0:03All right, I think we are starting live. People are joining. Fantastic. Let's give it a minute or two.
0:11Okay, and then we can go.
0:16All right, 14 people already. Amazing everyone. Welcome. So good to see you guys. We always love to start with a little kind of kickoff by sharing where you guys are joining from. Obviously, I know many of you already, but those of you who are joining for the first time this session, it would be great to hear where you guys are based
0:38and if you have a drink of your choice today. I have a ginger tea already at this point. [laughter] Hey, do you know, by the way, real Oh, never mind. Here, I think I uh Okay, I figured it out. Sorry.
0:50No worries. No worries. You mean like a share screen, right? Oh, yeah. There you go. Okay, great.
0:54I'm gonna Oh, perfect. I'm gonna give us a quick intro before we get started.
0:59Does that look backwards, by the way?
1:00Does my text is my text flipped around?
1:05Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. All good. All my screen for some reason it looks backwards. [laughter] Oh, okay. No, you have a really beautiful, you know, background. Everything is Oh, thanks. Look, I can do I can do such cool things. Look, I can take up the whole screen and then I [laughter] have half I can go over here.
1:20Okay. I need some tips on what you're using for that. [laughter] Sure. You're looking that looking amazing. All right, I see we have people joining from Vienna, from Amsterdam, India, Cleveland, calling from Atlanta, Spain, Portugal. Oh, Matilda is Portugal. I think is currently in Portugal as well.
1:41Amazing. [laughter] All right, see a few people are still joining. I know Maria is probably based in the UK right now. Tatiana is in Warso. Great. Mostly Europe clearly the time is more friendly for European zone right now. But yeah. Okay. So I think we have 20 people which is great. And we can get started. So uh I'm going to give us a quick kickoff on what we're doing today.
2:10Yay. That's my mood in the UK right now.
2:14Uh so today we're meeting obviously with Nuriel, one and only. Um for those of you who's not familiar, I personally know near Beck from when he wrote his first book hooked. It was very famous and I think still it's one of the most famous books in the design community where everybody's discussing how do we design the you know products that are sticky. Obviously later there were backlash and discussions whether it was um you know right thing to do but moving forward I [laughter] think today you're very backlash. What are you talking about?
2:41There's no backlash. There was backlash to social media but people who read my book I just want to set the record straight. uh people who read the book, I talked about ethics, I talk about morals, I talk about exactly how to use the technology way before anyone else was talking about uh how to how to help these companies design properly.
2:58Anyways, people love the book. I think mostly people in the design community I loved it. I recommended everyone and then you wrote indestructible. Later we did a live about this and now six year six years later you're publishing a new book called Beyond Beliefs. I was lucky enough to see your live presentation of this book in Prague and now you're doing this in Lisbon and we are lucky to have you today because you could talk a little bit about um the research you've done in the last six years, what you've learned about beliefs and how do you
3:27understand today it shapes the way we I don't know achieve goals, perceive ourselves and basically how we can use the beliefs as our tools. I'm already in the middle of the book. I'm still reading this. I always encourage people to read the book as well. I'm going to drop the links in the chat in a moment and then if we have time we'll have maybe 10 15 minutes when we can go through maybe one or two examples on how those beliefs could shape our job search and beliefs like in terms of how do we succeed in this very challenging market as we all go through today.
3:57All right. Sounds good.
3:59Sounds good. Let's dive in. Hey everybody. So let's uh let's start. So big question here uh that we're going to tackle today and the big topic of this discussion is how do we achieve our dreams right in a nutshell name your dream I want to land that that dream job I want to get in shape I want to have a great relationship with my loved ones I want to stress less I want to uh be more
4:27proficient with AI I want to whatever name it okay maybe in the chat I don't know if I can see the chat function year.
4:33I will be on behalf of seeing and mentioning it if No, you can't, but I will be dropping if I see some.
4:39Yeah, put put in the chat maybe a few what what's what's your dream? What what are a few unrecognized uh unrealized, I should say, dreams that you might have? Um, and and as you're doing that, I want you to ask yourself what you think differentiates those people who achieve their dreams, who achieve their goals, whether it's exercise more, whether it's um uh getting that dream job, whether it's getting a promotion, whether it's writing a book, whether it's starting a circle community, whatever it is, what
5:08separates those people who accomplish those dreams and those who don't? What's the differentiating factor? Is it intelligence? Nope, it's not intelligence. Is it having some secret information? Just knowing the answer to the qu to to to know what to do. Nope, it's not that either. Is it maybe um uh you know uh having some kind of special skill? No, it's not that either. Turns out, you know, any kind of skill you want to learn, you know, search for a YouTube video on it, buy a book on it.
5:35You can learn pretty much anything you want at the the the the tip of your fingers. Everything is out there. So, what is it? What differentiates those who accomplish their dreams and those who don't? Why is it even within us, we can know people or maybe ourselves where we're so good at one area of our life and not so good in the other, right? The person who's incredible at work, who's making tons of money and and just killing it on the promotions, but they have a terrible home life. The person
6:03who is uh amazingly talented and yet awful with money. Okay? Or maybe they they don't exercise or they whatever some area of their life. What is it that that differentiates why some people accomplish their goals and others don't or even within ourselves? Why we accomplish our goals and why we don't?
6:21Well, back in the 1950s, there was a researcher by the name of Kurt Richter. And Richter was a very curious scientist and he had a very pressing question that maybe every single one of you wake up every morning wanting to know the answer to. He wanted to know the answer to the question, how long can a rat swim? Isn't that what everybody wants to know? Don't you all want to know how long a rat can swim in water? Well, it turns out the answer to
6:49his question is that a rat can swim for about 15 minutes. 15 minutes is how long a rat can swim in before it gives up and drowns. Okay, now this is back in the 1950s. You can't do these kind of experiments. Thank god. It's very cruel to animals, but the experiment was already done, so we should learn from it. Okay. And if you're squeamish about animal studies, maybe, you know, don't watch this part for for a few minutes, but it's just such an amazing study, I had to share it with you. So, RTOR had another question. He wanted to know if he could increase how long the rats swim
7:19for. Could he do something that made the rats more persistent? So, here's what he did. He took a new group of rats. He put them in a cylinder of water, a new cylinder of water. And this time, at the 15minute mark, okay? When he knew the rats were about to give up, he instead he didn't let them drown. He reached in, he pulled out the rats, he dried them off, he let them catch their breath, and then plunk back in the water they went.
7:43I told you it was kind of a cruel experiment, but that's what he did. Now, I want you to guess here. Now, I can see the chat. I want you to guess. Don't say if you know the answer, but if you don't know the answer, I want you to guess.
7:54How much longer do you think that the rats swam for? Leah, don't give away the answer. If you've heard this study before, if you've read my book, don't give away the answer. How much longer?
8:04They started with 15 minutes. Put in the chat how much longer you think after RTOR's experiment, after his intervention, how much longer did they swim for? What do you all guess?
8:21Another 15 minutes, Tatiana says. Okay, that's a good guess. 100% improvement. That'd be amazing, wouldn't it? What What does everybody else think? Let's get some more guesses going.
8:34People are afraid to think about it.
8:36[laughter] Just put in the My first guess My first guess was 30 30 minutes. I 30 minutes. Okay, sure. Maria also agrees with you. Twice as long. 30 minutes. Okay, take some more guesses, folks. Come on. Let's participate here. I want everybody to to participate in the chat, so I know you're there. It's kind of lonely just talking to a screen here by myself.
8:5410 more minutes, Alexandra says.
8:56Amazing. Okay, Andre says 15 more minutes. All right, good guesses. You're nowhere close. Not even close. The rats didn't swim for 15 minutes longer. It wasn't 100% improvement. They didn't swim for 30 minutes or 45 minutes or even 60 minutes. Wasn't a 4x improvement. The rats swam for 60 hours.
9:20Not 60 minutes, 60 hours of nonstop swimming. Isn't that amazing? They swam 240 times longer. Now, imagine that, right? What changed in their life? Okay, they didn't suddenly become Michael Phelps rats. They didn't become way stronger somehow. They didn't become better swimmers. Nothing changed in their bodies. The environment didn't change. Same exact cylinder of water.
9:47The only thing that changed was something changed in their brains. We can't ask the rats obviously, but the only variable left is that something must have changed in their minds. Now, what's amazing about this study is that the 60 hours was always in them. It was always in them, right? They started out at 15 minutes and they would give up. They would drown at 15 minutes. But they had the 60 hours all along.
10:13So now you can see why am I telling you this story? I know it's cruel. I'm sorry, Tatiana. The study's long, long finished. The rats are long dead. We can learn from it. And what we're learning from this study is that we all are limiting ourselves. We all quit at the 15-minute mark when actually inside of us, we have far more than we understand.
10:35Because you see the answer to that original question of what differentiates those that accomplish their dreams and their goals and those who don't. Whether it's getting that new job, whether it's writing the book, whether it's uh finishing the project, making sales calls, losing weight, raising great kids, whatever it is, turns out the number one most defining trait is persistence. It's whether or not you quit. That's it.
10:59It's whether or not you quit. Because persistence doesn't guarantee success, but quitting guarantees failure. I'm going to say it again. Persistence doesn't guarantee success, but quitting guarantees failure. So, if we know persistence is the most important attribute, how do we cultivate persistence? Well, we do that by understanding motivation. You see, most of us totally misunderstand motivation.
11:22I certainly didn't understand it before I embarked on the six years of research into this book. You see, most of us think that motivation is like a straight line. That motivation is all about if I want some kind of benefit, I'll do a behavior. Okay? I want that promotion, I'm going to go out for the job. I want to lose weight, so I'm going to eat right and exercise. I want to have a great relationship with my family, so I'm going to learn how to communicate better and be more patient, whatever it might be. Okay? But there's something missing. Clearly, if all it took was to know what to do and why we should do it,
11:51we would all have six-pack abs and be multi-millionaires. Clearly, there's something missing. You see, motivation is not a straight line. Motivation is a triangle. So, in order to sustain motivation, in order to persist, in order to unlock what is already within us, we have to not only know what to do, the behavior, we not only need the benefit why we're doing it, but most importantly, we have to have the belief.
12:18The belief is what keeps it all together. Let me demonstrate. If you're working for a boss who you don't believe has your best interest at heart, okay, maybe you don't believe they're going to give you that promotion or that raise that you deserve. Are you going to stay motivated working for that crummy boss?
12:34No. You're going to lose motivation. You're eventually going to stop working for them. Conversely, if you don't believe in your own ability to do the behavior, ah, I'm not good at public speaking. I'm too young for this role.
12:44This won't work for me. I'm no good at this. I'm not cut out for it. If you don't believe you can do it, even if you know exactly what to do, I can give you the best advice. But if you don't believe you can do it, you won't.
12:57So in order to sustain motivation and increase our odds of success, we need to understand that we have to have the behavior, the benefit, and most importantly, the belief. But we spend no time actually understanding how to cultivate these beliefs to serve us rather than hurt us. So what are beliefs? Here's what beliefs are not.
13:14Okay, beliefs are not facts. Facts are objective truths. They are things that are true whether or not you believe in them. The world is more like a sphere than it is flat. I'm sorry if we have any flat-earthers. I don't mean to offend you, but the world doesn't care what you believe. A fact is a fact. You can't change facts. On the other end of the spectrum, we have faith. Faith is a conviction that does not require evidence.
13:40God rewards the righteous. Okay? There's no amount of evidence that's going to change someone's mind about that. No short, nor should it. It's a matter of personal faith. But between fact and faith is something very special. This is what we call a belief. A belief is a strongly held conviction that is open to revision based on evidence. And what makes beliefs so powerful and why I think all of us should understand them better is that unlike faith which people
14:07almost never change, unlike facts which you cannot change, beliefs are malleable. We can change our beliefs to serve us rather than hurt us. And get this, whether or not they are true. Whether or not they are true. There's one thing I want you to write down right now. Okay? Do yourself a favor. Take out a piece of paper. Write this down.
14:30Beliefs are tools, not truths. Facts are facts. Can't change those. Beliefs, however, are predictions about the future. people like me can't get a job like that. I'm no good at this. This won't work. How do you know? It's a prediction about the future. It hasn't happened yet. And so, we can use these beliefs to improve our lives, to help us persist, to keep us motivated. We do
15:00this by first finding what we call our limiting beliefs. Limiting beliefs are beliefs that decrease our motivation and increase our suffering. They make us less likely to persist. And we hear these limiting beliefs all the time. I'm not cut out for leadership. That's just the way I am. This is too hard. I'm not good enough. Uh that's the kind of person that he is. He'll never change.
15:23My boss is unreasonable. My kids are selfish. Blah blah blah. We tell ourselves this stuff all the time. And it turns out these aren't facts. They're beliefs. And the good news is once we find these limiting beliefs, we can turn them around into what we call liberating beliefs. A liberating belief is a belief that increases motivation, that makes us more likely to persist and decreases our suffering. And so what I want to share
15:52with you are what I call these three powers of belief. The three powers of belief that we have to use our beliefs constructively to not just accept them. You know, where do our limiting beliefs come from? They come from the way we were raised. They come from our background. They come from our culture. They come from all kinds of places. We can't change that. It is what it is.
16:11What we can change is what we do with those beliefs. Do we carry them around like a heavy sack on our back weighing us down? Or do we take a look at them, examine them, and ask ourselves, should I keep them? Do they help me? Or are they hurting me? Should I let them go?
16:25And so, I'm going to show you these three powers of belief. The power of beliefs to change what you see. The power of anticipation. Sorry, the power of attention. The power to change what you feel, the power of anticipation, and finally the power of agency. The power of beliefs to change what you do. So, think of it as see, feel, and do. Okay.
16:42The first power belief is the power of beliefs to change what you see. We call this the power of attention. Now, I'm not being uh metaphorical here. Beliefs really do change what you are able to see with your eyes. You see, one of the things that we we uh allow the brain to lie to us about is that we see things as they are, that we see things accurately.
17:04Well, [snorts] I'm going to show you right here now that that is not true.
17:07And I I need some audience participation here. Okay? So, I I want you to make sure that you're ready to go to type in the chat. Is everybody ready? Okay. You ready? Here's what I want you to do. I want you to take a look at this image and I want you to tell me which square appears to be darker. Square A or square B? The one at the top or the one towards the middle? Okay, so let me see if I can point to it here. Square A or square B.
17:31Which square to you appears to be darker? Type in your answer, please, in the chat.
17:43People are afraid. I think [laughter] is there a trick question? There has to be a trick question, right?
17:49No, just Okay, don't don't think too much about this. Just tell me which one appears. Don't be smart about this. [laughter] Just look at the image. Tell me. Dominica, is that Are you sure about that? Dominica, take a good look. Dominica, everybody else says a a a Luca, Bavana, Alexandra, Angelia.
18:10Uh, everybody except Dominica. Maybe check again. Take a good look. Maybe your your your screen might be I know. I know. She opened Figma and did like a color swapping, you know.
18:22Come on. I told you. Don't be too smart about this. Just work with me here. [laughter] There's always a skeptic in the audience. Okay. So, A appears to be darker. That is true. Yes. Except it's not true. You knew there a trick.
18:36There's a trick. And you're absolutely right. The trick is if I were to go to take a color checker, uh you could do this right now. Or very simply, if I take two bars of the same exact shade of gray and I put them side by side by those two uh uh squares, you will see that in fact square A and B are in fact the same color. Okay, they are in fact the same color. This is there's no more trick. This is the truth. Okay, no more trick. A and B are the same exact color.
19:04Okay, if you're still skeptical, let me put up uh this square here and I'll I'll show you. Hopefully you can see this little animation.
19:11more evidence. No doubt about it. A and B are the same color. Do we all agree?
19:16Give me a thumbs up now if you agree A and B. I've given you sufficient evidence that A and B are the same color. Give me a thumbs up if you now agree. You're convinced. You knew now what Dominica knew uh by checking the colors herself. They are in fact the same color. Yes, we all agree. Everybody give me a thumbs up.
19:35It's so much better to see it in the digital screen because I remember when we were in a live presentation, I was still skeptical. Cannot be cannot be true.
19:43There's always a skeptic. There's always one person in the audience and that's a person who's demonstrating what we call faith.
19:48[laughter] If I have given you incontrovertible evidence and you still don't change your mind, you still don't agree that this is a fact and this is a fact. There is no more tricks. This is a fact. Okay? If there's no evidence that I can present to you to change your mind, well, that's a matter of faith and call it as such.
20:04Okay? But this is the truth. Okay? You don't have to trust me. Go do a color pick or do whatever you need to do. You will see they are the in fact the same color. Okay? Now, that's not even the amazing part.
20:15Are you ready for the amazing part? Do you really want to see why I'm showing you this checkerboard? It's not just about a cool optical illusion. I want you to look at the first image I showed you. Okay? Okay, the one on the left hand side, the first checkerboard. And now I want you to put in the chat which square on the left hand side, which square appears to be darker.
20:39Go ahead and put in the chat which one, square A or square B, which one looks darker now than when you look on the left hand side, the first image I showed you, which looks darker?
21:02I I can't I don't know if there's a lag or if people just aren't replying yet.
21:05There is a little bit of a lag. There's definitely lag, but also I feel people are [laughter] not sure.
21:12Again, don't overthink it. Which one looks to be darker? Just looks to be darker.
21:16A. Leah says A. I'm guessing we're going to get a bunch more here in a minute. A. Luca says A. Exactly. Square A. Think about this for a minute. Everybody now agrees. Even when you look at the first image, square A still looks darker.
21:34Guys, think about this for a minute. I gave you incontrovertible evidence. All of you agreed that square A and B are the same color. You know the facts. I have given you objective truth and you agreed with me. You changed your mind.
21:50They're the same color. Factually, they are the same color. And yet, when you look at the image on the left, square A still looks darker. Doesn't that blow your mind? It should. It should make you reconsider reality. Because what I have shown you is that even when I convince you of the truth, your brain doesn't let you see reality clearly.
22:15Why? Why can't you see reality clearly?
22:18Because your brain can't handle the truth. You see, right now, your brain is processing 11 million bits of information. 11 million bits of information. That is the equivalent of reading war and peace every second. Twice. Imagine reading 2,000 pages of text every single second. The light entering your eyes, the sound of my voice in your ears, the ambient temperature of the room. All this information is being processed by your brain. 11 million bits of information.
22:46But your conscious awareness, what you call reality, that can only process about 50 bits. 50 bits is the equivalent of reading one sentence per second. So 2,000 pages per text twice versus one sentence per second. Amazing.
23:06So what you call the real world isn't as it actually is. It's filtered through this little pinhole of attention that you call reality. filtered by your beliefs. The reason square A looks darker than square B is because for your entire life, every time you've seen a square a checkerboard, they always work the same way. Dark light, dark light, dark light. That's how checkerboards work. And so because of your past experiences, we call these in psychology priors. Because of what you've gone
23:36through in the past, every time you've seen a checkerboard, they always work the same way. Your brain won't let you see reality even when you know it's inaccurate.
23:47You understand how profound that is?
23:49Think about how many things you look through you look at in life that you are convinced are just the way they are.
23:55Right? Just the way they are. When I get in an argument with somebody and they they just don't understand the facts, right? When you're arguing with your your spouse, your significant other, your kids, your parents, your colleagues, your co-workers, you think, man, if they just knew the truth, they would see things my way. What are you talking about? You can't even see your own reality clearly. How can we possibly see reality through somebody else's eyes? Now, you say, "Okay, Ne, I got it.
24:19It's a nice little optical illusion, but come on. How does this really affect me and my job search?" Well, here's an example of how our beliefs literally changes what opportunities we see in front of us. There was a study where [clears throat] they asked people to do a very simple task. The task was to simply look at a newspaper and count how many images they saw. Okay, just count one, two, three. How many images do you see in this newspaper? Now, they
24:46separated people into two groups. One group of people were people who believed they were lucky people. The other group of people were people who believed they were unlucky people. Now, the people who believed they were unlucky, by the way, this wasn't a fact. They didn't follow them around to see who's lucky, who's not. They just asked them, "What do you believe about yourself?" And it turns out the people who believed they were lucky people, sorry, the people who believed they were unlucky people took on average 2 and 1/2 minutes to finish
25:16this task. Two and a half minutes. The lucky people took just 11 seconds. 11 seconds versus two and a half minutes.
25:24That's a huge, huge gap. Why? Well, turns out that on page two of this newspaper, immediately as they opened it, there was one image that said in big bold letters, there are 43 images in this newspaper, please collect your reward. Now, the people who believe that they were lucky, they immediately saw it, read it, understood it, got up from their chairs, and collected their reward. The people who believe they were unlucky, even though, get this, even
25:51though they successfully saw the image, we know they saw the image. Why? Because they correctly counted after 2 and a half minutes exactly 43 images. So we know they saw that picture but it never crossed into that 50 bits. It remained in the 11 million bits of information.
26:08It never crossed over into the 50 bits of conscious awareness. So what happens right when we have certain beliefs it changes literally what we are able to see how we experience reality. And the people who believe they were unlucky why didn't they see that image? Well, you know, things like that just don't happen to me, okay? Can't be that easy. I'm a person who's generally unlucky and they didn't see an opportunity that was literally under their nose. So, how
26:36often in our lives do we miss opportunities that are right in front of us because we are filtering them through our beliefs? Because it's not true that you see things as they are. You see what you pay attention to. If you are convinced that AI is taking all of our jobs, guess what? You're going to see every time you hear that in the news, you're going to be conscious of it versus you're not going to see all the opportunities that might be created by this new technology. It's based on what
27:05you pay attention to. You will see more of what you are looking for. The second power of belief is the power of anticipation. Anticipation affects how we feel. We talked about what we see.
27:17Anticipation has to do with what we feel. Because another thing that we're told that the brain constantly lies to us about is that we should trust our feelings, right? Believe in your gut, right? Turns out not so much. There was a study done where they asked a group of women to help them study how people treat those who have a facial disfigurement. Now, they asked these women, they told them, "Hey, you're going to be part of this study with us, and we want you to come in, and we're going to put this scar on your cheek."
27:45And this scar was done uh through makeup by a Hollywood uh uh makeup designer, you know, somebody who works on horror films. And they got a really good professional to make this very realistic scar on their cheek. And they said, "Now, you're going to enter this room over here, and we want you to just have a conversation with that person in the room, but we want you to be very aware of how you're feeling during this conversation. Does that other person look at you funny or do anything that might think m make you think that this
28:14scar is coming in between you and the other person as you have this conversation? Okay, got it. Got it. She is about to go into the other room. But just before these women enter this other room to have the conversation, they said, "Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Please just sit down for one quick second. We have to touch up the scar."
28:31Okay, just just one quick second. We just have to touch it up. But they didn't touch up the scar. In fact, they removed the scar completely. Then they asked these women to go in the room without them knowing that the scar was gone. The women didn't see themselves in the mirror. So they go into this room to have a conversation to observe what will happen with a scar that's not even there. And wouldn't you know it, the women in this study reported afterwards
28:58that the other person stared at their scar, that they ma ma made them feel very awkward, that the scar was something that the people couldn't stop paying attention to, and some people would look away and felt very uncomfortable. All feelings generated by a scar that wasn't even there. So, let me ask you, [cough] how [clears throat] often are you entering a room during a business conversation, during your job search, with a scar that may or may not actually
29:27be there? And yet, your beliefs about your deficiencies, I'm not good enough, I'm too young, I'm too old, I'm not this, I'm not that, are coloring how you experience that that that uh those feelings because of those beliefs, not because of the reality of the situation. Because you don't feel things as they are, you feel what you believe. And finally, the power of agency, the power of our beliefs to change what we do.
29:57Another thing that the brain lies to us about is that I am what I am, right? You can't change who you are. I am what I am. This is this is the way things are.
30:04I can only do what I can do. Not true. A few years ago, Serena Williams, the tennis player, was per was playing in Wimbledon. And that year she was not doing well. Not at all. And the reason she wasn't doing well is that she wasn't rushing the net. She was hesitating. She was fearful of rushing the net. And uh she was she was about to lose the match before her coach Patrick Montigloo calls her over and he says, "Serena, Serena, come here. I want to tell you something.
30:31You know, I've been looking at your stats and did you know that 80% of the time that you rush the net, you score a point?" And Serena says, "What? I I I thought I was terrible at the net. And he says, "Well, look, statistics don't lie." And it's true. Statistics don't lie. But he did. She wasn't performing anywhere near 80% of the points at the net. Not even close. But here's what's
30:57amazing about this story. That his lie actually became reality. You see, the job of a great coach, a great parent, a great boss is to unlock what's already in the people they're around. You see, coach Montigloo knew what she was capable of doing. He had seen how she performed in the past. And when he unlocked her ability, the lie became reality. She in fact did start hitting
31:27uh making 80% of the points at the net.
31:29She ended up winning the match and taking Wibbleton that year. Now, many of you are thinking, "Hey, hey, come on now. This goes too far. Are you telling us that we should just lie to ourselves?
31:39Should we just be delusional? Should we just gaslight ourselves?"
31:43Well, guess what? You already are. You think you see reality clearly? I just showed you through that checkerboard illusion how you don't see reality clearly. You have no idea what you're capable of. Just like those rats that stopped at 15 minutes when they had 60 hours in them all along. That's exactly what you're doing to yourself every single day. Hey everybody, take out a piece of paper. I want you to write down the word belief.
32:09Okay, my book is called Beyond Belief. Write down the word belief. How do you spell belief? B L I E F. That's how you spell belief.
32:21Have you ever noticed that you can't spell belief without a lie?
32:27It's right there in the word. You see these beliefs, we're already lying to ourselves. We're already delusional. We're already gaslighting ourselves. We're just choosing the wrong belief.
32:40We're choosing the limiting belief versus the liberating belief. The good news is we can change our beliefs by understanding that you aren't just who you think you are. You are what your labels say you are. Your labels become your limits. And so what we want to do here is not toxic positivity. I want to be very very clear. This is not toxic positivity. Toxic positivity says that thing didn't happen. Okay? The pain didn't exist. What are you talking
33:09about? That's that's you're you're changing facts. That's toxic positivity.
33:13No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying we can change our beliefs to get the outcomes we really want. We're not changing facts. You are not changing facts. Coach Patrick did not tell Serena that she's an ostrich. Okay? There's no evidence for that. Remember what's the definition of a belief? A conviction that is open to revision based on evidence. He [snorts] had evidence of what Serena could do. But she didn't believe in herself. That's what her coach did for her. Okay? But you're using existing evidence to get the
33:41outcome you really want. But you can find evidence either way for a prediction about the future. I'm not going to get the job. Uh AI is taking all the good opportunities. I'm too old.
33:51I'm too young. I'm this. I'm that. It hasn't happened yet. And if of course if you believe it's not going to work out, it won't. So we can choose these beliefs that serve us to get the outcomes we actually want. So I'm going to pause there for a minute because I there's a lot more we could talk about. There's tons tons tons more in the book, but I want to make sure we have plenty of time for Q&A, but while you do while you we uh do the Q&A, I actually want to give you something here real quick. Um
34:18I would love to hear what you thought. Oh, wait. I'm sorry. I I clicked on the wrong slide. Give me one second here. Here you go. Um I want to give you exactly this fiveminute belief change guide. Now, there's nothing to sell you.
34:29There's no course. There's nothing to sell you here. There's a book that has a lot more information on it, but you know, you don't you don't have to buy that. I I think you'd love it. But, uh regardless, there's this five minute belief change guide that everybody can have here. Maybe somebody can put the URL in the uh in the the chat function to make it easier for people to click on. or you can just zap this QR code and you'll get this fiveminute belief change guide that walks you step by step exactly through how to change the beliefs. We we couldn't fit this uh this guide in the final edition of the book.
34:56It's a nice complent to the book. Uh again, it's totally free for you. Uh and and with that, I would love to take some questions.
35:05Fantastic. Thank you so much. um for the questions. Um in a second I'm going to I should have done it earlier but I've just enabled the live QA box now. You will find it near the chat uh icon in the bottom. So where you see the controls on your on your live stream you guys will see the new QA uh box basically. Click there and you can drop the questions and also if somebody likes other questions make sure to upvote it because you know the more likes their
35:34question gets the more on the top it will be. So start dropping your questions. Um yeah, we already see the I think people also just scanned the code so they're checking what you have shared up there. I'm going to SC right now as well.
35:48But as as people as people Yep. There we go. [laughter] Amazing. Give me a sec.
36:10So also another thing I wanted to ask people that especially those who are in the community because I mentioned this earlier is that if you have any beliefs that you you're not sure about somehow like for example if you're feeling like it's all great it's great information but maybe I'm too old maybe I'm not wired for the speed we're operating on at the moment right because everything is so fast now with AI or where you feel like maybe no matter how I try my portfolio is not good enough because I didn't have the right experience.
36:39experience in the past. So I cannot compete with the market that is up there. So whatever beliefs you guys have, drop them either in the chat or in that sticky sticky box that I just uh opened or a challenge you might be facing any kind of challenge like what what think to yourself what kind of challenge or change you've been wanting to make that hasn't happened. Could be anything. I I hear a lot I I really want to get in shape. I don't have time. Uh I want to have better relationship with my kids but I keep checking my phone. I want to
37:07get that promotion. I want to read more.
37:09I want to check my phone less. I want whatever challenge or change you want to make. Put it in the chat. I'd love to hear like what what's top of mind for you right now that you would love to change or do in your life that maybe you're not. And and we can work through exactly why. Because you see behavior change, it's not good enough to just do it, right? Who who doesn't know, right?
37:33Right. If you want to get in shape, that's a very common change people want to make. Oh, I finally want to, you know, lose some extra weight, be more healthy. We all know what to do. Does anybody seriously not know what to do?
37:43Quit smoking, right? Who on earth doesn't know that smoking is bad for you? We all know it's bad for you and it's so simple. Just quit. Not so simple, right? So, what I want to do is to see I would love to see in the chat, everybody put in what challenge or change you would like to make. What's top of mind? Something that you've had year after year. Maybe it's a New Year's resolution. Maybe it's a promise you've made to yourself that you haven't kept.
38:07Maybe it's a relationship that you want to improve that might be stuck or or has gone cold. What is it that you're looking for love in your life? Looking to make more money? Looking to whatever it might be. Um looking to spend more time on yourself. What is that change you've been meaning to make? I would love to see it in the chat.
38:25We have at least one where Leah is mentioning she's definitely too old for be to be a professional cyclist.
38:31[laughter] that's maybe maybe who knows now there could there could be evidence of that and maybe not so one of the studies I talk about in the book you know the book is is there's a section a lot about business and marketing but also personal development as well as health and did you know that people who have a positive view of aging live on average seven and a half years
39:00longer 7 and a half years longer. To put that in proportion, seven and a half years, that is greater than the effect size of diet. It's greater than the effect size of exercise. It's greater than the effect of quitting smoking. Seven and a half years. It's unprecedented. Just by changing your beliefs about aging. Now, what does that look like? A negative view of aging. I'm sorry. I'm too old.
39:24I'm too old for that. That's what a negative view of aging sounds like. The opposite, a positive view of aging is growth is possible at any age. Growth is possible at any age. Now, does that mean you can compete in the NBA if you're 5 foot? That's going to be a tough one, right? Like, there's never been a precedent for that. There's no evidence for that. Does it mean you can play basketball well into your 80s? Has it ever happened before? Yeah, there is. It is a fact. Growth is possible at any
39:52age. So, here's what happens. Your beliefs literally become your biology. Your beliefs become your biology. And that's how people live seven and a half years longer. Now, it's not magical.
40:04It's not a miracle. It's not supernatural. It's that beliefs change your biology via behavior. Why? Well, somebody who's in whose firstto- mind reaction when they get a little ache in their back or they're challenged to do something or they want to go for a new job and they think, "I'm too old for this.
40:24How likely are they to take on new challenges? How likely are they to meet new people? How likely are they to get some exercise? Less likely than the person who says with the same exact objective reality who says ah growth is possible at any age. So your beliefs really do become your biology via your behavior.
40:46One thing there are a lot of typing happening. So I'm very curious about all the challenges. But the first challenge that Anna is mentioning, I think it's a very relatable one. Most of us are thinking the same or feeling this is to stop trying control things that are that are not in our control, right? Something that we cannot really influence and yeah, that's one of the hard one I think.
41:06Yeah, we can talk about that. So is the question how do we learn to what's the question?
41:12Yeah, I mean that's not a question. It's more of a challenge, right? You you saying like what challenge are you going through things? So people start sharing this. Uh but I do think that's yeah that's a that's a good one. Let's we can look into this.
41:22Yeah, let's talk about it. So there's a concept in psychology that we call locus of control. Locus of control there's two two types of people. Um there are people who have what's called an internal locus of control and then you have an external locus of control. An external locus of control is that you believe that things happen to you. It's the economy. It's AI. It's the job market. It's my parents. It's all this stuff outside of me. That's why my life is the way it is.
41:50Okay, that's called an external locus of control. Then you have what's called an internal locus of control. An internal locus of control is the kind of person who believes that they shape their reality. Okay, that they can do things that shape their outcomes. Now, here's what's amazing about this.
42:05People who have an internal locus of control do better in every conceivable metric. They make more money. They have more friends. They contribute more to their community. They have less instances of depression, anxiety, and burnout. All these good things happen to people who have an internal locus of control. Now, here's the really double amazing part. Even when they find people who have every reason to complain, okay?
42:29People who are born in very uh uh uh poverty-stricken countries, people who are discriminated against, people who are disabled, people who have every reason to say, "Hey, look, the system screwed me." Even then, people who have an internal locus of control still do better.
42:47Still do better. So even if it's a fact that you're in a difficult place, if you believe you have agency, you still do better psychologically. So the point of the story, the moral of this is that it's important to find where you have control no matter what. And guess what?
43:05The thing you always have control over, the thing nobody can take away from you unless you let them is your beliefs. You always have control over that.
43:16Absolutely beautiful. Okay, I'm going to go through the list of questions because we are then we're coming we're having them piling up. The very first question that gots most of the people opposing for it is actually how do we identify and change limiting beliefs that make us doubt our abilities or feel intimidated when pursuing new opportunities.
43:36Yeah. Wonderful. Fantastic. So, here's what I want you to do. Did we have any?
43:38Let me go check in the chat here. Um, okay. So, we've got Oh, this is fantastic. So, we've got a lot of people who responded here. Uh, Tatiana said, "I want to build my professional presence on social media as a designer so that I can easily find great opportunities that are not reaching a market." Fantastic.
43:52Uh uh let's see uh challenge that Tulsi says stop looking for external validation to build confidence. Uh uh you said uh oh no I skipped that one. Uh uh Maria said stop to doubt myself and my expertise. Excellent. So what I want you to do everyone this is only what three or four people out of 34 we have here. Everyone even if I understand if you're if you're maybe private you don't want to share this. Do yourself a favor right now. Write down that challenge or change and make it specific. Okay? Make
44:20it as specific as possible. I want to repair a relationship with this specific person. I want to get that job that I know I'm I I I I've always dreamed of.
44:28Uh I want to run that race. I want to what whatever the case might be. I want to write my book. I whatever it could be. I want to uh get in shape. Write it down and make it as specific as possible. And now after you've done that, I want you to ask yourself this question. What's in your way?
44:46What's in your way? Okay. Let let me give you can I give you a quick example here?
44:52You know, of course, go for it.
44:54Yeah. So, for me, um my uh you know, I I'm a professional speaker and I speak at dozens of companies a year. That's my livelihood.
45:04But when I first started out, I used to have terrible stage fright. Terrible stage fright. In fact, I I'll tell you a little secret. I still do. That right before I get on stage, I would get my sweaty armpits. I would get the cotton mouth. I would get the heart palpitations. I would start getting a lot of stress. And uh I would tell myself this story that you see the reason I'm not a good public speaker is that I have terrible stage fright. So what I wanted, my dream was to be a professional public speaker and
45:33hopefully affect the lives of millions of people, make their lives better. But you see the reason I can't do that is that I have stage fright, right? That's what was in my way. I have stage fright. So for yourself, whatever your challenge might be, whatever your goal might be, I want you to write down right now what is in your way. I don't have enough time.
45:52Uh this now some of this stuff might be objective truth, right? If you want to be, you said in your 80s to be a a mo a bike bicycling champion. I don't know like is that a fact? Could you do it? I don't know if there's a category for that. You know, we're not judging what's true, what's false yet. We're just writing down what's in your way. Okay?
46:09So make sure everybody does that. Write down what is in your way. So for me, I really want to be a public speaker, but I have terrible stage fright. I'm not good on stage. Okay. Now, here's what I want you to do. This is a technique called inquirybased stress reduction.
46:23And this I have to give full credit to a woman by the name of Byron Katy. She developed this technique. She called it the work. And now it's actually been scientifically validated in many studies. But in fact, the technique goes all the way back to the time of Aristotle, over 200 years old. And here's what we do. We ask ourselves these four simple questions. Number one, is it true?
46:44Okay, then we ask ourselves, is it absolutely true? Sounds like the first question. It's a little bit different.
46:50Is it 100%, no doubt about it, right?
46:53There is not even 1% possibility that it's not a fact. Okay. So, is it 100% true that what's in my way is that I have stage fright? Is that really the reason I'm not able to be a public speaker?
47:08Can't say it's a 100%. Right? Has anybody ever been a professional public speaker who has stage fright? Yeah.
47:14Turns out a lot of people do and still succeed. Okay. Then we ask ourselves this third question. Who do I become or how do I feel? What do I see, feel, and do when I hold on to this belief that when I believe I'm the kind of person who has stage fright? When that becomes my identity, I don't want to do it right. I'm not motivated anymore. I'm suffering because of that belief. And then finally, who would I be without that belief? If I let go of it, who would I be? How would I feel? Well, if I just released myself just to pretend,
47:43just for the sake of exercise, if I just release that belief, wow, if I didn't feel I had stage fright, that if that wasn't the reason why, and you can do this for yourself. If you release the belief, I'm not good enough, I don't have time, I don't have enough experience, whatever the case, wow, you all of a sudden reveal, huh, I feel better, I feel lighter, I feel more motivated, I'm not suffering as much.
48:04And then we do what's called a turnaround. And this is my favorite part. We ask ourselves this simple question. Could the opposite be true?
48:15Could the opposite be true? Let's take my case, okay? Stage fright is what's keeping me from being a good public speaker. You see, when I have my heart beating and the sweaty armpits and the cotton mouth, all that's bad, right?
48:31Bad, bad, bad. Why would anybody want that?
48:34Could the opposite be true? Could those things be good?
48:39Actually, they might be because you know what? Maybe instead of my heart is beating because I'm anxious and I have an anxiety disorder or something, which is what I was telling myself. What if my heart is beating fast so it can get more oxygen to my brain so I can deliver my best possible presentation? And I I'll let you on a secret. I feel those same physiological symptoms right now. I have a cotton mouth. That's why I keep taking sips of of my drink and I I have the beating heart in my chest. You know why?
49:08Because I'm excited about this, right? I love this material. It has changed my life and I believe it can change the life of millions of other people. And so, is it a bad thing? You see, at the core of every limiting belief, every limiting belief, this won't work. I'm not ready. Uh the economy sucks. AI is taking all our jobs. Blah blah blah. At the core of every limiting belief is always two things. Fear and judgment.
49:32Fear and judgment. I fear that this is the kind of person I am. I'm the kind of person who's bad on stage and so I'm never going to be able to accomplish my dream. Judgment. My beating heart is bad. Do I know it's bad? Is it a fact that it's bad? Is there any way the opposite could be true that actually could be good? Try this for yourself. Right? AI is taking all our jobs.
49:56Is that 100% true? How do I feel when I believe AI is taking all our jobs? How would I act? What would I see, feel, and do if I didn't believe that? And finally, could the opposite be true?
50:07Could AI actually make more jobs? It might. And anybody who tells you they know is full of Nobody knows. We'll only know in another three, four, five years, right? And I guarantee it will make some jobs and destroy others.
50:22But if you have the point of view, oh my god, the sky is falling, everything's terrible. Guess what? You're going to end up on a certain path versus there's going to be new opportunities ahead. So, if you can build for yourself these new liberating beliefs, and one of my favorites, I'm going to give you one of my favorite liberating beliefs that I've, you know, I used to be kind of a a downer, kind of a negative person in many ways. I would see the the bad stuff. By the way, this happens to smart people all the time. I know many of you are very highly educated, very
50:50intelligent people. And this is what smart people do. They know too much. We know too much. We think about probabilities and chances and maybe this and maybe that and what about this? And so we think that those predictions that we've made up in our head are true, that they already happened. So we start suffering from them today, even though they haven't even happened yet. Oh my god, AI is going to take all our jobs, has it? Not yet. It hasn't happened.
51:17It's happening in some places, in some ways, but it hasn't happened right now to everybody. There's still opportunities out there. So instead of of overthinking some things, what we want to do is to have in our pocket a liberating belief. And one of my very, very favorite liberating beliefs is this isn't happening to me. It's happening for me.
51:38It's not happening to me. It's happening for me. My heart is beating fast in my chest right now. Not to me. I'm not afflicted by it. It's happening for me.
51:47It's helping me deliver my best possible presentation right now. So, looking for those limiting beliefs, right? Why are you stuck? What's in your way? We talked about earlier. and then turning around those limiting beliefs and then having in your pocket and constantly repeating these new liberating beliefs until they crowd out those old limiting beliefs.
52:09That is so true. So true. Especially for I know so many people who are super smart, especially developers, they're so smart. They would say this is like all sorry for the words and blah blah and then they're just limiting themselves because they believe that not nothing is going to be good and they know it's all selves and then they just you know block themselves. I've seen this so many times. Uh but for the sake of timing I'm actually going to move on for the next question. I think it was really fantastic. Plus I recommend to read the book because you unpack very
52:36brilliantly there the turnaround moments and how to start.
52:40Yeah, there's just so much hard to put everything into a few minutes. [laughter] Hopefully people will check it out as well.
52:46Exactly. Um, oops. This one we just answered, right? We just answered that one. I'm going to move on. The next one is also by Adi or what was the first one by AI? Sorry. Let's spot this one. So, how can you share um share ideas or information in a meeting freely without thinking it would be a dump idea, right?
53:06Like I I have this judgment and fear [laughter] 100%.
53:10Sure. Absolutely. We've we I'm I'm guessing everybody here has felt this idea of well what what if people think my idea is dumb.
53:18Okay, great example of a limiting belief. When I believe people will think my idea is dumb. People will think I'm dumb. What does that do to my motivation to collect contradictory evidence? How do I collect contradictory evidence?
53:33Well, I ask a question and I collect evidence, right? I see what happens. I I I give some kind of comment and I see what happens. But if I think, "Oh my goodness, people are going to think in this meeting that my comment is dumb." I lose motivation. I increase suffering.
53:48And so I'm just trapped in my little cave of a belief that I invented, right?
53:54I don't have evidence. But that's what I've collected. I don't know what's going to happen yet. But if I believe people are going to think my comment is dumb, I'm not even going to try. So rather what we want to do, same technique. We know what it does to us.
54:06We can reveal that's not the truth. We don't know that for a fact. the question hasn't been even asked. The comment hasn't been shared in that meeting yet.
54:12Instead, what if we did the opposite?
54:14What would the opposite look like?
54:16Instead of in this meeting, people might think that my comment is dumb, people will appreciate my comment, right? That if I have a thoughtful comment, people will appreciate my contribution. And you know what's interesting? I see this all the time. You know who people think are dumb? Really? Like I I I I met billionaires. I've met people who are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
54:37very high-powered executives. You know who people really hate in a meeting?
54:42It's a person who doesn't contribute. That's dumb. The person who sits there super scared, who's just taking up space and oxygen. So instead of people will think I'm dumb if I contribute, people will think I'm dumb if I don't contribute because what the heck am I doing in this meeting if I'm not going to participate? If I'm not going to add value.
55:06Yeah. 100%. And I think I think it was also based on what you were saying here, right? Like how do I share ideas freely?
55:13It's because I think most of us are shaped by the experiences we've had in the past. Maybe we felt maybe once in many times that maybe what we said wasn't perceived as we wanted and then suddenly we'll shut up. We we probably have the evidence that my ideas are always bad and we sort of believe in this but in fact maybe this idea is actually a really good one. You're just afraid to waste it because in the past maybe you had one bad meeting.
55:35Yeah. And you know, so fundamentally, let me let me tell you a real secret here. The secret is that people who are successful are losers.
55:46I've interviewed a lot of incredibly successful people, they're losers. What do I mean by that? If you talk to very successful people and you ask them, "Hey, can you tell me where you screwed up? Where did things not go well?" They will tell you for hours about, "I tried this business, it didn't work. I did this marriage and I got divorced. I tried to do this thing, it it failed. I did this that didn't work. I was this was idiotic. This they will go forever about all the different things they did that didn't work out. Unsuccessful
56:16people, they lose once. They try something once. Oh, it didn't work. I said something in a meeting and somebody thought it wasn't a good comment and I was embarrassed. They try once and then they quit. But remember, this is a perfect place to end. The key trait is persistence. The successful person keeps trying again and again and again. They persist. They stay motivated enough to collect new evidence that then they start believe is a fact that actually I
56:44contribute great comments in a meeting. Right? That I mean look at your bosses. Come on. Are you telling me that everything your bosses say in a meeting is intellectually brilliant? Are they geniuses? No. They say just as much stupid as anybody else. But they keep doing it and that's how they become more successful over time.
57:04Beautiful. Beautiful. Uh we're actually at time but I don't know. Do we have one more minute for a second for the last question?
57:11I would love to love to love to. I just have another call so I have to bounce.
57:13No problem. Okay. Thanks a lot so much. Thank you so much for taking your time today and really sharing all the wisdom with us. We really appreciate it and yeah thank you so much. I don't know. Take care. Good luck.
57:25Thank you [laughter] everyone. Good night. Goodbye.
57:28All right, thank you guys also for all the great questions. I'm going to look at them, but I think most of them also be definitely covered in the book. For example, practical steps. This is definitely covered in the book. This is from Alexandra. Um, change beliefs for years, brain conditioned. So, I read the book. I'm in the middle of it and I definitely could tell you that a lot of those questions are 100% answered there because he's like doing a lot of practical things and
57:55examples. So just obviously try to read the book. Anyways, thank you everyone for joining today. Hope it was useful and I really hope that it helped us to start thinking a little bit outside of yeah how we believe in this market today. But if you have any questions also feel free to reach out and uh we can discuss it later in the next sessions. All right, have a good rest of the evening and see you later guys.
58:19Bye-bye. I ordered the book. Oh, cute. [laughter] Thank you so much for joining. Bye guys.
