Hey, it's David. Welcome back to A Changed Mind, A Sanctuary for Your Spirit, a place where each and every episode I will remind you of certainty of the goodness future. I'm your friend, your host, your personal development Sherpa. I'm really excited for this episode. In this episode, I'm going to be sharing with you my top five personal development tools, tools that are, have been, and still are my go-to tools for letting go of my limiting beliefs, particularly those hard to get rid of limiting beliefs, what a lot of people would call trauma. These tools that I'm going to be sharing with you, I've gathered and I've developed over the course of my 15 year journey into personal growth, which some of, you know, started with my discovery that I was an alcoholic. I was a drug addict. I was a pornography addict. Uh, my life had become unmanageable. I was powerless, changed a lot of the negative habits that I had been experiencing. And so I started working a 12 step program. And from there, I got into this deep, deep, deep journey of personal growth. I'll share a little bit with you in this episode, but the point is there are five really amazing tools. If I was going to come up with my top five lists, some of them are tools that you've never been exposed to. So I'm excited to share them with you. Some of them are tools that you're probably using because they're kind of sort of popular in the whole self-help personal growth thing. But I'm going to give you a way to optimize them so that you can accelerate your growth. And, um, and I'm also going to talk to you about what tools really didn't work that well for me in terms of creating permanent change. And, uh, and the change has been dramatic. So, you know, it was not that long ago that I had a couple thousand dollars in my bank account and much more credit card debt to homes and homes and foreclosure in a failed business. And as I mentioned, I was struggling with, with addiction at the same time. And, you know, now I am really living in a life that the gap has been closed between the vision that I developed of a really incredible life for myself and me actually being in it. You know, I'm recording right now from a podcast studio and my dream home. It's an 8,500 square foot sanctuary on top of a mountain in Puerto Rico where I private work clients. I married to my dream woman. I have a 22 month old gem of a little boy. I've got an amazing community. I'm living my purpose into the world. And it doesn't mean that every perfect, I'm still on the journey with you every single day and every single week, something shows up and it gives me an opportunity to go deeper into my own personal healing. But tools that I'm going to be sharing with you are the number one root cause of why I'm living the life that I'm living today. So if you are wanting to create some level of change in your life, maybe you want more financial prosperity and abundant. Maybe you want your business to be successful or you want to launch a business or you want to find your passion or you want to find your soulmate. You want to heal your body or you just want to be more spiritually connected and have a more peaceful emotional experience of life. These are my go to five and I'm excited to dive deep into them with you. I'm going to start off with the first of tools, which is the decision made. So I'm going to give you a little bit of background on the decision matrix. I mentioned that, you know, I've been on a long journey of personal growth. You may have two or you may just be new to this. So congratulations because I'm going to help you cut out a lot of the time and energy and journey that I needed to go down. But the journey was quite extensive because once I started to get some recovery under my belt work 12 step program and I started becoming more self aware and I started building a relationship with a God of my own understanding, what we call a higher power and recovery because I did not grow up in a God based family. I got exposed to personal growth. It started with a little book called Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill where Napoleon studied the most sustery of the world and had identified a pattern amongst all of them and distilled those down to a set of principles. And really at the core principle was that thoughts are things create your reality. And so this was a very exciting concept for me, but I wanted to know how and I wanted to know more. And, and so, you know, when you get into personal growth, start reading all the book. I remember the impact that a book called The Power of Now written by Tully had where he really gave language to the idea of the inner critic. It was, it was a breakthrough book for so many of us. Now we refer to it as ego and everybody kind of talks about it. But he did an amazing job in articulating that. I remember going through all the Tony Robbins tapes and listening to whatever it was, unlimited power or personal power. I read a book called Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. And if you're joining me on the, um, on the YouTube platform for this episode and you're one of my Paramahansa Yogananda people, just give, uh, give Guru a shout out in the comment box. But, but that book really combined Hinduism and Christianity and science start, you know, I read all the books and then I started going to the events. I remember I did all the, you know, Tony Robbins events. I ended up going to a lot of the Brendan Burchard high performance events. And then I started, you know, going down the rabbit trail. I went to landmark forum, did the entire landmark education series. Um, and then I got into spirituality. And the reason why I kept going deeper into this journey is because while I understood all the concepts and my life was incrementally improving and I was shifting some limiting beliefs, truth be told, I was now becoming even more aware of more of the limiting beliefs that I had. So I felt like I was suffering at an even deeper level. I think we enter a point in our personal growth journey where you get into what I call personal development purgatory. You become even more aware of your limiting beliefs, but you don't know what to do about them. Like you don't know how to change them. And so especially when you realize that your thoughts are creating your reality, it's like, Holy shit, you know, I got a lot of negative thinking going on here. I'm more aware of it than ever before. I feel worse than ever before. Am I ever going to get out of this? And it is part of the journey. I think anybody who's gotten that far in their personal growth journey realizes it's just part of, um, the good news is is that you're able to get to the other side of it. For me, I started getting into spiritual teach. I was like, okay, enough of this personal development stuff. Let me study Taoism, Hinduism and Buddhism. And then I went and just went back to Christianity, you know, which was always around me. And I was like, well, what did Jesus say about all this? Um, and then, and then I actually decided to go out and try to experience my spiritual growth. My wife and I went to India on several trips, studied with monks there for several months. Um, I went and spent time with the Arawakan and Kogi Indians in Sedona as I was jumping into a variety of different vortexes and meditating on red rocks and went into the crystal shop to try to find special crystal to pull whatever trauma was still inside of me, out of me. Uh, and then I got into psychedelics and other healing technologies. I got into plant medicine and ayahuasca. I got into MDMA therapy, psilocybin. I did a meditation practice, breath practice, did a lot of somatic release. So I've been around the personal development and you may have too, or maybe I'm a little bit further in that journey than you are. Um, but one of the big breakthroughs I had, which leads to this first tool, the decision matrix, I was struggling with my limiting beliefs. I was like, how do you change a belief by definition of belief? Something that you believe true. So how do you change a belief that money's hard to make? Like always been my experience. How do you change a belief that I'm not good enough? That's what seems to be true for me. How do I change a belief around meeting the person of my dreams when I believe after having dated for 10 years and not met them, that there's no good ones left out? Like how do you change a belief when a belief is what matches up with your experience? And it's hard to work with our belief because they're fast. They're occurring as thoughts. You can't see them. You can't feel them. You can't taste them. You can't touch them. Right. It's like, it's like trying to transform a cloud. But, uh, as I was getting deeper and deeper into this, I was also asking out of my pain and suffering. And you know, the beautiful thing about the life that surrounds us is that it will give you an answer if you, if you ask, if you pray upon, uh, and then you get out of the way. And so I had been asking, and I remember my wife and I very distinctly, we were walking in CS key Florida on the beach and this really powerful distinction hit. And I'm going to share the distinction with you. Again, if you're new to our community, I'm going to encourage you to just, just sit with it and hear me out because it would be very easy to write it off. And that would be a big mistake. You want to accelerate person been in our community for a while. You know it is a central tenant of the frameworks that we teach that have helped tens of thousands of people transform their limiting beliefs in a much better level. And the distinction is this beliefs are decision beliefs are decisions. So when you were a little kid, your belief, almost all of our beliefs are formed before the age of seven as a part of the prefrontal cortex in a phase of L every experience that you're having as a little kid, you're recording, creating memories. In fact, when you're born, you're born with a about a hundred billion neurons. These are these electrically excited cells brain and about 25 billion synapse connect. So not all of the neurons connect. The part that's connected is the part that is required for you to survive, eat and sleep, poop, breathe. By the time you're seven, you still have a hundred billion neuro, but you have a quadrillion synapse. That's a big, that's a thousand trillion synapse connect. What happened? Well, what happened was you were recording your life. So in every experience you have, you're sort of ingesting all of this information, what it, what it smells like, what it tastes like, what it looks like, what it feels like, what it hears like, that's all data and it's getting pulled through your nervous system, sent to the brain. And then the brain forms these new neural networks start connecting these neurons and it creates a memory database. And so, um, this is a fantastic thing because when you had your first experience with a dog, you knew immediately what a dog was like. The next time you encountered a dog, you didn't have re experienced the whole thing as if you'd never experienced for because you had a memory of the brain goes, what is this? It goes, Oh, it's a dog. But what you also stored along with all of this information was the meaning that you, your belief about. And so for example, if you were supposed to meet your little buddy in the first grade at the drinking fountain and they to show up, you recorded that experience, but you also might've given it a meaning. Like I can't trust. Oftentimes we learned what meanings to give things by observing our parents. We saw our parents work really hard to maybe just get by financially. And so the meaning we gave that experience with money was hard. Or maybe our parents told us that maybe our parents said, Hey, money's hard to make relationships never work out. You can't trust anybody. And so we adopted these meanings, but they literally became wire into our brain. And so if you, if you really want to create transformation and you want to come up with a new belief, we have to find evidence in the history of life that actually supports the new belief. And so that's what the decision makers does. Only tool or technology I know that actually sources experience from your own life to disprove a limiting belief and to reinforce and empower. The beautiful thing about this is that beliefs are decision. So you're very good at making decisions. You decided that you wanted a job. So you then pursued, you decided you were good enough job. You got the job. Then while you were there, you made some other decisions or you had some beliefs about the work and in yourself and what you really wanted to do and your employer. And at some point you decided I want a different job and you left. And then at some point you decided you wanted a new job or career or you launched your own business. And that's what you did. Like you make decisions every day. You're very, very good at decision. And so if we want to change our beliefs, we have to realize the super powerful distinction that beliefs are just decision. And when you become aware of a limiting belief, doesn't feel good and it's not in alignment with future that you envision or what you want to create, you actually have an ability to respond to the awareness. You have a response ability. Your response ability is to make a new, to stay with me. This is, this is really a fantastic, simple process. And that's why it's number one on my five tools. So you say, well, Dave, I'm aware that, you know, money's hard to make. Um, you're saying I just make a new decision. What decision should I make? And I would say, well, if your beliefs are creating your reality, then shouldn't you just make the opposite decision of whatever the limiting belief money is easy to rather than believing that there's no good ones left out there. Why don't you just decide that there are plenty of, uh, instead of just deciding that because you're in pain and it's been a long time, you may have to live a pain like this for the rest of your life to prevent you doing the one. Why don't you just decide that you don't need pain. And the pain that you're experiencing right now in the present moment or have been experienced for a while is not going to prevent from enjoying all that you want to better yet. Why don't you just decide that your body has the capacity to heal it? Why don't you decide that abundance and prosperity are your birth? Why don't you decide that you don't know how you don't know when, but you know your soulmate is already on the way. So when you realize that beliefs are decisions, you can just make some new empowered decision. What's important about this is whether you've got a limiting belief that you're never going to meet anybody or money's hard to make, or you're going to be sick, or whether you decide that money is not hard to make, money is easy to make and the soulmate is on the way and your body has the capacity to heal itself. You're right. Henry Ford said this. He said the man who thinks he can or the man who thinks can't are both right. Buddha said, the mind is everything. What you think you become. Gandhi said a man is but a product of his thoughts. What he thinks he become. In Romans written, be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of mind. Whether you believe that you're going to be sick forever, you believe you can heal yourself. You're correct. And by the way, this isn't some sort of like new age woo woo that your beliefs come your reality. This is fundamental to behavioral psychology. Behavioral psychology tells us that whatever it is you believe or whatever it is you decide on a moment by moment basis, you're going to have thoughts in alignment with that belief. So if you believe money's hard to make, those are the thoughts you're going to have. If you believe that abundance is your birthright and all of the resources are on the way, then that's what you're going to have. Thoughts related, related to riches, related to wealth, what you believe you think, what you think you feel. So you then experience these thoughts as emotion, either emotions that feel good or emotions that don't feel. When you make a new empowered decision, it manufactures good feeling emotion. When you've got a limiting belief, it manufactures suffering, some form of suffering, anger, guilt, shame, desperation, hope, overwhelmed, worry. Those emotions will determine what you do or what you don't do. And your actions consistent over time will determine what your results and your result will reinforce the belief. Oh wow. Money flows easily. Oh wow. Money is hard. So this isn't some sort of new age woo. This is an understanding of behavioral psychology. Neuroscience supports the same idea that when you believe something, then you actually start to imagine that thing into your future and you start to build a memory of a future that hasn't happened. When you decide that money is easy to make, you start imagining money being easy to make. When you decide money is hard to make, you start imagining money being hard to make. Here's the thing about imagination. Imagination changes your brain. There was a study done in 2009 where they brought in piano players featured in time magazine study done by Harvard. They had piano players come in and play the piano and they studied what parts of brain. Then they had them come in and just imagine playing the piano and the same parts of brain. Your brain doesn't know the difference between imagination and reality. And so when you're willing to make a new decision that's in alignment with the future that you want, you start to imagine that future and you literally start to change your brain. You build a memory of a future that has not happened yet. You literally start to become the wealthy in soulmate relationship, completely healed person based on your willingness to make a new decision. Some people say, but no Dave, before I transform my limiting belief by just making a new decision, don't I need to know how I'm going to produce the outcome? And the answer is no, you don't need to know how. You just need to be willing to make decisions. See when you make the decision and you start to imagine your future differently, you change your brain and that change in your brain is what reveals to you the I'm going to say that one more time when you're willing to make a new decision because you understand how this game and you realize that at a very young age, you just unconsciously made decisions. And as a result of how the brain works, it's always finding evidence for what you believe. It's ignoring evidence that is not in alignment. So at a very early age you believe money was hard to make. So that's all you paid attention to at a very early age. You believe that relationships were harder. You couldn't trust people. So that's all you paid attention to, right? When you start to realize that that's the only reason you've been experienced and you're willing to make a new decision, you create a memory of a future that hasn't happened yet. And you start to then have the thoughts and ideas to produce the outcome because you've become the person who's actually remembering now this future that hasn't happened yet. It's an incredibly powerful hat for reality. And so beliefs are decision. And when you become aware of a limiting belief, you can just make a new decision. Now we want to reinforce this. So I want to teach you the decision makes this tool, want to give you the background for it so you can understand why this tool is so powerful. Now, if you're listening and you're not in a place where you can do this right now, you can come back, but it's very, very simple. The decision matrix, all it requires is you, a piece of paper and a pen. And what you're going to do is you're going to draw three columns on a page, three columns in the left column, you're going to write down a limiting belief that you've been wanting to transfer. Let's just say it's money's hard to make. Can't trust, right? We'll use those two. The left column goes, the limiting belief, money is hard to make, or you can't trust in the middle column. You write down the new decision. Remember, beliefs are just decision can decide something new at any point in time. And you would say, well, what decision do I make? And I'd say, well, the some form of the opposite of the limiting belief, you know, money's easy to make abundance and prosperity is my birthright, or I can trust people or I have a tremendous amount of support from the people around me. That would be your new decision. The third column is what's important and what makes this tool so powerful. You're going to ask a simple question, which is what evidence do I have for the fact new decision? What evidence do I have for the fact this new decision is true? See, your brain is like a search engine. So if you ask this question and you're willing to sit with it, you'll have an idea. You'll activate an old memory. It may not be super profound. It might've been just some time. It was very easy for you to make a little bit. It might just be one person who you feel like trustworthy, but you have to ask yourself this question. What evidence do I have for the fact? True. What you're doing right now is you're consciously reclaiming troll over your seat. You have memory, you have evidence for your new empowered beliefs or decision. The money is easy to make, that your body can heal itself, that abundance is your birthright, that you can trust people, that there's plenty of time to get all of the things done that are good enough, that your business can be successful, that you are innovative and creative, that people do love you. You have evidence for all of these wonderful empowered belief. You'd like to be living every single day, but they haven't been in alignment with what you've been predominantly believing, which is your limiting belief. But the evidence is there. Neuroscience tells us that what's happening is only 12% of your reality on a day to day basis. Have you been paying attention is consciously available for you remember, and it's only those experiences that are in alignment with your belief. But when you ask yourself this question, what evidence do I have for the fact that the new decision is true? You start to bring the 88% that's been stored at the subconscious level to your conscious awareness. Ask and you shall receive. So you ask yourself, what evidence do I have for the fact that this new decision is true, that money is easy to make, that I can trust people, that I'm not alone, that I am success. And you'll start to activate evidence. You'll start to activate these old memories that have just been laying there dormant. They're a little bit dust and you'll start to dust them off with this question. So you write down the evidence and then you ask yourself the same question again. What evidence do I have for the fact that this new decision is true? What additional evidence do I have for the fact that this new decision is true? What other evidence do I have for the fact that this new decision is true? And what you'll find is within a span of about 10 to 15 minutes, you'll have a list of five to seven evidences from your own life. Not because someone told you you should believe, not because someone tried to convince you, not because someone was throwing an affirmation or incantation at you, but you will have truly activated old memories that support this new empowered decision that you've made and you start to pull your attention away from the old limiting belief. And when you work this process successfully, you'll go back and look.look at the limiting belief and go, I don't even know how I ever believed that this is true. And this is real radical transfer. This is how you rewire your belief. And the reason why this tool is so powerful is, again, because using evidence from your own experience, own life, to support the idea that this new empowered decision is true and that the old limiting belief is not. That's the decision. One of the most powerful tools that I've ever used. I want to move on to the second tool with you, okay? The second tool. The second tool also has a little bit of a backstory. It's called two states of being. And this has become my most powerful incantation or affirmation. The problem with most incantations and affirmations is someone gives you a list of stuff that you're supposed to believe. And so you write it down on a piece of paper or on your mirror or on your dashboard and you scream it out. Money flows through to me in abundance and prosperity. You know, I am good enough. Every day in every way I'm getting better and getting stronger. You can do that. But here's the problem. A lot of times it makes work because it's very difficult to install a new belief in a garden of old limiting. I mean, you just think about it. If you try to plant a new beautiful plant in the middle of a garden with weed, eventually the weeds just suffer. And then you become even more frustrated because you feel like failure because you're not able to get these incantations and affirmations, right? What do we do if we actually wanted to plant a beautiful garden? Well, we'd pull all the weeds first and then we'd plant the new plants. You want to start pulling some weeds? Do a decision. And I'm going to talk about how to incorporate that in a daily practice here in a moment. But I have discovered an incantation and affirmation that I use that is super. And it has now become the most accelerative component of my transformation. So I want to share that with you. And it starts with this distinction called the two states. I'll tell you about the two states. Two states of being says there are only two states. So there are only two states of being. Powerful states and prime. Okay, now by states of being, we mean categories of emotion. This is a really, really nice distinction because it simplifies this broad emotional spectrum experience on a daily base. You know, somebody ever say, how are you feeling right now? And you don't even know how to label on it. I don't know. I don't know how to describe. Well, does it feel good or does it feel bad? That you could tell, right? So the two states of being says there are two states of being. Powerful states, prime. Powerful states are states of being like joy, peace, calm, excitement, enthusiasm, compassion, passion, empathy. States of being that feel. Primal states of being are states of being that don't feel. States of being like stress, anxiety, anger, jealousy, hopeless, pressure. Sort of on the border between primal states and powerful states, but still a primal state. Boredom, right? States of being that don't. What the two states of being also says is you're always in one state of being or the other. And you're never in two states at the same time. Always in one state of being or the other. You're never in two states of being at the same time. So check in with yourself right now. Are you in a powerful state or are you in a primal state? Do you feel good or do you not? Now these powerful states and primal states map to the two predominant expressions of our nervous system. So powerful states mean that you're in the parasympathetic activation of your nervous system. You're in rest, relaxation, what I would call a thriving state, connect state, powerful state of being. When you're in this state of being, you have access to creativity, to inspiration, well-being, healing. You're present to the present moment. You're present to people around. You're in a powerful state of being. So if you're trying to create change in your life, positive change, positive change can only come from a powerful state. If you're trying to achieve a goal, it comes from a powerful state of being. If you're experiencing a problem and you want to overcome it and find a solution, that solution is going to come from a powerful state. Primal state map to the sympathetic activation of the nervous system. Fight, flight, freeze, fawn, whatever other F-words they've come up with now, right? You're in fight or flight when you're in a primal state. And so from that state of being, you don't have access to innovation. You don't have access to solutions. You don't have access to joy or healing or connection. You're operating really like, I said this in one of my other earlier videos, like a Neanderthal and someone said, human beings didn't evolve from Neanderthal. But you get my point. You're operating like a primitive. You're operating almost like an animal. Reactive, fight, flight, automatic response. And so you can't create anything new. So again, you're always in one state of being or the other. And you're also never in two states of being at the same time. So you're never in a powerful and a primal state simultaneously. This has really, really helped because I think personal development can be quite fusing. I think life can be quite fusing. Relationships, business, healing, all of these things. Finances feel quite fusing. But what the two states of being does is it simplifies everything down. And it says the name of the game is to notice when you've moved into a primal state and use whatever tools or do whatever you need to in order to move back to a powerful state of being. That's it. You want to make more money? Spend less time in a primal state. You want to heal your body? Spend less time in a primal state. You want to attract your soulmate or have a better relationship with the person you got? Spend less time in a primal state. You want to grow your business? Learn how to identify when you're in a primal state and move back to a powerful state of being because everything that you want to create is powerful. Pretty cool, right? So what the two states of being also teaches is that the thing that is moving you into a prime state, which is the state of being that is not furred because you're not creating what you want, the only thing that's determining whether you're in a primal state or you're in a powerful state is not the experience you're having. It's the meaning that you're giving the experience. See, there's an awareness that the experience that you're having is really meaning. You're giving a meaning. And the quality of the meaning that you're giving to an experience will determine whether you're in a powerful state or a primal state. So when you're in a primal state, you're in suffering, but suffering is separate from the experience. The suffering is caused by the meaning you're giving the experience. Let's use a simple example. Two people lose their job. And one of them says, well, I lost my job, but I believe in the universe. I believe in a higher power. I believe in God. I believe that for every door that closes, an even better door opens. There were a lot of aspects of that job that I loved, but there were things that I didn't like. I've now learned from that experience. So now I know that I'm attracted to something better in my life. I've always been taken care of. Even in the most difficult times, I've always had enough and I have enough right now. So I will always have enough. So while I'm going to do what's required in order for me to find another job and produce some income or maybe start my own business, I'm going to do those things. But I trust and I know that I'm moving into an even better powerful state or primal powerful. Now you could have another person in the same situation who says, oh my God, I lost my career. I was planning on getting promoted. I don't know what I'm going to do. I spent my whole life working up to that position. What if I can't get another job in the same industry? What am I going to do? I've got bills due at the end of the month. What if I can't pay my bills and I'm not able to pay my rent and I end up living under a powerful state or primal state? Same situation. What's determining whether someone moves into a powerful state or primal state? It's the meaning that they're giving the experience. And so you're going to have two people who are in chronic pain giving a completely different experience, meaning to the experience that they're having. One of them is in pain but happy. The other one is in pain and death. Same thing with relationships. Same thing with every aspect. Now this distinction goes even deeper and it's taking us to the tool, the incantation, the affirmation I use on a daily basis to let go of my limits. But what the distinction also says, and we learned this from 10,000 coaches, that's a lot of... You coach 10,000 people between me and my coaches and you look at the data and there's some really profound things to see. And one of the profound things saw was that after we coached some using tools like the decision matrix and they transformed their limiting belief into a new empowered gym, they moved from a primal state back into a powerful state. 100% of the time in 10,000 coaching conversations with whatever limiting beliefs we were dealing with, once we got to the other side of it, the person would look back and realize that whatever meaning they were giving an experience was moving them into a primal state. 100% of the time, if you're moving into a primal state, which is caused by one thing and one thing only, which is the meaning you're giving an experience, 100% of the time, the meaning you're giving the experience is not. It's a limiting or what we would call unintelligent. Now let me unpack this for a second. What do we mean by it's not true? Someone would say something like, but what do you mean? It is true that I lost job. So how can you say that me losing my job is true because it's moving me into a prime state? And I would say, number one, it's not that you losing your job is moving you into a prime state. The meaning that giving to the experience, lose a job. Losing your job is a fact, but the meaning that you're giving the experience is moving you into a primal state. And if it's moving you into a primal state, it means it's not true. Well, what do you mean it's not? Here's what I mean. We live in a singular system of intelligence. There is one intelligence that is functioning as us through us and around. We refer to it as the higher power system. If you want to go deeper into this, take a look at book, Change Minds, where I've got all of these tools and I go deep on the higher power system. But what I'm suggesting, and I think we can see when we look at our own lives through an appropriate lens, that life is and has always been working for our greatest growth, our greatest prosperity. Life is loving. Now, sometimes life gives us experiences we don't expect or we don't want. We call those experience problems. Sometimes life puts us through experiences that are physically, emotionally, or psychological. Sometimes they're the types of experiences we would never wish on anyone. But when you speak to those people, when they get to the other side of the experience, they say it was the best. They learned. There's one exception to this rule, which is death, sort of this dark veil that we can't see through. So I think we give a lot of meanings to the loss of loved ones, also are probably not true. But even looking at my own life, and I'm not saying it's not emotionally difficult, that's not what I'm saying. But what I'm saying is my drug addiction, my pornography addiction, my alcoholism was the best thing that ever. Me being dumped by the girl that I was in love with 15 years ago was the best thing that ever. I can look at everything at a time, I was, holy shit, this problem. And it turned out to be the catalyst mechanism by which I was to either achieve the things that I cherish most in my life or become the person most appreciated. Every problem we have is just life calling us towards up who we're being. Be more faithful, be more passionate, courage, be more tenacious, be more distant, become more. And so anytime we give a meaning to experience that is not in alignment with this idea that it's all going to work out, life to work for our greatest growth, greatest prosperity, greatest evolution, problem in front of me actually has an even better solution right behind it. Anytime we start to think that this thing shouldn't be happening, we move into a prime. Why? Because I'll give you a really wonderful example. You know, I started really adopting this idea that there are two states being. The name of the game was to operate for powerful state. Only thing that was moving me into a prime state was a limiting belief. True. Anytime I would move into a prime state, I'd look at my thinking and I just assumed that true. True. So often it seems so true. And when, when my wife and I first started dating before we were married, she's very organized. I'm not as organized. I wouldn't call myself disorganized. She would agree. So, um, and I, you know, I would come home and sort of put my shoes wherever I would, my shoes. I wouldn't say they're like thrown in the middle of the living room, but they weren't where she believed shoes should. And she asked me several times, you know, shoes here. And I kind of grumbled my way of doing it. Uh, and then half the time wouldn't do it. Come home, I'd have shoes near the front door. Shoes don't belong near the front door they belong. And we would get into arguments and we would get into arguments. And I remember one time distinctly where she got upset. She's like, I asked you not to put the shoes by the front door, asked you to put them in the closet and you have, and then I got up. And so in that moment, when I got upset, I realized, okay, I've moved into a primal state and I must have only moved into this state of being because of the meaning I'm giving experience. What is the meaning I'm giving experience? And the meaning that I found, the thing to take place was that she shouldn't be yelling, telling, she shouldn't be telling me what, and I said, okay, well that doesn't moving me into a prime. So that must mean what? It's not true. And I go, no, but it is, she shouldn't be telling me what to do. And so then I, and you're going to see here that two states being sort of transitions into a decision matrix. This is how we combine them. I said, okay, but if that's not true that she, if it's not true that she shouldn't be saying me, then what must, that she should be saying? I said, okay, well, what evidence do I have for the fact that that's true? And you know what? Ask and ye shall receive. All of a sudden I had these awarenesses. Of course she should say. She's a very organized person. She uses organization to create certainty for her. When things are not organized, she feels uncertain at an unconscious level. When things are not organized and their shoes are not where they are meant to be, she feels unsafe. Now that might be some work for her to do, but it's not my work to tell her to do. And if I can actually just put my shoes away to help my wife feel safe, I'll do it. Right? So now I was no longer fighting. And I was like, wow, she got pre-programmed early on by her mom. Who's extremely organized and very cleanly. It's a nice way of saying it, right? Everything has a place. Everything has a way. Everything is spotless. So she's experienced that since she was three years old. Why am I trying to wrestle with that program right now rather than just loving on my wife? Well, because I was engaged with unintelligent thinking, a limiting belief. I said she shouldn't be behaving this way. And that's not true. And look at how powerful I become in that situation. How loving I can become. How influential I can become in now diffusing a bomb that doesn't need to go off in our relationship. And I have other episodes if you want to watch them. The team will drop some links with all these tools and a variety of episodes related to this episode. But I have an episode talking about what people refer to as the new world order of totalitarian control. You don't even have to go that far. You can just look into the world and go, well, the Democrats shouldn't be doing this. The Republicans shouldn't be doing that. The military industrial complex shouldn't be doing this. The pharmaceutical cartel should not be doing that. The government should not be doing this. Oh no? Shouldn't they? Of course they should. That's what they are. That's like saying my dog should not pee on the floor. Of course it should. That's what a dog does. That's what Democrats do. That's what Republicans do. That's what governments do. That's what corporations do. And when you realize that your problem is not that these organizations or external factors are behaving the way that they're behaving, the problem is that you think they shouldn't be behaving that way. And so you move into a primal state where you have no power. You want to change the world, accept what is. And from that level of acceptance, you can operate from a powerful state. And from that place, you can come up with solutions to change. That's how important understanding the two states of being is. Now let me give you the incantation or affirmation I've been using. If you're new to this work, I recommend you start with a decision. You know, you become aware of a limiting belief. Maybe you become aware of it because you're using it, right? You're like, oh my gosh, let me look at my thinking. Oh, there's a limiting belief. Let me use this three-column tool, the decision matrix. The decision matrix is like a super training. It's the best training wheels you can ever put on your personal growth. Like I did. Sit down and do a decision matrix a couple times a week on whatever limiting beliefs you become aware of. But now you take this on the road into almost a walking meditation. Two states of being is a walking meditation. Now you become aware of when you moved into a primal state. You're able to look at thinking and you're able to start questioning it and you know what I did when I had that conflict with my wife that night, pulled out a piece of paper. I did the decision mate. She shouldn't be saying this to me. Limiting belief. New decision. She should be saying this to me. New decision. What evidence do I have for the fact that she should be saying this to me? Everything I just shared. But when you're on the go, sometimes you can't just work a decision mate. And as you work enough decision matrices, like people who have been through our programs and been through our coaching and been in our community, you're more skilled with it. But you don't have to work a decision matrix every time you can use this incantation. So this happened the other day for me. The other day I was going for a drive. I was actually going to a 12-step meeting. I was stopping. I was having a coffee. Checked my phone. Some of the comments on YouTube for this podcast. And someone criticized what I said on YouTube. They didn't agree with something that I said. And for a moment, I moved into a primal state. And I know what to do when I move into a primal state. I'm like, okay, let me take a look at my thinking. And my thinking was, I should never have said that on video. And rather than even work a decision matrix, I should have said it. And what evidence do I have for the fact that it's true? I use this powerful incantation that I'm going to give you that you can begin to use now that you understand this framework. All I whispered myself in that moment very lovingly was, anytime I notice that I'm moving into a primal state and I take a look at thinking, I don't even really worry about coming up with a new belief anymore. I just say to myself, it's not true. How do I know? Because it doesn't feel what's true. Don't need to know right. The most important thing to do if you want to change your beliefs is to simply not entangle with the limiting belief comes up. Don't indulge the memory, which is what the limiting belief represents. The memory of me. Don't keep energy going in that part of your body. What you're looking to do is you're looking to do a habit break, circuit break. And that's what's so beautiful about incantations. You can use that when you're in the midst of engaging with an unintelligent thought or a limiting belief. But you also want to use those that you can truly believe in. So step one is clear the garden using the decision matrix. Step two is, as you notice that you move into a primal state, notice your thinking and just whisper quietly and lovingly to yourself, true. It's not true has saved me thousands of hours of time. Because before I understood the two states of being and had my mantra of it's not true, what would have happened is that whole car ride home for 45 minutes from downtown San Juan to my house, after seeing the person comment that on one of my episodes and thinking that I did something wrong, I would have been arguing with them in my head. I would have just been keeping the limiting belief going. Either feeling crappy about self and what I said and I shouldn't said it and how come I said it or in a reactive positioning, getting angry and arguing with them and trying to convince them why I should have said. Either way, I would have lost the 45 minutes of creativity of connection healing that car ride was for me and I would have just been reinforced. So the second tool that I'm going to be giving you is this beautiful beautiful incantation or affirmation which is it's not true.right? It's become my own. It's not. Alright, two tools down. Let's get to the third one. The third one is if you have been feeling overwhelmed when you wake up in the morning and there's just a tremendous amount of stress and anxiety and overwhelm, rather than going to your day carrying that monkey on your back, I recommend you do what I call the morning. So this is the third tool, the morning dump. Affectionately named after those of us who have a bowel move because this is a psychological, emotional bowel move, what I'm gonna recommend. And it's simply this. Carve out about 15 to 20 minutes in the morning and run a super decision made. Okay, this is what the morning dump. You bust out a piece of paper and you could do this, by the way, in a notebook. So you've got multiple pieces of paper. You can flip the pages and you create three columns on the first page and all you do is you start writing out all of the negative thinking line by line by line by line in the left column. It's not gonna work out for you. I'm not as far along as I should be. How come I don't have more money? Things are just taking so much longer than I expected. I should be doing a better job. I should be more disciplined. Write it all out. Number one, just writing it all out is thart, rather than keeping it inside. Vomit it all out. Don't hold it in. Number two, start going line by line and working a decision made. So you take the very first one, I should be further along than I am. Limiting belief. How do we know? Doesn't feel good. Thank you, two states of being. Come up with a new decision in the middle column. I'm exactly as far along as I should be. And then in the third column you're gonna say what evidence do I have for the fact that this is true, that I'm exactly as far along as I should. Ask yourself that question several times until the new decision feels very true or more true and the limiting belief feels untrue and then move on to the next. And I tell you what, if you're willing to do this 20 minutes a day, you'll get through about four or five limiting beliefs in those 20 minutes and the rest melt away. Once you start to take away some of the big ones at the top, the rest fall away because they don't, none of them start to make sense anymore. You've moved into a powerful state of being. And so, by the way, that doesn't mean that the same limiting beliefs won't come back the next day. They're a habit, right? You're changing the habit. Initially, early on, they may show up every day for several weeks. But so you just work through the decision matrix again. And the beautiful thing is it's just, it's reforming your habit. It's like when you change your swing in tennis and you know you've got a great backhand but you know you can have a better backhand and it feels a little awkward at the beginning. But you just swing and swing and swing. That's what the morning dump is. And now you go into your day after having 20 minutes of metabolizing all of this accumulated toxin and transforming it and dumping it out into some new decisions with evidence to support the new decisions. And you'll have a day that's 10 times more productive and more joyful than if you would carry that shit into your day, right? So that's the morning dump. And again, sometimes you might have two, three pages of that left column and you might only work through the first three to five limiting beliefs. That's okay. And then in the next morning or the next time that you feel stressed, anxious, or it's over accumulated inside of you, sit down and do a dump. So the beautiful thing about these tools is that they're really leveraging each other, right? You've got the decision matrix. If you've got a limiting belief you want to work on, go work on it. Two states of being allows you to take your transformation on the road with you now that you understand how this works. And you know that anytime you move into a primal state, it's because of unintelligent thinking. You can look at the thinking and just say, it's not true. Yeah, but Dave, don't I need to know what is true? Nope. You're just gonna stop the habit for a sec. What is true will become more available to you. Either it'll be a whisper in your ear or an insight that you'll have. You'll have discovered in a decision matrix or a morning dump process. But that's not as important as just don't keep doing the old limiting belief. If you can just not do the old limiting belief, the newness will emerge, right? And then if you are someone like me who woke up for a year super stressed, super anxious, super overwhelmed, and you want to have something to start like chopping some of the big blocks down in the morning, in the evening, on the weekend, just take out a piece of paper and do a dump. Systematically go through and work a decision matrix until you're like, you know what, I feel pretty good. I don't really need to spend any time with some of these other beliefs. It doesn't mean that I've transformed them. It doesn't mean they're still not there. I just feel better so I'm gonna get on with my day. That's gonna happen. And a little PS on this one, because your nervous system is built for certain, because certainty equals survival, right? Like you've made it this far and so your nervous system and your brain kind of go, hey, whatever we've been doing works. You're still alive. And you're like, yeah, I'm alive but I'm not thriving. Anytime you start to try to change the machinery, it's gonna revolt. There's gonna be a resistance that you will feel to sitting down and doing the morning dump process even after you've done it and proven to yourself how incredibly effective it can be. So just be aware of that. So in that sense, disregard how you feel about sitting down and doing the morning dump and just start the dump process. Because when you're in it for three to five minutes, you're gonna be like, oh my God, thank God I started. And again, if you want access to some of the like these cheat codes, you can go to davidbear.com, opt into our newsletter. You'll get access to a very short ebook I wrote called Mindhack and several videos that actually give you some of these processes step by step. And if you're really serious about it, you know, invest the 17 bucks. Hop on over to Amazon and pick up a change mind. It really is a groundbreaking book. Everything that I have learned over the last decade put into a framework for you to create real transformation, have a powerful living experience for yourself. Third tool, morning dump. Fourth one, meditation. Now not just any meditation. So you know a lot of people have done transcendental meditation. It's fantastic. People have different, you know, pay attention to your breath meditations, guided meditations. I'm particularly partial to a meditation that I designed for myself based off of some teachings from Esther and Abraham Hick called the quark meditation. And I'll make sure the team pins it in a comment on YouTube for you so that you can actually check out quark meditation. It's an instructional video. It's not the actual quark meditation because once you listen to it, you'll hear that it's a visualization that you should do. It's not a guided process by me. But any meditation will do. You know, I recently did a meditation which I also have the team put into the comments if you're joining me on YouTube, which is a 12 minute meditation where I'm just speaking. Right now this is a meditation. This is actually a meditation. The key to meditation is to simply not do the thing that you've been doing that's been moving you into a primal. It's to not do the limiting beliefs. That's the purpose of meditation. So when you're doing a meditation and you're focused on your breathing, if you're focused on your breathing, you're not focused on how money is hard to make, there's not enough time, and you're not good enough. So that 10 to 20 minutes that you're not doing what scripture would call the old ways is a win for you. Because you creating progress in your life isn't so much about you figuring out how to create progress. It's about you not doing the old ways that are keeping you stuck where you're at. In other words, it's not about you figuring out how to be richer. It's not about you figuring out how to find the partner of your dreams. It's not you figuring out how to grow your business. I'm not saying you won't take action and we'll look back and go, well this is the action you would take. But I'm saying that new productive intelligent action and the coincidences and synchronicities become unlocked through this mechanism of don't do the old limiting belief. You'll become richer if you just reduce the amount of time you're thinking about how hard it is to make and paying attention to the absence of the abundance that you want in your life. So I'll say that again, by paying less attention to the absence of the money that you want and by not entangling with these thought loops of financial insecurity, you'll become rich. You'll have thoughts and ideas and create synchronicities to create more wealth. So if you spend less time worrying about your chronic pain and thinking about what that's gonna mean for you in the future and obsessing around finding the next doctor magic pill potion even though you've seen all the doctors to fix your health problem, if you stop doing that you will get healthy. As long as you stop doing that you still have your disease or your pain. So meditation is 15 to 20 minutes within our day that we're being intentional not about doing something. We're being intentional about not doing something. We're being intentional about not doing our limiting beliefs. How do you not do your limiting beliefs? You do something else. You pay attention to your breath. You listen to one of my guided meditations. You listen to someone else's guided meditation. You do a visualization process. So I think a lot of people don't appreciate what the purpose of meditation is. Every time you do a meditation, you're raising your vibration. Every time you do a meditation, you're spending 20 minutes not in the traditional resistance that you would be in. And if you can reduce the amount of time you spend in resistance, your life will grow and expand. And so it's a little bit counterintuitive. It's like wait you're telling me I don't have to figure out how to make more money? I just have to not worry about not having enough money? Yeah that's what I'm saying. It's like you want a masterpiece life, right? Where you're wealthy, healthy, you're doing what you're passionate about, you're having a fun adventurous life, you're spiritually connected. You want a masterpiece. But think about how a sculptor sculpts a master. A sculptor doesn't find the perfect eye and attach it to the block of a head and find a nose and put that on. Find a lips and put that on and then another eye. It's not a Mr. Potato. You know what I mean? That's not what a master sculptor. A master sculptor takes the block that's there and removes what doesn't belong and what's left is the masterpiece. We want to take the block of you that's there and remove what doesn't belong and we will see the masterpiece. We will see the wealth emerge. We will see the health emerge. We will see the real you emerge. Well what doesn't belong? What doesn't belong are your limiting beliefs, your unintelligent thinking, your resentment. So when you meditate, you're not doing that. And not only are you not doing that, you're also breaking the habit. Because when you're thinking these negative thoughts all day long, they build up a momentum. You're breaking the momentum. And so for me it doesn't matter if it's first thing in the morning, afternoon, evening. All you're doing is logging hours. It doesn't matter what you listen to. It doesn't matter what type of meditation you do. Unless it's the cork meditation. It's a very powerful meditation. My meditation. But it doesn't matter what meditation you do. Just meditate for 20 minutes a day. And it's really fascinating like when I've done this and of course there are times where I fall off my meditation wag and I haven't meditated for a while and I get too busy. And then the irony is I feel too busy to even meditate. But that's exactly why I feel too busy is because I'm not meditating enough. You know my day's not going as smooth. Life's not helping me out as much as it can. Because I'm entangled a little bit in the old ways. That's why Gandhi said I have so much to do today I must meditate for two hours instead of one. Right? Most of us are like, shit I have so much to do today I can't meditate at all. But Gandhi understood the secret. Right? If you spend less time in resistance, your entire day will become more efficient. And you won't even be aware of it. But you'll just start having better thought. People will just start showing up with help and resources. Things will just start going smoother. There won't be any fender benders. There won't be any unexpected bills in the mail. Or when they do come you spend very little time engaged with them. You just address the problem and move on. And so this is how you create an efficiency across the board in your life. 20 minutes a day. Not doing the old ways. Just doing meditation. One of my top five go-to tools. Now I'm going to share with you the fifth tool. Now the fifth tool, one of the things I did not include here is a tool set that I use. Because it's a whole category. And I'm going to do another dedicated video about this. But some of you have made comments and asked me questions about my breath work practice. Around my experience with MDMA. With psilocybin. With ayahuasca. And I put all of those almost in one category. Because they all have, they're all a different experience. But they all have the same effect. They bring down the default mode network of the brain. And if you're interested in that, just comment. If you're joining me on YouTube below. Obviously you can just scream out loud if you're listening on your favorite podcast platform. Yes! And I will do another video on those tools. Okay. But for the purpose of my top five go-to every day. My fifth one is cold plunge. Now what is cold plunge? Cold plunging for me is I have an in-ground cold plunge. I get in 44 degree temperature. Anywhere from three to seven minutes. Usually first thing in the morning. But any time throughout the day. And you know what I also could put in this category with cold plunging? Really rigorous hard workout. And really really hot sun. So why are these important? This is resistance training. And Andrew Huberman recently talked about this. He was super excited about discovery of this part of the brain called. I think it's anterior midsingular cortex. But what it basically means is people who are willing to do hard things. This part of their brain is big. And so what it really represents is your resiliency. Your capacity to handle resistance. And I believe it's important to do resistance training. Because life is resistance training. You know if you're trying to grow your business. You're in resistance training. You know if you've got a career. You're in resistance training. If you're just trying to engage with the world as it is today. Feeling as uncertain and chaotic as it is. With all of these different fear-based messages that are inserting themselves from the media. From the through social media. It's resistance. I mentioned one of my favorite books. I think I mentioned it. Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda had a huge impact on me. And Yogananda says that the true yogi stands unshaken amidst the crashing of world. That's resistance. That's your ability to be non-reactive to discomfort. To be able to be intentional about how you're gonna be regardless of uncomfortable circumstance situation. If you want to have a masterpiece life. If you want to be able to you know be joyful no matter what the circumstance situations are. If you want to be able to work through the challenges that inevitably you're gonna have to work through to create anything extraordinary. In terms of business or wealth or or work through the difficult physical experiences that might come up in your body with with temporary health conditions that may not be preferred. You have to be able to be resilient. And so you need some sort of resilient or resist train. Because you know when I told you the story earlier it's like you know I have those types of interactions all day long with all kinds of people. The you know well they shouldn't say that. You know I can work a decision matrix and go well no they should say that. I mean they should tell me to choose to belong to her. But I would rather be unshaken amidst you know whatever the the crashing world of the moment. And be and be calm and connect. And so resistance training is a really it's a deep part of my spiritual practice. Because when I'm feeling connected I'm feeling connected to a power greater than. For me that's God. I'm feeling connect God. And I'm in faith. When I'm disconnected I'm moving into fear. And if and I'm not doing resistance training and I can't handle the resistance shows up in my life I move into fear rather than faith. And so I cold plug. Do I want to do it? No. And actually recently when I started getting acclimated to the temperature I was doing it at about 48 degrees. Dropped it down to 43 degrees. It is important for me to do something that is uncomfortable because everything that you're wanting to create is outside of your current experience. It's in growth. And growth is uncomfortable because growth is moving towards something that you've never experienced before. And when you move towards something or you do something you've never experienced before it creates uncertainty. And your nervous system is gonna freak out about it. And so if you do resistance training. If you're cold plunging. If you're training really really hard. Your workouts maybe with a personal trainer. Doing things that are uncomfortable. Super intense yoga class. Sitting in 170 degree sauna. Your brain goes get me the hell out of here. But that get me the hell out of here is the same way that you feel as you start brushing up against change and the opportunity. And so if you want to have an extraordinary life you got to become resistance resilient right. You have to be able to be comfortable within the discomfort. And that's what cold plunge does. Again you could do cold plunge. You could do a rigorous workout. Sauna. Another thing that is fantastic for building resiliency and and being willing to endure discomfort is is fast fasting for a day. Then two days. Then a water fast for three days. You know your mind says holy shit I need to eat something. I need to break this fast. And you hold firm. But it's the same thing as when your traumas are coming up. Your limiting beliefs are coming up. And you're like holy shit I need to say something to the person. And you're like no. I'm just gonna breathe through it. So much of life is an opportunity to breathe through it. To be a yogi. But rather than face the discomfort right. We deflect. We get on social media and we start scrolling. Drink some alcohol. We smoke pot. We look at pornography. Anger becomes our go-to. Codependence. Perfectionism. Or depression and worry. Those become as my friend Paco would say in my recovery program warm blankets of shit that we wrap around ourselves rather than experiencing the true freedom of being willing to experience. So in my top five again I've got something for me a cold plunge because I also love the inflammatory effect. A lot of seeing in terms of hormone and testosterone and norepinephrine and all of the benefits of cold plunge I really really love. But of course hot sauna gives that to you too. So does a rigorous workout and so does fasting. So all really really wonderful. So those are my top five. I'm sticking with it again if you want an extra episode around my kind of psychedelics and third-party technology experiences with breath work plant medicine and MDMA and psilocybin let me know. I'm happy to do one sort of walking you through my experience. And and I think there there's one more thing I want to mention which is and this is perhaps the most important and and I would add it in as a top six I'm just doing on the fly because I'm aware of it right now it's connection and fellowship. A lot of people don't think about connection and fellowship as a personal development tool but if you want to heal and you want to grow it's not a do-it-yourself product to do it with others. That's why I'm so excited that so many of you are getting so much more involved in the content that I'm creating here and jumping over to our website joining our email list and showing up at our live events being in our coach programs and being a part of our community. It's essential. All of life is connected and you know wonderfully sophisticated system of intelligence part of it and unfortunately what happens is when we when we are engaged and entangled with our limiting belief have unprocessed trauma operating from a primal state we tend to isolate and just and and the the energy that you're looking for the energy of transformation the energy of thriving the energy of your potential comes from surrounding yourself who are doing doing the same you know whether you're in 12-step recovery or you find people at church or your temple or you know a men's group or an entrepreneurial group or or the community that we're building community is extremely important so just as a plus one on my top five let's add in a bonus number six community and fellowship and I'm glad so thanks for being here I love you so much thank you for giving me this opportunity to share with me what I've been able to learn and sift through over the course of you know my last 15 years being on the journey and on the journey with you and I will see you in the next We'll see you in the next.