Please summarize: have you ever woken up and thought to 
yourself why is my life so hard you look 
around and you see all these people and 
you think to yourself how are they so 
happy and free and joyful God I wish I 
felt that way and that's why in this 
video I'm going to give you the six 
tools that I have used to go from 
Feeling burdened by my thoughts and 
feelings to being empowered by them so 
the first tool is what we call thought 
diffusion and essentially what that is 
is it's being able to observe our 
thoughts and detach from our thoughts 
rather than get caught up in the content 
of our thoughts there's a lot of areas 
of my life that I have identified where 
I've gotten caught up in thoughts before 
I would say the first area was when I 
was losing weight the reason I was 
overweight was that anytime I had the 
thought oh I think I should eat oh that 
looks good I would eat it and what I had 
to retrain myself was that I could have 
thoughts all day about wanting to eat 
food it didn't mean I had to eat food in 
fact I could eat in accordance with my 
goals rather than in accordance with my 
thoughts and when I was overweight I was 
constantly eating in ACC ordance with my 
thoughts and not with my goals and it 
took time to be able to separate those 
things and realize that it's okay to 
feel hungry it's okay to have the 
thought that I want to eat something 
it's okay to go to a party and be 
annoyed that I can't eat the same thing 
that somebody else is eating right 
because I have different goals than that 
person and a great way that you could 
practice this and that I would is that I 
would literally seek out situations 
where I was with people when they were 
eating food that was not in accordance 
with my goals I remember there was this 
one restaurant they were going on 
Tuesdays taco Tuesdays they would order 
nachos and they would always get this 
crazy ice cream dessert and what a big 
part of me wanted to do was say I don't 
want to go out to eat with them you know 
because I'm trying to lose weight and I 
don't want to have the food there cuz 
what if I eat it and then I realized 
that's avoidance and so instead I said 
I'm going to go and have fun with my 
friends and I'm not going to eat the 
food as well and that practice on its 
own was a huge unlock for me because 
then in similar situations when I was 
alone when I was with other people when 
I was at family events when it was 
Thanksgiving Christmas I could apply the 
same skill that I learned in that 
situation the second situation which I 
felt like in which I've used cognitive 
diffusion to help me has been in 
business when I first got into business 
you know I was only 23 I didn't have 
much experience at all in the beginning 
of my business career anytime there was 
a threat to the business someone 
threatens a lawsuit somebody tells me 
that they're unhappy with their job a 
client expresses dissatisfaction I would 
then have the thought I must really suck 
at this and the business must also suck 
and therefore I'm not even successful 
the situation would lead to a thought 
which would lead to another thought and 
then another thought and then eventually 
it would lead to I'm terrible at 
business and I business sucks I heard 
this term where they talked about 
overcompensation which is essentially 
when you have a thought that something 
could be wrong you have that thought you 
let it lead to another thought and then 
another thought and then you start to 
feed that one thought with more thoughts 
that are similar to it until it becomes 
like a full-blown emotional disturbance 
where you're like freaking out and 
panicking an exercise that really helped 
me and it still helps me a lot is I see 
my thoughts like basically fish in a 
pond and I'm like What's the fish that's 
poisoning the pond and that fish is 
essentially the thought that is causing 
my adverse Behavior I literally pictur 
to myself is I've got a harpoon and I 
see the fish and I'm like bam and I take 
it I stake it I pull it out of the pond 
I look at it for what it is I'm like it 
is an unproductive thought and it's not 
true and I don't need to do anything 
about it and there's such a sense of 
belief in that because what you realize 
is that you can have a thought it can 
freak you out it can disturb you and you 
can do nothing you can just pluck it out 
of the pond throw it to the side let it 
die the second thing you can do is 
language has a very strong correlation 
with how strongly we feel our emotions 
for example if I say I'm feeling super 
anxious I think I'm going to fail how 
does that feel when you hear it versus 
I'm having the thought that I might fail 
and I'm starting to notice that it 
causes a feeling of anxiety within me 
which one gives you a sense of control 
versus which one feels out of control 
feels chaotic feels anxious you're not 
equal to your thoughts you can never be 
a thought you can never be an emotion 
they are outside of you a lot of people 
again when they say I feel like I'm 
going to fail I'm feeling super anxious 
I'm feeling they're not remembering that 
there's you and then there's your brain 
and sometimes your brain might be 
running wild like I've got days where 
I've got I'm like hey Georgia call her 
that sometimes I'm like Georgia's on 
[ __ ] prow today she's looking for 
something like she's starting to mess 
and even that alone just labeling my 
brain as a different entity helps me get 
enough space to be like oh my gosh silly 
Georgia I don't need to do anything 
about her today I can just live my life 
doing what I was already doing you might 
have a thought that if I don't do X Y 
and Z I'm going to fail and my business 
will suffer and I'll lose everything and 
then I'll not have money and then my 
husband will leave me and then I'll end 
up on my parents couch but then my 
parents won't love me either and then 
I'm going to be homeless and then you 
could say wow that is quite the 
elaborate story you have told there 
thank you for sharing with me I'm going 
to go ahead and make a sandwich now and 
you can just go on with your day if 
you're able to talk about these things 
with a sense of humor I promise you your 
ability to separate yourself from your 
thoughts and emotions is going to be 
tenfold because you will realize how 
[ __ ] ridiculous they sound and you'll 
be like I can't believe that I'm letting 
that thought control everything I am 
doing it's ridiculous the best thing you 
can ask is will taking action on this 
thought make my life better or worse 
tomorrow and if the answer is better 
great take action on it but a lot of the 
times what you're going to find is that 
the answer is worse it's not going to 
make my life better because I'm going to 
keep avoiding the thing I've been 
avoiding and I'm not going to make 
progress I'm not going to get closer 
towards my goals I took some time years 
ago to study different kinds of therapy 
and I came across act which is 
acceptance commitment therapy and I 
believe the originator of it or the 
founder of it his name was Steven Hayes 
and he had a bunch of books and 
principles around what that kind of 
therapy was and where it stemmed from 
and I remember reading the first book I 
read from him and feeling like it 
resonated so much for me because the 
first thing that talked about was this 
dictator from within right and this 
dictator from within is this voice in 
our head that is telling us to do things 
and also signaling to us that negative 
thoughts and feelings are bad and that 
we must defeat them one piece that was 
mentioned in the very beginning of one 
of his books was understand the 
difference between rigidity and 
flexibility and specifically 
psychological rigidity versus 
psychological flexibility so what 
psychological rigidity is is it's 
essentially a cycle of avoidance it's a 
cycle of behaviors thoughts and patterns 
that allow you to avoid the things that 
are causing negative emotions But 
ultimately keep you stuck in this very 
rigid narrow life so for example if 
somebody is very scared of public 
speaking and they are psychologically 
rigid then they will avoid speaking they 
will rationalize why they avoid speaking 
and they will do all the things in their 
power to make sure they never encounter 
a situation in which they will speak 
which ultimately shrinks their life 
because think about all the things that 
speaking could do for them it could 
Elevate their career it could give them 
more confidence it could put them out 
there it could you know uh build their 
brand there's lots of things it could do 
for them but they narrow their life and 
they become so rigid that it actually 
shrinks their life rather than expanding 
it now on the other side we have 
psychological flexibility flexibility 
doesn't mean the absence of negative 
emotion 
what it means is your ability to feel 
and experience thoughts and emotions and 
stay in contact with the present moment 
and not act on those negative thoughts 
and emotions but rather observe them and 
act in accordance with your values and 
goals instead one thing that people 
don't realize is that the act of 
avoidance itself actually perpetuates 
fear and even enhances it and so every 
time that you avoid something what you 
actually are teaching your brain through 
your behavior is that it is danger 
dangerous and so the first time that you 
avoid it it might feel like ooh I was a 
little nervous about it I avoided it it 
went away the second time you actually 
might notice that you feel more nervous 
and then the third time you have a 
straight up phobia of this thing and why 
is that people wonder why has my fear 
gotten greater over time it's because 
the more time that you avoid it the more 
that you have been conditioned to avoid 
it to remain safe and that you've taught 
your brain that you should continue 
avoiding this thing because it's 
dangerous now the cool part about this 
is is that it only takes one time of 
doing that thing to break this cycle but 
getting yourself to do it is what the 
hardest part is and that's what leads us 
into the six pivots and the six pivots 
are essentially the six tools that can 
help you go from being psychologically 
rigid to psychologically flexible the 
second tool is called self as context 
what it means is not being overly 
attached to an identity that you create 
for yourself because what a lot of us do 
is we prevent ourselves from moving 
forward past being overweight past past 
having bad relationships past having 
failed businesses because we're 
constantly referencing the past which 
guess what is normal that's what humans 
are supposed to do because if it worked 
to avoid this thing in the past or this 
thing was a threat in the past then your 
brain is trying to protect you by saying 
hey don't do that again hey remember it 
didn't work last time hey remember but 
what it also does is it makes you think 
that every time you do this thing going 
forward the past will repeat itself and 
then what it does for most people is it 
prevents them from ever trying anything 
new ever trying to make progress and 
ever trying to achieve their goals you 
are not the stories that your thoughts 
tell you you are if you can make that 
separation and realize that you don't 
have to Define yourself to any of these 
thoughts and emotions or stories then it 
gives you enough space to realize that 
you can take action despite having them 
for example I have uh a friend who 
constantly says I'm just super anxious 
she's constantly telling herself this 
story and so then what happens is that 
in a situation where anxiety is provoked 
she acts like somebody who was an 
anxious person would act but if you can 
rewrite your story which I asked her to 
do I said in this situation do you think 
that there's a possibility that you 
could feel anxious on the inside that 
you could have anxious thoughts but you 
could act like somebody who is not 
anxious at all and she was like I think 
I could and I was like great so today 
what I'm challenging you to do act like 
somebody who's not anxious most of the 
time what happens is that we see other 
people and how they their lives and we 
assume that they don't have the same 
thoughts and emotions that we have but 
the reality is is that many people just 
have the skill of having those thoughts 
and emotions and acting despite them and 
so you see what's happening on the 
outside but what you don't see is how 
many things they've learn to manage on 
the inside and you can do the same and 
once I realized I could do the same it 
was very freeing for me because I 
realized oh my gosh I can have all these 
very uncomfortable thoughts and emotions 
and I can still be the person I want to 
be I can still achieve my goals I can 
still live in accordance with my values 
even if it's uncomfortable because on 
the other side of that is freedom 
another situation where I know that I 
was really stuck in this was when I was 
trying to lose weight I kept believing 
the thoughts that I can't stop eating I 
can't stop drinking I can't stop myself 
from overeating I can't go on a diet I 
can't stick with a diet and it wasn't 
until I told myself [ __ ] this I'm sick 
of this [ __ ] I'm no longer telling 
myself this story as of today I have a 
new identity that identity is whatever 
the [ __ ] I need to be to achieve my 
goals I will do that and I will be that 
person and I don't care how 
uncomfortable it feels the reality is is 
that is available to anybody you 
watching this on YouTube right now you 
can change your entire life today the 
only reason you are not is because 
you're subscribing to these thoughts and 
emotions that aren't even real and the 
last tool that I will give you that goes 
along with achieving self as context is 
being able to hold space for your 
thoughts and emotions you know I 
actually had a friend that I was on the 
phone with this morning and she said Lea 
I am so sad I'm going through this 
breakup I feel heartbroken and we were 
talking about what she needed to do to 
make her life better and essentially 
like the pivot she needed to make to act 
in accordance with the values that she 
had and I said I hear you it is okay to 
be sad it's okay to feel frustrated it's 
okay to feel negative and awful I was 
like but you know what you can feel 
awful and still do what you know you 
need to do to make your life better and 
and she called me and she was like 
you're so right I can feel awful and do 
it anyways and I gave her this 
visualization which is whenever I'm 
feeling anxious I'm feeling awful I'm 
feeling frustrated I just imagine having 
a purse and carrying those emotions and 
those thoughts in my purse and I'm not 
trying to get rid of it I'm not trying 
to throw the purse out the window but I 
carry it with me all day and I say you 
know what I'm going to hold a little 
space for you guys it's not going to be 
up in here I'm not going to act upon it 
but you got you'all can hang out in my 
purse you can come with me we're we go 
to the grocery store we're going to go 
to dinner we're going to go to work 
we're going to do everything we're going 
to do to achieve our goals and you can 
hang out and here and I know it sounds 
ridiculous but being able to understand 
that we don't have to get rid of a 
thought or emotion to live in accordance 
with our values we can hold space for 
them we can have them we can experience 
them and we can live anyways the third 
tool is acceptance what acceptance is is 
really learning to have a new 
relationship with your thoughts and 
emotions I remember that there was a 
time in my life it was about 4 and 1/2 
years ago and I had a lot of stuff going 
on and I was feeling very anxious and I 
went to bed and was tossing and I was 
turning and then suddenly felt like my 
tongue swelling up and I couldn't 
breathe and my hands got swollen and 
then I had a full-blown anxiety attack 
it really [ __ ] with me because I 
rejected it I did not want to one except 
that I had an anxiety attack because I'm 
like I run a business I can't have an 
anxiety attack I spent probably the next 
six weeks just trying to avoid any 
situation that reminded me I didn't even 
want to work out because I was so afraid 
for my heart rate to elevate like it did 
at that point when I had the anxiety 
attack and it wasn't until I started 
studying this kind of therapy when I 
heard the acceptance and what really did 
it for me was understanding that the 
feelings I'm having are awful the worst 
thing that happens I continue to feel 
this way the best thing that could 
happen is that I learned to feel okay 
feeling this way instead of trying to 
leave the situation 
I told myself I was safe and I could 
stay in the situation if we accept our 
emotions and accept our thoughts and say 
I'm willing to feel the pain the irony 
of it is that it tends to dissipate so a 
great analogy for acceptance is getting 
stuck in quicksand which the irony of it 
is that somebody gets stuck and there's 
one leg in and what they do is they try 
to use their other limbs to get 
themselves out but what they find is 
they only get pulled in deeper and the 
actual way to get out of quick sand is 
to almost lay flat and swim out and so 
often what we find is that accepting the 
discomfort and doing the thing that 
feels scary is often the way out of the 
situation the fourth tool in terms of 
building psychological flexibility is 
presence what we find is that most of 
the times we're not actually in the 
present we are reenacting the past or 
anticipating the future and both of 
those tend to cause stress anxiety 
Sadness the present tends to be pretty 
peaceful it's my brain telling me 
stories about what the present means 
that tends to be what causes upsetness 
what I like to do actually um is you 
know I I think meditation is great I 
think that's a great tool um I have 
actually found that going on walks and 
when I go on walks I do two things which 
is one I observe all of my surroundings 
and I'm pointing out things in my 
surroundings to my myself and then the 
second thing I'm doing is I'm allowing 
myself to notice the thoughts that come 
up while I am doing them because the 
reality is is that if I'm trying to be 
present what you'll probably notice is 
that you're also thinking about other 
things things that are preoccupying you 
thoughts that might be disturbing you 
Etc but that practice alone what it does 
is it puts me in a state of observation 
which ultimately actually allows me to 
be present rather than experiencing the 
thoughts from the past or the future 
because I start to notice them rather 
than be engulfed by them or get caught 
up in them there's similar practices a 
lot of people I I would say try whatever 
works for you I know meditation is a 
form of this being able to observe the 
sensations in your body the thoughts in 
your mind the feelings that go 
throughout you now the thing about 
practices that help you become present 
is they're very useful at the same time 
there's like a lot of people especially 
nowadays I think they tend to become 
avoidance practices which is we do do 
these things in hopes that if I meditate 
enough if I walk enough if I work out 
enough if I read enough if I cold plunge 
enough if I sauna enough I won't have 
these thoughts and feelings and emotions 
I have fallen prey to this where I used 
to have a very rigid routine similar to 
how athletes have like a night before 
the game ritual that often they stick to 
and they're like super Sous about and 
they got to wear the right socks and 
everything when I was putting so much 
pressure on myself I've seen this with a 
lot of people in business I felt like 
every day was game day and so it was 
like every day I had to follow very 
rigid routine to make sure that I was 
set up to feel my absolute best the next 
day because I had so much going on there 
were so many stakes and what I realized 
over time was that I didn't have a 
routine a routine had me the routine 
that used to alleviate stress in my life 
actually started to cause stress because 
I would look at my day and think how do 
I fit all this in and what what if I 
can't get to my workout and what if I 
can't get to the medit what if I don't 
read my x amount of my book and and then 
I would have more stress around the 
routine than not and so one thing that I 
do for myself is every couple of months 
I actually change up what I do I don't 
want to get stuck in doing the same 
things every day at the same times with 
the same people because what you see is 
that your brain makes up stories that 
that's the only way that you're going to 
be safe productive well if you're 
somebody who tends to fall prey to the 
routine then challenge yourself every 
few weeks to change something about it 
and what you'll find is that it is a lot 
more enjoyable to have a routine when 
you allow yourself some flexibility the 
fifth tool is values our values are the 
filters in which we run decisions 
through and say is this decision aligned 
with my values more often than not our 
brains will try to trick us into staying 
the same and so it's really great to 
have values that pull you towards that 
enticing future so that you have 
something to Anchor towards in the 
moments where you're not sure what to do 
what most people make the mistake of 
when they're trying to change is they 
think about what they don't want but 
they don't create what they do want 
values is the first step in creating 
what do I want my life to look like and 
who do I want to be not who don't I now 
how I've gone through and figured out 
what are the values I want to live by 
two things one is I think of the people 
who I admire most in life these can be 
people who are Dead Alive I can know 
them I cannot know them but I think 
about those people and I write those 
names down who are the people I admire 
most and then I ask myself why do I 
admire them most and then when I ask 
myself why I admire them most what I can 
do is I can extrapolate out the values 
that they live their life according to 
for example one person Alex really 
admires is Warren Buffett why do I think 
that Alex admires Warren Buffett I think 
that he admires Warren Buffett because 
Warren Buffett is patient and I think 
that he strives to be patient like 
Warren Buffett and then the second piece 
is ask yourself what are values that I 
hold today that I would like to continue 
holding that I like about myself because 
though we have things we want to change 
about ourselves we also have things that 
we do like about ourselves and if you 
really think about it there's probably 
things you're doing today that have 
worked for you in many ways I think it's 
really hard if you've got like 10 values 
to live by my rule of thumb has always 
been I'm going to get as many out as I 
can and I'm going to try and consolidate 
it to three I can remember three values 
and I can think about it on a daily 
basis and I can use those values to make 
decisions more than three becomes like 
okay I need a checklist for this and so 
I think that it makes it easy to act 
upon them when they're concise and 
there's not too many of them the sixth 
tool is committed action so this is 
taking action in accordance with our 
values rather than away from fear we 
want to make it as easy as possible for 
us to take actions in accordance with 
our goals life is already going to be 
hard business is going to be hard losing 
weight is going to be hard it's going to 
be all hard enough we want to try and 
make it as easy as possible so there's a 
few ways you can do that first one is 
building new habits that take you 
towards your goals into existing 
routines for example when I was a 
personal trainer something I used to do 
is that if somebody was supposed to take 
vitamins every day I would say well 
what's something you do every morning 
they would say I brush my teeth okay 
amazing what we're going to do is just 
going to put your vitamins right next to 
your toothbrush every time you brush 
your teeth I want you to take your 
vitamins what happens is that they link 
The Taking of vitamins with the brushing 
of the teeth and then very quickly they 
will start taking their vitamins every 
day just like they brush their teeth the 
same goes for switching behaviors 
for example if you find yourself uh 
every day around let's say mid morning 
10:00 you find yourself snacking on 
something what I would suggest you do 
and this is another one I used when it 
was people losing weight is I would say 
cool I want you to put a pack of gum 
right next to the snack I want you to 
put it in front of the snack and every 
time you go to take the snack instead I 
want you to take a piece of gum and chew 
it and just chew it for 5 minutes and 
then tell me if you want the snack what 
happens after that what people find is 
that most of the time they're they're 
not actually hungry when they're going 
for that snack and so then eventually 
what happens is they swap the eating a 
snack with the chewing gum Behavior 
right and then the chewing gum Behavior 
leads them to losing weight which is in 
accordance with their goals and the 
third thing that I do in terms of taking 
committed action is I I call it just 
play it out I want you to play out that 
everything today doesn't go according to 
plan that you don't do everything 
perfectly you don't take every action as 
well as you wanted to maybe you don't do 
one maybe you fall back into old 
behaviors and I want you to play out how 
that feels and how the day turns out 
most people they let the bump in the 
road become the pothole they get stuck 
in they go to change and then because 
maybe one day they didn't stick to 
something they said they were going to 
do they say [ __ ] it they throw in the 
towel and they allow themselves to get 
stuck there and they remain in that 
cycle what I want you to remember is 
that change is not linear it's a process 
and it takes time the only thing that's 
going to stop you is if you expect it to 
be perfect and you expect yourself to be 
perfect and perfectly adhere to change 
which is not feasible at all it's going 
to look like this but over a long enough 
time Horizon you will change and now 
what you want to make sure is that you 
don't fall into old habits and beat 
yourself up when you don't do things 
perfectly now what happens when people 
don't take committed action is most of 
the time it is a very intense feeling of 
stuckness feeling stuck in losing weight 
or achieving a goal with your body 
feeling stuck in a relationship feeling 
stuck in a job feeling stuck in a 
business feeling stuck in a decision 
it's because more often than not they 
have conflicting feedback there's a lot 
of stuff going really poorly there's a 
lot of stuff going well but they have no 
plan of action or directives having 
thoughts having plans having knowledge 
is one thing but having a plan to apply 
the knowledge actually doing something 
with the education you receive that is 
the definition of learning and so until 
you have actually taken the committed 
action you have not taught your brain 
the lesson so I want you to remember 
this as you're watching this video 
because I didn't understand this because 
I used to be the kind of person I would 
read all these [ __ ] books I would 
listen all this [ __ ] and then I'd be 
like oh amazing I'm never going to do it 
and what I realized is that I am robbing 
myself of the lesson and if you want to 
actually learn and teach your brain what 
you are watching here on this YouTube 
video then you will go out and you will 
take the committed action and then it 
becomes a learning you just need to take 
the first one to two small steps and you 
will start to feel a sense of confidence 
and a sense of momentum because right 
now most likely if you're watching this 
video you have a sense of momentum in 
the wrong direction and so the best 
thing that you can do for yourself is 
create a plan that is doable and it is 
not perfect so you've been sitting here 
and you've been watching this video and 
I can imagine the thoughts that are 
probably popping up right now which are 
like this is a great video I'm going to 
like act on it tomorrow if you're going 
to do it eventually you might as well do 
it now and if you're going to do it in 
imp perfect conditions eventually you 
might as well start off in imperfect 
conditions and make it easier when 
conditions are perfect but I want you to 
understand is that right now your brain 
is probably freaking out telling you all 
the reasons why I am stupid and wrong 
you shouldn't listen to this video maybe 
they're right but maybe they're not one 
way makes your life better one way makes 
it worse and so ask yourself does making 
a committed action plan today make my 
life better or worse tomorrow if the 
answer is better 
then go do it now 
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