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In this episode of "A Changed Mind," David Bayer opens up in an interview about the transformative power of mindset and personal growth. Joined by Tom Bilyeu of Impact Theory, David shares his journey from addiction to becoming a renowned expert on mindset and business.

David encounters the challenging yet enlightening task of sharing with Tom his beliefs, both in God and in the power of clarity and decision-making. Whether you're seeking to deepen your personal growth or break free from undesired cycles, this episode offers valuable teachings and tools to inspire real, lasting change.

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SPECIAL MIND HACK/WHOLE HUMAN FRAMEWORK PROGRAM BUNDLE

https://mindhackprogram.com/bundle-acm

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What We Explored This Episode

01:33 Coaching Success Story

06:02 Mastering the Mind to Overcome Stagnation

07:13 Evolving Beyond Self-Awareness in Personal Development

10:39 Psycho-Cybernetics and Belief Systems

12:40 Mastering Emotional States for Leadership

18:25 The Nature of Belief and Reality

21:13 The Intersection of Spirituality and Biology

28:03 Overcoming Indecision and Fear

29:55 Transformative Journey from Addiction to Mindset Mastery

32:37 Transformative Power of Breath Work

42:00 Evolution of Human Intelligence

Memorable Quotes

"Basically, people get themselves stuck by the beliefs that they decide. Often those beliefs are made when they're young, which I'm so super freaked out by how much our youth impacts us."

"How's the worst thing that ever happened to you actually the best thing? And that reframe, just asking a different question changes everything."

"I believe purely in evolution. So whether that is divinely started or not, because I will be the first to admit there's something that I don't understand and it is something big. And it leaves me in awe and wonderment."

Connect With David

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Join our newsletter and get David’s free Mind Hack ebook and training: https://mindhackprogram.com/acm

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Check out our annual live event The Powerful Living Experience: https://powerfullivingexperience.com

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Check out ‘A Changed Mind’ on Amazon:

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Mentioned in this episode:

SPECIAL MIND HACK/WHOLE HUMAN FRAMEWORK PROGRAM BUNDLE

David Bayer 0:00

Let me ask you a question. You believe in God, don't you? He said, yes. I said, the omnipotent, omniscient, kind of all knowing type of God. He goes, absolutely. And I said, then how did your God put you in the wrong place on Friday night where you actually don't belong. And there was a pause, and I heard him on the other end of the line, and he goes, oh, my God. And I said, what is it? He goes, I belong everywhere I am. That's a fundamental reorientation to the experiences of your life. And what I believe is that's the deepest, most permanent, fastest way to actually move through the crazy unreality that we've created for ourselves as a result of adopting a bunch of other crazy people's beliefs when we were kids, right. To start reconnecting with what's really true.

Welcome to a changed mind, a journey into the topics that matter to you most. From the neuroscience and spirituality of mindset and personal growth, to groundbreaking strategies for health, wealth and relationships. To open and honest conversations about pressing global issues such as the environment, censorship, corporate capture, and democracy. Each and every episode reminds us of the certainty of the goodness of the future and provides the teachings, tools, and timeless wisdom inspiring you to create real, lasting change in your life and in the world. If you've been desiring a sanctuary for your spirit, a place to go to tune out the distraction, negativity, and doom and gloom so that you can tap into the deep power, the vibrancy, and the potential you have inside, you're in the right place. Welcome to a changed mind.

Hey, it's David. Welcome to a changed mind, a sanctuary for your spirit. A place where each and every episode I remind you of the certainty of the goodness of the future. I am your friend, your host, your guide, David Bayer. In this episode, I want to share with you one of the most difficult and unbelievable interviews of my life, and that is with Tom Bilyeu of impact theory. I was on the show several years ago, and during the course of the interview, in my own head, I was like, oh, my God, I am being destroyed by Tom Bilyeu. In this interview, he was asking a ton of questions, opening up a bunch of loops. I was trying to close all of them before the end of the interview, which, frankly, I think I did a pretty good job of. But I got done with the interview, and I was like, this just destroyed my career. This was like my first coming out party, my first big opportunity, and I completely fumbled it. And as I was sitting back in the waiting room with my head between my hands, the producer walked in and he said, I just wanna acknowledge you.

That was one of the top five interviews we've ever had on this show, and I was blown away. And if you know the show, it is the show for personal growth and transformation and thought leadership. So to be in the top 100 is an honor to have the producer come over and tell me I was in the top five. I was mind blown. And so I wanted to share this interview with you. I had the opportunity to be on a show because a private client of mine introduced me to a friend of hers who she thought I could help. So I helped him out with a couple of things, and he actually had been on the show and said, look, your work is amazing. You need to be on impact theory. So he introduced me to one of the show's co producers, and he and I met in LA several times. It was about 18 months.

We maintained the relationship, and finally I got the call. He's like, hey, can you be out here in two weeks? Tom wants to have you on the show. And Tom is super intellectual, a little bit aggressive, or a lot of bit aggressive in his interviews, not in a confrontational or purposeful way. It's just he's very, very intense. And so what you're gonna see in this interview is every time I start to lay down what I believe about the next evolution of personal growth and how we can actually use our minds to rewire our brains, Tom is asking a question, and as he opens that loop and I start to answer it, he asks another question. And so you're gonna see Loop closing Dave in this interview, and I'd love to know if you think I closed all of the loops, especially as Tom started explaining that he doesn't believe in God. And so how would I apply my frameworks and methodology to somebody like him?

It's a fascinating interview, and if you're somebody again who's really been wanting to take your personal growth deeper, you've got some limiting beliefs that you know are still lingering. They're still creating undesired cycles or experiences in your life. You're absolutely gonna love this interview.

So, one of the other things that a lot of people commented on, this interview, which has had a million views, not only on impact theory, but another million views as it's been republished on other channels, is that because Tom and I kind of sort of look the same and we're pretty much wearing the same thing? It actually looks like Tom versus Tom. So you're going to love this interview. Let me know what you think and enjoy Tom versus Tom with David Bayer on impact theory, everyone.

Tom Bilyeu 5:49

Absolutely. So, anybody that can go deep on the notion of getting unstuck is a friend of mine. So I want to start there. You've talked about how there are three areas of your life that you need to master, and how does that help us get unstuck?

David Bayer 6:02

Yeah. So, I mean, there's three areas of your life that, you know, I think are important, right? One is really mastering your mind, right. Your thought process. And that's nothing new. The real question is, you know, at one level, how do we become more self aware? The thoughts that are driving all of our process? But more importantly, how do we change our thinking? How do we change the habitual patterns of thinking that we become addicted to? And so that then cascades into our emotional responses that we have with life around us and our perceptions. So how do we reorient ourselves in a way that is congruent with the life that we actually want to create, or the business that we want to create, or the relationships that we want to create, or the health that we want to have? Because we tend to just continue to experience the same experiences over and over and over and over. And there's nothing fundamentally wrong with us in the fact that we live this sort of Bill Murray, Groundhog Day type of existence, right? It's the way the technology and the operating system of the human being has been designed. But now we're entering this really interesting period where I think personal growth is evolving into the next level, where we're able to utilize the tech to really tap into higher levels of intelligence and become what a lot of people refer to as superhuman.

Tom Bilyeu 7:11

So what gets people stuck in the first place?

David Bayer 7:13

There are a number of things that get people stuck. I mean, let's talk about beliefs for a second, you know, what are beliefs? Beliefs are the meanings that we gave the experiences of our life, mostly before the age of seven, before a significant portion of the prefrontal cortex is fully formed, we gave meanings to the experiences of our life or other people gave meanings to the experiences that we were having. Right. I remember distinctly one time, I grew up in Orange County, California, and I don't know why, in first grade, they had to choose which mission we wanted to build along. We had Mission San Juan Capistrano.

Tom Bilyeu 7:43

Interesting.

David Bayer 7:44

So at a paper moshe in clay, I'm building Mission San Juan Capistrano in my garage, and my dad walks in and he says, hey, let me show you a better way to do that. The meaning I gave that experience was I didn't know how to do it right. And just because of the way the technology works, what happens is that starts to shape the lens through which we experience the future experiences of our life. So the next time you have an experience, you know, you're approaching that experience through the not knowing how to do it right. And because the brain is a goal achieving machine, that's all we start to notice, right, is what we're not doing right. And really no recognition of what we're doing. Well, so we get caught in this. In this psycho cybernetic loop, and if you're not aware of it, there's really no way out of it, because in every new experience, you're just going to continue to focus on that which reinforces the belief systems that you established or the meaning that you gave the experiences early on, and you're going to ignore everything else. You become trapped right by your own thoughts, by your own thoughts, by your own belief systems. And now we're really understanding that those meanings aren't just some sort of marshmallow fluff or kind of esoteric concept of actually wired into the neural networks of your brain. Like, we can't do that today, but in the future, I would imagine we'd be able to brain scan you and go, oh, those are the neural networks that light up when you feel like there's not enough time or money's hard to make, or you're not good enough, or you're not as far along as you should be. And for years I struggled in the current model of personal growth because it's one of those things where like the current model lends to self awareness. And when I'm speaking on stages, I say, you know, how many of you are aware now of your limiting beliefs? And everybody raises their hands and say, how many of you have done the events, you've done the programs, you've done the coaching, you've done the different protocols, you've done the modalities? And make no mistake, I'm not criticizing them, right? This is an evolution of our own ability to change ourselves. And everybody raises their hand, right? They've been in the work, but now they're acutely self aware and they have no idea what to do about the patterns of thinking that they're aware of that are causing the stress, anxiety and overwhelm and holding them back. So that's where I was at one point. And if there was like a question or a quest I was on the, it was how do I go beyond self awareness and actually begin to change the way I think?

Tom Bilyeu 9:59

Yeah, that I think is super powerful. So I want to back up and sort of give people the bricks that you're laying down here so that this can all stack on itself. So basically people get themselves stuck by the beliefs that they decide. And you've talked very powerfully about that. We'll need to go into that a little bit here, but so they decide to make a belief. Often those beliefs are made when they're young, which I'm so super freaked out by how much our youth impacts us. I do not like that. That is a deep problem that I have with the universe. But we start forming these beliefs and then we get in these loops, literally, the whole notion of being stuck is that you've got these beliefs, they are hardwired into your brain. They become the easier thoughts to think. So your brain, when it goes into the default network, is just going to go into these loops of negativity. Beliefs, I'm not good enough, I'm not doing it the right way to build even more evidence for it, gain more momentum. And so now you're headed down the wrong path. So now how do we begin to unwind this stuff? So you say, all right, personal development 1.0 does an amazing job of getting people self awareness, teaches them the tools and tactics to look inward, identify the emotions, all that stuff. How do you now get to the 2.0? What is personal development 2.0? How does it allow us to leverage that self awareness to get to the phenom state?

Yeah, that's the question. Right. And I think there's a lot of roads to the mountaintop. I have the perspective that I have because that was my journey, and I had to start figuring out how to walk in the darkness. Cause that's kind of what it's like.

What darkness? What do you mean?

Like, meaning when you're caught in this psycho cybernetic loop.

Can you define psycho cybernetics?

Yeah. So it's this idea that what you believe will dictate your thoughts on a moment by moment basis. So if you believe that money is hard to make, as a simple example, you're not going to have ideas or thoughts around money that would be lending to making it easily. Right. And so what you believe dictates what you think you can't get like an apple from an orange tree. What you think you then experience is an emotion, right? And then that emotion then dictates what actions you do or do not take. And they're always aligned, right. Your beliefs dictate your thoughts, dictate your emotions, dictate your actions, which produce your results, and your results, when you look at them, then just reinforce the original belief. And so we're caught in that construct, right, but the linchpin is the belief system. So the question is, how do I actually change what I believe if my beliefs really do dictate my destiny, right. Which is, I'm not the only person suggesting that. The question becomes, how do I change my beliefs? And in that is an inherent challenge, because by definition, beliefs are that which are true for us. And so then the question is, how do we break out of this? My way of breaking out of it was at one point to understand, and I'll start to kind of walk you through the structure of it, to understand that there were only two states of emotional beingness that I could be in at any given point in time. I would either be in a powerful state of being. States like joy, curiosity, excitement, calm, peace, passion. Or I would be in a primal state of being. Boredom, anger, frustration, some form of fear. I'm always in one of those two states, and I'm never in two states at one time. Those map beautifully to the sympathetic nervous system and the parasympathetic nervous system, right? So in any moment, we're either in fight or flight, or we're in rest and relaxation through my journey. What I realized was the only cause of that switch to be flipped was my own thinking. The meaning that I was giving the experience, the experience itself, wasn't dictating whether I was in a primal state or a powerful state, whether I was in sympathetic fight or flight or parasympathetic rest and restoration or relaxation. It was the meaning I was giving the experience. And so that meant that all of my personal suffering was within my own control. I needed to start controlling the meaning I was giving the experiences of life. As we started doing this work early, I didn't see this initially in the work that I was doing with myself. But as we started building a team of coaches, and as the coaches were coaching people, what we consistently saw was that the quality of the thinking that was causing people to move into a primal state, which was really the only problem, because when you're in a powerful state, you're connected to creativity, to inspiration, to vitality, to energy. Health automatically operates. Everything that we want is in a powerful state of being. When you're in a primal state, you don't have access to any of that. So when entrepreneurs say to me, for example, what's the number one thing you would suggest to grow my business? I would say, notice by moment by moment what state of being you're in and use whatever tools or technologies you have access to to move back into a powerful state. That's where things just unfold. And I'm not saying you don't have to take consistent action and work your ass off to create success, but you do it from a powerful state. It's very hard to do it from a primal state. What we were seeing consistently was that the quality of thinking that was causing people to move into a primal state, when we really looked at it and worked with them around it, was that 100% of the time, it was untrue.

The only problem, the thing they were.

Thinking, the thing they were thinking was untrue.

I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough.

I'm not good enough. I'm not smart enough. There's not enough time. Now we can start to talk about the larger metaphysical philosophy behind all of this, right? But I'll give you a prime example. I was working personally, coaching a 29 year old egyptian muslim young man, super successful, had his first multimillion dollar business at 19 years old, was running one of the largest companies in his category at 29 years old. And I'd been coaching him, and he was out one night in South beach with a bunch of movers and shakers, and vice president of the sports team, number one dj, fashion designers, whatever it was. He called me the next day and he said, listen, I moved into a primal state last night, and I couldn't get out of it. So I need you to coach me on it, because I know his vision for his life. Now, the most important thing for him is to operate from a powerful state of being. I said, okay. So what happened? He said, well, I was there, and I noticed that I started having anxiety. So I know I moved into a primal state. I said, what did you do next? He said, I took a look at the thinking that was causing it. I said, what did you find? He said, I was thinking that I don't belong here. I was like, okay, got it. So then what did you do? And what we teach. We teach a couple of things. What we teach at the highest level of this work is that you're able to actually see the thinking that's not true is not true. And that's different than a lot of the other modalities I tried to use to evolve. You can change your state. You can reframe something. You can come up with a better story. There are amazing tools out there, like breathwork, plant tech. I mean, there's a bunch of stuff out there which we can get into. Plant tech. Plant tech. Yeah, that's nice. I like that. There's a bunch of stuff out there, right. But we're very focused on the personal technology, not the third party tools, right. But explored a lot of them. So what we believe is the fastest way for you to eradicate a limiting belief is to actually see the limiting belief is untrue. And the moment that happens, there's a reorganization in your brain like, you can't unsee it. Once you see the lie as a lie, right. There's a huge shift. It reorients you to the experiences of your life. It reorients you to you, to money, to relationships. So I said to him, so what happened when you saw that you were thinking, I don't belong here? And he says, it seemed true. He goes, now, I knew it wasn't because he bought in to what we teach. And I said, okay, great. So I'll coach you on it. With coaching, you have a lot of leverage, and you don't always have to use the leverage. I'm going to give you an example of. But I knew he was a spiritual. His faith was very important to him. So I said, let me ask you a question. You believe in God, don't you? He said, yes. I said, the omnipotent, omniscient, kind of all knowing type of God. He goes, absolutely. And I said, then how did your God put you in the wrong place on Friday night where you actually don't belong. And there was a pause, and I heard him on the other end of the line, and he goes, oh, my God. And I said, what is it? He goes, I belong everywhere I am. That's a fundamental reorientation to the experiences of your life. And what I believe is that's the deepest, most permanent, fastest way to actually move through the crazy unreality that we've created for ourselves as a result of adopting a bunch of other crazy people's beliefs when we were kids, right. To start reconnecting with what's really true. And so in that moment of seeing that you actually believe everywhere belong everywhere that you are, you move back into a powerful state, and now you're moving forward with your life in a powerful way.

It's interesting. So I've heard you talk a lot about the idea that basically, whatever happens is what is meant to happen. And in terms of the leverage of coaching somebody like me, that would never work because I don't believe in an omniscient God. So I'm like, there are just too many things where the outcome is just bad. It was all bad. But I think that you're very right that you can always reframe it and find something good out of it. So you can find something good out of terminal childhood cancer. Right. But I would say, objectively, that one falls into my human suffering bucket. I'm going to say, no, that's just pretty bad. You can learn something from it, no question. You can reframe it. Absolutely.

Sure.

So how are you able to have a breakthrough with somebody who is an adult, who, like me, doesn't believe that everything happens for a reason? Like, is it just reframing? Are there other tools? Like, what do you lean on?

Yeah. So what do you believe in? In other words, in your context, in the container that you've created, because you're creating it, right? Like, we don't know if there's a God. We assume there's a universe. We're sort of in it. I mean, we call it the universe, but that's just language, right? We're just making up names for shit. So the question would be, now I go back to Einstein, if he actually said it, which I think he did, which is the most important decision you make, is whether you live in a friendly or hostile universe. So that perspective is a belief in how the human being, technology, works. In other words, whatever you believe, because of the way this whole structure and system works and how meaning then creates emotion and neurobiological chemical cascades in your body, all this stuff. In that sense, without even getting really woo, you're creating a reality. Right, agreed. So then the question would be, what do you believe in drives everything. Because for me, I look at more it as a mathematics. I use the word God. But what I believe is that intelligence itself, right? Unbound intelligence is all there is. And that unbound intelligence, when you say.

Is all there is, what do you mean? Like the very fabric of spacetime is.

Sure. Like if you talk about spacetime or the ether or the Hindus call it the Akasha or the fifth element, or in the beginning there was a thing, right? For me, it's intelligence and it's mathematical and it's expression. And so I believe in math, right? If you go back to like, euclidean geometry, right, there's a very like kind of spiritual concept around all of these things and looking at things like sacred geometry and how something is expressing itself in these really deep, sophisticatedly intelligent patterns, which one could suggest is just chaotic. Like, it's the way that this all unfolded. It had to unfold this way because it was the only way it could all work, or it's supremely intelligent. So the first thing I would want to do is understand what do you believe so that then we can have this conversation within that context. So what do you believe?

I believe purely in evolution. So whether that is divinely started or not, because I will be the first to admit there's something that I don't understand and it is something big. And it leaves me in awe and wonderment. And so I am deeply moved by the mysteries of the cosmos. Like that shit, to me, is so beautiful. And so the states of awe or compassion or connectedness, you don't have to pitch me on that. I'm in, man. It's just, I don't think that one. I don't think that what makes this experience beautiful or even useful is that it is all happening exactly as it was meant to happen. I feel like, hey, something put the expansion of the universe, the expansion of species started, and it all has to obey the laws of physics. Okay, cool. So now, operating within that, I find so much power in going, how does the mind work? So what is it that I can grab hold of? What are the levers? What are the dials? I don't need them to be divinely inspired, and they certainly can be. Either way is fine by me. Like, I don't have a dog in that fight. It is simply, I just need to know the truth and so what I have experienced thus far tells me that people, in some pretty beautiful ways grapple with spiritual concepts as a way to, like, make sense of everything.

Sure.

So love it, respect it, don't have any beef with it. The concepts that have an equal amount of beauty, for me, come down to biological truths. And so, once I understand the biological truth and I can understand the way that synapses exist and work in the brain and the way connections are made, the way connections atrophy, so that I can make something atrophy sort of at will. I can make new connections at will by doing things, practicing something. And so once I understand those levers, then I can start pulling. So, a lot of the things you talk about, I feel like, yeah, that's super powerful. We agree on the thing without agreeing why the thing exists, if that makes sense.

Yeah, absolutely.

So, that's sort of the framework with which I operate.

Yeah. So we're going back to this question, right, that I think. I think you're alluding to this idea where I believe that life is working in infinitely intelligent ways for our greatest growth, our greatest prosperity, our greatest evolution. That at any moment, it's a moment of perfection. Right. That it is supposed to happen. And so in that, we can live with acceptance, we can live with surrender. We may not actually see it in the moment, how it's working for us, but we can choose to trust that it is if we want to.

Looking back, last statement you made, I agree with, like, totally. You can decide to view this as something that is working for me.

Right.

How. The Tony Robbins question. I love this. How's the worst thing that ever happened to you? Actually the best thing? And that reframe, just asking a different question changes everything. So I'm with you on that. It's a choice.

Yeah. And I think it's important for us to take a forensics approach to our own lives, to, like, observe deeply, to discover what we believe is true for ourselves. When so far in my life, when I look back over every single experience that I thought was a tragic experience at the time, of course, because of cause and effect, it's been the same part of the journey, of the things that I cherish most in my life. So we get to create those frames, right? And what I would suggest is those frames do become our reality. They do become our experience because of the way the technology works. Right? I mean, at any moment in time. I read some. Something recently, and the numbers always change, but they were talking about the part of the brain that pays attention. Right. The reticular activating system. And something like 88% of what's going on in any given moment, you're not paying attention to. Like, I'm not paying attention to your wrist right now. It's still in my wear. I should. It's a beautiful wrist. But that which we tend to pay attention to is aligned with what we believe, and so that's all we get. So if you want more happiness, if you want more wealth, if you want deeper relationships, if you want to have more joy, you want to have more fun, achieve your full potential and really make an impact in the world, then what's really important is to get clear on what that could look like for you and to make sure that what you believe is congruent with that outcome. Because if what you believe is not congruent with that outcome, just neurophysiologically, you're working against yourself. Right?

Yeah. Talk to me about the power of clarity. You're one of the few people that I hear talk about this, and I think it's so fucking important.

Yeah. So, like, where to start? With the power of clarity. We talk about a number of things, right? The power of decision, the power of clarity. The power of gratitude, the power of questions. Most people know what they don't want, but they don't know what they do want. If you say to somebody, what do you want? They'll spend maybe 10 seconds sifting around and then start telling you exactly all the stuff that they don't. And so it's important to have clarity on what you want to create, to have clarity on the type of partner you want to have in your life, to have clarity on the things that you want to learn, because I believe that clarity is intimately connected to imagination. So, as we're getting clear on something, we're beginning to see what that thing is, right. That we're getting more clarity on. And we now know there was a study done in 2009 at Harvard where they brought in piano players to play the piano, and they studied what parts of their brains lit up, and then they just had them imagine playing the piano, and the same parts of the brains lit up. And there's a study after study after study that shows that the brain doesn't know the difference between imagination and reality is you're getting clear around something. You're actually building neural networks as if that image or that experience had already occurred. I mean, this is really powerful because so often people don't know how to achieve something, and because they don't know how, they don't spend a lot of time getting additional clarity. They don't spend time imagining what the future would look like with that thing or being that thing or creating that thing, because they get stuck on the how. And what I would suggest is that if you're willing to invest time in getting clearer around something or imagining, you build neural networks that represent the memory of an experience that has not happened yet. That's fucking powerful. I mean, we're talking about, like, next level mental technology, because if you had experienced the thing already, would you know how to do it? So what I would suggest is that it's that change in the neural networks of your brain that you can achieve through clarity, which is part of this kind of imagination category. I mean, dispenza talks about it with meditation and visualization. Other great teachers talk about it. In this way, you're able to start building neural networks of experiences that have not happened yet. That I believe. Then give you access to the thoughts, the ideas, the perceptions. And if you want to talk about, like, creating the synchronicities that actually closed the gap between that future and the present moment, all right, say that in.

Like, a real basic bitch way, like, give it to people in, like, fucking ground.

Don't let not knowing how prevent you from spending time getting additional clarity or imagining, because that's actually what's required to happen in order for you to know how.

Yeah, that. I like your whole notion of getting. Don't let indecision. Right?

Yep.

Be born out of the fact that you're not sure how this is all going to play out. Right. So I thought that was so powerful. Like, to start moving. And in the moving in, getting the clarity, some of it will come to you. And moving forward, some more of it. More of it will come to you.

We talk about fog, right? It's like people get stuck because they're not clear. So. But getting more clarity, people get paralyzed by not knowing some kind of never attainable omniscience around the topic. And so they stop, right? They move into indecision, they move into some form of procrastination. And the way you get more clarity is the same way you drive in fog. You've got 10ft of clarity. The way you get 10ft more is to move forward. 10ft. You're never going to know. We're all looking for this sort of. I heard one of your guests recently talk about how fear is wanting to have a predictable outcome around an experience that you've never had before. And that's what we're all looking for. But that's not the way that it works. You get as clear as you can, then you take action and more clarity unfolds for you.

How do you help people unwind the fears around that? Is it all attacking the beliefs? Like, what are you really worried about? I'm worried I'm not good enough. That kind of thing?

Yeah. For us, it's really looking at what is the thinking that's causing the emotional response, which is fear, and knowing that what's actually happening, and again, this is just what we're suggesting. What's actually happening is you've activated neural networks that represent a dissonant concept and your nervous system is experiencing that dissonance is fear. I. Your nervous system is telling you it's not true. It's not true that you're not good enough. It's not true that you need to get it all done. It's not true that you're going to end up living under the bridge. It's not true any of those things aren't true.

Walk me through the journey to discovering all of this stuff. So ten years ago, we're in addiction, but you rocket. I mean, look, I only know the sort of external side of your story, so I wasn't there. So I'm sure it wasn't as easy as one would believe, seeing how far out of that you've come. But, like, what were some key points on that journey? Like a few moments that felt like, whoa, this is like a lightning rod moment? Were there those? Or was it just sort of a gradual stacking of mild insights? What did that process look like and how did you keep yourself going?

So I was in the depths of my addiction. I remember about three weeks before I realized I had a problem, which is amazing to see that I had these experiences and didn't realize I had a problem until three weeks later. It was the last time I was ever going to buy pot. Bought it from my pot dealer, smoked it on my back porch, had still had a bag left after rolling a joint, filled the bag up with water so that I wouldn't smoke it, took it to Whole foods and dumped it in the garbage can, and 3 hours later was back at Whole Foods pulling out of the garbage can and drying it out on my back porch. Right? That's addiction. It's addiction. And so in the beginning, it was just about trying to figure out how to untether myself from these addictive patterns of behavior. And I started working that twelve step program. And about three or four weeks after I started working a twelve step program. I go to the airport. You know, you have those, like, book moments, like a book decides it's developing a relationship with you. And, like, I go over, I grab this book off the shelf, and it said, awakening the buddha within. On the back of the book, it had the four noble truths of Buddhism. It said, life is full of suffering. The suffering will happen to you. There's a way out of the suffering. Suffering. And the way out of the suffering is the Eightfold path of virtue. And I don't know what the Eightfold path of virtue is. I'm like, but it's more efficient than twelve steps. I only have eight. So I read this book, and I'm like, wow. The things Bill W. Was talking about in twelve steps are very similar to what Buddha was talking about. And then an employee left a book on my desk called Kingdom Principles by Miles Monroe. And I was like, Christ is saying the same thing. Then I went to Barnes and Noble, and I kid you not, on the second floor of the Barnes and Noble, I walk over to a section that I didn't know existed called self help, and think and grow rich was sitting on the floor, and I just happened to pick it up, read the back of the book, bought the book. So my journey began, right? And, yeah, it was a gradual progression. It was picking up these individual distinctions. It was realizing that we're always in sympathetic or parasympathetic. It was realizing that my emotional responses were being dictated by my thoughts, not by the actual experiences. It was starting to become more self aware through the work that we did. I mean, Carol and I went to India three times, did really deep, intensive work there.

What does that mean when you go to India? We're in an ashram.

Yeah, we were at an ashram, more like a university. It was like a five star ashram.

And so are we taking classes?

Yeah, taking classes, doing breath work, meditation. Some of the breath work we did there was really, really, really deep.

And it allows you to, like, get into the parasympathetic. Like, what are the. Being wholly unfamiliar with this kind of training.

Oh, you've never done breath work?

I have, but, like, through Sam Harris or.

So, listen, this is because I'm aware of when I get into Tom's uncomfortable world at this point now. So, like, my. You know, I don't know what I can give you, my theory about what happens with the breath work that we did, but, you know, I experienced what it was like to be a turtle. I had a conversation with Krishna.

Are we talking, like, true, like, DMT induced kind of things?

Yes, but just breathe, right?

I'm assuming this is in meditation.

Yeah.

How long?

It's in breath.

Okay. Is the breath work different? Because I know you've done a lot of meditation. Is there a different experience to breath work versus meditation? Is it actually like a. Where you're getting hypoxic or something that's causing that?

It's a very active breath work. Right.

Do you know Wim Hof's method?

I've done Wim Hof's method.

Is it something intense like that? We are really.

Yes, for an extended period of time. And at that point, what I think happens is we begin to detach from the mind, and then these other experiences show up. Right. I mean, I had never really contemplated what it was like to be my mom's tortoise, but for whatever reason, that's what I experienced. Right. And as you begin to experience these things, you know, experience has changed the brain. Right. In fact, the only way you change the brain is through experience, right? Like, moment by moment by moment, we're recording, right, what's going on? And we're either reiterating the neural networks that are there. We're building new neural networks or pruning out old ones. And so these are experiences. So to what extent there's value to experiencing being a turtle, I don't know, but I've had the experience, so it's in here now. And so a lot of people use plant medicine for that, right. Exploring different experiences, or DMT. So, yeah, we've been on a journey of personal exploration. And the one thing that we started to see consistently as we were working with people around their beliefs, which we believe create the quality of their life moving forward in every area. Like, I can sit with someone and hear what they believe and tell them what their life looks like. I could get real creepy and follow someone around for three days without them knowing. I could sit down and pretty much tell them what they believe. Your beliefs dictate your destiny. And that's not some, you know, quotable, right? It's. It's the fact that it's at the core of behavioral psychology, right? Your beliefs dictate your thoughts, dictate your emotions, dictate your actions, dictate your results, which reinforce your beliefs. And what we consistently saw was that as we first started giving people permission to change their beliefs by realizing their decisions, right? The beliefs are just decisions, and that you could just decide something different, and the whole machine would start recalibrating around it and reorienting around it if you were willing to give yourself permission to make a new decision about life or money or relationships or whatever it is. But then after that, we consistently started seeing that the quality of the belief was that as we actually worked with people, they would say, oh, it's actually not true. Oh, I see that it's not true for me. It doesn't need to be not true for me. But as we worked with them, with our methodology, they would go, wow, it's not even true. And it was never true back then. My dad was just well meaning and wanted to help me build a better mission San Juan Capistrano. He didn't tell me I didn't know how to do it. Right. And so as we saw that, then we started finding even faster ways. Right. Now, you got to be open to it. You got to be open to the idea that anytime you're moving into a primal state, it's only being caused by your thinking. And the quality of the thinking is that it's not true, even though in the moment, it's really true for you. Right. So. And that's how we started creating these really radical breakthroughs, and that was my experience. I. Now, listen, I move into some form of suffering daily, right? It's part of the human experience. I still have my amygdala and my limbic system and my, like, we have pulled them out, but I'm very quickly able to reorient myself because it's a beautiful binary structure.

How did you get good at that?

Practice. The most important thing in my life, on a moment by moment basis, which sometimes I don't make the most important thing, but most of the time I do, is noticing what state I'm in. And if I've moved into a primal state, observing the thinking to see what it is, and going into an exploration of the thinking, knowing that it's not true if it's causing me that emotion. And I do it over and over and over again, and then I supplement it. I supplement it with doing cold work. I supplement it with doing breath work. I supplement it with my nutrition. So that philosophy has sort of become a pillar of my personal growth and my personal evolution.

Yeah, that's super powerful. So now, putting this in a framework of, you get triggered by something. So you said that you go into a primal state daily and you start your amygdala and all that. Walk us through that process that you go through to then get back into that powerful state.

Yeah. So something will happen. A team member who I've spoken to three times about the same issue will incorrectly do the thing for the fourth time. I'll notice that. I'll get frustrated, and I'll look at the thinking now, again, my should means something different than yours should, I think. But what I'm thinking in that moment is that I shouldn't have to continue to coach them. There are things that I need to do that are more important. The fact that they can't get this thing done properly is going to be a huge disruption. And I'll start going down a rabbit trail around it. I'll notice that I'm doing that and I'll go, okay, got it. So if that whole category of thinking is making me feel stressed or anxious or overwhelmed, I know those things aren't true. This doesn't threaten the organization. It's not taken away from the things that I should be doing. If this is what showed up, this is what I should be focused on. That's what great leaders do. There's a reason for this. Even though I may not be able to see it yet, how can I be an even better leader for this person? What is it about the first three times that I explain this thing to them that is not clicking for them and I can start to move into some form of empathy, some form of connection, some form of leadership. And, you know, as leaders, the irony around all of it is that when we approach our teams who are. Who are where, we have that type of experience with them, from anger, from frustration, from irritation, we're actually not good coaches for them. We can't move them forward into doing the thing properly. But when we realize that the frustration is coming from us and that all the things that we think should be that are not in that moment should not be, because they're not in that moment, and we become present to that moment into that person from a powerful state, that's how we are able to feel good about ourselves and actually support the people around us.

Yeah, that's cool. And that's something that you're able to help your clients do faster and faster and faster. Is there like a. Do you break that process down into steps? Like step one, identify the thinking? Step two, for sure.

That's our approach in a nutshell, which goes much broader and much deeper. Right. This idea that you're in one of two states that if you want to be creating a life you love or a business you love, or a team you love or a mission you love and be successful, it's from a powerful state. All right.

So to give people the steps, step.

One, what's notice when you've moved into a primal state. Step two, know that the only thing that's causing you to move into that emotional state which is sympathetic is your own thinking. Step three, take a look at what the thinking is. Step four, play around with or be willing to be open to the fact that if it's moving you into a primal state, it may not be true. Step five would be, if that's not true, then some form of the opposite must be true. What might that be? And step six would be, well, what evidence do you have for the fact that that would be true? What happens over time is the brain starts to even get acclimated to this process. So I don't go through the six step process. Every time I notice I have an emotional reaction and I reorient myself fairly quickly. And like I said, I'm a human being so I get hooked on things that are triggers for me all the time. I just don't get hooked as frequently and I don't spend as much time in the hook.

That's super powerful. Where can people learn more about you?

Well, people can go to our website@davidbayer.com we've got our mindhack ebook there which they can download for free. And we've got a ton of other information, videos, information about our powerful living experience. You know, for people who really want to go deeper into their personal growth and not just become self aware, but go beyond self awareness and really learn how to change their thinking.

I love that man.

Yeah.

What's the impact that you want to have on the world?

We see a world where the biggest problems are being solved. And in our language that's restoring intelligence to humanity, really helping humanity evolve to the next evolution of who they are, which is an evolution of the nervous system, it's an evolution of intelligence. And so that's our goal. You know, my experience was suffering. So we want to help people end their suffering and then go beyond that to have a powerful living experience.

I love that man. Yeah, guys, if you're looking for somebody that can really articulate the steps of how to make change, this is your man. It's pretty incredible. The stuff that he gives away for free is already extraordinary and then people really vouch hard for the events and stuff that he does. So if that is something that you want to do in your life, get unstuck, man. Dive into his world. You will not regret it. Alright, if you haven't already, be sure to subscribe. And until next time my friends, be legendary.

Hey, it's David one more thing. If you want to go even deeper on everything we've talked about on today's episode, don't forget to jump over to www.davidbear.com. you can find the link in the show notes and subscribe to our newsletter. A couple of times a week, I'm going to be sending you the latest episodes that we've released, along with additional free trainings. You'll get immediate access to my free Mindhack ebook and go even deeper into all the tools, the technologies, and the frameworks that have helped tens of thousands of people established a changed mind. Don't forget to jump on over to the site, and I will see you in the next episode.