procrastist, stop acting out.
[405] But the behavior is the last thing to change.
[406] You have to go back and change the thought first.
[407] And then it's easy.
[408] Does the thought or like the underlying belief come from some kind of subjective evidence or experience we've had in our life.
[409] I always think about all my beliefs and I always think that they are all based on some, whether right or wrong, whether true or false, evidence.
[410] So, you know, I struggled with relationships.
[411] I've talked about that long on this podcast, but I struggled with relationships, and that meant that I was avoidant, even if I was attracted to someone, even if I pursued someone, the minute they asked to commit to me, I would dissuade them.
[412] I would tell them all the reasons where we should not be together.
[413] And I look back and my childhood and really the evidence that was at the center of my belief was watching my parents screaming, at each other every day really awfully and this belief that my dad was in prison that I always had and I was just trying to bail him out of prison from my mum screaming at him.
[414] So the way that I viewed it was once I became aware of this faulty evidence I had in my life from my childhood, honestly from writing and doing this podcast, it finally dawned on me where I'd learned what love and was and how identical the feeling I felt about being imprisoned was similar to the seven, six year old Steve looking at his dad, being screamed at.
[415] So for me, what I thought happened was I became aware, and then the awareness of it allowed me to not, the trigger, which would be someone asking me to be in a relationship with them, no longer held enough power over me, which allowed me to get into a relationship to rewrite new evidence.
[416] Because really you stopped thinking the thought that a relationship is a prison.
[417] That's what it really goes back to.
[418] You began to understand that you weren't born with that thought.
[419] You acquired it, and anything you require, you can release.
[420] So you worked out, oh, I've been seeing this with the filter of a, six -year -old.
[421] A six -year -old filter says a relationship is like prison, especially for a man, but then you realized you weren't six, and there's lots of other evidence that says that's not true, and you changed your thought.
[422] You see, when you question a belief, you don't believe it.
[423] That's why in religion you may not question the priest or the abbot or the imam.
[424] Not allowed to do that, because we understand when you question a belief, you begin to doubt it.
[425] It's why people who are deeply religious, never question it.
[426] I know God exists.
[427] How do you know?
[428] I just know.
[429] When you question a belief, like when you see your children, my little girl saying, Mommy, but how does Father Christmas get down there?
[430] How does the reindeer get down the chimney?
[431] They're that big and the chimney's that big.
[432] And how can you get all around the world in one night?
[433] And no, they're beginning to doubt, which is a great thing.
[434] So if you question a belief, you introduce doubt.
[435] And that's what a great therapist does.
[436] It says, really?
[437] Are you always a failure?
[438] Were you really meant to be an accountant to please your dad?
[439] Is that why you're here on the planet?
[440] Do you really think that everything you touch fails?
[441] Do you really believe there's no one in the world that can love you?
[442] So when you start getting able to question beliefs, you open up a little glimmer of, oh, right, yeah, that doesn't have to be true and it doesn't have to be true for me. And that's why it's important, which you did so eloquently.
[443] You looked at the belief of a six -year -old and thought, but that's not me. One of the things I talk about in the book a lot is having clients say, that's not me because, and they have to justify me, why that isn't them.
[444] Oh, that kid that wore secondhand clothes and mum was never there.
[445] That isn't me. I've got a wardrobe full of clothes.
[446] I don't have to do that anymore, but, you know, we play the only part we've ever known.
[447] And then we make that part our own, and we don't even know that there's many other parts we could take on if we wanted to even those beliefs that that that imprisonment belief that i had that relationships were prison i i felt it the power of that belief to deteriorate over time good but i still believe that it's there somewhere and i that kind of makes me wonder if those very sort of deeply held childhood beliefs ever really completely vanish or if they are still capable of being triggered so for example if if i was in a relationship now and my girlfriend started, say, shouting at me in the same way my dad shouted at my mum, I could very well see myself just getting up and leaving.
[448] Not shouting back, just getting up and leaving, trying to, like, flee the jail.
[449] And I just wonder with these, you know, even with the clients that you have and the patients you see, whether they really ever fully overcome.
[450] I think a lot of them do.
[451] I think it's a work in progress.
[452] It's about you look to that little boy who said relationships are, prison and you realize that was a statement that for you was a statement of truth it wasn't a question it was a statement and then what you have to do is start making a different statement the mind learns by repetition relationships are wonderful because i mean marriage is such hard work i'm like i don't think so i found it hard being single i got the flu i've got to get out of bed go to the pharmacist myself make myself some soup in a marriage in a relationship someone else to say i'll get that i'll do that let me do that so you question the belief that you have but then you have to also change it and you have to keep repeating the changes you know i worked with somebody once who said i have no coping skills my mother was hypersensitive delight in noise i couldn't open a packet of potato chips without her going mental we never went to the cinema or the swimming pool or the beach didn't like light she didn't like noise she didn't like people and And then she said, and I have no coping skills.
[453] And I made her say, I want you say, I have phenomenal coping skills.
[454] And so she had to say that every day, I shouldn't believe it.
[455] But she said, you know, it's amazing.
[456] I say that every day.
[457] And I've become this person who feels she can cope with anything.
[458] So you have to look at your question, your statement, and just change it.
[459] I don't matter.
[460] I matter.
[461] I'm insignificant.
[462] I'm not lovable.
[463] I am lovable.
[464] I'm not enough.
[465] I've always been enough.
[466] And if every person in the world could wake up and just say, I matter, I'm significant, I'm enough and I'm lovable, that would change.
[467] I know that to be true because I've got many anti -bullying programs in schools, all of them.
[468] They all say, the same thing.
[469] All the kids say that every time I'm enough, they've made a little plaque for their desk.
[470] And bullying has almost disappeared in this school just from those simple statements because bullies don't feel enough.
[471] It isn't enough to work with a bully child.
[472] you must work with a kid who's doing the bullying.
[473] What's going on with them?
[474] Nobody says, oh, my life is so great, so wonderful.
[475] Who can I bully today?
[476] I'm having a great time.
[477] I think I'll go off and troll somebody.
[478] So we know that the not enoughness is the core of so many of our beliefs.
[479] But since the mind doesn't know or care what you're saying, if you switch, I'm not enough to I am enough, the shift isn't subtle.
[480] It's profound.
[481] just the subtlety of words you seem to assert that it makes a tremendous difference just one word that we use just one word because we go through our lives saying things so we go through our lives I'll say like you know I'm not organised or I'll say I can't do that you know and a lot of the time the truth is I probably could but we're in this culture of just the flippancy of words when we say I can't that's not me I'm not that person I am this these kind of like binary definitive statements are they dangerous Yeah, when you say so, how do they go, not bad, I'm all right, how is your weekend, not bad.
[482] So they're really in minimizing anything that's good.
[483] And I think you have to turn it right up.
[484] But often the one word, many years ago, one of my clients said, I wish you'd see my mother.
[485] She has a hell of a life with my dad, he hits her, he's aggressive, but she's very invested in, you know, the front of a marriage.
[486] In came the sweet little old lady.
[487] And she kept talking about her husband saying, is a good husband.
[488] I said, but he's not a good husband, darling.
[489] He's a good provider.
[490] I want you to switch the word husband to provider because he hits you.
[491] He's abusive.
[492] He diminishes you.
[493] That's not a good husband, but he is a good provider.
[494] I know that's important.
[495] You got a nice home.
[496] Three kids, you went all left.
[497] So she began to say, he's a good provider.
[498] She said, you know, it's amazing.
[499] I went home.
[500] Within three months, I divorced him because I thought, oh, well, I don't need to be with a provider.
[501] We've already got this house.
[502] I've got my pension.
[503] So for her, that one word, he's only been a good provider in my entire marriage and he's actually hurt me a lot and do I need him to provide I got a pension I got a house I got friends I got my children he can't provide anything I can't provide myself he's not a good husband at all and so for her just taking off the blinkers and having someone tell her the truth that's not love isn't that crazy just a word?
[504] Love doesn't hurt like that and people say oh my boyfriend loves me so much he hits me that's not love you may believe it's love it's passion.
[505] It's not love.
[506] My dad hits me because I don't behave.
[507] That's not love.
[508] And often you have to educate people in a very nice way and change one word, I'm useless.
[509] No, you're smart.
[510] I don't matter.
[511] You matter a great deal.
[512] And going back again to all these teenage kids who say no one loves me, I don't matter.
[513] I go, look, if your life was a clock, you're talking about the first five minutes of the clock.
[514] The first five minutes, is horrible.
[515] But you've got the whole rest of the clock to have an amazing life.
[516] You know, this is your life today, but it's not your life.
[517] Your life today is you've been bullied at school.
[518] Your parents don't seem to care and no one's there.
[519] And that's horrible for you.
[520] And that is your life.
[521] But it's not your life.
[522] Your life's going to be amazing.
[523] And then you have to help them stand up to bullies and believe they matter and not tolerate it.
[524] But it all starts again there's a great song called it started with a kiss but nothing starts it starts with a thought about a kiss everything goes back to a thought and if you can keep peeling back to the thought like your thought marriage is prison then you think but i have the power to change that thought at any stage no matter how long down the line it is if you change the thought you change everything because the law of control begins with thoughts you can't control the weather or the traffic.
[525] You can't even control your body or you'd never get a cold, but you can always control your thoughts.
[526] And when you control your thoughts, it changes your whole life.
[527] And I know it sounds easy or simple, but that's because it is simple.
[528] You know, I've been doing this five -day challenge in schools, and it's called the I can't to I can.
[529] And it's just five days where every day these children go from I can't to I can.
[530] They have an imaginary cheerleader that does somersaults and bang symbols and cheers them on.
[531] And they've always said it's made such a difference because they realize they can that when you say I can't what if nobody likes you what if I fail what if I get it wrong well you might but you also might get it right and if you get it wrong you've learned something you know you can if you never make a mistake you've never made anything because the only way you can learn is often by getting it wrong you think oh I tried that I didn't like it I never want to do that again being a therapist and speaking to a wide variety of people.
[532] You must have also faced some pretty heartbreaking outcomes and cases.
[533] Tell me about one that comes to mind when I say that.
[534] I think my saddest case was a boy of 14 his father was very physical with him but he lived with a mother and he didn't have any skills to handle that so he became very violent at school and was being expelled and when I saw him I said darling your dad's not allowed to put his hands on you you know that.
[535] I can't.
[536] I said, but you can stop him.
[537] You have to, so we practiced rehearsing a lot that he would say to his dad, you may not put your hands on me. And then I said, I think you have to not see him for a little while.
[538] And then the mother said, but he needs a dad.
[539] I said, well, not like that that's hitting him with a belt.
[540] Nobody needs that.
[541] And he does need a dad, but he needs a dad that respects him.
[542] So we had to all have this little family conversation that they were going to go home and ring him and say, I can't see you until you get help.
[543] and the father was so charters he smashed up his Xbox and dumped it in the garden but he didn't see him and then the father wanted to see him and I said you know every time you must say to him you cannot put your hands up and if you do I can't stop me but when I leave I will call the police because I got to get you some help you can't be like this and actually it was amazing I did feel sorry for that kid because the father was so dismissive but eventually the father realized that the only way you could see him was to stop being violent because I had to give this little boy the power.
[544] You're only 14, but you're smarter than your dad.
[545] You're more educated than your dad.
[546] You're more grown up and your dad is a child.
[547] And you have to be the man here and say, I won't let you hit me because it's damaging for you as well as me. And often with kids, it's giving them a voice, giving them the power to say no. When someone is abusing them, molesting them, taking their lunch money, you know and that's often the case so many kids just don't have the power to say no because when they said they don't you say no to me when people say to me my kids so annoying i said that's how they learn me my kid argued with me all the time and i always think i'm secretly rather pleased that she could stand up for herself and defend herself and wasn't a yes person and we forget when we won't let our kids have a say they go on of the word and they don't know how to have a say and that's a terrible injustice for them i was reading in your book about children and just more broadly about the the um some of the mistakes parents make when they're raising children and one of them as you kind of cited earlier was about um telling them not to feel things right so if they fall over don't cry don't cry be a big boy stop being a baby that's definitely what i had planned to do with my kids yeah tell me why i'm wrong yeah yeah You know, I said to my little, don't be a baby.
[548] She goes, Mommy, I am a baby.
[549] And I thought, my God, she's so smart.
[550] She is a baby because she was my teacher.
[551] And then I remember to say to when she hurt her leg.
[552] Oh, that really hurt, didn't it?
[553] Ouch, that hurt.
[554] She goes, yes, mommy, it hurt.
[555] But then she'd be okay.
[556] But when you said, don't cry, you're a big girl now.
[557] That didn't hurt.
[558] Stop making a fuss.
[559] What you're saying is don't feel your feelings.
[560] Swallow them, push them down, pretend you're okay.
[561] Put on a happy face.
[562] And then people walk through the world.
[563] say, well, I can't tell anyone what I'm feeling because we've trained them in the same way we train kids to finish everything on their plate.
[564] One of the best gifts you can give your children is letting them feel, you know, that hurt.
[565] You're a great kid, but today you're being really mean.
[566] She says, what's going on?
[567] And then I'll say, you said she was my favorite.
[568] Years ago, I took my little daughter, we were lambing.
[569] And she pushed my nephew who pushed him off a haystack and my brother was very cross.
[570] And I said, why did you do it?
[571] do that?
[572] And she said, you said he was your favorite.
[573] I said, no. Said he was my favorite nephew.
[574] You're my favorite.
[575] You'll always be my favorite.
[576] He's my favorite nephew.
[577] And you cannot do that and you have to go and apologize.
[578] And she did.
[579] But I was really quite pleased that I was able to say, what just happened then?
[580] You can't always do that.
[581] Sometimes you have to intervene, but good kids do bad things, smart kids do stupid things.
[582] And rather than saying you're so annoying or naughty or bad, you say, what's going on?
[583] Why did you just do that?
[584] And they'll tell you something that you would never expect.
[585] And then they feel safe sharing what's going on.
[586] And children need you to be their safe place.
[587] They need you to come to you and say, hey, my friend's taking drugs.
[588] My daughter goes, Mom, my friend's brother, we went out and he's much bigger.
[589] And he was stealing all these baseball hats and he made me wear one.
[590] I didn't want to wear one.
[591] I said, oh, that's your feelings telling you it's wrong.
[592] You must always listen to those feelings and when it happens again, you must say, I don't feel I can wear that baseball hat.
[593] And so I was very pleased that you come in and tell me stuff about drugs and sex and shoplifting and some of the stuff, your eyes literally pop out on storks but you have to not judge your kids.
[594] It's very easy to say, not so easy to do, but you just have to take a deep breath even if there's no other time.
[595] and ask them, what's going on?
[596] There's something that I sort of garnered from all of that, which I think is really applicable to business and generally like leadership and I guess friendship as well, which is typically we come with answers and we come with statements.
[597] Whereas the approach you seem to take even with your daughter there is much more question -centric.
[598] It's asking questions and being kind of removed from having a bias or presumption.
[599] And I was thinking about that from a leadership perspective.
[600] if you, when there's an issue in your business with an employee or something instead of coming with statements and presumptions, it's probably wiser to come with a question at first.
[601] Yeah, what's going on?
[602] I said that to my PA there.
[603] I just am overwhelmed by something in my personal life.
[604] So when you can say something, you know, what's going on?
[605] Yeah, it's easier.
[606] You know, I was meeting my daughter in London recently.
[607] I hadn't seen her for ages.
[608] I was so excited.
[609] She turned up at this restaurant.
[610] She was in a really bad move.
[611] And I said, do you want to that?
[612] And I don't like that.
[613] Do you want to coffee?
[614] No, I hate that.
[615] And I felt like saying, you know what, I'm just going to go home.
[616] I don't know why I've come here.
[617] But I just said, well, anything.
[618] No, I don't like anything here.
[619] And then I said, well, let's order a coffee.
[620] And then she said, Mommy, I'm so glad that you understand me because it's not you.
[621] I've had a big fight with someone and I'm in such a bad temper.
[622] And I was just being really defensive.
[623] And I felt great too because I learned to not think, oh, how dare she talk to me like that?
[624] I might as well go home.
[625] I thought, oh, something's going on.
[626] on with her.
[627] Why don't I just sit here, drink my own coffee and just wait for her to work it out?
[628] So if you can sit with someone and not judge them and say, I mean, everything obviously shouldn't want it, but I just left that, then usually I'll tell you what's wrong, but you can't interrogate people.
[629] And sometimes you just have to give them a little while to come around.
[630] But I think when you stop judging people, which isn't always easy, amazing, when you have a workforce that mess up or a super defensive, you know, try that.
[631] Try a little tenderness because you get much better results.
[632] You know, my husband and I have this great thing where I say, oh, what's the story you're telling yourself?
[633] One day we were driving in the car.
[634] And I think I was driving and he was on his phone.
[635] I was talking.
[636] it wasn't listening, I talked again, I went, oh, I'm telling myself a story here that you're not interested in anything I have to say.
[637] And he went, oh, that's really funny because I'm telling myself a story that you're annoying me because I've just got a message from our accountant saying our account's been hacked and I'm feeling really panicking, I'm looking at this message and you're yeah, yeah, yeah.
[638] So we both are that I'm telling myself a story that you're not allowing me space to read this very important message.
[639] Now my story is you're not listening, but I told that on a podcast and this girl wrote and she said well he was wrong he was definitely having an affair because banks don't like to say you've been hacked in fact it was our accountant that sent him a text saying you've been hacked but that was so funny because there was a third story in there someone else's story which was oh he's definitely cheating on you because and so I thought that was so funny that didn't upset me because we all tell ourselves the story you don't love me to you're not interested in me the significant shift there as well is responsibility because you're even in the car example like it sounds like a conversation i had with my girlfriend recently where i was trying to do something and she tries telling me something i'm going through a crisis on my phone and i'm telling myself that she doesn't understand my world of course and she's telling herself that i never listened to her and she's talking more mature phase of my life, we're able to have the conversation, as you've described, where I'd say, this is how I felt, and I was telling myself this, you know, but a lot of people don't do that.
[640] Blame is much, feels much easier.
[641] And it takes a certain type of maturity in person to even be able to take responsibility in the first place.
[642] I tend to believe that people who are, who have, I don't know if this is accurate, it's just a belief I have, but, um, that have like lower self -esteem are less capable of allowing themselves to look in the mirror and take responsibility for things.
[643] Yeah.
[644] They are the most like protective of.
[645] Yeah, they're much more adept at blaming, refusing to budge because they believe that if you're right, they're wrong.
[646] It is easy to be defensive and blaming and never admit you're wrong because we think being wrong means that we're weak.
[647] You know, it's why men will never say I'm lost because if you're a hunter, you're useless to the tribe if you start out and lost i don't even know how to find my way back and so it's the it's the fear of being wrong and but how to get it around to say listen here's the truth you're flawed i'm flawed the best we can ever be in the world is two flawed people having a flawed relationship i call it being flawsome so if you can decide hey i like being flawed you know i tell all my clients the unhappiest people i've ever worked without a shadow of a doubt are the ones who try to be perfect and they're always the loneliest too because they can never say they're wrong it's always your fault you did it you made them but if you can't be wrong you're going to be alone because the basis of all friendship is as we choose people who share our vulnerabilities if you haven't got any then you also won't have any friends so it is a defensive mechanism to never admit you're wrong and it's very hard to say no I was wrong better to say I made a mistake I messed up I didn't handle that very well.
[648] I saw my husband's daughter once say, you know, I messed up.
[649] I thought, I was so proud of it.
[650] I messed up to it.
[651] I didn't handle myself well at all.
[652] Really sorry.
[653] But that, you go up in someone's estimation when you can do that.
[654] We all know when Bill Clinton apologized.
[655] That people liked him more.
[656] Yeah.
[657] They didn't, they'd like him less because I didn't do anything wrong.
[658] Yeah.
[659] So the fear of being wrong creates a lot of problems, especially in teenagers, until we can say, look, even in the Bible it says to err as human to forgive is divine.
[660] I always think to err as human, but it feels divine.
[661] So we have to not punishable for making mistakes, especially our own kids or partners.
[662] So look, yeah, you did mess up.
[663] But it's okay, I'm glad you recognize that.
[664] And I felt like this when.
[665] It all comes back again to can you communicate and do you have healthy self -esteem?
[666] because people with healthy esteem will say, I was wrong, I made a mistake, that was my error.
[667] People with low self -esteem said, no, it was your fault.
[668] It was all your fault.
[669] So true.
[670] And I think that point about how you go up in people's self -esteem when you take responsibility is so unbelievably true.
[671] Because that's what it means.
[672] Responsibility means an ability to respond.
[673] That's what it is.
[674] It's an ability to respond.
[675] And we want to have an ability to respond better.
[676] It's incredibly trustworthy.
[677] building as well, isn't it?
[678] When you know that someone is able to say, like, I'm responsible for that or I made a mistake here, it kind of allows you to understand that they are self -analytical and that they can be left to assess themselves.
[679] And also, so many of people just want to be heard.
[680] When they go to their mother and say, you know, you really hurt me. They go, well, what about my life?
[681] You know, you had a, and then they don't feel hurt.
[682] So when your kid or your husband or your wife comes in, your friend and says, you really hurt me when you forgot my birth, they all forgot how important that was or canceled the last minute.
[683] You have to say, oh, yeah, I hear that.
[684] I'm really sorry.
[685] I hear, even if you think they're being ridiculous, you still have to say, I hear that that hurt you, and I'm sorry that hurt you.
[686] Because being heard is so important to us.
[687] When we feel heard, we feel valuable and we feel significant.
[688] You know, again, our needs are to feel significant and worthy and enough.
[689] So if you can hear someone, you make them feel significant and worthy enough.
[690] And if you don't hear them, go, oh, you're just being overdramatic, you're overreacting, not that again.
[691] Why don't you just get over yourself?
[692] Then you don't feel significant, you don't feel worthy and you don't feel heard.
[693] So we want to have higher self -esteem.
[694] And if you can tell people, oh, yeah, I can hear how I upset you.
[695] I really feel bad about that.
[696] You're growing their significance.
[697] And then when you can feel hurt, you feel more significant too.
[698] So it's such a gift to give someone just hearing them.
[699] And even if it doesn't make sense to you still saying, yeah, I get it that you feel like that.
[700] I'm really sorry.
[701] In your book, when you're going through the case study of Joe, I believe it was, you talk a lot about food and diet.
[702] We all have the belief.
[703] And even I do, and I work out every day, pretty much every day, about six days a week.
[704] And even I know who I want to be in terms of my diet.
[705] I know that I want to lose fat.
[706] I know that I want to not eat the Pringles.
[707] I'm very clear on this.
[708] I think about it a lot.
[709] But I still eat the Pringles and I still have the chocolate and I still don't seem to be able to live in accordance with what I know or at least what I say I want to do.
[710] And also, as you've articulately said, we all know what good food and bad food is.
[711] But we still continue to make the wrong choices.
[712] But from an evolutionary point, point of view, sugar is a good food.
[713] You know, if you were living thousands of years ago and you're out on the prairie, if you found honey or fruit, it was probably going to be very safe and had a lot of fructose and it would keep going.
[714] If you found some lettuce, that wouldn't be the same and bitter stuff was more likely to poison you.
[715] So we're actually a hardwired to prefer sugar because it gives us a lot of nutrients, a lot of calories, a lot of energy for something small, whereas something else wouldn't do that.
[716] And our primitive brain still believes that we'll run out of sugar, which is why no one says, I've got that lettuce in the fridge, calling me a name, but that Ben and Jerry's, that cake, those cookies, I keep going back for more.
[717] And so it's very hard to fight your primitive wiring.
[718] You are hardwired to remember where sugar is and finish it.
[719] You're hardwired to eat food when you see it because if the cunters came home with some fish and you said, I don't really fancy fish.
[720] Two days later, you would be kicking yourself because you should have eaten it when it was in front of you.
[721] We're wired to be scared of hunger.
[722] If you're scared of hunger, you can't be rational.
[723] Also wired to go for fat, you know.
[724] So pringles and potato chips are the new cigarettes because we love the fat, we love the crunch because we have stress receptors here that love biting and crunching.
[725] And so everything we think was wrong about food is actually from our minds, but no, it's right.
[726] You should eat when you see food.
[727] You should load up on caloric food because we lived in a feast and famine for years.
[728] But if you can understand it, you can change it.
[729] And the whole diet industry is based on absolute abuse and self -hatred.
[730] You know, we talk about punishing those pounds, doing a punishing workout, living on a shake diet or powdered soup diet that just tastes disgusting.
[731] we go to groups where we get weighed and shamed in front of people we talk about food as sins and we've had a naughty day or I've been good been so good I haven't it now being really bad I ate a cookie and that that is why to make you feel like a massive massive failure even you saying I shouldn't eat the pringles I shouldn't eat the chocolate you know the way you eat is only down to the pictures you make in your head if the picture's right You eat is why vegans can't eat meat because the picture is wrong.
[732] Jewish people can't eat pork because the picture is wrong.
[733] So if you want to succeed, you've got to maybe set fire to some pringles or do something, make some glue with jelly sweets.
[734] And then when you make the picture different, you'll never want to eat it again.
[735] But you can't succeed at that by beating yourself up.
[736] That's so very true.
[737] The thing that stopped me drinking Coke was watching a clip that someone had shared and they just boiled Coke and they showed the residue that was left behind and it looked like oil.
[738] Yeah.
[739] And this picture I have in my head now is that if I drink Coke, I'm putting this gloopy black oil in my body.
[740] And I'm scared of that.
[741] The way you feel about everything, everything is down to only two things, the pictures you make in your head and the words you say to yourself.
[742] And I think I've now trained 13 ,000 therapists in RTT all over the world and they all say, you know, that's such a kind of, condensing therapy into a moment, the way you feel is down to the pictures you make and the words you can talk, which you are free to change.
[743] I can't get on a plane.
[744] It's killing.
[745] It's dangerous.
[746] Well, actually, the most dangerous part is the cab ride to the airport.
[747] It's a state of mind.
[748] They feel free.
[749] And so if you can just look at every time you think of something or feel something, you think, what are the pictures and words?
[750] What am I saying?
[751] And if you can change them, it changes everything.
[752] And of course they are your words and pictures.
[753] I'm going on a date.
[754] I might be rejected.
[755] But I could be with someone amazing who just thinks I'm the most amazing thing.
[756] I'm going to this.
[757] I could fail.
[758] But I could also get this amazing job of my dreams.
[759] We've all been told that human beings are very complicated and that the mind is very complex.
[760] And it isn't.
[761] It's very simple.
[762] You only have to know three things about your mind.
[763] One is the way you feel about anything is down to the pictures you make in your head and the words you say.
[764] The second is that your mind is hardwired to keep returning to what's familiar while running away from what's unfamiliar and that's true, but you can make anything.
[765] You can put a bit of silicone on your finger and shove it in your eye every day and it becomes so familiar.
[766] But at first, using lenses is very unfamiliar.
[767] But the most important thing about the mind is that it does what it thinks you want.
[768] And you've got to sit down and think, you know, but what do I want?
[769] I want attention, so I've got a nerve there's Twitch.
[770] I want attention.
[771] I'm getting all these illnesses.
[772] Oh, I see.
[773] I should have said, I want positive attention for being really smart or really kind or really evolved.
[774] So, really you don't need to study in human behavior.
[775] You need to know those three things.
[776] And if you know them and apply them, you can make sense of your life and everyone else lives.
[777] But also, you can make your life so much better by thinking, I can change the pictures.
[778] I can take sugar out of my coffee and make it familiar very quickly and if I tell my mind like a spice what I really really really want but I'm very clear like you know I want more money well what's that 10 bucks I want passionate relationship for how long a week so if you just keep always going back to those three things and and looking at them you can have whatever you want once you can look at those three things and make them work for you and not to When I talked about the Pringles there, you talked about the kind of this initial stage being that acceptance of understanding that this is my hard wiring and this is, you know, I'm not, I'm not a bad human.
[779] In fact, I am a human.
[780] You're doing what nature wants you to do actually.
[781] Yeah, and that acceptance is you talk about it when you talk about Terry in your book, when you're talking about dealing with hard feelings, this AAA sort of process.
[782] Can you give me a little bit of illumination on that?
[783] Yeah, I love AAA.
[784] I invented that.
[785] a lot of things I invent is, first of all, makes it easy for me. But when I'm teaching therapists, it's easy for them to think triple A. What does that mean?
[786] It means be aware of what you're feeling.
[787] So this is a formula, almost a three -step process for dealing with hard feelings.
[788] So any hard feelings, or indeed any feelings, then you don't have to be hard.
[789] Be aware of what you're feeling and accept it.
[790] That's the second.
[791] People think, what am I feeling?
[792] I'm feeling jealous.
[793] I shouldn't feel jealous.
[794] I need to eat a cake.
[795] I'm feeling a feeling in my stomach, the seat of all emotions, and I shouldn't really feel that feeling.
[796] Let me eat it, drink it, smoke it, shop it, Netflix, it.
[797] But when you say I'm going to be aware, I'm aware that I'm feeling incredibly jealous of someone else whose book is selling more than mine.
[798] Oh, I feel really jealous about that.
[799] Now I've got to accept it, yeah, I'm feeling a little envious.
[800] But you know what?
[801] My book's doing good, not as good as theirs, but I've got to accept it.
[802] Then I've got to articulate it.
[803] I've got to say out loud, I'm feeling really a little envious about that Paul McKenna.
[804] You've got so much bigger numbers.
[805] But you know, Paul deserves it.
[806] He's worked really hard.
[807] He's not me. I'm not him.
[808] Our books are different.
[809] And if you can just do that triple eight, always start with the awareness.
[810] What are my feeling?
[811] People say, oh, you shouldn't feel that.
[812] And you go, but my feelings are the most real thing I have.
[813] How can I not feel it?
[814] I was having a conversation.
[815] I was saying, well, you shouldn't feel that.
[816] I'm like, shouldn't feel it?
[817] The feelings are real.
[818] I can't not feel it.
[819] It's like saying you shouldn't be diabetic.
[820] So first of all, I'm feeling it.
[821] And you can't tell me I can't feel it because I'm feeling it.
[822] So I'm aware I'm feeling it.
[823] And I'm going to accept that I'm feeling it.
[824] And then I'm going to articulate right now I'm feeling this rage towards my boss who's taken my idea and passed.
[825] And I'm feeling this rage towards my sister or my partner because they're not listening to me. So I'm aware, I accept, I articulate.
[826] But if you do those three, it goes away because feelings are like children going, hey, notice me. And if you don't notice them, they regroup and become stronger, when you eat your feelings, shop your feelings.
[827] Netflix or drink or drug your feelings, they don't go away.
[828] They regroup and come back.
[829] But when you feel them, when you are aware of them and you accept them and you articulate them, And they actually go away really quickly.
[830] So many people come in and say, I just feel so angry, so sad, so frustrated, so disappointed.
[831] Well, okay, let's feel that right now and let's say it out loud and then it will go away.
[832] And if only we all knew that, it makes such a difference to our life.
[833] You see it in men, don't you?
[834] Men express themselves the least and kill themselves the most.
[835] Yeah, the highest suicide rate in the world is young men.
[836] And actually he goes, they always, someone has always made them wrong.
[837] It's always someone has made them wrong before they take that action.
[838] Someone has made them wrong.
[839] Wrong, yeah.
[840] Someone has made them wrong.
[841] Someone else has been right and they feel very wrong.
[842] They've been dumped.
[843] They've been rejected.
[844] They've failed at some exam.
[845] They've been humiliated.
[846] They feel wrong.
[847] But yeah.
[848] But they don't feel that they're allowed to have those feelings.
[849] You know, men don't cry.
[850] You're running like a girl.
[851] Stop being a big girl.
[852] blouse we have all these expressions for men man up and all they say is don't feel and and that's killing people not feeling it's you know we've got people a glut of people taking antidepressants to be numb because they don't want to feel and yet your feelings are the most real thing you have and they will do you an immense favor if you tune into them sometimes you think you know what am I feeling actually I'm feeling really nervous I'm about to give a speech and I'm feeling kind of nervous.
[853] What can I do?
[854] Well, I can remember that I always feel like that before a speech, but I always do them.
[855] And in five minutes, it will all pass.
[856] It will be gone.
[857] And I'm just talking myself into it, instead of talking myself out of it.
[858] So I'm going to accept, I feel nervous.
[859] I'm aware of it.
[860] And I'm going to say, oh, yeah, here's that old nervous feeling again.
[861] Actually, it's adrenaline, it's excitement.
[862] And I always get this, and it's always gone.
[863] You can always talk yourself into something or out of it, took yourself out of the negative into the positive ones it will change your entire life incredibly inspiring and I relate to a lot of that we have a we have a closing tradition on this podcast where the previous guest writes a question for the next guest okay how cool so the previous guest has written you a question they didn't know who they were writing it for okay I won't tell you who they are but you're going to have to riddle this one little bit but the question is are you experienced question mark if so what did you learn and then they've done an asterisk at the bottom that says in the jimmy hendricks sense oh i love jimmy hendricks are you experienced yeah i am experienced you know people say to me but you're not a doctor you're not a psychologist you're not a psychiatrist but i've been a therapist for 35 years my entire adult life.
[864] And I feel I am very experienced in understanding human pain.
[865] And what did I learn?
[866] I learned that almost all my client's pain comes from not believing there enough.
[867] It's why I have all these I'm enough braces.
[868] It's why I created the I'm enough movement because I worked with millionaires and Olympic athletes and sports stars and movie stars.
[869] And I realized they have the same problem.
[870] So what my experience taught me from starting as a therapist working with, you know, everyday people, school teachers and police officers and stay -at -home moms to working with billionaires taught me that we're all the same and we all have the same core issue.
[871] I just didn't feel enough.
[872] But that isn't true, but if you keep saying it, it becomes true because it feels true.
[873] And so if we can just change those thoughts and feelings.
[874] So my experience taught me that therapy is not complicated and it taught me that this belief oh someone's got depression that's very complex so the treatment's complex too no it isn't treatment can be really fast and effective because it comes from again but not enoughness it's so insiduous but it's not even real but it's like saying my headache is psychosomatic that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt it's just the same as a headache that's caused by an exposure to toxic females they both hurt the same or One is real, one is psychosomatic, but they feel the same.
[875] And so my experience taught me to treat people and to simplify, simplify therapy, simplify the cure.
[876] You know, the word cure comes from the word curious.
[877] And if you're curious, and if you treat every client as if they are fascinating and compelling and interesting, you'll always unravel in your curiosity.
[878] I mean, we're not allowed to say we cure people, but still I love the fact that cure comes from the word curious.
[879] Marissa, thank you so much and thank you for writing such a brilliant book.
[880] It's the first time I've read a book like this that was centered around case studies of patients because you're telling real stories of patients and really dissecting them, it's much easier to follow and to relate to than if you were just like, you know, if it was a textbook.
[881] Sure.
[882] I read those textbooks in school, the childhood psychology textbooks and psychology textbooks.
[883] They were difficult.
[884] Yeah.
[885] grams and stuff.
[886] But this felt very, very human.
[887] And I think that's what made the book.
[888] So I wanted people to think, I identify with Terry.
[889] I identify with Joe.
[890] And if I see Terry's story, I can see my story.
[891] And in Terry's transformation, I can see how to transform me because we all relate.
[892] So I wanted people to relate to it and get the same benefit.
[893] It's a very different approach, but it's an incredibly powerful one.
[894] And I think it's an incredibly important book for everybody to read.
[895] Thank you as well.
[896] Because, you know, your work influenced my my first book in a big way.
[897] And just the, when I saw that clip going viral online where you talked about people not feeling like there are enough, it was exactly what I'd felt for my whole childhood.
[898] And it was really just an illuminating thing that allowed me to behave in a different way and cure some of my own sort of insecurity, shall I say.
[899] So thank you.
[900] So the simpleness of it was the people think if it's simple, it can't be profound, but the strength often is in the very simplicity and it can be so profound so yeah it's always easier when it's simpler thank you i'm so pleased and touch that i could help you it's great not just me yeah many many millions thank you marissa thank you too it's been lovely thank you