If You're Ambitious But Stuck, Listen To This

6 May 2026 · 21 min · 11 chapters

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In short

The episode argues that people feel “stuck” because they’re conditioned to believe happiness, love, worth, and safety must be earned or found elsewhere; instead, the life they want is already “in front of them,” but they’re trained not to notice it. It uses a plane-crash raft metaphor (thirst in “fresh water” mistaken for ocean) to claim people don’t drink what they already have.

Key claims

waking up requires questioning borrowed beliefs, tolerating uncomfortable truth, and being willing to change identity; willpower/effort alone won’t do it.

Guests

No human guests appear. The episode includes sponsor/advertised segments for JustWorks, Granola, LinkedIn Hiring Pro, iXL, Mint Mobile, BetterHelp, and others.

Notable examples

the raft-in-lake metaphor; “chasing the horizon” goals; “glasses on your face” analogy.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

Understanding Feelings of Being Stuck

0:00 to 0:51

Explore why you may feel stuck in life and how your mindset influences this perception.

“Running a small business, then you know it can be stressful.”

Understanding Feelings of Being Stuck

1:34 to 2:03

Explore why you may feel stuck in life and how your mindset influences this perception.

“Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast.”

Understanding Feelings of Being Stuck

2:45 to 4:21

Explore why you may feel stuck in life and how your mindset influences this perception.

“And you might be like, no, no, no, but I don't have that successful business.”

The Illusion of Scarcity

4:21 to 5:44

Learn about the metaphor of people not seeing the abundance in their lives.

“They wake up, they're alive, and they're on a raft.”

Conditioning and Societal Norms

5:44 to 8:01

Discuss the societal conditioning that leads to feelings of inadequacy.

“love and everything they've ever wanted, but they don't know that it's there.”

The Trance of Modern Life

8:01 to 9:27

Examine how people operate on autopilot and overlook their true desires.

“And the hypnosis of all of this is really real.”

The Trance of Modern Life

10:08 to 10:30

Examine how people operate on autopilot and overlook their true desires.

“Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash mentor.”

The Challenge of Waking Up

11:34 to 14:00

Understand the difficulties and fears involved in questioning your life choices.

“Chasing the next thing, the next achievement, the next dollar, but nothing gave me what I thought that it would.”

Breaking Free from Ego and Beliefs

14:00 to 24:41

Learn how to recognize and break free from limiting beliefs and ego attachments.

“We'd rather fight for those things to keep that ego attached to who we are and that identity.”

Breaking Free from Ego and Beliefs

25:05 to 25:31

Learn how to recognize and break free from limiting beliefs and ego attachments.

“Are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard, but not the pipeline?”
Show all 11 chapters

Breaking Free from Ego and Beliefs

25:35 to 26:34

Learn how to recognize and break free from limiting beliefs and ego attachments.

“choose a schedule and set up recurring investments in stocks and ETFs.”
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:00Running a small business, then you know it can be stressful. Having to hire actual real life people and then figure out payroll and benefits, that can send you into a spiral. JustWorks is the payroll, benefits, and global hiring platform to unburden your brain from all the complicated small business stuff. They handle the things you can't afford to get wrong so you don't have to worry. You can spend less time spiraling and more time doing the things you love. You don't have to worry when it just works. You're in back-to-back meetings all day. You're trying to stay present, but you're worried that you're gonna forget the next important step.

0:30Granola is an AI-powered notepad for meetings. You just jot down rough notes, and in the background, Granola transcribes and turns them into clear, useful notes when the meeting ends. No bots joining your calls, just a clean notepad that helps you focus. I've been using Granola for my back-to-back meetings, and it just makes it so easy to make my notes as clear as they possibly can and for me to understand next steps for each meeting. Head to granola.ai slash mindset mentor and get three months free with the code mindset mentor. That's granola.ai slash mindset mentor and get three months free with the code mindset mentor.

1:02Hey, a bad hire can really cost your business and a great hire can really accelerate your business. Running a small business means every hire really matters. A bad hire can cost you time and money and momentum and a good hire can help grow your business immensely. Finding great talent isn't easy when you don't have the time or resources to sift through resumes. LinkedIn's new hiring pro screens candidates for you, so instead of sorting through applicants, you can spend time talking to only the right ones. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash dial. Terms and conditions apply.

1:43Welcome to today's episode of the Mindset Mentor Podcast. I'm your host, Rob Dial. If you have not you done so, hit that subscribe button so you never miss another episode. And if you're out there and you're trying to perfect your morning routine, I just created a simple workbook for you to download that shows you the step-by-step process to create an amazing morning routine based in science. If you want to download it for free, you can go to theperfectmorningroutine.com and get it now. Today, we're going to be talking about why you feel so stuck in your life and how to basically get everything that you want in your life and to understand that getting everything that you want in life is not about doing or achieving more.

2:25And so what I'm going to basically talk about today is hopefully waking you up a little bit to your programmings, some of your conditionings, and also to currently what you already have around you. And so one of the reasons why you feel so stuck in life is because I'm going to go out and say that everything that you want is already here in front of you. And you might be like, no, no, no, but I don't have that successful business. I don't have that million dollars yet. I don't have this thing and that thing and this thing and that thing. I think that for most of us, what we already want is already right in front of us.

3:00We're just missing it. And most people never wake up to the amazing life that they already have that's all around them. And so let's not sugarcoat this. Most people are not living in their life. They're just surviving. They're performing for other people. They're coping. They're numbing. They're distracting themselves. They're drifting through days with just enough stimulation to keep the existential dread at bay. But if you stripped away all of the noise, all of the scrolling on Instagram and watching too much Netflix and being over distracted and everything, take away the jobs, take away the shows, the endless scrolling, most people would feel it.

3:44It's that quiet thought in the back of your head that's like, is this it? Is this really all that there is in life? And the real tragedy of all of this is that most people are surrounded by the thing that they already want, the thing that they're starving for. They just don't really know how to open themselves up to receiving it. And so I'll give you a quick little story that'll make sense, okay? There's a plane that crashes into the water. It hits the water. Everybody who is on the plane just blacks out. And they wake up and they're alive. They think, oh my God, am I dead? Am I in heaven? What's going on?

4:26They wake up, they're alive, and they're on a raft. And no one really remembers how they got there. But they're just drifting in the ocean. and they're drifting in the ocean for days and days and days. And after a few days, they're parched, they're dying of thirst, they're hungry. They're dying of thirst because they're in the ocean. You can't drink salt water. And so eventually a rescue helicopter comes by, picks them all up, and they're all rescued. And the rescuers are just like, do you have water? I'm just so thirsty. Like, yeah, here's some water. They give them water. And eventually the rescuers in the helicopter say, why didn't you just drink the water?

5:04And they're like, well, because we were in saltwater, you can't drink saltwater. They're like, no, you weren't in saltwater. You were just in a really big lake. They were in this massive lake and they couldn't see land and they don't know how they got there except for the plane crash. So they just assumed, hey, we must be in the ocean. They could have reached over for days and just cupped their hands and drank the water. But they didn't because they didn't know what they were floating in. They already had what they needed. They just didn't know it. Now, it's not a true story. It's a metaphor for how most people live their lives.

5:40This is how most people go through their entire life. They're dying of thirst in the middle of an ocean of joy and peace and happiness and love and everything they've ever wanted, but they don't know that it's there. And so what we need is a wake-up call to really realize what is around us. And it's not really your fault that you don't realize what's around you. The ugly truth that we don't really want to talk about is that, you know, we've all pretty much been conditioned in the society that we live in unconsciously. It's not like some evil overlord is looking over us and making us do this, but we've basically been conditioned from society and from our parents and then our grandparents and just generations to believe that the good stuff, everything that we want is somewhere else outside of us that we have to go achieve.

6:26That love that you want, that's after you get everybody's approval. The peace that you want deep inside, well that's after all of the achievement that you need. The joy that you want to feel, well you got to earn that one. Happiness, you can only be happy after you're done building. Relaxation, only after I make that first million dollars, then I can relax. in the society that we live in we're trained to defer our aliveness and we're taught that love and joy and fun and peace and happiness is somewhere else down the road it's not here and now in you know from the first time somebody said hey you know good boy or good girl are you such a good boy you're such a good girl our nervous system kind of started to pick up on the rules okay i need to be a good boy i need to be a good girl i need to be useful i need to be liked i need to be loved.

7:16I need to be good. I need to work hard. I need to achieve. I need to earn my worth in some sort of way. And then maybe, maybe one day you can feel safe enough to relax and then live the life you've been wanting to live. So the results is just billions of people kind of waking or walking around in a trance, like spiritually malnourished, emotionally constipated, physically present in their body, but like psychologically not really there. And so there's think about what they want and the next thing and the next thing they got to go to, the next thing that will make us happy. And I lived my life for a long time like this, where even when I was on vacation, I was like, there's got to be something.

7:58I got to work towards the next thing. I'm not where I want to be yet. I've got to get somewhere else than here. And the hypnosis of all of this is really real. Like, let's call it what it is. This isn't just about being too busy. It's kind of like a mass hypnosis. So many people are just asleep and they're not aware that they have everything that they need around them and that by going and achieving something or being somebody else or getting others approval will not give them the thing that they want. They have inside of them and around them the thing that they want. It's always been there. And like I said, most of my life I was in a state of trance and sometimes I still find myself going back into a state of trance.

8:37And we will be right back. iXL is an award-winning online learning platform that helps kids truly understand what they're learning, whether they're building math confidence, strengthening reading and writing skills, or reviewing science concepts. iXL is used in 96 of the top 100 school districts in the U.S., and studies show kids who use iXL score higher on tests, proven in all 50 states. That's why I've been using iXL Learning. I love that it gives instant feedback with clear explanations. everything's organized by grade level and I can easily track their progress. Plus it's flexible enough to fit around travel camps and a busy summer schedule.

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9:57I'm paying way less. My service still works great, and honestly, I wish I would have switched sooner. To get your new wireless plan for just 15 bucks a month, go to mintmobile.com slash mentor. That's mintmobile.com slash mentor. Cut your wireless bill to 15 bucks a month at mintmobile.com slash mentor. That's it. There's no catch. $45 upfront payment required equivalent to$15 a month. New customers on first three month plan only. Speed slower above 40 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Additional taxes, fees and restrictions apply. See Mint Mobile for details. This is a paid ad by BetterHelp. Sometimes I catch myself asking, am I actually living my life or just working through it?

10:38It's easy to get stuck in the cycle of constantly pushing, constantly doing, constantly chasing the next thing. Not everyone thrives when life gets busy. You might catch yourself feeling drained even during things you usually enjoy or realize you've been pushing yourself more than you need to. It's important to take care of yourself when things get busy by resting, recharging, and saying no when you need to. Therapy can also be a way to get out of autopilot and get a solid reset. Therapy with BetterHelp may help you better understand your needs, feel more confident setting boundaries, and create a rhythm that feels sustainable.

11:09BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform. Just take a short questionnaire to identify your needs and preferences and BetterHelp will handle the initial therapist matching work for you. You can also feel confident knowing BetterHelp therapists work according to a strict code of conduct and are fully qualified. Take a pause with therapy, BetterHelp can help life feel manageable again. Sign up and get 10 % off at betterhelp.com slash dial. That's betterhelp.com slash dial. And now back to the show. Chasing the next thing, the next achievement, the next dollar, but nothing gave me what I thought that it would.

11:42Nothing gave me what I was searching for. And all of these boxes I wanted to check off in life, and I've checked off pretty much all of them. And then realized one day, like, hold on, I didn't get, the feeling I thought I was going to get. But if there was some controlling evil overlord, if I was a conspiracy theorist, it's brilliant. Because if you're asleep, you're controllable. And then you'll buy what they sell. And you'll work the jobs that drain you to keep up with the Joneses and get the next thing and protect belief systems that never belong to you in the first place. And so if we're like a hypnotized audience member on stage, then we're kind of just like clucking and doing what the hypnotist says and swearing that all of it makes sense.

12:23But you're not a fool. I'm not a fool. We're not fools. We just find ourselves to be asleep sometimes. And there's a really big difference. And so it's time to wake up from the trance that we've kind of been conditioned into believing was our life. And this is why the change is so hard. This is why you remain stuck is because you're on this treadmill that never actually goes anywhere. and a lot of people are like yes oh my gosh this sounds great i want to wake up i want to just tell you this waking up sounds really amazing and romantic until you try it because then you have to start questioning things why do i need validation from other people to feel worthy do i even want the life that i've built what if everything that i believed about life and love and joy was wrong and that's not fun it's actually really terrifying because you have to question the foundation of everything that you've built your life on.

13:17And this is where most people bail because that gets, that shit gets scary. Because to wake up, you have to lose who you thought you were. You have to let entire layers of your identity just kind of fall away. Your ideas about success, love, family, spirituality, self-worth, success, money, all of it. And let's be honest, Most people are so identified with the trance that they're in that we would rather defend our suffering than surrender our ego. Most people would rather be right than be free. What do I mean by that? We'd rather fight for our insecurities, our identities, our fears, our limiting beliefs.

14:02We'd rather fight for those things to keep that ego attached to who we are and that identity. And we can say, this is who I am. we'd rather be right and try to prove that that thing is right than actually be free from it. Because defending the ego means that you get to stay the same. Getting free from our trance means that we have to put in work. And that work requires us to change. And most people would rather be miserable and comfortable than free and uncertain about the future. But you can't wake up and get out of the trance and start to live a different life and stay comfortable at the same time.

14:37That's not how it works. And so here's the wild thing about it. Most of what you believe about yourself and the world and other people isn't even yours. And you can test it. If somebody challenges your worldview and you start to get mad or react emotionally in some sort of way, that's most likely a borrowed belief from someone else. If an idea about love or money or success or God makes you clench inside and kind of tense up, that's most likely not your voice. That's someone else's ideas that you just picked up along the way. And we have all done this in many ways. And so it's really hard to get and to fully understand, but it's really important to understand this.

15:24This is how deep the, you know, we'll call it kind of what it is and not in a bad way, but this is how deep the brainwashing goes. is we internalize the beliefs of our parents in school, in religion, in media, in culture. And then we want to fight for those things because we believe them so much because we've been told to believe them. Even if those are the very things that really keep you stuck. But that's not loyalty, that's hypnosis. And so we have to have the courage to change our mind. The only reason why we feel stuck is because it's that mental treadmill that we're stuck in. So if we want to have something that gets us unstuck, We need to have the courage to change our mind in some way, to see things differently than we've seen them before.

16:06And most people, let's just be real, most people in this world don't want to change their mind. They're looking more than anything else for data to prove their points right, more than they're looking to prove themselves wrong. But that's not you, right? That's not why you're here. You're here because you're ready to wake up. You're ready to break free. You're ready to feel differently and create a better life. And so I don't want you to, the important thing is I don't want you to shame yourself for the things that you did while you were asleep. Like for me, I feel like I could look back and be like, I lost years of my life when I was asleep.

16:39But it's like, no, I was asleep. So I can't shame myself for not realizing when I was working 110 hours a week for three, four years straight from sunup to sundown, just putting all of my life into a business that I ran into the ground. I can't look at that and be like, oh my God, I need to shame myself and guilt myself for that thing. I need to just go, no. He was asleep. He thought that that would give him the life that I want. He thought that that's what success and happiness and love and achievement look like. And so we have to stop building an identity around who we were when we didn't know any better.

17:14That version of you, that was just you in a sleep, in a dream. It was a survival mechanism, right? So we don't need to hate it. We don't need to be mad at ourselves. We just need to start to outgrow it. And so what really wakes you up to be able to see the amazing things around you? Once again, you're on a raft and you're surrounded by the water that you need to drink, but we're thinking that we're not. We got to go get some other type of water. No, it's right in front of you. And so what wakes you up? It's not effort. It's not willpower. It's not reading one more self-help book or as much as I love that you listen to podcasts.

17:51It's not you listening to 10 hours and binging a podcast. There's one really true ingredient that wakes you up. Your willingness to receive new truth, even if that terrifies you. And what does that mean? That means questioning some of the things that you've put as the foundation of your entire life. You know, so many people are clinging to their old identities and the amount of truth that you can tolerate without running away is the exact measure of your capacity to wake up. It's not how smart you are. It's not how much effort you put into it. It's not how spiritually sound you are, how long you meditate for.

18:31It's how available you are to see what's actually real, even if it contradicts everything that you've clung to for safety in your entire life because everything that you want is already here. And this is where it's really wild. You're not missing the life you want because it doesn't exist yet. You're missing it because you've been trained not to notice it. Like so many people I've talked to are like, well, once I make this amount of money, I'll be happy. I'm like, really? Like I've been to third world countries and seen people who have nothing that are 10 times happier than people that I know that are worth hundreds of millions, even billions of dollars.

19:11So clearly it's not money that makes you happy. If they could be happy, clearly that money is not the thing that makes somebody happy. And so we've been trained not to notice and not to be able to go, oh, it's right in front of me. You know, the love that you're craving, it's not coming from somebody else. It has to come from yourself. There's people around you that already love you. The joy that you want, it's already available to you right now. The safety, that belonging, that deep sense of meaning that you've been chasing, it's already around you. It's already yours. We're just thinking that it has to come from somewhere else, right?

19:48The problem is that we've been programmed to look everywhere else, but here inside of ourselves. I always say, whatever you're looking for in the external world is actually what you're looking for from yourself. And if you say, oh, I want money. No, you don't want money. You want the thing that you think money will give you. Safety? Well, safety, that's something that you find inside of yourself. Whatever it is you think it's going to give you. Happiness? Happiness is a state of mind. That's something that's inside of you. And so we were all taught to chase this thing in the future and to grasp for achievement and for something else and to hunt for something else, to believe that there's something outside of us.

20:28And that's why our dreams and our goals a lot of times are like chasing the horizon. The closer you get to them, the further you get away. And you just, they're always just out of grasp. You know, it's kind of like, it's kind of like looking for your glasses when they're already on your face. That's really what it's like. Like life is happening right now. The miracle is happening right now in front of you. But if your mind is locked on what is next, or it's fixated on what is missing or what you don't have or what you need in order to get the happiness, then you're going to walk past the amazing buffet of life, the feast that is laid out right in front of you.

21:05So your life isn't empty. Your awareness is. You're surrounded by all of the things that you've been praying for. You just didn't know how to see it. And so you're not really afraid of change in going into the unknown. Like people always say like, I'm afraid of the unknown. There's no such thing as being afraid of the unknown. There's only being afraid of losing the known. When you're like, oh, but I don't know what the future looks like. No, no, no. That doesn't matter. You're afraid of losing what you already know. And so even if what you know is this identity of playing the victim or being the fixer or being the anxious overthinker or being the high achiever who's always tired or being the people pleaser, letting go of that feels like death because in a way it is.

21:57it's a death of the you that you thought you were it's a death of that mask and that's exactly what's going to set you free and so what I want you to do is think about this for a second I know this is a little bit different than some of the stuff that I talk about it's not about going and achieving more and being more and all that stuff it's about realizing what's already in front of you I want you to take like a pen and paper day and I want you to write down the beliefs that you hold most dearly that you feel are true deep down inside of you? Write it down. What's the thing that you feel is the most true?

22:29And then ask yourself the question, where did I first hear this? Would I still believe this and if I had never been taught it? You might. You might not. I don't know. But you might be shocked that you might have been living in someone else's mental operating system, that they gave it to you and you didn't realize it. You might notice that a lot of what I talk about is different than other personal development stuff. You know, I've read hundreds of books and listened to hundreds and hundreds of hours of podcasts and conferences and done all of those things. And most self-development is about adding more, adding more, adding more, learning more, learning more, achieving more.

23:11Get this next piece of knowledge so you can get even further along in life. Believe me, I played that game for 20 years. I did. I tried it. it didn't get me anything that I wanted. And what I've realized is that everything I want is already here and it always has been. So it's like, damn, I was kind of like asleep for 20 years. Like one of the new tattoos that I got is right here on my wrist and it says, be here now. Cause it's like, I find myself chasing things all of the time. And then I look down at my arm and I'm like, that's right. It's already here. It's in me. It's already here. I just need to see that's around me.

23:48And so you don't need to be better. You don't need to do anything differently except for wake up. And so my invitation for you is to wake up to the joy that you've been postponing, to wake up to the love that you're trying to go and find in someone else, to wake up to the richness and the aliveness that doesn't need permission to be felt. It's already there in front of you. Because you're already floating in fresh water, my friend. It's right there in front of you. The thirst that you feel is not absent. It's right in front of you. You have the cup. You have the water. Take a drink. You just haven't allowed yourself to drink.

24:29And so take the cup. Take the risk. Don't look back. It's all right in front of you. And so how do you get yourself unstuck? It's realizing you were never stuck in the first place. So that's what I got for you for today's episode. If you love this episode, please share it on your Instagram stories. tag me in at Rob Dial Jr. R-O-B-D-I-A-L-J-R. Once again, if you want to download my free workbook on how to create the perfect morning routine based by science, you can go to the perfectmorningroutine.com. And with that, I'm going to leave you the same way I leave you every single episode. Make it your mission to make somebody else's day better.

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25:46Oh, that sounds easier than I thought. You got this. Yeah, I do. Now, where did I put my keys? You will find them where you left them. Investing involves risk, including risk of loss. Fidelity Brokerage Services, LLC, member NYSE SIPC. Guys, let's face it. As we get older, we can't just skip sleep and eat whatever we want and still feel great the next day. But if you're entering your men's health era, you know it can feel complicated. Sprouts Farmer's Market makes it easier. Not only does Sprouts have the high protein foods, nutrient-dense organic produce, and innovative snacks your body craves, it's also got the newest supplements, vitamins, joint support, even creatine to help get you feeling more like you used to.

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26:33Whether it's men's health or any other health journey, it's easier at Sprouts Farmer's Market.

From the publisher

Want to create a morning routine that actually works for you? Download the free workbook here: theperfectmorningroutine.com

Feeling stuck? It's time to take back control. If you're ready to master your mind and create real, lasting change, click the link below and start transforming your life today. 👉 http://coachwithrob.com

 

The Mindset Mentor™ podcast is designed for anyone desiring motivation, direction, and focus in life.  

 

Past guests of The Mindset Mentor include Tony Robbins, Matthew McConaughey, Jay Shetty, Andrew Huberman, Lewis Howes, Gregg Braden, Rich Roll, and Dr. Steven Gundry.

 


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