The Social Skills Manifesto: My STEP-BY-STEP Method

0:00- I've been working on myself since 2006, okay? I'm originally from Switzerland, the French part of Switzerland. Started out extremely shy, that's back in 2006, 15 years ago and I've been on this 15-year journey of really improving at first, my social skills and then all areas of life. And since 2010, I've been traveling around the world teaching this to people just like yourselves, where my typical week prior to this whole situation that we're in was every single week, I'm in a new country,

0:30flying into a new city. I arrive, I'm doing an event on Thursday, usually a free event then working with clients at night after that. Friday, working all day, all night. Saturday, Sunday, more events and then it's off to the next city and that has been my life for again, a decade, okay? Literally traveling around, seen tens of thousands of people face-to-face, millions online if you count social media and YouTube

0:56and it's reached a point where I've seen it all, okay? When it comes to true transformation and this is something that seems to be forgotten nowadays is it's 2021. And if you go on social media, you go on YouTube, everyone and their mom is a coach, right? Everyone and their mom and they have a few clients

1:14and I think that's cool, I think it's great, okay? I support anyone who wants to be of service, who wants to be a coach. However, what we tend to forget is in order to be a coach, you do need to have certain reference experiences in terms of how many people you've actually coached. You can't say you're a coach

1:30if you have say, one client or two, okay? You need a ton of references, that's my job. Since 2010, tens of thousands of references, face-to-face like this. No matter who you are, what you're dealing with, being very modest, I've seen it before and I've dealt with it before. This used to be me, okay? This is me back, again, in my early days, some of those photos were actually a couple of years in

1:54already working on myself. And like I've said, if I really wanna describe to you the mindset that used to live in, perhaps this was you, perhaps this is you, I was extremely shy and stifled since as far as I can remember, since I was a kid, right? Since probably the age of five, six at school, suddenly something happened and I decided to just clam up and I got so socially shy and awkward that I even experienced social anxiety

2:21around family members. Everyone's like, well, I'm kind of scared to go say hi to someone new. I was scared for a holiday, a family gathering when, oh, the cousins and the aunts and grandparents, everyone's coming, that would give me anxiety. People are looking forward to the holidays, not me, okay? Same at school, same later on in again, high school,

2:39university, extremely shy. That was the reality that I lived in. I would not, and this is why I also wanna give everyone here some props, I would not have made it out to an event like this, especially nowadays with everything going on. Even if this event was right outside my house, say back in Switzerland, I would be way too scared to even walk outside the door and show up in person, because I would be thinking everyone in this crowd is now judging me,

3:02staring at me, oh, where do I stand? I'd be sitting in the back, probably in the shadows, scared, and as soon as perhaps the speaker would stare in my direction, I would look down or hide under the table, it was that bad. And I know this can be a little hard to believe 'cause you see the videos now,

3:14and you're like, okay, that's cool, what can I learn? But I really wanna show you this to hammer the point home that it's possible. And this is huge, this is the foundation when it comes to true personal transformation. You have to truly deep down inside, gun to the head, what's the truth? Believe that you can do it. And I can guarantee you because you're here,

3:36there's definitely a part of you that believes. However, this is what I've noticed in so many clients, you believe that you can only change a little bit. You'll see some people do like a full 180 and you're like, whoa, that's crazy and inspiring. But on your end, you're like, well, if I do the same thing as that person, maybe I'll get a 10% result and there's not that true belief that you can become, again,

3:55that dream ideal version of yourself. And if you don't believe it, it doesn't matter what you hear here today, it doesn't matter what content or what routines or what techniques you add to your life, you're not gonna change more than what you actually believe. So, I'm gonna show you here at first and we're gonna be going really deep, think of this whole speech here as this odyssey diving into, again, my journeys things I've seen in clients, how things have evolved, epiphanies I've had, take this with you,

4:22but it all starts with the earlier days, okay? That used to be me, and if you see this and in your mind, you're thinking, wow, I'm a little bit better than that? Good, if you're a little bit better than that, if you put the work in, you, if you perhaps look up to me here,

4:36should be better than me, okay? So, I went from that to living my dream life, okay? No joke, in Switzerland, again, when I was shy, I would lie in bed and I think about all the cool things like, oh, if I could have cool friends, if I could travel, if I could have different relationships, if I could meet someone, if I could do all these cool things, ah,

4:55but I'm stuck in Switzerland. This is the stuff I would dream of and fantasize about every single day, every single night and it made, it happened, okay? Life of my dreams and I've taught it to once more, thousands of clients. This used to be me a little bit more. My favorite photo, if you've been following, by the way,

5:15some of my YouTube lives is the cactus photo. Literally, I think that photo is just the most classic photo of all time. I will keep showing this photo till the day I die. I'm like, that used to be me. And I don't know how I thought at the time that was a good idea. I'm like, whoa, see this cactus,

5:31if I just stood next to it, that'd be the cool, it just. (audience laughing) Okay, that used to be me, too, okay? Up here in the corner with the cap, that's when I first moved to Los Angeles, all right? Then somehow decided it cool to dye my hair. On the very right, that was in Phoenix when I first started going out and working on my social skills with the oversize white jacket and this weird necklace and literally in that photo, I thought I was so cool, by the way,

5:56that's a few years in already working on myself. I thought I was so cool, I was like, I got this handled. If you see that, and you're like, wow, I'm a little bit better off, good. 'Cause that's a few years inner me already working on myself intensively, okay? And then of course at the bottom, Jeff's good old van, okay?

6:15That's my background. I also was very child-like when I started out and very destructive during a certain period of time, okay? The video I'm gonna crack into here, this is a short one, this is in San Francisco in a taxi cab with Owen and I'd gone out the night before and I was drinking at the time, drank way too much

6:36and he filmed this the next day. And while filming this, we talked about it after it's like, you will want to cherish this footage, you'll be able to show the transformation, dah, dah, dah, and in the moment, I'm just some kid I'm like, I guess so, okay, and here I am showing it, okay?

6:48So, this year was where I was at a few years in. You're gonna see the type of mentality, it's like, oh, that literally looks and sounds like a dumb kid. Notice once more the change and put yourself there in the same shoes, like, are you further along than that? And if so, you can do so much better.

7:05If that kid can turn into this, okay? That little caterpillar can turn into a butterfly, so can you. - [Man] How do you feel right now? - Pretty good, well, if I drink monster, I'd feel pretty really good. But fortunately I'm forced to live off vitamins, which doesn't help. Monster win. - [Man] Beast mode tonight.

7:31Beast mode. - Never again the beast could be unleashed. Dude, you're making me laugh, I feel like (indistinct). A bit of laughing, a bit of talking. - Beast mode. I'll be out beasting sleeping on my couch. - This is me starting to travel with Owen, helping them out on different events. That's my background.

8:02Gets worse. - You can see it has like, strange rust stains on the front. And actually, yo, what's that? Like, trash, body factory.

8:19What do you have to say for yourself? That's what you had to say for yourself? A random metal bar.

8:32What do you guys think? Yo, whoever can guess correctly what this metal bar is for will get, I don't know a personal email from Julian.

8:47- I'm like 100, (indistinct).

8:56- I literally thought it looked so cool by the way, I'd wear that all the time and I thought it was like, a hunter and literally walked around thinking I was a hunter. Now, okay? That's the backgrounds, okay? And it's so key, by the way, there's more of this, but we always send to compare ourselves with people where there are now, and we're like, oh,

9:14how could I ever be that or do this? And everyone does this by the way. But you gotta train yourself to look behind the scenes, okay? You right now, if you're just starting out or even just a few years in, that's probably where you're at and think of the potential of what you could actually become.

9:31It's 100% possible, okay? No one's cut from a different cloth. What one person can do, another person can do, we even look at people who are like say more successful, and we're like, how do they do it, right? Or how are they so disciplined? It's like, you can do that, too. And you really gotta believe it and let go of any kind of limitations

9:48that tell you maybe it's different for you, okay? Now, this year was just in terms of the vibe, starting out. Also, when I started working and say recording myself or doing seminars, I was so shy stifled, I almost wasn't able to and I almost wasn't fully hired because of it. There was a moment, no joke where Owen sat me down, again, I was traveling around helping him,

10:11those videos there. And he's like, okay, let's start recording some actual vblogs, okay? let's go on YouTube, social media is gonna be this thing, let's put videos out there and I could not talk in front of a camera. The camera, and the fact that I knew people would see it triggered the exact same anxiety

10:29that I'd been working on overcoming for the past few years. But it was amplified, right? 'Cause there's a certain executive, you're like, okay, if I just go talk to someone, I'm a little anxious, but you can kind of work through that, and then it's like, oh, I'm gonna do this, and it determines your career, your life and hundreds or thousands of people or tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands are gonna see it,

10:45don't mess it up, go. And they're just staring at this thing that's a camera, and you're like, there's no reaction, I can't read it, am I doing good? Couldn't, okay? This was one of the first attempts, I'd created this little blog back then, it was called julianlife.com and I'm like, okay, I just need to record, no joke, this is it, a 30 second welcome video where you just arrive on the site, you see me, and I'm like, hey, I'm Julian working with Owen,

11:08if you wanna hear some cool updates, enjoy, that's it. This is what happened.

11:16- Yeah? This is Julian, welcome to my blog. I'm here in Los Angeles right now on the rooftop of my apartment as you can tell by the view in the background, and I wanna share with you here some of my ideas, experiences, anything that has been working for me and that'll hopefully help you out as well. So, check the blog, I'll be updating it regularly

11:40every Tuesday and Thursday and I hope you enjoy. One more take, one more take. So, check the blog, I'll be updating it regularly with, ah.

11:54This is Julian, welcome to my blog. I'm here in Los Angeles right now on the rooftop of my, this is Julian, welcome to my blog. I'm here in Los Angeles right now on the rooftop of my apartment as you can tell by the view in the background. - Tried on the rooftop and then I'm like, okay,

12:13time to do an actual vblog. And the first time I tried with San Francisco, way too scared to do it, I set up the camera, people were staring, couldn't do it. Then went on this mini European tour where I did Copenhagen, Stockholm, and then Prague and I tried recording this, this is my very first vblog and all those cities couldn't in San Francisco,

12:32couldn't in Copenhagen, couldn't in Sweden. This is gonna be the Swedish attempt. But and finally I could in Prague and if you've been following me for a long time, that was the very first video I ever put out and it was called the moment of realness, okay? So, this is me trying to do this moment of realness.

12:47Show up, set up, this is in Sweden. Camera's on, way too shy, way too scared. Okay, what up? Hi, okay, let me get in soon, this is Julian, this is Julian. And wanna talk about some of the basic, ah, this is so weird. Couldn't do it. And again, just staring there, it's like people walking by, I'd be all quiet, I'm like we got to do it again,

13:09another take and would just fail, okay? And then some other last little attempt here. That was perfect. I don't wanna be in this video. I'm like, using a shtick versus just being yourself and especially being filmed, you yourself move things forward and being yourself integrity instead of using the shtick and moving things forward,

13:32just sobbing your batteries. - Yeah. - So, same thing, couldn't even look into the camera, stuttering a bit, right? It's like, oh, in this like wavering, that's where I come from. And this here is already 10 times better than my earlier days. This is like 2010, 11, that's already four years in working on myself, okay? Not to put a leg at negative label, I wasn't the most hard case person I've seen, but I was definitely a hard case newbie, but I did have some things going for me that allowed me to move up and surpass people who were even a bit ahead of me

14:04when I first started, okay? So, there we go for the clips and I hope you're a clap friendly as those. (audience applauding) Now.

14:17So, let's get into some of the concepts here, okay? The first one and you can sense it from these clips and even if you've been following me after that, some of the other videos I put on the few years after, the frame overall is very competitive, this is huge, okay? These clips here, the whole theme is I'm in a very competitive state where here I am, and it's me versus whoever's gonna watch this video where I immediately assume that people are out to get me, people are judging me, people are criticizing me, people are going to something very negative in me

14:52unless I prove them wrong. And it's this whole battle, me versus. It would happen even back in the day on stage, I'd go in front of a crowd like this and it said to me like, okay, how's it going? Welcome, everyone, I would be preparing at the back like, okay, must conquer, must dominate. They all hate me, they're all gonna think I'm not good enough unless I prove them wrong and I'd go up and it'd just be

15:12this very forced tonality, okay? You can optimize this paradigm and that's what I did at first. It was me versus same worry, same insecurities, but I'd be battling against it, okay? Can anyone relate so far by the way? Raise your hand if so, right? Or you can also test yourself, if you walk into a new venue, right? Say you go out, you wanna meet someone,

15:31you walk into a venue, how would you experience it? For a lot of people, it's you walk in and suddenly (gasps), right? Your heart starts beating, you start looking around, you're like, are people staring? Where do I stand? Do I fit in? What's okay? Oh, maybe I should go over there, who should I say hi to? And it's you versus, it's this very hostile environment,

15:47this very scary environment, right? And then from that place, what do people do? They try to work on their social skills, right? They try to get out of their head, they try to stop worrying. They try to build momentum, so on and so forth, but they're still in that competitive state as opposed to, and you can achieve this, walking into a venue and instead of that immediate, oh, me versus, it's everyone's on my side,

16:10hey, how's it going? And just completely at ease, okay? That there, that collaborative state is where you want to move towards. And you've all had glimpses of it, right? It's crazy, too, let me know if you having this experience, you go out and at first it's very competitive, you're like, oh my God, it's such a scary environment, so you take some action maybe 30 minutes later,

16:32maybe an hour later. So, you get in state, you're in the zone, same environment, but suddenly you see it completely differently now. Suddenly you're having fun, you're looking around and it's like, everyone's my friend 'cause you got yourself in that other state, anyone experienced that? same environment that was so scary at first, later on, you feel comfortable in it, right? Shifting from competitive to collaborative and we're gonna go deeper on that,

16:54but that is definitely the theme here. Now, the other one that I mentioned is I kept going, okay? There's a few things, especially, this is for those of you who are starting out that you really need to get in check. Number one, be selfish. Meaning want this for you? That's something I had. And this is something funny enough with social media that less and less people have where you see, for example, someone on YouTube, someone on Instagram, someone you might be like, oh, I wanna learn that, I wanna learn from that person,

17:21I wanna be like that. And instead of taking that and applying it, you just end up worshiping that person, right? Oh, let me learn more about this, let me see them more, oh, let's see what they're doing. Other people, other people. And you never take it and apply it to yourself. For me, yeah, I look up to other people, I'm inspired by other people,

17:38but I always take what I'm learning and I apply it to me. You gotta be selfish, it's like, no, no, no, I'm not using all this as another kind of fantasy watching this cool movie, it's I'm gonna do it so my life becomes the movie. And once more, you also gotta believe that's possible. If you're like, well, maybe my life could be a little bit better,

17:58but it won't be as cool as that person's movie, BS. No matter who you look up to, you can live just as epic of a life. If you applied, if you're selfish. So, even throughout this whole weekend, this whole event, everything you're hearing from me or the other speakers ask yourself, how can I apply this to my life?

18:16How can I incorporate this? How can I do that? How can I be like that? Me, me, me, me, me. This is the one circumstance where you can always just say, bring it back to me and actually be selfish. The other thing being selfish is being relentless. Keep at it, right? So many people give up or start feeling sorry for themselves, this is very classic if you're someone

18:39who's in a state of grief or victimhood, right? I talk about this in my mentoring program, there's grief, okay? You can say grief, fear and anger. Grief is the victim land where it's a very disempowering force, right? You might take some action and maybe you get a couple of rejections or you might try recording a video like this and the first few tries don't really work and every time it doesn't work,

19:02you just feel down and a little bit more down. And there's like, this force pulling you down and then you're like, ah, screw it. And you just feel sorry for yourself and you go cry yourself to sleep, that's one. Instead, use that as motivational fuel and you can actually shoot up instead of grief to a more productive anger where one person that might happen,

19:23they're like, oh, it sucks, it's so hard. The other person that happens, they're like, again, again. Oh, does it work? Again, and every time they fail, they use that as fuel. I've seen it for years, too, when people go out, right? It's like, they go out, hey, nice to meet you and they're like, no, no, no, no, thanks.

19:36And they're like, okay, let me go home. The other one's like, again, Let's do this, they use it as fuel. The things that will get you ahead are very simple, but difficult to execute on, okay? Be selfish, don't go into grief, keep going, and then number three, and this is huge, take responsibility meaning it's on you. Never look for someone to do it for you, and this here links to of course, victim hood,

20:02you hear this, right? If you're a victim, you're giving your power away and if your power's in the hands of someone else or some circumstance, there's nothing you can do about it. But here's a very subtle approach that people who are still in that state take even in the self-help world. They're still victims, right?

20:17It's like, oh, I suck, I can't do it on my own. And then what do they do? They look for a mentor, they look for a coach, they look for a program to do it for them. But that doesn't get to the cause 'cause you're still a victim. What you're simply doing is I don't have any power,

20:36I'm so helpless and powerless, right? This learned helplessness, it's other people, I would, if that didn't happen or if this person do that, I'm so powerless. And then you find out about self-help and you're, coach, do it for me. Now, let's just say the coach actually does some stuff for you, nothing truly ever changes

20:52'cause the power is now in the coach, not you. So, yes, you got to get mentors and coaches, of course, I mean, you're insane if you don't, but never expect them to do it for you. Get the guidance, get the feedback, it will obliterate so many my blind spots, but the responsibility is always on you.

21:15You gotta reclaim that power, okay? And this applies no matter what excuses or shortcomings you may have, right? I had so many excuses back then, too. Oh my God, I'm too shy, so on and so forth. I'm like, no, no, I can do this, on me. It's very easy to fall into this victim trap because you just give your power away

21:33and it just lets you off the hook. Instead of being like, oh, I could actually improve, it's well, I could, but, and you just hand your excuse off to someone or a situation. Reclaim the power. Right now there's nothing stopping you from enhancing whatever aspect of your life it is, nothing. And it's full in your control, nothing that happened to you in the past

21:55is also hindering that, it only is if you believe it. And those were fortunately some stuff that I had. I had that going for me, very, very lucky, I'm like, you know what? I had that persistence, like for me, it was so bad before this that I couldn't go back, there was no alternative. And funny enough, I've said this for years,

22:11there really isn't, right? You know about this now, you've seen behind the curtain. If you don't take action on a lot of this content, on a lot of these ideas, now that you see the way you see the path, you're gonna live every single day of your life knowing that you could have, you're gonna live in regret and you're gonna try

22:26to rationalize your way out of it, right? You've seen me on the Curtain, everyone sees the movie, "*Wizard of Oz", right? You've seen behind the curtain, you can't go back that I could actually improve my life. If you don't, now you're screwed. You wish you could go back before finding out about all this

22:40and live in blissful denial but now it's too late. Now that you know there's actually a path, if you don't take it, your life will be very, very, very miserable, more than those who don't even know about self-help 'cause you know there is a path that you're not taking. I reminded myself that all the time,

22:55like, there is no going back, right? Although, yes, it's a fun process, so especially when it comes to socializing, it's fun but also very serious. For me it was life or death, I put myself in situations that scared me so much in order to grow 'cause even though that might be scary and uncomfortable,

23:12it beats the alternative, okay? And then I was also very fortunate where I took a lot of action, I was able to know in terms of myself, what my strengths and shortcomings were and how to balance that out to still take action and I put my ego aside and I would always, always, always look and ask for help

23:35no matter what. Even if the help or feedback that I got wasn't necessarily what I wanted to hear. The more challenging, the better, okay? And this is actually very important, I see this sometimes, too, say on the mentoring program where someone will start and then it's like a few weeks in and changes start seeping in. And when change seeps in, there's good stuff, of course,

23:57but there's also some chaos, right? If you right now, step into whatever it is, that ideal version of yourself, there's gonna be a lot of benefits but in terms of how your life is right now, there's also gonna be some adversity and some chaos, right? It's not all gonna be peachy. And what people do is when they enter that phase and suddenly, ooh, things are kind of changing or people are reacting to me or, oh, there's this friend we were really close with, we're a little bit less friends now,

24:22is something going bad? They go back to that. No, no, no, if you wanna change, if you wanna transform, whatever your current life situation is now, your current circumstances are here now, you wanna destroy that, there is gonna be adversity, there's gonna be some chaos 'cause you're going against that, if it was all peachy and comfortable,

24:40that's you staying in your comfort zone. So, you keep going, most people wouldn't, okay? If it does get uncomfortable, good. If people around you suddenly start looking at you differently, good. And good and bad, good. Don't go back to how things were before, keep on going, okay? So, those were the mindsets that I had starting out

25:03and I just went really hard, okay? And I went really hard in this competitive state of mind, okay? This competitive, you can say frame and you can optimize that and that funny enough is where a lot of the self-help industry is at today and the socializing social skills industry is here today, okay? And I'll give you some evolutions over the years, so if you just take social skills or anything,

25:29basically just write this down, okay. The truth changes, you could write down or the advice changes as you grow. And one thing that will keep people trapped is they'll know that it's changing, but their comfort zone will be just hanging on to old advice and they just won't seek out the new stuff, okay? So, one thing that I had going for me, that Owen has going is we're always seeking the latest technology, the most cutting edge information and we're never just like, okay, this is it,

26:03we just keep on growing and growing and growing. And if there is a better way, we will immediately implement it and there will be no ego attachment to old ways that weren't as efficient. Here's a classic example of that, if you take social skills way back in the day, right? This is like 20 years ago, 30 years ago,

26:20everything was about your lines, right? Hey, learn these lines and you'll be great socially and people would memorize lines and try to perfect lines and even go online on different message boards and exchange notes over optimizing their lines, they'd even have little stories and sticks and routines that they would perfect, and that there was at the time,

26:41the best advice when it comes social skills, okay? I started working on myself towards the later end of That, but that's how I started out, right? when I started, oh my God, I'm so shy, I wanna talk to people, I went online and I started looking up all these little lines and I started perfecting them, right? The first time I ever said hi to a stranger, I used this old line,

27:02it was this old opener called the David Bowie opener. You ever hear of that on, right? I thought, by the way, this is the coolest, magical line that's gonna get any stranger to like me and hearing it now, you're just like, what were you thinking? This is it, you go up to a stranger and you're like, hey,

27:18so do you like David Bowie, right? And they're like, I guess so, you're like, well, my sister has a poster of David Bowie on her wall and he's kind of old, right? Is it weird that she likes older men? That was it, that was it. Now, I'm from Switzerland, so I changed it to Johnny Hallyday, a French guy and I did the same thing and I would no joke, I'd be in my room and I'd be writing it out word for word

27:45including the pauses, everything. and I'd be practicing it out loud on repeat. I probably said it, no joke, 200 times in my room before ever even going out and attempting to say it to a stranger. That's the reality I was in, okay? So, all about the lines, all about the lines and then you'd look online and no joke, people would post their little story, there'd be tweaks, someone would be like, put a pause there instead, and there'd be other cool stories and there was one where it's like,

28:07the best friend test, here that? like, oh, are you guys best friends 'cause you have the same facial expression. that was one where everyone's like, that's amazing, okay? So, practice all that. If you want just a link to my old journey, one side said it 200 times out loud, I finally went out, I'm like, this is it, you're finally gonna ask someone if they like David Bowie or Johnny Hallyday and I'd walk out in the street and then it was a few weeks of me walking around

28:32unable to ask anyone this question, unable, way too scared. I'd walk around and this is like during the day, so people are like, no, let me say hi to this person? And I'd be too scared, and they pass me and then I tried to like follow them, or like look for a better opportunity to say hi and I was just this creepy person, no joke, walking around,

28:48trying to ask someone like, do you like David Bowie? And just like way too scared for weeks. Then I finally surrounded myself with people who were taking action, right? They gave me the kick in the butt to finally do it and I asked the very first person ever if they liked Johnny Hallyday. And it lasted 30 seconds.

29:07I was like, oh, do you like this? And they were like, I guess so and like, is it weird for my sister to do like, no, I guess that's cool, it's music. And then I was very ballsy and I'm like, let me follow up with the next one. By the way, are you guys best friends? And they're like, yes, I'm like, oh, you make the same facial expressions, ha-ha, have a good one

29:25and I left, 30 seconds. That was the first time I ever said hi to a stranger. Now, that was the buildup, okay? And at the time, once more is all about the stories and lines. One thing I did have going for me then by the way is I celebrated those 30 seconds for I wanna say weeks. Most people would be like, oh, it's nothing, it's just 30 seconds for me comparing it to the old me, I'm like this was such a huge achievement,

29:49I thought I was a God after that. I'm like, I can do anything, like if I asked someone if they like Johnny Hallyday, I can do anything. Now, things evolved from there, okay? Everyone's like, well, you know what? I guess when it comes to social skills, it's cool if you use some lines and all, but then you're still giving your power away to the lines, it doesn't really change who you are as a person

30:08in terms of core confidence, right? 'Cause you're still telling yourself I'm not good enough, I can't say hi to strangers unless I have this magical line. So, the power is in the line, right? It also comes off very creepy, that that was the frame. So then people started shifting to, well, instead of taking these pre-made lines and stories,

30:26make up your own. And I went through this whole shift as well. I'm like, you know what? You're right, I gotta make it my stories, so instead of saying, are you best friends with David Bowie, I started writing stuff down on my own, right? And now what was the new way that I said hi to people?

30:40Like, excuse me, do you speak French? I'd say this in French, right? Because again, Switzerland, they'd be like, yes, cool, nice to meet you and it shifted to that. And then I'd experiment around and have my own stories, but it was still in the lines, then it shifted to, hey, it's not about the lines, whether it's yours or someone else's,

30:57it's about the principles underlying those lines. If you actually work on confidence directly, it doesn't matter what you say. So, notice how there's been a shift now in the advice, it's all about the lines, no, no, no, it's about how you say the lineS sub communications, principles, so on and so forth. And that there was and still is to a massive extent today, where the advice is

31:22and that there produces a lot more results, right? You also hear a lot of state management techniques, right? Building momentum. There's all these, there was a video we put out like the three Ps, right? There's videos like, okay, how to get out of your own head, how to never run out of things to say, right? And so on and so forth and there's all these techniques

31:40when it comes to state management. Oh, if you feel stifled, oh, if you like that person's outside your league, do this, do this, do this, okay? Oh, you go out and you feel in a very competitive state, build momentum, talk to a bunch of people and you'll get into a collaborative state. And that's all great, too. However, it then evolved and this is why you've been here me talk about for years now,

32:02Owen talk about for years now, letting go. And it baffles me when I mentioned, for example, oh no, here's a video. When I talk about letting go and say, it's on YouTube and there might be a comment like, oh, I wish it was about social skills, I miss the social skills. I'm like, how do you not see

32:17that letting go is social skills? That's the latest technology. But funny enough, and those of you've been around this for again, 10 years or so, you remember this, when it shifted from lines to principles, there was so much resistance in the whole socializing self-help community. People just won't accept it, people would still say, no, no, it's the lines,

32:38no, it's the lines, no it's the lines. There'll be videos about principles or articles and all the comments are like, oh, but we want the lines. What's your line? Now it's shifted to that, letting go, oh, but what about the principles? Letting go, but what about building momentum? Letting go. And here's we have to realize, letting go is the latest technology

32:56that will take care of 80% of social skills. And you gotta differentiate here to When it comes to social skills, there's 80%, which is around say, state management, and then there's 20% a bit more tactical technical stuff. Same with say sales, so on and so forth, right? There is some tactical stuff like, okay, what's the situation? Logistics, dah, dah, dah, dah,

33:17yeah, you still need that. But all the advice, the other 80% around getting yourself into a good mood, feeling confidence and not getting stuck in your head, being grounded, not being the most reactive person, all of that, letting go. And we have to realize is that the quality of your social skills has much more to do with what you remove

33:36than when you add on, okay? And I'll give a couple of illustrations here. So, here is how one of it, you could say this all evolved. A lot of people, this is where they see themselves in terms of their self-worth. I'm down here, I'm not good enough, I wanna be up here. If you go out, you wanna say hi to someone,

34:01they're up here, I'm down here, what do I do? They're out of my league, what do I do? How do we become cooler like them? Now, what's the most toxic form, the toxic approach? Oh, let me bring them down to my level, let me nag them, let me get them to doubt themselves and their self-esteem so they're now down at my level

34:22and that is terrible, that is toxic. Thank God that's gone. Next step, okay, let's not bring them down, let's bring ourselves up, let's work on our confidence, build momentum, so on and so forth, trying to get there. And that's a much better approach. However, what's the problem? You never actually get there because if you assume you're not good enough and every action you're taking is to become good enough,

34:49what do you keep telling yourself? By default, you're not good enough. I'm not confident, let me work on being confident. If you are not confident and you're working on being confident, you will forever consider yourself as someone who isn't confident for only someone who's not confident works on being confident. This is like the trap, right?

35:09We think we'll escape it, but it actually chases us. And that's what I noticed, right? Okay, I'm working on all this, but deep down inside, do things ever change? No, I just had a lot more material and tactics to cope and to try to boost myself up, but at a core, I still didn't feel whole,

35:24there wasn't that core confidence. And I'm sure you've heard this word before, too, core confidence versus situational confidence, right? Situational confidence is where let's just say, at your work, at your job, let's just say you have a better position than someone else. In that instance, you're gonna feel much more confident than the employee or the person who's below you, right? Like, the manager versus the employee,

35:47the manager there is gonna feel very comfortable. If you're out and say, you have certain friends around you, right? Really good close friends, like, good vibes. You're gonna feel more confident than if you were there by yourself, that's situational confidence. It's a certain situation that gives you that permission to be confident. But going even deeper, we always think externally, okay?

36:08What about situational confidence externally? What about internally, right? Okay, I'm not good enough unless I build momentum, unless I need the line, unless I feel this so on and so, we have All of these requirements and it's still situational, it still depends on something. Core confidence can depend on anything for if it depends on something,

36:29what does it mean by default? You're not confident. Same with this idea of being enough, you can't become enough. The only way to be enough is to always have been enough for it to be the foundation, same with confidence. What's core confidence? It's confidence that depends on nothing, no requirements, just 'cause. That's the type of confidence you want. So, understanding this,

36:51you realize you can't build up to it, right? This approach forever keeps you trapped. And this is where letting go comes into play, if the only way to have core confidence is for it to just be there just 'cause, then it has to be the foundation, it has to come first. And perhaps I'm not down here. Perhaps there will be things in my life that I've experienced, that I started believing

37:17that have conditioned me to believe I'm down here. And this is where letting go comes into play. Instead of trying to then work on yourself, you start letting go of everything that is convincing you that you're down here and you realize you've been here this entire time. You let go of the things that are telling you

37:36you're not good enough, you're not confident. That's the approach. You remove that and understanding this, this leads to the next step where a lot of people, when they have a certain problem, what do they do? They ask themselves, what now? I'm confident, I'm not confident, what now? I'm anxious, what now? I'm stuck in my head, what now?

38:02I'm stifled, what now? Makes sense, right? What now? You have a problem, what now? How do I fix it? But, you know it's an even better question to ask yourself? Can you guess?

38:18Why? if you just, simple thing like this, by the way, if you just start incorporating it, your life will change instead of I'm stifled, what now? Why am I stifled? I'm not confident, what now? Wait a minute, why am I assuming I'm not confident? Where did that come? I have social anxiety, what now?

38:39Wait, why do I have social anxiety? Change the why, change the approach? Why do I have this problem to begin with? And that's the shift here? I'm down here, what now? Wait, why do I assume I'm down here? And this also applies even on a deeper level in terms of who you believe you are here today. And this here, when it comes to the self-help community is the foundation and one of the reasons most people just fail completely, because they assume who they are here today

39:10is them being authentic, right? If you're someone who say a little bit more shy, a little bit on the quieter side, you're like, well, that's me, what now? Oh, I heard I have to be more outgoing, maybe I should fake it, maybe I should fake it till I make it. No, no, no, why are you assuming

39:29that that's the authentic you? Were you born that way? That's a great question by the way, where are you born always like, oh, just super kind of meek and shy and not putting yourself out there, were you born that way? If you're someone who say super negative all the time, were you born that way? Do you come out of your mom's vagina, like, and just immediately complaining like, oh, it's a little too tight squeezing out of this,

39:48like, no, right? No, so why do you assume that that's the authentic you and then now what? And that's what traps us is, you could say you're born free, right? And then you're conditioned and things happen that tents you up, you close off and you put on this shell, right? You stifle yourself through conditioning

40:12and this is now you here today. But if you do the now what? This is me, now what, how do I improve, it traps you in this forever. Because at a core, you're still assuming this little stifled you is the authentic you. Who you are here today isn't the authentic you, what if you're being fake right now? What if you've been fake for so lon`

40:35you've convinced yourself you're being real? That's the shift, well, instead of I'm shy now, what if I've convinced it, what if this is me being fake? And then it even changes the meaning when it comes to fake it till you make it, it's actually act real until you remember.

40:55And again, it's letting go of all this conditioning, that's the approach. The same thing, competitive versus the collaborative paradigm. You can optimize a certain paradigm or you can drop it, you wanna drop it. The more you optimize, the more it entrenches you in that paradigm, okay? For example, I'm not good enough, now what, right? Or it's me versus others,

41:20you can think of it as like, that's the reality. You can work on it, but the more you work on it, as we said, the more he keeps it alive, the more you're trapped there and the solution you're after isn't in this paradigm, you have to drop it, okay? So that there is the foundation,

41:37that's the biggest shift when it comes to these teachings. Now, building on it, when people hear letting go, they think it's a very passive approach, right? And when it came to a bit more of that inner work or even on the spiritual side back in the day, I thought the same thing, right? If you came up to me back in say 2012, so on and so forth,

41:55I'll be like, hey, what about this? I'd be like, no, no, no, just action 'cause your ego is just hammer down, like this is the way, must go through, must plow through so on and so forth, that's how I viewed it. And in a lot of cases, yeah, the spiritual inner side is a lot of just like people being like, oh, I'm just too scared to take action, so that's why I'm gonna focus on this,

42:15but true letting go is a very active process. It's not just you sitting at home letting go, it's a mixture of the two, okay? And this here brings up the next shift, so you remember not what now, why? the next one and you can write this down. This is the formula that I teach my clients. - Action, trigger,

42:42release,

42:47repeat. Action, trigger release, repeat. Action, trigger, release, repeat. That's the formula when it comes to letting go, okay?

43:00So, let's break this down. This will go back to it. But if you think about conditioning, which I've talked about before, okay? This is how conditioning really happens. You're born, you might've heard me talk about this in some other videos, you're born whole, you're born free, right? Again, you come out, you're like, yay, what is this?

43:19You're this ball of just expansive energy. And you come into this thing called the world life, you come into a society and in this society, there's certain rules and guidelines. Is this good or bad? Good or bad? It's good, what would happen if there were no rules, no guidelines, no traditions? It'd be chaos, okay? So, for the most part,

43:48not all those rules are accurate and good, by the way. But for the most part, the fact that there are rules in this society is necessary, we wouldn't function otherwise. So, that's factor number one, you come into a society. Number two, you're this again, ball of expansive energy, but can you fend for yourself?

44:05- [Audience Member] No. - No, so your survival depends on whoever's raising you, that's number two. Number three, do you see the world as it is? No, right? You have a very limited perception, very limited perspective. Even as a kid, right? You don't really see the world as it is. As a baby even by the way, first few months, you don't even know what this whole thing is,

44:32you can't even form a 3D interpretation of things. Now, because of that, here's what happens. You're born whole, you come into this world, whoever's raising you, what's their job? To teach you the rules and guidelines, right? So, if someone hears like, let me get naked, your parents be like, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, no, no, no, no.

44:51Parents raise you, hey, it's not okay to get naked, right? Let me be loud, let me sing right now. No, no, no, no, no, no, it's not appropriate right now, right? You're in a seminar room, don't sing. So, you're taught these rules, but here's what happens. Say this is you, again, whole and amazing. And say, your parent tells you,

45:11hey, don't be so loud right now or don't sing right now. Because you have such a limited perspective on things, as a kid, you might interpret that as them yelling at you and them not loving you, right? As a kid, it's like, when they reward me, they love me, when they punish me and say, no,

45:31they don't love me, is that true? No, your parents love you either way. I mean, ideally, right? They're just, if someone's like, maybe not. for the most part, they're just trying to help you, they're trying to show you the rules, but we don't see it that way as kids. Now as a kid, because you depend on your parents,

45:48say, they're like, hey, don't be so loud. They don't love me right now, your survival is threatened. If they don't love me, what could happen? They could abandoned me. If they abandoned me, I die. So, in order for me to survive, I have to please these ultimate beings, I can never have them not love me or I'm screwed.

46:05That's not true, but that's how you perceive it. So, what do you do? The aspect of me that is loud is threatening my survival right now. Every time I'm loud, they tell me no, no, no, don't be so loud. So, what happens if I keeping loud? They might just abandon me. So, let me take this part of me and let's get rid of it. Anything that threatens your survival,

46:26you're gonna get rid of it. Now, because it is you, can you actually get rid of it? No, but you can disown it and put it as far out of your awareness as possible. And that's what happens, we create this splits within where you could say, here is the acceptable you and here is the unacceptable you.

46:47This is where being loud goes. And this depends on your upbringing on what was acceptable, wasn't, right? In one household, for example, maybe they're like, don't be loud. In another one, they might be like, yay, every time you loud, they celebrate. In one household, even on a deeper level, right? They might be like, you know what?

47:07I'm being creative, right? That's being immature, that's not good. You wanna be a very serious person, don't be a little child, what is this creative stuff? And you might take the part of you that is on the more creative side, disown it. Vice versa in another household, there might be like, be creative. If you go all serious,

47:22that's sucking the soul out of your life. So, we all go through this and it's very important when it comes to true change to look back on your upbringing, look at your household, look at your community, look at where you lived and ask yourself overall, right? Say in that country, what's acceptable, what isn't?

47:39In my community, what's acceptable, what isn't? In my household, what is acceptable, what isn't? And it'll give you a lot of data in terms of what you've disowned. This here is also one of the reasons none of us had a core feel like we're good enough. Think about it, you're born and from the moment you're you come out,

47:57it's like, yay, bad kid, yay, bad kid. So, we think we're only loved when we are the acceptable part of ourselves. And by default, from the moment we're born, we believe that there's something within us that isn't good, we gotta get rid of, that we're not good enough just to be us. Only when there's the acceptable you and this here is the start of that front that we tried to perfect and hide behind,

48:25every single person here has it, right? So, you get a feel for it, you go through these years, all this conditioning, also happens in school, by the way, okay? The three, you can say things or people that are really hammer a lot of this in, whoever's raising you, primary caretaker, teachers, classmates, whoever has a lot of authority, okay? So again, whoever's raising you,

48:48that's gonna condition you a lot. Teacher, a lot of authority. Classmates, if they all believe it, also a lot of authority. And this is why a lot of people have traumatic experiences in the classroom when they're younger when it comes to say expressing themselves, right? They might be loud and people stare or the classmate laughs

49:04or the teacher tells you to be quiet. And perhaps showing interest in someone. As a kid, everyone teases everyone else, it's like, oh, you like that person? Ha ha ha, they like this person. And if they all start laughing because you have very limited perspective, as a kid, you're like, I'm gonna die, the classroom doesn't accept me

49:19and there's no world outside the classroom, ah. And then you disown that part of you. The part of me that expresses interest in someone, let's get rid of that 'cause it's threatening my survival. And this is deeply ingrained in us, then you go on to live your life, here You are an adult and you think you're over it and logically you look back, and you're like, yeah, that makes no sense,

49:39but it's deeply imprinted in you. And this here is what gets activated in a certain situation or gets triggered. This year, speaking of new technology, this is social anxiety or approach anxiety, that's you getting triggered. That is something that is poking at that aspect of you that say puts themselves out there or shows interest. And it's like, I will die if I embody this, it's not true, you know it, but there's still that same survival instinct that kicks in and you can audit your life here and simply look at different situations where say you experience some anxiety or fear

50:24and ask yourself, is this appropriate to reality? If you go out and you wanna say hi to someone, is it appropriate to freak out to be like, okay, let's do this, let's do this, is that normal? No, a lot of people also have massive fear when it comes to public speaking, right? If I bring someone up here, a lot of people are like,

50:41oh, I'm like speak, own it, immediately stifled. That's not real 'cause you know logically you're not at risk here, but something inside you gets activated, okay? That's you getting triggered. It's when one of those aspects that you disowned is coming closer to the surface or you're in a situation that's forcing you to embody it. And even though logically, you think it's fine,

51:10it's still there pulling your strings, okay? Now, this is why this formula is so key. Say you're someone who has approach anxiety, you get triggered socially. Step one, you're gonna take action. You're gonna say, go out and put yourself out there socially. As you do, you're gonna get triggered. The (gasps) response, okay? And this triggered response can be very intense. I've seen it over the years, there's a client that comes to mind, this is an Amsterdam, we were out at McDonald's, late at night and we were just talking over the night out and we went out and talking to people and again, working on our social skills and it was at the McDonald's,

51:51I'm like, hey, go say hi to that person over there. And the client, okay, sitting casually talking went from, oh yeah, that's cool, it's cool to what? I'm like, go say hi, go say hi. Suddenly started tensing up, no joke started turning pale. I'm like, come on, come on and start giving him a bit of a shove, like, come on, come on, hanging on to the table for dear life,

52:14like as if I'm about to push them out of a plane. That was his response. That there has nothing to do with the external, that's something inside of him that got activated, that got triggered. Now, we think this is bad, but getting triggered is actually amazing, why? Because one of those things you've been resisting is now coming closer and closer in to your awareness

52:40until you're re-owning it, and reembodying that. And this here is where letting go or releasing comes into play. Action trigger and then you practice letting go of the resistance around being that and embodying that and by doing so, you slowly become more and more whole, you divide and dissolve the split, okay? Now, what does this also mean? It means going against traditional

53:12progressive desensitization, okay? Where what people will do is they'll see this, okay, action, trigger, release, repeat, and they'll get the action side and they'll even get the triggered side, but then they'll go out and say do different challenges or social anxiety challenges, but in order to desensitize themselves to getting triggered, but that's actually taking you in the opposite direction,

53:38this is progressive desensitization, right? Hey, if there's a situation that scares you, that triggers you, just keep putting yourself into it until you become numb to it, right? Does this work? To a certain extent, yes. Yeah, you will be more numb to it, if that's your intention, that's what you're doing, You'll be more numb to it. And I can guarantee you a lot of you are taking this approach, I took that approach for a long time and you know you're taking that approach when it feels like this, you go out, say to socialize, you see someone you wanna say hi to,

54:06you start feeling the triggeredness, right? And then because you've done it so many times, you're just in this habit of like, okay, I'm gonna go to my happy place now and you kind of shift into this alternate kind of state, this disconnected desensitized state and then you still take action. You stuffed down the triggerness

54:22and you kind of barrel through. And that is not good 'cause it's keeping this split alive and you'll never get that true confidence you're after because it's relying on doing those challenges. And this is where you also have to start thinking longterm, right? Okay, is your solution now to always have to do social anxiety challenges

54:44till the day you die, right? Same with building momentum, which is absolutely insane that people still try to build momentum. That's the dumbest thing ever, like what? Every time now you wanna be social, you're gonna have to build momentum first? I know people even, too, it's like they have a date and they're like, before my date,

55:00I gotta go say hi to some people to build momentum, what? That's insane, that is absolutely insane. It's a good first step, but you don't wanna stay there. Having approach anxiety, social anxiety, building momentum, not good, okay? And if you had it for a long time, it's 'cause you're still using the old technology

55:23and you need to shift to this. There is such a thing, people like it's too good to be true. No, no, no, there's such a thing as not having to build momentum. There's such a thing as not having that triggered anxiety around putting yourself out there if you follow the formula, okay? An exercise I actually give my clients where you can also practice this

55:45on a more smaller level is with a cold shower, same thing. When people, who here does cold showers? raise your hand, cool, right? Tons of benefits to this, but the traditional approach that people take with a cold shower is here they are, they turn on the water and it's cold. And what happens? It's immediately you versus the cold. And they're like, okay, let's do this, and they try to tense up

56:07and barrel through in the cold, right? Anyone do that? Tends to be most people, okay? That's our default reflex, too, it's something like it's intense sensations, it's like intense cold and our defaults, like, okay, go to the happy place, desensitize. It's a very desensitized approach to it. What I tell my clients is to start practicing this, do the cold shower, but as you go in,

56:31see how relaxed you can be. Can you actually be completely relaxed and embrace all those sensations of cold and resist that default reflux of tensing up, tensing up, tensing up? Can you get triggered by it and just stay with it? That's the same approach that you'll take when you do this, you go out, social anxiety. Instead of, okay, barrel it down, let's fight through the cold and anxiety

56:54and take action and say hi to this person. Can I relax into it and can I let go of this? That's the shift, okay? And you can also think of it like this. And if you're someone who's been doing desensitization for a long time, you're actually gonna have to backtrack a bit, okay? 'Cause here's what happens. Let's just say here's you, super say shy, triggered,

57:17scared of putting yourself out there. What people do is they then desensitize themselves and like I said, they go into like their happy place, again, this is you with like muscles or whatnot and you're like the desensitized, yeah, battle against. And they're so used to going into that place, right? That that's now their default, it's like, if you're doing a cold shower and you've been doing it for so long,

57:35it's like, by default, you resist. Now someone's telling you, hey, can you relax into it? You're gonna have a lot of trouble 'cause over so much time, you can condition yourself to always just tense up. Same here, when I tell people, okay, now go out and go get triggered, some people have trouble even getting triggered because they're so disconnected from what that feels like,

57:53'cause they've desensitized themselves too much. So, what I tell them is, hey, if you really wanna get rid of this for good, you're gonna have to reconnect with what it feels like. You're gonna have to reconnect with the old you that showed you that's super triggered and then instead of desensitizing, it's resensitizing yourself and letting go. Make sense so far, by the way,

58:15I know we're covering a lot, but, yeah? - [Audience Members] Yeah. - Right, so there's still a ton of action involved, okay? Another key quote, it's never the thing, it's the place it's coming from. Letting go in terms of social skills, you're still taking massive action, you're still putting yourself out there, you're still getting triggered left and right, so on and so forth, but the approach isn't this, okay, move away from optimize, it's I'm doing all this to trigger what is stifling me and blocking me to begin with

58:43and dissolving that inner split. And by doing so, right? So, you dissolve it to here, it's a little bit less, you feel more at home and at ease in your own skin, you feel a lot more confidence and it shifts you in that collaborative state, too, because now it's no longer or you trying to hide this

59:04and trying to optimize the front. Just think about it, right? Say you were to go out and you could just be you, there's nothing to hide, you don't have to be cool or it's like, don't see these parts of me, just be you and just relax into it, you wouldn't be all stifled, you wouldn't have to build momentum

59:19and it would actually be enjoyable. This here is achieving core confidence, it's dissolving this, okay? And it doesn't mean now that you have to be loud all the time, but your relationship around that part of you, it's no longer I'm not good enough 'cause of the loudness, it's just a part of me that I can choose to embody or not,

59:39but my self-worth isn't attached to it, okay? And just think about the traditional approach here, too. People have this split and what they do is they try to go out and they try to amplify the front, right? So, they optimize the front, they try to be cool then to optimize it even more, they try to get positive feedback, approval validation while at the same time, trying to hide this and always experiencing the fear

1:00:07of someone seeing through. A lot of people, they have something to hide, they're hiding something, that's why they're so tense, that's why there's so stifled, right? Key question to even reflect on what are you hiding? So, you go out tonight and say, you see someone you're like, ooh, too scared to say hi to this person,

1:00:24like why, what are you hiding? What are you afraid they'll see? You can even make the list, there's probably some conscious reasons that come up, right? They're gonna see that maybe I'm a little bit too shy that I'm not used to being around a person like this, that I'm low value to dah, dah, dah, dah, like,

1:00:36that's the why, why do you have this? What are you hiding? And then the other one is, why do you assume they're up there? Okay, so this is the foundation when comes to confidence, same as social skills, approach anxiety, so on and so forth, it's you getting triggered and you got to let go of it not power through, big shift. - [Audience Member 1] It sounds like when you're anxious

1:00:58in social situation, right? I'm sure you know about evolutionary psychology. - Yeah. - [Audience Member 1] Like, there are real consequences within those status. And so, it's almost like, do you feel like you can kind of get to a place where you're trying to avoid what's like a biological drive, which is like falling low in social hierarchy, right?

1:01:16And so, it's like (indistinct). - So, there will still be some of that, so I love your question, so notice how I even got it before, so the general question was okay, but what about things like evolutionary, again, fear, pressure, you raise your status back in the day, right? You're actually at risk, your life is at risk.

1:01:37So, that there, yeah, it might still be there a bit. And this is important to understand, actually, love this question. If you think of you getting triggered, think of this as the full extent of the reaction, right? This is for example, right? Fear when it comes to socializing, you get this crazy like triggered response. When you let go, you're gonna let go of all the unrealistic response, so you might let go of all of this, but there might still be some real emotion there

1:02:12that just stays. But I can guarantee you, it might just be like a little bit of, oh, this is a little bit uncomfortable, yeah. But it's not gonna run you to that extent. So, when you let go, you let go of anything unrealistic, real emotions are there to serve you. But very few of us actually experienced real emotions.

1:02:32Same with anger, people get super triggered over the top. When you let go, you're letting go of all the triggerness So you're just left with a real emotion, you can always easily deal with the real emotion. So, yeah, there might be some situations where you're like, maybe this is a little bit risky and the biological thing kicks in, but it's so small,

1:02:48it's like zero, 1% that you almost don't even feel it. It's not this crazy response, yes. Louder. (man speaking indistinctly) Releasing the tension around it? (man speaking indistinctly) Yeah, yes yeah. So, I mean, this is like, if you think of getting triggered, right? Another model, you can say this is your conscious mind, this is your subconscious

1:03:27and down here is everything you've disowned. When you get triggered, it's one of those things you've disowned or an aspect or something that's coming up into your awareness and to you embodying it. And what we do is we try to embody it while it's simultaneously stuffing it down. So, when I say relax into it, it's when you're actually triggered, it's good, 'cause if there's say layers and layers of resistance to sometimes even becoming aware of this,

1:03:49it's a lot easier to catch it here. So, relax into it as mean allow yourself to feel it and you're releasing the charge, stay with that charge and release it versus stuffing it back down, okay? And then in terms of how this even affects you on a social level, right? You've probably heard me talk about control muscles

1:04:06and release muscles. Even in terms of self-expression, so much of it is simply getting out of your own way and releasing. Again, the label we put to it is releasing, just do another, it's like no, releasing is what allows you to be loud like this! That there, this me, like, even mic off, right? This year is not me controlling,

1:04:32it's actually me letting go and releasing. I could not be this loud if I was controlling it.

1:04:42Do I need momentum to tap into this? No, get it? The difference, though, and this is if you follow, for example, say David Hawkins, he has a book, "Power Versus Force", it's differences in power and force. Control, what people do is, remember, who they think they are is fake. So, they're stifled to begin with,

1:05:04they are stifling themselves. And while stifling themselves, they then try to fight against that and be loud. They have one foot on the gas, one foot on the brakes. That doesn't work and you'll sense it, it'll come out a bit more, it's tough to do because this will be the more force, it's like, okay, everyone, welcome, so we're gonna do that

1:05:27or we're just watching my old videos, that's force. Hey, everyone is just very, ah, at, right? Hey, you hear me? Am I loud? Versus the other type of loud is not even projecting at you. Hey, can you hear me? Am I loud? It's actually even just going down, it is drawing you in, it's not even directed at you.

1:05:47Do you see the subtlety there? That's the difference, people sense this, these little subtleties, just in the vibe. Hey, what's up? Okay, everyone, so what are we gonna talk about. Okay, everyone, here's what we're gonna talk about. Release, control. If you just take the foot off the brake, it'll flow out and you know this just in terms of situations where it's say you're out socially, you might be very stifled and you're trying to be loud yet in other situations, maybe with close friends,

1:06:16you're just loud by default, so it just flows out, right? The same as giving you access to certain faculties, to certain jokes, to certain range of expressiveness. So much of that is just, hey, get out of your own way. That's our problem, we go out, we stifle ourselves with conditioning and then we fight against it, we self-impose it. And then we look for techniques which reinforce it and validate that our self imposed stifledness is real

1:06:40and it stays there.

1:06:44Now, is there then such a thing as you could say, I mean, here's a whole other one, right? This idea of willpower, same thing. Willpower is something that we do all have and it is something that is good and that must be used, but you can write down the distinction, use it for moving forward not backwards.

1:07:05What does that mean? Right now, am I using willpower? Yes, I am. I'm using willpower to craft out this content, to link the points, to make the points, to show examples, to answer questions, to make sure it clicks. It's forward focused, it's crafting my words, my delivery. Yes, I'm using willpower. How do most people use their willpower going backwards? For example, they stifle themselves and then they use their willpower

1:07:32trying to unstifle themselves. They sell sabotage, they use their willpower to fight it. They're out of state, they use the willpower to get in state. They're not loud, they use the willpower to get loud. No, drop all that, so you have your full focus moving forward on this solid foundation of releasing, not controlling.

1:07:52Otherwise, you're just burning too much in the back, right? You can think of it as there's all the energy if you're driving, it's like gas, brake, all the energy of like, okay, more gas, more willpower, that's not smart. If you just release the brake, now you can use all that extra willpower towards actually crushing it, same here, - [Audience Member 2] Well, I've been releasing for a while, but I still feel that like (indistinct),

1:08:15for whatever reason. - Yeah.

1:08:20- [Audience Member 2] Do I just keep releasing all the time so that that eventually becomes my normal or like, how do I get to like, more freedom, I guess? - If you're not noticing it, you're releasing the wrong way, so that goes into the technicalities around releasing, yeah. Like, classic example of releasing the wrong way, people try to let go in terms of getting rid of, oh, there's this thing I'm gonna like,

1:08:44breathe it out, get rid of it. But by doing so you're still labeling it as bad and resisting it, so it persists. What you're actually letting go of is the resistance around it, right? A good way just as the cold shower or whenever you're triggered is ask yourself is my intention to move away from this

1:09:00or to move towards it, right? Moving away, if you're doing the releases like that, it's the same as desensitization. You're triggered and you're trying to get rid, move away of, like, oh, cold, move away. As opposed to like what I do say with the breaths, I just breathe in and I literally visualize myself

1:09:15sinking into it and I let it take over. I'm moving towards it not away from it. It's reowning, reowning, letting go of resistance around it, embodying versus getting rid of, that's one of many, but that's a big trap people fall into, yeah. (man speaking indistinctly) Yes, yeah, letting go, you could even argue, letting go is a terrible word,

1:09:32it's technically accepting and embracing. It's letting go of resistance, AKA embracing and accepting, yes, yeah. - [Audience Member 3] Do you know if you're already scared, you're releasing and you're becoming (indistinct) or if I'm beginning a new (indistinct) Something different. - Love this, look for a feeling of relief and at easeness, right? So, for example, when someone let's go and we'll get to this, at the end of say a release, they might actually feel perhaps sad or even angry

1:10:04or whatever may come up. But even in that sadness, there's a sense of relief where they are just being a bit more of who they are. If you think of that split against so much of our energy is trying to disown that unacceptable outside, when you release it's like, oh, a little bit less,

1:10:18I don't have to hide as much. So, that's what you look for and then you can also audit it, right? Like, look for relief, look for situations that used to trigger you the no longer trigger you and overall in terms of how you feel, it's do I feel open and at ease and safe

1:10:35and people on my side, nothing to hide, all is good? Or is it just very heavy, tense, trying to maintain? Is there a lot of effort, right? You can write ego equals effort, right? Heaviness, oh, tenseness me versus, that would be the shift in the vibe. And people sense it also socially, right? It's like, socially, you're like, I need this to work, oh, don't look like I'm laughing,

1:10:55but don't see this part of me versus all is good. So, that's in terms of the feeling, you'll sense that shift there. - [Audience Member 4] So it's a bodily sensation instead of it being a mental mind frame. (indistinct) - Yes, you're letting go of the charge on a felt sensation level. But by doing so, all of the associated thoughts

1:11:18will start fading away and we'll get to this, too, right? If you think of that little voice in your head, it has a certain theme, everyone has a different theme, right? It might be a very victim theme, it might be very scared theme, it might be a very self-attack anger theme. And then people are like, I must quiet the voice,

1:11:33I must quiet the voice, right? But then by doing so you're not resisting, it's just terrible, the way to quiet that voice, which ultimately isn't what you really wanna do. What you really wanna do, you wanna change the theme of that voice. If you had a voice that just kept telling you how awesome you are, you're the I love you, you're awesome.

1:11:52Would you wanna quiet that voice? Right, so it'll be less intense and more loving and that's what happens when you start letting go more as well. And all those things like, they're searing, they're judging me, oh, this, gone, it just doesn't pop up and you don't have to make yourself stuff it down, it just stops popping up. The other thing to really notice, this is another key model is if you think of this is more on the success level, there is that split that holds us back,

1:12:23but there are also different core beliefs that hold us back. And as we discussed that core identity, who you still keep alive here today, who you think you are. Those are the three things you wanna let go of. So, if you audit your life, here's the model. Here is you, and this is every single person, by the way,

1:12:45we all have an invisible prison around us. This invisible force field, everyone has it. And what happens is the goals we're after might be out here. Well, I wanna accomplish this, I wanna do this, I wanna put myself out there, I want this, this, this. And we go for these attempts to chase our goals. And things go well as long as you're acting

1:13:10within this invisible prison, this invisible force field. But as soon as you pierce out, self-sabotage kicks in. For example, let's just say socializing, you talk to someone you believe is in the same league as you or you're even outside their league, do you get stifled? No, do you get nervous? No, right? So, you're talking to somebody like, oh,

1:13:35I'm outside their league, oh, we're in the same league. Hey, you won't feel nervous at all. Talk to someone who's outside your league, that's where you tense up. You can actually notice this is called a ceiling of success in terms of socializing around who, at what point do you start getting stifled, right? Oh, with this person I'm not so stifled,

1:13:56this person, oh, this person I'm stifled. that's your ceiling. Same with health. There's a certain point where it's like, oh, okay, I'm being healthy, being healthy and then you start getting maybe a little too healthy and self-sabotage kicks in. So, if you think of this invisible prison along the border here, this is where you could say

1:14:14put the guards of self-sabotage, patrolling. And as soon as you try to escape, they get ya. Now, as soon as you try to escape as well, and you pass this limit, this is where your drive shifts to willpower only. And this is traditional self-help, this is the hustler trying to hustle out and discipline out

1:14:35and work ethic and willpower out. And ultimately, what are they trying to do? They're fighting against the guards of self-sabotage. That's most advice out there, it's not actually success advice, it's anti self-sabotage advice. And you're gonna have all the tips and tricks to fight against these guards. Oh, I jumped out, I start getting stifled,

1:14:55what are some techniques? I'll do this to get out of your head, do this to battle the guard of stifledness, right? Now, here's the thing, though. You can't win and you will never ever win if you fight them directly, you can delay the inevitable, right? So say you pierce out, you can delay how long it takes

1:15:15for them to drag you right back in. You can get very good at delaying it. Personally, a lot of my earlier years in my personal journey, I was a very, like I was a master at delaying it, I was a master at fighting those guards of self-sabotage, but eventually they'd pull me back, you can't win, okay? And you can also sense it, too, As soon as you pass this limit, it's like, there's this invisible hand

1:15:39that grabs you and like, nope, not for you. So, what's the solution? How do you get out of this prison, right? We think we have free will, but in reality, you only have free will within the prison even if you audit your life, by the way, we're all living in this little invisible circle,

1:15:54nothing really truly changes. This is why new year's resolutions don't work as well. What's the solution? Why is there this prison to begin with? Notice the approach, okay, there's the guards, what now? How do I fight the guards? Wait a minute, why is there a prison? Why are there guards? Can I perhaps deactivate this force field? To deactivate it, you gotta ask yourself,

1:16:21what's keeping it alive. Why is it there? And it's three things. One, past trauma, right? And trauma, again, is simply when there's something that's just so overwhelming that threatens your wellbeing, that forces you to either suppress or repress, right? When you take a part of you and disown it, that's you going through something traumatic.

1:16:42And trauma depends on the perspective of the individual. So, as a kid being yelled at by your parents can be traumatic. As a kid getting lost in the grocery store for 10 seconds can be traumatic. It's not just crazy situations where I go into war and abuse, yes, that's traumatic. But, the thing is we fail to address that a kid has a very limited perspective, so a lot can be traumatic where when we see it now,

1:17:05we're like, it's not traumatic. Trauma, part of the human condition, every single person has it, or you wouldn't have that split. So, trauma is one, but then there's core beliefs and your core identity. These three things, you could say are the batteries that are keeping this generator alive. And what we do is we just keep living all our lives trying to fight the guards instead of, hey,

1:17:30let's find the switches, turn them off and this fades away.

1:17:37Okay, so trauma we covered. That's also especially when you get really triggered, but it's important to also bring your awareness to core beliefs and your core identity, okay? Core beliefs, you can think of it as there the early beliefs that you form or assumptions that you form coming into this world, right? So, how do you make sense of all of this? You form an assumption and then you tell yourself,

1:18:01if this is true, then how do I make sense of that? Okay, well then that's true, And if this is true and that is true, then that is true, so on and so forth. And we have, you could say belief trees, where, for example, you might be looking at whoever's raising you in terms of their relationship,

1:18:17maybe your parents, and maybe it's very dramatic, right? Maybe your parents fight a lot, that's just the household you grew up in. You don't know any better as a kid so you're gonna look at that and be like, huh, that's a relationship. That's gonna be your model of what a relationship or love is, and you don't know any better, so you're gonna be like, okay,

1:18:35well, love is a lot of fighting, a lot of drama, right? Check, and then from that, right? Here's the assumption, love equals fighting, then you're gonna make more beliefs and more beliefs and if that's true, then this is true and it's all on this foundation of love equals fighting. Now, these core beliefs more often than not,

1:18:56we're not aware of them, right? We put them as far out of our awareness as possible, because we don't ever wanna question them. And not only that, but we don't wanna let go of them because here's the fear. If this is wrong, what happens to the belief tree? It crumbles then all that is wrong.

1:19:12And we hang on to this map, no matter what. So, a lot of self-sabotage has to do with these core beliefs that are out of your awareness. If you actually think about self-sabotage, it's really not you screwing yourself over, it's you giving yourself exactly what you want. However, you're not aware of the part of you that wanted it.

1:19:32So, here's the example. Say there's, I believe love equals fighting, love equals fighting, love equals fighting. You get into relationship, say, there's no fighting, you're gonna bounce and you will keep finding toxic relationships where you keep fighting partners who create a lot of drama to stay congruent to that core belief. That so much of self-sabotage, it's you trying to say congruent to your map

1:19:55of understanding and your map of the world. Consciously, I don't want that, but it's much scarier to get that and challenge a core belief than a self-sabotage and steak and grew into it. So, whenever you self sabotage, and this is a great way to identify core beliefs, ask yourself, what's the hidden payoff. Why do I secretly want this?

1:20:14Everything in your life right now, you love it. You might be like, no, if you wanna work on your health and you're like, I don't really like it the way I am physically, BS, you love it. Oh, I wanna succeed a bit more socially, no, you don't, or you would have. Everything about your life right now, the whole situation, everything, there is a part of you that loves it,

1:20:35but you might not be aware of that part. You're getting something out of it. That self sabotage, you're giving yourself what you want, but you're not consciously aware of it. So, it's key to identify, what's the hidden payoff? How could I possibly secretly like this payoff, right? It could also be for example, that even around yourself, maybe there is some guilt over something you did

1:20:59or didn't do in the past. And for some reason, you keep self-sabotaging and you're like, why? But there might be a part of you that's saying, hey, you're giving yourself the justice you know you deserve. Or if there's a belief that's formed around success, this is where you really wanna bring your awareness when it comes to core beliefs, okay,

1:21:16what do I think about success? What's my definition of success? For a lot of people, success is scary, it's a lot of responsibility, right? And if you think, okay, success is a lot of responsibility, and then you're like, well, I'm not the most responsible person, you won't allow yourself to succeed 'cause then you can't deal with the responsibility, so core beliefs, key, but then even deeper,

1:21:41your core identity. Who you believe you are and a great exercise is to see if you can pick a fictional character, movie character, TV character, book character, you name it that describes you the most. You could actually even do it now, right? If you had to pick a movie character and you're like, that is me, that character, maybe not everything that's you,

1:22:08but describes me the most. Here's some common ones. "Rocky", anyone like the movie "Rocky"? Right, the underdog, that there describes a lot of people. Now, if you take this core identity and it's the ones that really speak to you right out of core and you're like, oh yeah. How might that run your life, right?

1:22:30I have many clients where they're like "Rocky", "Rocky". The thing with Rocky, if you're the underdog, as an example, that's your identity. You always need a big obstacle to overcome and people to doubt you and someone to prove wrong. Now, how does that manifest in your life? Instead of letting success come to you easily, you're always creating this chaos and drama and these obstacles and putting yourself in these tough situations

1:22:53so I always have to overcome them and prove people wrong. It runs you, right? Another person might be, well, I'm a goodwill at hunting, that's a common one or Spider-man's a common one, right? Waiting for that magical moment where the spider bites you and here you are just waiting for something to magically happen. We all have the same core identity, one that I had for the longest time was the self-destructive artist where I wouldn't allow myself to fully succeed,

1:23:19I had to destroy. If I succeeded, I was no longer self-destructive. So, everything out here, right? If there's patterns, identify the patterns, we'll link to something you disowned, trauma, or you stay congruent to a core belief or you stay congruent to that core identity. You don't wanna challenge it, make sense? Okay, and with that character, you can ask yourself,

1:23:47what are the pros and cons? Sometimes there's pros, sometimes you might be like, why I'm the hero? And I'm the hero who succeeds massively, but I'm forever alone. And you might be someone who's actually really successful, but in terms of relationships, friendships, no, 'cause you're saying congruent to kind of this martyr hero who sacrifices the personal life for the glory, right?

1:24:06For the business, for the money, for whatnot. Someone might also be the victim, someone might be the number two, the sidekick, we're always helping others, but you can never be the main person, right? We all have this. So, some key audits, what character are you? And then what's my ceiling of success, key, when it comes to health, wealth, and relationships. At what point do I start feeling that invisible force

1:24:34that pulls me back, okay? And if you want another model, it'll also manifest like this, okay? So you see the invisible prison, but then if you zoom in on say the ceiling of successes, this is how most people's lives look like. There's the ceiling and the floor and what they do is they oscillate, right?

1:25:01Everyone had this, say it's health, okay, One day you wake up and you're like, what happened? I got to work on my health, right? And then you start going hardcore and you start making progress, right? You start cutting out bad food, you're exercising, you're doing great. Things get better and better and better until you hit the ceiling, start passing the ceiling. And maybe it challenges like for me,

1:25:26I experience this a long time. It challenges that core identity of being self-destructive. Hey, I can't be too healthy or I'm no longer Self-destructive. Suddenly, this success is going against the core identity or your core belief. And this here is when self-sabotage kicks in and it might be subtle, you might be like, oh, you know what?

1:25:44I can take a day off, right? I've been going pretty hardcore, let's take a day off, let's grab some friends, let's get a nice meal. Then you have the nice meal, you might overeat. Then you wake up the next day, you're like, oh, I hate too much, you know what? I'll take another day off to recoup. And the spiral starts and you fall off and fall off until you hit this floor and that's where you wake up,

1:26:02and you're like, oh my God, what happened? And then it repeats up, down, up, down. And it gives you the illusion of progress 'cause there are times where you're moving up, but you're not actually moving up, you're fixing the mess you created, right? Same with money. Okay, I'm gonna do serious, okay, focus on my finances, work. Oh, I made a good amount of money,

1:26:23you know what? Let me spend a little bit here, fall off. And we live this yo-yo, right? Even in the self-help world, people are like, okay, let's start working on myself, and then you slack off and then you come back to the self-help and then you slack off. So, the key here though, is what's keeping the sealing alive?

1:26:42identify it, let go of it and keep moving up. - [Audience Member 5] (indistinct) is not necessarily the fear of rejection but more the fear of those, like, okay, it's not gonna reject you (indistinct).

1:27:04- Yeah, so there'll be one, finding why and where that came from and ultimately the whole theme will be detaching yourself worth from approval, right? So, right now what you're doing is you're taking a part of yourself and you're placing it on others, and you say, if you approve of me, my self worth moves up. If you disapprove, my self-worth goes down

1:27:28and now you're there and they're pimping you out, right? I mean, everyone does this.

1:27:37You wanna hear of one, right? Everyone hears, okay, you sell out when it comes to approval, when it comes to money so-and-so and people sell out, that's you selling out, right? But here's another one. Right now, little thought experiment. Let's just say, if say both of your parents are currently alive, let's just say they died right now and say you're past the grieving phase, and again, super dark, but imagine a situation where you've actually processed it, you've moved on, they've just peacefully vanished

1:28:07out of existence. Would the way you live your life change? And if the answer is, yes, you're like, oh, I would actually do this and take more risks. You're selling out for their approval, too, and you're being pimped out. Same thing, right? But that's key, right? And this is what people experienced, too, they get approved out, they're like, yay, this is approved of no, yay, and they're literally there self worth

1:28:29is moving up and down, detach it from that. Your whole regardless, 'cause what you're literally saying is, and this is also the level of desire, which links to approval is you take, you might've seen me draw this before. What we do is we take a part of ourselves, right? We take this and we put it here and we put it behind a wall. I'm not whole, I need this part of me

1:28:51and it lies behind approval. And then we chase it. As soon as they approve, then I'll be whole. As soon as I get this, then I'll be whole as opposed to no, no, no, start by being whole. And you can still go after that same goal, but your whole before and your whole after, right?

1:29:09You can also audit different requirements. If you sense things like that, the boost, your confidence, or self-worth, write them down, okay, approvals one, what else? What are all these conditions and requirements I'm posing? So, that's definitely one to let go of, super common, right? If you see the diagram here, that's the level of desire. This here, you might've seen me talk about in some videos, this is the next step, so we get the foundation of confidence, the evolution of social skills and advice,

1:29:40differentiating between real and triggerness this, right? Then the next step is this map here and the way I personally view this is this is then I sweep that we all do. So, it's a sweep that you can do, an audit, you can say different things that you might have disowned, right? If you go through this and actually let go of all the different levels, it'll clear up, you could say a lot of that split,

1:30:04but it also illustrates the process of transformation. We're at the very bottom, for example, and there's many different maps out there. There's again, David Hawkins, Frederick Dodson, spiral dynamics, you name it. This is the one that's not overly complicated. A lot of those maps are just way too complicated, mental masturbation. And the one that I've really seen

1:30:22in terms of my experiences as coach. At the bottom, apathy, okay? That's the level of just what's the point, right? What's the point? I can't anyway, screw it, right? Loss of hope. As you move up, you hit grief, victim hood. And as you move up with each level, by the way, you get access to more power and more energy.

1:30:47So, say you tell someone, who's like, oh, what's the point? I'm an apathy, and you're like, hey, hey, hey, it's actually not your fault, you're a victim. Is that good advice for someone at that level? Yes, oh, it's actually not my fault. You mean I could, but it's because of this. I thought I couldn't at all, so what's the point, actually I can,

1:31:05but I'm a victim, that's why I'm not? It's actually empowering. Then there's fear, and as you'll notice with each level, there's different advice, and this is a key thing, by the way, if you remember this map, any piece of self-help content that you see, fit it in the appropriate level meaning people mess up because they apply advice that's for another level,

1:31:30depending on where they're at, right? Like if you're an apathy being a victim is good. Do you wanna stay there? Of course not. But for someone at that level, it's good. For someone who's then in victim hood, what's great advice? Take responsibility, step it up. Don't be a little, all right? That's good advice for someone who is in grief,

1:31:51is it where you wanna stay? No, but you move up, right? So, take responsibility, you hit fear. You could also start angry and move up instead of, oh, I'm such a victim, it's like enough, what am I gonna do about it, right? So, at each level, the advice changes and you move up. The four bottom ones here from apathy, grief, fear, and anger, those are really the competitive states where it's you versus,

1:32:16now here's the key to catch these themes. Apathy is me versus others, me versus the world, what's the point and you just kind of withdraw and give up. Grief is me versus others, me versus the world, and you start feeling sorry for yourself, like, oh, why is it so hard? Poor me. Fear is you versus others, you versus the world,

1:32:35must protect, right? They're out to get me, must protect. Anger is you versus others, you versus the world. Let's show them, let's do something about it. But it's still in the competitive frame, and with each level, too, like I would tell someone in grief, do something about it, shoot up for anger. However, an anger, that's where it's like, okay,

1:32:54time to forgive, time to let go. But I wouldn't tell someone who's in grief. Different advice, different levels. Now then there's a shift. From anger, you then shift to courage. And what I do, this is actually the curriculum I take clients through is the first four levels, there's a lot of action, you're triggering different things, right? There's different advice

1:33:14and there's different releases for the levels. And as you start clearing up, a lot of those more competitive states, what happens is you then start shifting into a collaborative state, right? Anger, by the way, that's a lot of self-help, why? 'Cause most people in society reside in grief, fear and anger. If you wanna speak to someone who's in fear or someone who's in grief,

1:33:39what's the thing that resonates with the most? Step it up, hustle, discipline. And that's so much of self-help, right? The hustler, the discipliner, the no days off. And what do they rely on for motivation? Self attack. They attack themselves, criticize themselves to take action, that's self-help, right? Like David Goggins, king of anger and self-attack.

1:34:04Amazing, amazing though, but that's the level. And it's amazing advice for someone who is in grief or fear, but you don't want to reside there. So, courage is when you shift to, instead of playing against something and playing not to lose, what about playing to win? And that's the other big shift. Remember, fighting against self-sabotage, fighting against being stifled,

1:34:29you're in a competitive state, how do I fight against this? I'm trying to hide this identity, how do I fight against it? It's all play not to lose, it's all in reaction. What about playing to win? And this year is when people start asking themselves, okay, what is it that I actually want? What's my win?

1:34:44And very few people can actually answer this. Everyone knows what they don't want, but very few know what they actually want. And when I asked them, okay, what's your ideal life? They're like, well, there wouldn't be this, I'm like, what would it look like? What would there be instead? I don't really know, like they have no idea. So, that's when you venture into, okay,

1:35:02let me start seeing where my real win is. But the level of courage, you tend to play a little small and there still tends to be some procrastination, some dabbling, then above that, there's desire. And I put desire here for two reasons. One, you can actually temporarily use desire to your advantage, to stick to something

1:35:20for a longer period of time. Remember, courage you're kind of dabbling around, right? You can think of the lower levels as you're avoiding the stick, desires, the caret. Okay, what about the caret? Go a little bit longer, so you can actually use it to your advantage temporarily. But what also happens, this is the second reason I place it here is people will tend to get a glimpse of their authentic win and courage and then they sell out for approval, money,

1:35:42success and desire takes over. So then you wanna let go desire and that's when you really tap into purpose, right? Dialing in on the wind, being much more detailed and that fuel purpose is the motivational fuel, including love, it's the one you wanna tap into. So, you can think of it like this, right?

1:36:02At the very bottom, fear is a great motivational fuel. It'll make you take action, right? Being scared. This is why people have been saying, and I've said it, too. And I think it's great for some of the level, think of the worst case scenario, no going back. But then as you move up, it's like,

1:36:18what's a better motivational fuel? Anger, much more powerful, that's the hustler again, but there's an even better one. So the way you can also think of these motivational fuels is say you're someone who's like super tired, you haven't slept at all, and someone's like, here, here's a monster red bull drink with extra sugar

1:36:36and chemicals, enjoy. Will that give you energy? - [Crowd] Yes. - Yes, but happens is people think that's the ultimate solution and they stay there. What's a better source of energy? Perhaps moving up to coffee, right? You could say coffee would be anger, great. Is there one above that? Desire could be one, you could say desire is tea.

1:36:58What about one above that? Someone said, yeah, what about just sleep and just naturally being motivated? That's purpose and love. So, there's different fuels and it doesn't mean you never then tap into a little pocket of anger, like, use all of them, but overall you don't want your, you could say human car and engine,

1:37:16the majority of it to run on those toxic ones. You want the foundation to be purpose and love, not the others, okay? So, that's purpose, it's like, what's my win, what do I feel inspired to do? And when you tap into that, right? Including love and even linking it to you, it's like, you are way sharper and way more motivated. No one can succeed long-term

1:37:39if they rely on anger or desire. Just like fighting the guards and self sabotage, you can delay it, but eventually you'll give up. Same with the swings, right? You remember up and down, if you're like, discipline, discipline, discipline, eventually like, oh, you just can't maintain that. The reason, for example, I'm able to do

1:38:00even a speech like this, right? Just like, I could keep going with work, so on and so forth is this here feels effortless and it feels fun, it feels amazing and I'm not fighting against anything. A lot of people can think of, you know, when you say you play a video game, right? People can't work for more than an hour, they're all tired, but they can play video games, 16 hours, 24 hours straight 'cause their relationship to is very different,

1:38:22there's not the same heaviness. Shift your work to that and working will be like playing a video game where you can just play and play and play and play and play and play and play, right? And not only do you succeed a lot more, but you actually enjoy it. And that's the other thing, right? With the other levels, if you're getting results and again, yourself attacking so much, you can never enjoy it, you're actually scared of enjoying it 'cause you think if you enjoy it, you'll stop taking action 'cause you need the self hate

1:38:47to take action, that's terrible. And the same with desire more and more, more and more, more, if you're not enjoying the results, those are not results. Think about it, even though, oh, but externally, it looks really good, yeah. But if you're not enjoying it, you're failing, that's not good, okay? And even in terms of our win here, what desire will do, and this is why it's also so hard to really identify what is the want is most people's win isn't what they actually want,

1:39:15but what would impress others? Most people will go for a goal that others would approve of. Most people will go for even relationships that others would approve of. Most people go for careers and stuff that others would approve of, not what they actually want. What is it that you want? It's identifying that and staying true to it,

1:39:32whatever that is. Even in terms of patterns that run people, a lot of it is childhood and even high school, right? A lot of people even get into the social skills and that was me where people were weren't that cool in high school and then you're trying to be the cool person after, you're trying to replay these patterns you missed out on. You're like, I need the girl in high school,

1:39:50the popular girl, I need to be the popular guy now. And like in your adult life, you're still acting like a little high school kid. Crazy, okay? But with this here, this is the map that I personally use. So, what happens is, going deeper on the the force fields, trauma, core beliefs, core identity,

1:40:08one thing I'm always looking forward is themes. If something doesn't go my way, what's the theme? What's the theme? What's the level? And everyone here has a default state meaning there's one level here where you reside most of the time. And you got to identify it, if you don't know your default level, you are screwed 'cause he won't know

1:40:26what advice to apply to yourself. But we also all have pockets meaning someone could be, let's just say, when it comes to their job on a level of purpose and actually love their job, when it comes to work, they're crushing it, yet when it comes to the relationships, they might be in grief and feel like a victim

1:40:45or in fear, okay? So, whenever something's happening in my life, I'm like, oh, what happened? Oh what do I feel? it's not going my way? I'm always like, what's the theme, what's the theme, what's the theme? And then based upon the theme, there's different advice, different tools, right? I think this is my tool belt, like, okay, let me pull out the tools for that level and there's a release that focuses on that specific level

1:41:04that I'll listen to. But this here, game changer, life changer, this is the map that I keep coming back to, this is the inner audits that I do myself and even the meditations I've created for myself and clients for each level, I listened to those myself, game-changer. And the cool thing, too, is with each of these levels, and you can also give, there's different advice, but also different missions in action steps

1:41:29that you can do that will help trigger things to move up. Just as we talked about, action, trigger, release, repeat linked to each level, all right? Now, the other cool thing, so this here is also how you're gonna see the evolution of the self-talk change in your mind, right? That little voice in your head. Another great way to help identify

1:41:50some of the states that run you. Ask yourself, what's the theme, right? Is that little voice in your mind saying, oh, you're such a victim, it's so hard, maybe you can't do it. Oh, don't you just wanna go lie down and just eat some ice cream and cry? Grief, right? Or when things happen, what's your default? Oh, like, you know, some people like if they're like, if they receive something harsh, like, hey,

1:42:11what are you doing? Step it up. Some would be like, yeah, some other would be like, oh, I just wanna go cry and feel sorry for myself now. Is it fear, right? What are the threats? What are the threats? What's going on, what are the threats? Is it anger, self attack? What's the theme of the voice? And as you start letting go, that's how the theme starts changing,

1:42:27and again, ideally moving up to love. And here's the other key thing, especially socially. Until you hit that state of love, your social skills will suffer because you will not see the world as it is, huge. Meaning the state you're in doesn't just hijack that voice and your thoughts, but it hijacks what you see and what your selected focus,

1:42:55your RAs focus is on and zone's in on. Meaning just as how we talked about earlier today, say you go to a venue and at first, you're like, oh, so scary. Oh, threats, threats, threats. And then so take some action and you might get yourself in state and they're like, oh, it's actually chill. It's the exact same environment,

1:43:11but you're focusing on different things. You can think of it as glasses, right? You have the fear glasses on and then temporarily you take them off and you put, say, your love glasses on, but you wanna have that as the default. So, you can look at how you perceive the world, how you perceive situations

1:43:27and the key is to shift the glasses. And with social skills, here's the thing, if you don't see things as they are, you will not be calibrating to reality, so if you have fear glasses on, when you see someone you're looking for threats, oh, scary person, threats, how do I calibrate to that? And by calibrating to that, not only are you off, but you will impose that frame on the person

1:43:53and more often than not, they will play into it. And this is why even back in the day, you hear things like assume attraction and people try to force themselves to do it even though they don't feel it. It's very different you feel like, they love me, hey, how's it going? Versus they don't love me, they're scary, very different.

1:44:10This is how you permanently do it. And that's the problem, people are calibrating to what they think they see in the other person when that's actually not who that person is, okay? And again, this year in terms of like, success, advice, you name it, game changer, game changer, game changer. Now, couple of other things, you want this, you wanna understand this and you want, again, to let go at every single level

1:44:35while coupling it with accountability and support. I think accountability and support are necessary training wheels. Not something you want long term, but necessary training wheels to make sure you don't fall off when things get tough, I would not be here without accountability and support. I even said, the very first time I said hi, I had to get people around me to finally do it,

1:44:57or I wouldn't be able to. You need the accountability and support, Anyone is trying to do it alone, insane. And accountability and support can be anything and anyone, right? You could just ask a friend, told you accountable, but you do need to incorporate it. If you have the training wheels of accountability and supports combined with this, you will crush it, when it comes to the actual letting go,

1:45:17there's a few things to keep in mind, okay? For those of you who are in the mentoring, you're gonna get the exact guided releases that I use myself, but I'll explain it for everyone, but you're gonna get for each of these levels, a guided meditation that hits on it. And it sounds obnoxious, but this really introduces the first principle when letting go,

1:45:41so this is done through mindfulness-based meditation, okay? But when letting go, the last thing you wanna do is engage the mind. You don't want to engage the mind, it happens on a felt sensation level. So, when I'm personally letting go, what people try to do is they try to guide themselves or think themselves into it, and that's terrible.

1:46:00I wanna quiet my mind, not even worry about thinking. So, this is why I do guided meditation, guided releases. And it sounds obnoxious, but I will listen to these exact same ones myself, no extra ones, literally just what's in the mentoring and I will listen to my voice guide me through it for that reason, okay? So, whatever it is you do, like, when you are letting go,

1:46:22disengage the mind completely, okay? Now, for everyone here, too, if you do want a free meditation that you can start with, just go to and you can write this down and go to it after on your computer or whatnot, go to transformationmastery.com. And you'll see a quick redirect and it'll redirect you to a free meditation that you can get, okay? So, after this event, if this resonates with you, go get that free meditation, it's a very basic one, but just get that one, try it out

1:46:52with what I'm telling you here. So, when you listen to it, disengage the mind. Next thing, mindfulness versus concentration. Classic meditation is you wanna concentrate on the now, right, or concentrate on a mantra. And you want to basically concentrate enough that all your worries or stress or whatnot kind of fades away. And that's an amazing first step,

1:47:16but the approach here is very different. Remember what we talked about before, there's the movement towards or the movement away from. What's concentration? Oh, I don't feel too good, let me focus on the now. And I'm gonna keep focusing until I forget about all this, right? Like, if all of you focus right now, right here, I'm gonna focus on my finger, if you keep looking long enough,

1:47:38do you see the rest of the room? No, that's concentration based. And what happens is for most people, they realize this, it just becomes this temporary escape from their problems. They concentrate for 10 minutes, that's their meditation and then they stop and they're back in, okay? Better than nothing, but here's what's better. Instead of concentrating on say, the now or a mantra, where a spot on the wall to avoid your problems, what about focusing on your problems, letting go of them,

1:48:05so there's nothing to focus on to escape? That's mindfulness. So, instead of now, mantra, we focus on the stuff we're trying to avoid and it's the same approach with getting triggered, the stuff we don't experience, that's where you gotta go. The things you're running away from, That's where you gotta go, that's mindfulness, okay?

1:48:28Now, the way you're gonna do it. And again, transformationmastery.com, get the free meditation is seated position, okay? I like doing it like this, don't cross your legs, both feet planted, you want to communicate to yourself that you're really grounded and you can handle whatever you experience, whatever comes up. I also like the palms face down, okay?

1:48:47Just to be grounded, and when I do it, eyes closed, okay? So, when you do it later, eyes closed, why? Because you don't wanna get sucked into the external, you want all your awareness internally, okay?

1:49:02As I guide you through it, you're gonna trigger different feelings within. And your job once more is, let me sink into it, let me experience it and let me breathe my way through it. When there's charge, when there's stuff that comes up, you gotta notice yourself, am I stuffing it down or clenching or relaxing it, okay? And then you'll see me guide you through it

1:49:28with the tackle things. But those are some key mindsets so you do it the right way. Now, one other thing, when you're going through it, it's very common that people are like, oh, you know, you were talking about this, but my mind drifted off and I'm thinking about this now, that's fine. Your job is whatever you're thinking about, your mantra is, we're talking about mantras,

1:49:49remind yourself of this, what are the sensations? If I'm talking about some other topic and you think of this and you're triggered by it, great? What are the sensations? What are the sensations? And here's another one, sometimes people are like, I don't feel anything, here's the question. What does that feel like? What does not feeling anything feel like? You can't not feel anything or you'd be dead,

1:50:08your body would be cold, right? So, oh, what am I feeling? Or if there's frustration, okay, what does that frustration feel like? Tune into that. And once more, you release the charge, and the way to think of this, too, is imagine there's all like these strings attached to it, these like chords, they're all pulling your strings, you're pulled in different directions,

1:50:27what's letting go? Severing that, and this is important. In life, there is such a thing as a physical connection, but then there's not to get a little too hippy dippy, an energetic connection. So, here's an example. Say you go through an experience as a kid where you experienced trauma, right? Maybe in class, like I said,

1:50:49you speak up and the classroom laughs. Then you live your life and you move on. Physically, that event happened a long time ago, very distant, but energetically, there's still the link, it's still running you, that's something you wanna sever. The same are different fears that run people. A key thing when letting go is sinking into those fears, getting triggered by it and freeing yourself

1:51:15from that energetic link. So, common one is, people are really afraid of say being alone, right? There's a few core fears, one is fear of being alone. And I'm curious here, I'll ask you which one you resonate with the most. Fear of being alone, fear of not being good enough, right? Not having what it takes, fear of not living up to your potential,

1:51:37fear of being bad and toxic. Fear of being alone, who resonates more with that one? Raise your hand, the fear of forever being alone? Cool, surprising, right? Based on people working on their social skills, you'd think a lot more to be afraid of being alone or what are you doing here? Fear of not being good enough.

1:51:55Something wrong with you, not having what it takes. Fear of not living up to your potential. Fear of being bad, toxic. Yup, okay. Now those are just a few, but we all have these, you could say more universal fears and then there's depending on our conditioning as we discuss more specific ones. Now, here's my advice, right? What people try to do is they're like, oh,

1:52:17there's these fears, how do I overcome it? What I tell clients, like say someone's like really scared of being alone and there's the craving of say having a partner, it's like, I can't be alone, I need a partner. I need someone, I need someone. I would actually have them sink into it, okay, what if you never get a partner?

1:52:30What if that's true? What if you are alone the rest of your life and just sinking into that, you're gonna start feeling, oh, the triggerness kick in. Whatever it is you feel here, right? Like, what if you never live up to your potential? What if that's it? What if you see other people go after your dreams, but not you?

1:52:47What if you don't have what it takes? What if there is actually something wrong with you? You're not strong enough, you're not smart enough, you don't have it, and you'll just never truly succeed. What if that's true? Sinking into that, you're gonna feel something perhaps getting poked at, that's one of those energetic links. And then by triggering it and letting go of it,

1:53:06you free yourself. Now that doesn't mean now that you're gonna go in that direction, that's we think, if I let go of the fear, won't I go there? No, no, no, your intention is still, for example, to succeed, to meet a partner, whatnot. But now it's coming from a I'm playing to win, this is what I want versus in reaction to the opposite.

1:53:24So, it's severing those links. Another key link that runs people comes down to forgiveness, right? Where this is the classic story I like sharing to illustrate this. Maybe you've heard this one before, I had a client a few years ago, he moved from Los Angeles to Ukraine, right? He was doing movies and stuff, he was in his 40s and he was still really triggered and resentful towards his parents,

1:53:52but more specifically his mom, okay, why? Because as a kid, he wanted it to musics, be creative, but his parents were very traditional, it's like, look, you're gonna be a lawyer, you're gonna be a doctor, you gonna be very serious, none of this music stuff, right? And I think he had siblings who they followed that, they did well, and he's kind of like the odd one out

1:54:08trying to do movies on the more creative side. And it got so bad that he's like, you know what? I'm moving across the world, moved to Ukraine and he's doing some movie projects there yet physically, far away. He still feels the same pressure and self-sabotage, and even feels guilty even though he's far away, why? 'cause although he's physically away, there's still the energetic connection

1:54:33that he has to let go of. Same with the past, different events, people, right? things that might've happened to you, things people did or didn't do, they did you wrong, so on and so forth. People tend to like physically distance themselves, but until you let go, that event or that person will still have that energetic control over you and not just other people, but yourself, younger versions of you that might have not done better, not the one to take so on and so forth, oh,

1:54:59I'm growing up now, there's still the link. And for that there, on the more resentful, so on and so forth, it's forgiveness, forgiveness, forgiveness. So, think about it, that person, say someone really did you wrong, can you forgive them 100%? Guaranteed, probably a little bit of triggered, and what are those sensations saying? No, that's what you're gonna want to start processing, until it's a yes, and it's not a you making yourself say yes, it's an authentic yes, you're being pimped out,

1:55:31there's still the energetic connection. Now, here's the thing, key subtlety with forgiveness, forgiving someone or something does not mean approving of it, does not mean say someone did you wrong, there shouldn't be consequences, it doesn't mean now you have to be friends with them, forgiveness is a 100% act for who? You and only you, it has nothing to do with them. Forgiveness is whatever impact

1:55:55they still have on you, releasing that. And you will sense key, you will sense when you've truly severed one of those slinks that or chains even, energetic chain, you could say, you'll sense you severed it when you look back at that event or that person or that fear and it's just information, the charge behind it is gone. And that's another great audit,

1:56:21where in my life is there some charge? And that's what letting go is, is instead of stuffing it down, it's like, let's be with it and let's start releasing this charge, right? If I ask you, what did you eat for breakfast? Do you get triggered? No, right? It's like, oh, I just take this, it's information. That's what happens around things that are running,

1:56:36what do you think about that person? Oh yeah, they did me wrong, that was not cool, but there's not the charge behind it. Oh, what about that fear? Oh yeah, I don't really wanna be alone, I want to be with someone or so on and so forth. I want to live up to my potential,

1:56:48but it's no longer the same charge that runs you. Do this, you start being free. Two other key things, I'm sure you've heard the saying, if you don't have a plan for yourself, someone else has a plan for you, right. And we always tend to think, oh, it's I guess the government and people, like, yeah,

1:57:08but you know who really has a plan for you? All of those things you've suppressed, past trauma, pull in your strings. You're in that little invisible prison, that has a plan for you until you address it. And then one more key perspective that really illustrates what letting go is, is remember this. In life, everyone has goals and I would highly suggest whatever your goal is as we discussed here before, don't be stubborn,

1:57:35don't be dumb, ask for help, whatever that is, right? I wanna do this thing, I wanna do this thing. I wanna be art, so like go get an art coach, ask for help no matter what, but you gotta differentiate between the software and the hardware. If you think of yourself as a computer, best way to explain letting go.

1:57:52Say you're a computer, right? You're a whatever, iMac or whatnot. There's the hardware, that's you and now there's all this software that you can install, right? Hey, there's the arts program, there's the cooking software, there's the business software, there's the social software, there's all this software. people do is they find out about all this and it's exciting, it's new, it's flashing and they rush in and just install,

1:58:16install, install, install, install. And then they're surprised when it doesn't really work for them. Like, well, wait, what's wrong? I installed the software, maybe I need to install more and they doubled down on installing more software yet what they should have done is run the antivirus. It doesn't matter how much software you install,

1:58:37if there's a virus on the hardware, you're screwed. That's what we're talking about here, that's what letting go does. It's running the antivirus so all the software you install finally works and it works the right way. - Like, this program is such a game changer. The way everything's structured and the material, it's been already, even for me, it's just been, I'm noticing a crazy change in the way

1:58:59that my whole life's like right now. - What you put the game is just incredible, there's nothing like that. I've just jumped like a million levels. It's just been a complete 180 for my experience of existence, that's awesome. - It's just been so huge in terms of so many of the things I'm finally understanding and realizing

1:59:20and epiphanies I'm having. - what you do is a huge inspiration to me and I think it's one of the most beautiful things you can give to another human in this entire world. - You have saved my life and thank you

1:59:40this is (indistinct). - Sometimes all it takes is just one person who believes in you, find people who are where you are in life and model them, work with them. I would not be here if I didn't have people who held me accountable. - Wow (laughs). - I just felt click and things are changing,

2:00:04this program was just top notch. - Seriously, like this is master piece. This is perfect. - Everything the way it's set up, the light bulbs, like, all the support from the coaches is incredible. - It's been nuts. - I just found my tears of joy. - This was the best decisions I ever made. - Thank you for creating something wonderful like this,

2:00:26- This program was phenomenal. - This program was amazing. - This program has definitely changed my life. - I know for a fact I'm in the right place. - This is exactly what I was expecting from the program. - It's been spectacular. - I've been really lucky to have found you. - Thank you so much, it's worth every dollar.