457 - DELETE Your Old Self! – Watch THIS to Attract Abundance & Win at Life

0:00Josh Pice. Hey, Marie. Hi. Wait, what are you doing here? What are you doing here? I just popped in. This is kind of amazing. It is. So you've been on the show before, but not in a minute. That's true. And I got to say this. So y 'all, my man of 22 years wrote a freaking incredible book. What? You've got to get. So let me just be realsies about this. So obviously, you know, I didn't read any pages while you were writing at all or even after the draft came in. And then there was so much happening, you know, parentals, all kinds of crazy. Yeah. You were getting things done. So I actually didn't read it until it was like prepping for this interview.

0:41And I got to say, I was just like a little nervous because I love you and you're brilliant, but I have never really seen you write anything. I've seen you act and perform. So basically you were nervous because maybe it's going to suck. No, not that it was going to suck. And then you'd have to, and then you'd have to say, and then you'd have to. You took it to a level. I was not nervous that it was going to suck, but I was just like, I don't know if my man can write and writing's a whole different skill than everything else. However, I told you this when I got into like a few, just, I maybe it was like 12 pages in.

1:13I was like, hot diggity damn, my man. I was like, it was actually, it was a sexy turn on. I have to tell you. I was, yes. That was like, and then. Let's keep this bedside reading. and um but you did such an incredible this is such a fresh amazing book and like i knew deep deep deep down how brilliant you are but i feel like this is a whole new not only side of you but your ability to communicate is amazing so for everyone i'm not just saying get his book because he's my man i'm saying this book is outrageously good and we're going to talk all about it today so i just wanted you to hear that. And I love you so much.

1:50Congratulations. Thank you. Take us back to the time when you were just starting acting as a career. So you had studied in London, come back and you were starting to audition. And as you share in the book, it was disastrous. So all of your actor training said that you shouldn't show up in auditions feeling anxious or nervous. And yet you were, and you're feeling like a fraud, like, holy shit, I just spent all these years training to be an actor and all the things that they taught me in acting school per se and how you're showing up. It just wasn't working. You weren't booking jobs. You felt like a fraud.

2:27And I loved when you wrote that you had that 3 a.m. kind of panic attack that many of us have. Not that you had a panic attack, but you were filled with fear and you thought to yourself, should I give up my dream of acting? And in that moment, you had a little flash of a memory from your dad. take us there. Well, first, I mean, the auditions were disastrous. I was so, I was so trying to manage so much nervousness, so much anxiety. And the more I was managing it, the more I was in my head, like, can I even do this? You know, what, you know, I've made a complete wrong career choice, et cetera. And then, like you said, it was, you know, a three at one of those 3am moments.

3:09And I remembered something that my father had told me, well, really an incident with my father when I was six. And I knew what my father did for work. Well, I saw what he did. And he had this in his office, a floor to ceiling blackboard, and he would do these squiggles on it. Sometimes he would stare at it and he'd wipe something off and then he would go back to it. And one day I was like, Like I need to get to the bottom of what this guy's job is. And I knew I grew up in, you know, Alphabet City, New York City, very vibrant, dangerous neighborhood. And I knew what other kids' dads did. And they were bus drivers or school teachers or carpenters, just, you know, drug dealers.

3:58It was normal, you know, what dads did in New York City. Yeah. And and I was like, I was like, I need to get to the bottom of what my dad does. And so I was like, what do you do? And I want to know what you do. And he looked at me and he said, do you see this table that you're sitting next to? And I was like, yes. You know, tell me you're not telling me what you do. And he said, do you see your knee? And I was like, yes, I see. You know, it's like, what do you just tell me what you do? And he said, the smallest part of that table and the smallest part of your knee are the same thing. They're atoms.

4:42And he said, that's what I explore, the building blocks of the universe. And just a little parentheses about my dad. He was a theoretical physicist who worked with Einstein for about 11 years. And he also worked with Niels Bohr. And he was in the whole Oppenheimer. Oppenheimer, all the big shots of the day. So flashback to me in bed, what am I going to do with my life, my career? And I started thinking, well, if my body is Adams, then quite possibly that fear, that anxiety, that nervousness that I was feeling in auditions somehow had to be connected to atoms. And I started experimenting instead of holding this idea that I have anxiety, I have fear, I started to experiment feeling what is the actual vibrational frequency that I was feeling.

5:40The more that I experimented just feeling the actual atomic movement in a sense, it started allowing me to step out of judgment out of that this is bad because it was just vibrations and the more that I just stayed with those vibrations and and just played with them and even used them as creative fuel the more my whole creative life opened up to me I started working I started I got a job on Broadway I started doing movies and film and it was just using that, that energy that was there. It was not changing it. It was playing with it. What I loved in the book was you were talking about, you know, you shifted from kind of experiencing emotions in a psychological way, which is how most of us understand how to experience it and looking at it very experientially and in a sense, uh, atomically.

6:39And I thought that that was a really great turn of phrase because seeing emotions as vibrations, again, it's not how we're taught, but it makes a lot of sense. And obviously, you know, you and I have been together for 22 years. We've done some work together where I've had a chance to have you walk me through, you know, your not only philosophy, but your tools and your methods. And it's, it's especially, I just want to give voice to those of us because there's so many of us, you know, I don't have actor training as a dancer, I never kind of went into this world because it's a completely different modality.

7:12However, you know, I'm someone who's in my head and I experienced like thoughts, you know what I mean? Or things. And sometimes you'll ask me, I was like, well, what are you feeling? And I'm like, well, I feel like, or I feel like I'm not enough. Or I feel, and you're like, that's not a feeling, you know, it's just like, that's a thought. And sometimes I want to punch you in the face when you say that to me. So I just, no, I know, but I'm like, like, you know, I get, It's hard. So I just want to preview this for those of you who this might be kind of a new or novel approach. I can be your advocate here because it does really work, but you have to kind of pause enough to be willing to consider a whole other paradigm or lens that you may not be familiar with.

7:58And for me, even now, sometimes, you know, if I'm really caught up in a mental drama, you will ask me a question, try and get me to identify sensations. And I'm like, I don't have sensations. I rage, you know, and I want to punch you, but, um, I love you. So I don't. And, um, but it does really, really work. Okay. I want to ask you about what I think is one of, is built into this, the greatest myth and how this notion of getting into the zone, Yes. You know, in the realm of whether it's acting or it could be being an entrepreneur or having to be on stage and speak or doing something like this, starting a podcast or whatever, starting a business that you have to be like confident and in the zone all the time.

8:44And that's how you're going to do your best work. Tell me about the greatest myth. So the greatest myth of our time is the false belief that there are good emotions and bad emotions. And as long as we hold on to that myth, which is so ingrained in us since childhood, then when we feel something that we've learned is a bad emotion, typically fear, nervous, anxiety, things like sadness, we're automatically going to manage it. typically suppress it in some form. And as soon as we suppress any sensation in our body, we're signaling to our nervous system, to our body, I don't want to feel you. And as soon as we do that, and maybe we're able to reduce a sense of anxiety, maybe we are able to reduce it, but because we're alive, our attention has to go somewhere.

9:55So if we're not in here, we're going to go up here. Meaning for those of us not watching it, he's pointing to his head. Yeah. So as soon as we leave our body, we go into our mind and our mind is not our friend. Our mind comes up with the most debilitating, abusive concepts and tells them that it's us and that we're not this, we're to this, we're to that, etc. What I've been experimenting with is to let go of this notion that there's good and bad because as soon as that's active, we're going to end up in our head. And this book is about teaching how to increase your tolerance for your full range of body sensations as opposed to trying to cut out, you know, there's so many books like how to get rid of anxiety forever.

10:54Do you know what I mean? And all these sensations, including anxiety, it's built into our DNA. This is what being in a human body means. You're carrying around immense vibrations. And what if none of it is bad? What if it's all good? And what if it's there to pull you to give you a charge? Like typically when anybody puts their ass in the line, puts themselves further out into the world in a podcast and an audition, pitching something for every single person, when they do that, there's going to be an increase in vibration. It's not bad. It's almost like your body is like, here, I'm giving you this charge to go do what you need to do.

11:40But if we associate, you know, this kind of a vibrational frequency, we call it fear, we call it anxiety, suppress it. And then we're like, I'm no good. Oh God, what am I, what am I doing? You know, I'm a fraud, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yes. I love that because I think, first of all, it's so fresh because we as a fresh, it's so fresh, exciting. It is fresh because we've been taught a lot of times. I know for me, and especially in the realm of personal development, which is where I've spent the vast majority of my career, you know, it's like kind of managing your states constantly and getting into a notion of an ideal state.

12:18And if you're not in that ideal state, well, you're until you can get there. Yeah. And, and in terms of confidence, you know, if we hold confidence as this one slice of pie of the full range of things, we're going to be disappointed most of the time. But if we can reframe confidence as not suppressing yourself, owning exactly where you are, trusting that it's all creative fuel and, and redefining confidence that way, almost like if I'm not suppressing myself, I'm confident. And if you're telling the truth, everything is okay. And I think let's take it into the realm of acting for a minute, because I think that obviously this is where, um, committed impulse, which is the body of work that you've created over the past three ish decades, um, started primarily with actors and now it's broadened out and, you know, includes everyone from artists, entrepreneurs, doctors, painters, you know, chefs, everybody in the world can, can take advantage of it.

13:18And it's really good stuff. Um, but tell me about how, when you did start early on in your career, especially teaching some of these ideas, how audiences check out if someone, a performer of any kind, is not being truthful in the moment. I mean, we're hungry, especially in this era, we're hungry for experiencing someone's truth. And I think that's something that we're constantly scanning for. No, not true. True. Unconsciously. Unconsciously. Yeah. And it's not necessarily even the content, but it's like that person is speaking from their soul, from, from their being. And it takes a lot of trust to, particularly if you're feeling one of those sensations that you as bad, that you deem as bad.

14:18You know, we're taught you've got to hide that you've got to push that down. But what I've been experimenting with both as an actor and speaker and also working with thousands of people is that when they honor what they're feeling and let go of like, oh, this is a bad, but they just like, I'm nervous. And I feel a little nervous right now. Like, but just to speak from it, it's like the audience wakes up, you know, it's like if you pass two people on the street and they're having this intense conversation, it's so absolutely compelling because it's so real. Or I know when we go out to dinner and sometimes there'll be somebody, you know, a couple sitting next to us and we just go like, they're on a first date and everything is like, you know, it's all, it's all, it's all raw, but it's like, it's so interesting.

15:13It's so compelling. Yeah. You know, I think, um, you know, Josh and I, we, we, again, 22 years, we talk a lot. I think it's funny. Like some of our friends are like, how do you guys still have stuff to talk about? I'm like, first of all, it surprises us. Yeah. I have no idea. I have no idea, but there's always like, we have so much fun together. And I remember one time fairly recently within the past year, I told you I went out with a friend to see someone's performance kind of on the upper east side, some places we rarely ever go. And this particular human is a phenomenal technical performer.

15:47Right. Singing, dancing has had quite a career. And yet when I watched this particular performance, remember I told you? Every single beat of it was placed, rehearsed. Like, you know, and I've, I've also told you about speakers that I've seen that are kind of in my world where I watch them give the same talk, you know, and it's like a keynote talk. So of course you don't have to reinvent the wheel every time, but I saw them get emotional at the same part and you know what I mean? And like touch their face. And I was just like, I wanted to shoot myself. I'm like, I want to throw up. There is nothing worse.

16:23And with both of those particular humans, I know in my gut they have so much more in them, meaning they're brilliant on so many levels. But I was so hungry for the real them rather than the prepared, rehearsed them. So I just wanted to say that out loud. And I also wanted to say this was one of the other things. Like I've had like little debates with you about this for myself, which was, but wait, how do I be spontaneous and in the moment, but I still have to prepare. Like I need to know my lines or, you know, me like even when I did the Oprah talk and you worked with me so much on that, it was like, dude, I needed to hit my marks because it was an 18 minute talk.

17:08Right. You know what I mean? And I could not afford the luxury of wandering and finding certain turns of phrases that could put me over the 18 minute mark because that's disrespectful to the producers. So talk to me about the kind of balance and how it works together to both be prepared, whether it's a pitch, you know what I mean? A lot of people these days, no matter what you do, you need to show up on camera or in media in some form. And how does that square with being present, spontaneous and letting things unfold as they are? It's like you want to have your lines down. Some people can have a sense of what they're saying and that's fine too.

17:54But then in the moment, you need to step into the unknown. Because if you step into the unknown, your audience is going to wake up. Because something real is happening. It's a very, it feels safe, secure, but it's actually suppressed when you have everything locked down. And you said, and then I'm going to do an emotional, you know, and this was, and it was a hard time, you know, that, that was when I, you know, found my whatever, you know, it makes sense to do it that way. There's logic to it, but it doesn't engage an audience. And so you want to be fully prepared, know what you're going to say, and be open to the fluctuations that are happening and let that be your guide track.

18:46Because if you leave you, the audience is going to leave you. Yes. And it takes bravery because we're so conditioned to believe that we need to project. we need to have a show something we need to show how powerful we are but the more connected to us the more the audiences connect is going to connect and that's power yeah no it's true power it's a lot it sounds and feels a lot scarier i think initially and then once you start playing with it it does like anything else the more familiar you get with the unknown ironically or not ironically And it's scary until you, it's almost you're crossing through this little thin membrane of like, I've got it locked down to, oh, wow.

19:34And then, yeah. And you're going to feel more, but it's going to be juicy. Yes. And it's, and it's just, it takes bravery, but not a lot. It's just, you step into it and then, wow. Yes. And let's talk for a minute, because I think this is really interesting. And, you know, sometimes you will come off of coaching calls or, you know, if you do a kind of a multi-hour session that someone and you and I talk about just what happens for people with this work. I think one of the most interesting things about what you show people how to access and the tools that you give them is these unintentional positive benefits from a health perspective.

20:16perspective so like i just want to talk about some of the costs and what are some of the negative things that we human beings can experience from your point of view when we suppress emotions because i don't think a lot of people realize i mean and you know me oh my god i have been like i've been champion level suppressor you know what i mean at certain points of what i have been i mean and it was a survival strategy and it was what i had to do at certain points of my life you know, to get through things. But I think in more recent years, it's just like, you know what I mean? Like have not had that, um, suppression on myself nearly as much.

20:55So, uh, what are some of the things like, what can it cost us health wise, um, mentally, emotionally, physically when we suppress emotions and try and not experience things? Well, for first, I just want to say that the ability to suppress can sometimes in a high stakes situation that you might find yourself in, it can be a tool to get through something very intense in a particular moment. But what we don't want it to be is a lifestyle. Right. And typically what happens, it all comes back to the great myth. When we feel something we don't like, we suppress it and we're basically taking this energetic pattern and we're jamming it somewhere in our body.

21:40And then we're like, you know, and I'm fine. No, I'm fine. I'm really, I'm good. You know? Yeah. And then we get into the habit of every time that sensation, which is an energetic pattern happens, we push it down. Yeah. over time those areas become tight they can become compressed and they can even become painful and maybe even lead to disease i don't know and the more compressed the energy you know these kind of lock boxes we have in our body the more we're going to be in our head because we can't feel our body as much because we have so much attention on suppressing and holding these areas and what I've found is that by helping people just go into that area and, and it's not a psychological process, but just to feel what's in there, like things open up and they're, you know, I've had, you know, students like being completely crunched up and they're, you know, and just like higher than one shoulder's higher than the other.

22:49There was one guy was very extreme and I was like, what do you feel? And, you know, I just guided him to just feel the energy that was in there. And, you know, by the end of this exercise, you know, his shoulders became level. Um, so this habitual suppression, because we think what we're feeling is wrong. It, it's just, it jams up the whole being it's it's it's just it's it's really unhealthy and it decreases the ability to breathe and it cannot be good for the body yes to have all these lock boxes and try to it's you know operate around them right but it takes bravery to like as i was saying like yeah you know no it is scary so i think one of the most um important parts of the work is really making the distinction between thoughts and body sensations.

23:47Again, going back to me getting really frustrated in so many of our conversations because it's just the truth. Um, but I, but there are, keeps it spicy. It does keep it spicy. And, but I also think that there are legitimately like now more than ever millions and millions, if not billions of people just like me, who that's a really difficult thing. You know, anyone who tends to be type A, highly ambitious, driven, focused, goal oriented, the distinction between thoughts and body sensations. And I thought there's a great story in your book about a client that we'll call Gloria, high powered attorney who, who showed up because she kept feeling like a failure.

24:29Yeah. She was feeling like a failure. She was saying she had imposter syndrome. And for example, you know, when she was saying, I feel like a failure, I was like, well, what, what do you feel? And she was like, I feel like a failure. I just told you what I feel. And I was like, sounds like me, right? I was like, But your body doesn't know failure. Your body can't interpret failure. So I said, you know, what do you actually feel? And she was like, I feel anxiety. I feel frustration. And I was like, great, that's a great word. But what do you actually feel? And she just was like getting more and more annoyed with me, as you've done sometimes.

25:22and then I had her like tune into the actual frequency that she was feeling and just had her stay with that and she was like I don't like this and I was like yep and as over time as she started to just allow herself to feel like maybe it was like a slow churning in her belly I said, I just also want to say that she was, she started out, you know, she was a young attorney, you know, always coming up in legal cases against men. And she felt like I need to be strong. I need to be dominant. I don't want to be bullied. And so I'm going to go through. And that worked for a while. And then she started just losing case after case.

26:11And she was also completely drained in her body. and her relationship with her husband was a mess. And by starting to let herself feel more, first of all, she started gaining so much more energy because it takes so much energy to manage and hide, you know, if she was feeling fear, to hide it and lock it in. And it was, you know, it's like putting a racehorse in a small, you know, stable. and over time she started to and I said try allowing yourself to feel those vibrations when you're doing cases and she was like that was so against everything that she had decided you know to be trained to do and trained to do and the interesting thing is that she started winning cases and she said the weirdest thing is happening when I'm doing my closing arguments to the jury, they used to check out.

27:15They used to be like almost falling asleep. And now when I allow myself to feel these vibrations, they're really listening to me. And she also said, you know, she started having more sexy time with her husband. Husband's like, eat welcome with Josh. Do another round with that guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. But, you know, we have to let go of these structures, you know, and in terms of acting, you know, 20, 30 years ago, it was all about bravura. And it was like that was being a great actor. And at that time, that was awesome to see, you know, somebody that was grand. But where we are now, we want a connection to whoever we're watching, to whoever we're relating to.

28:10This stuff is great if you're going on a date. Because for whatever reason, we cannot tolerate those performative presentations anymore. It doesn't work. And I'm sure so many people in your audience have so much value to give, but if they're doing it locked in, it's like they're distorting their message. They're making it hard for people to hear them. Not to mention that shit does not sell or connect. And when I say sell, it's not even necessarily about money in the bank, although that's true as well. Yes. It's also just about the connection of that idea and inspiring someone to make a change, you know, even if they were in a nonprofit or to donate or to whatever, like inspiring someone to take action.

29:00It's like, you can't, it's like something reads false. Yeah. You know what I mean? And I think too, and I know you write about this in the book and you, I talk a lot about this is like, especially with AI, like we don't know where it's going. You know, we're recording this in the fall of 2025. So, you know, no one has a crystal ball, but I know this, like, God, it feels like I can feel slash sniff out. You know what I mean? Like, and I know AI is really good. It's going to keep getting better, but where we're at now, I am so sick of all the slop. Yeah. It's just like some bullshit. Yeah. And AI is going to strive to present human connection.

29:40Yes. You know, it's going to, but there's nothing, what we have on AI is we have this being. Yes. And these, these cells and these atoms, and that is a more, I'm going to say it's always going to be a more powerful transmission and communication form than anything that AI can come up with. And we need to, you know, AI is great as a tool, you know, a side, a side partner, but, um, yeah, side dish, you know, stay, stay, stay. Um, But, you know, it's like we this is our responsibility as humans in this era is to own our the fullness of our being and our aliveness. I do think it's going to be a competitive edge, too, because I know as for myself, just looking in a very, you know, end of one kind of situation, I am craving things, experiences, places to spend, you know, my hard earned money with folks who I'm just like.

30:51They are not dialing it in or AI-ing it in on any level. It's like when I can feel and sense, and I think most people are like, oh my God, this is real. This is only an experience I can get with other humans. I'm like, I'm in. Yeah, and we have to recognize that those little rectangular devices that were - Oh, this thing? Yeah. I'm holding up my iPhone. Yeah. That, you know, it's, you know, obviously billions and billions of dollars are put into keeping us addicted and staring at it. But when something truthful happens, it's like, oh, my God. It's so much more compelling. But also, I think the thing that's true, too, and, you know, this, these little rectangular addiction boxes really keep us in our heads.

31:34Yes. And disconnected from our bodies. Oh, yeah. And so, like, that's another thing to just be aware of because you really do. You feel less, and I'm putting feel in bunny kind of air quotes. You think more. Hey, if you are overthinking, procrastinating, or just feeling off today, I have got your fix. It's called One Minute Motivators, a science-backed audio tool to help you shake off resistance, get focused, and take action now. Look, if you want me in your pocket motivating you when you need it most, grab the full audio collection at marieforleo.com slash motivators. or if you're watching this episode, just scan the QR code now.